Hi there, !
Today Wed 07/07/2004 Tue 07/06/2004 Mon 07/05/2004 Sun 07/04/2004 Sat 07/03/2004 Fri 07/02/2004 Thu 07/01/2004 Archives
Rantburg
531711 articles and 1856002 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 64 articles and 297 comments as of 15:24.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Background                   
6 hurt in Kabul work accident
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
1 00:00 big dave [] 
3 00:00 Raptor [] 
3 00:00 Long Hair Republican [] 
2 00:00 Ptah [] 
5 00:00 Silentbrick [1] 
9 00:00 Halfass Pete [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
14 00:00 Dragon Fly [] 
1 00:00 Frank G [] 
4 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [] 
1 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [] 
0 [] 
13 00:00 Anonymous5295 [1] 
1 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
0 [] 
7 00:00 OldSpook [1] 
2 00:00 Mitch H. [] 
1 00:00 Mitch H. [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
17 00:00 Raptor [] 
4 00:00 OldSpook [] 
0 [] 
3 00:00 Frank G [] 
2 00:00 The Doctor [] 
0 [] 
5 00:00 Frank G [] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 Mike Kozlowski [] 
3 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 virginian [] 
23 00:00 Lucky [] 
10 00:00 Frank G [] 
0 [] 
7 00:00 Shipman [] 
14 00:00 Frank G [] 
3 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
3 00:00 Scooter McGruder [] 
4 00:00 djohn66 [] 
13 00:00 .com [] 
28 00:00 Lucky [] 
1 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [] 
9 00:00 Bobby Lee [] 
15 00:00 Shipman [1] 
2 00:00 Raptor [] 
Page 2: WoT Background
3 00:00 Barbara Skolaut []
2 00:00 The Doctor []
0 []
1 00:00 OldSpook []
2 00:00 .com []
10 00:00 Raptor []
0 []
1 00:00 Barbara Skolaut []
0 []
2 00:00 OldSpook []
16 00:00 Jarhead []
9 00:00 Atomic Conspiracy []
1 00:00 Mark Espinola []
7 00:00 nada []
3 00:00 Shipman []
2 00:00 Barbara Skolaut []
Lileks: "Happy Fothajulai!"
From two years ago, but still (like nearly everything the man writes!) well worth the read. An excerpt:
Those of us who love America often feel obliged to qualify the emotion, lest our interlocutors bring up American conduct in the Philippine war, or factory conditions in a Tyson chicken-decapitation plant. As if love and devotion was blind. As if faith and patriotism were incompatible with doubt, with dissent, with a desire to make this experiment even better. The Fourth isn’t a day to accommodate those fools. You want to stand in the aisle of a Rainbow with a bullhorn and tell people they’re oppressed, go ahead.

My checkout clerk was Hmong. Dazzling smile. Happy Fothajulai! she said.

Comrade? No. Fellow-member-of-ethnic-group? No. Co-religionist? Who knows.

Fellow citizen?

Of course. As are you all. Happy Independence Day. Long live the United States of America.
Posted by: Mike || 07/04/2004 9:02:39 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Fourth to everyone!
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 11:35 Comments || Top||

#2  A happy and fun Fourth of July to everyone! Please remember that fireworks are for entertainment, not for blowing things up in your annoying neighbors yard.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 07/04/2004 12:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Mike, thanks for the post!
This is one of Lilek's best.
Happy Independence Day to everyone who loves Freedom!
Posted by: Jen || 07/04/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Happy Fourth of July to everyone in the USA.
Posted by: Patrick Brown || 07/04/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Bratz, burgers, kabobs, slasa caliente, pork ribs, dogs, relish, and so much more.

Hey Brits, Thanks for the warm reception for Andy. Your Wimbledon championship was a killer match. Roger Federer is a great champion.
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 13:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Happy Fourth!

Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Thank you .com for that wonderful image. Now I can't stop thinking about Rumsfeld beating Kimmy at a press conference.
Posted by: Charles || 07/04/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#8  .com --

Best. Picture. Ever.

Thanks, and enjoy the 4th!
Posted by: nada || 07/04/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Hey Lucky, no problem - I thought Roddick was a superb contributor to Wimbledon this year. He gave great interviews and comes across as a really good guy. Certainly, he looked gutted after losing today, but still managed a great degree of dignity.

I wanted him to win (more as a birthday present to the US), but he'll have more opportunities to take the title I'm sure.

On-Topic: Yup, Rummy is the man.

Oh, and a Happy Independence day to our former colonists! :)
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 07/04/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#10  .com: ROFLMAO!

Rumsfeld rules! :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#11  Cheers Tony. But I think you'll be seeing the "big cat" for a long time.

Slasa?
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#12  I love that Rummy poster!
Bless you, Dotcom.
Posted by: Jen || 07/04/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||

#13  Go get em Rummy! lol
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 15:21 Comments || Top||

#14  Wishing all a happy and safe 4th! God bless the United States and the brave servicemen and women that protect her. And Confusion to her enemies, foreign and domestic!

Phil McLaughlin. Tucson, AZ
Posted by: PBMcL || 07/04/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#15  Happy Fourth everyone!

Great poster!
Posted by: Ptah || 07/04/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||

#16  Happy 4th y'all!
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 17:04 Comments || Top||

#17  Happy 4th everybody!
Posted by: djohn66 || 07/04/2004 17:08 Comments || Top||

#18  I love the 4th, but all my dawgs get confused... looking for a missed point. I advise bringing them inside even if they are kennel dawgs, else they make get screwed up for hunting.

My elder dawg knows it's fake, but reflex is reflex.
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 18:16 Comments || Top||

#19  "Happy Fothajulai!" everyone, Have a great day and enjoy the Sun, Food and Booze.
Posted by: Jack Bross || 07/04/2004 19:06 Comments || Top||

#20  Holy smokes. It's 9:30 in the Chicago Southland. It sounds like a war zone outside. The volume of fire is terrific. It's downright....business as usual. LOL. Just kidding. Happy 4th everyone.
Posted by: Zpaz || 07/04/2004 22:37 Comments || Top||

#21  they shoot em off about 100 yds from my back porch here in Santee. The big ones set off the car alarms........
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 23:18 Comments || Top||

#22  LOL....And that sets the dawgs to howlin'. Tis a symphony. Crud, my house is shaking. I wish they would not resort to Howitzers. Oh what the hell, live a little. Fire for effect.
Posted by: Zpaz || 07/04/2004 23:45 Comments || Top||

#23  There appears to be an insurection happening outside. I'll monitor and advise.
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 23:50 Comments || Top||


Steyn on Independence Day (and Independence)
To good to EFL. Hat tip: LGF
ON THURSDAY, to celebrate America’s Independence Day, I celebrated America’s independence – not just from George III but from the rest of what passes for the civilised world. You only have to listen to a couple of minutes of any BBC current affairs show or glance at the front pages of any Continental newspaper (or even, on particularly bad days, read selected Telegraph columnists) to realise that America is the western world’s odd man out, and has been increasingly since September 11th. Personally, I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m delighted the United States is “out of step” with, say, Belgium. Not because I’m Belgophobic. If the Belgians want to support the International Criminal Court, keep Saddam in office until his nuke arsenal is ready to fly, and continue subsidising Yasser Arafat’s pay-offs to the relicts of suicide bombers, that’s fine, go ahead, you’re an independent nation.

Unfortunately, on the European side, it’s the very concept of independence that’s at issue. The Rest Of The West disputes not America’s positions so much as their right to have positions. To do so is “unilateralist” – which is, when you think about it, just another word for “independent”. When your positions are as independent of the global consensus as those of Mr Bush then you must be – all together now – “arrogant”. Or so we are assured by such famously modest types as John Simpson, the liberator of Kabul, and his anonymous interviewee in these pages last week, the “leading British civil servant” who complained about the President’s “arrogance” while describing him as “a bear of very little brain”. One sympathises with Sir Hugh Sless-Auld-ffarquahar, GCMG or whoever it was. Obviously, the Presidency of the United States has never attracted the same calibre of talent as the Deputy Permanent Under-Secretaryship of the Ministry of Car Parks.
One of the great putdowns of all time!
But I wonder if this is quite the way to ensure Britain’s voice is heard in Washington. In their haste to line up at the Eurinals and spray their contempt over Bush, the Smug-ffarquahars of the world have settled on the line that Mr Bush is presuming to “announce to the Palestinians who should and shouldn’t be their leader.” Actually, that’s not what the President said and, in fact, it’s the Euro-elite who tell people who they can vote for. In February, Louis Michel, the Belgian Foreign Minister, speaking on behalf of the EU, threatened sanctions against Italy if they voted for Umberto Bossi’s Northern League. Nothing “arrogant” about that, apparently. In other words, the Michels and Pattens and Smug-Pratts are indulging in what the psychologists call displacement.
No shit.
Mr Bush is a polite, modest fellow. He speaks softly because he carries the world’s biggest stick. Conversely, the Europeans speak ever more shrilly because their twig is even tinier than Osama bin Laden’s notoriously small penis. If they wanted to, they could make the twig bigger, by spending more on defence. But they’ve made a conscious decision not to: the EU has embarked on a unique scheme for world domination dependent on hectoring the rest of the planet into submission. If Mr Bush is allowed to go his own way, the European strategy of noisy impotence – all mouth and no trousers – will be exposed as a sham.
Not only has the emperor no clothes, he's not an emperor...
But America is also an historical anomaly: the first non-imperial superpower. It has no colonies and no desire for any.
Are you listening, leftist mootbats of the world? Unlike Frogistan, we don’t want a goddam empire!
For almost 60 years, it’s paid for the defence of the west virtually single-handed while creating and supporting structures – the UN, Nato, G8 – that exist only to allow its “allies” to pretend they’re on an equal footing.
That sums it up, doesn’t it? Particularly Phrawnce and Germany.
For “allies”, read dependencies: it’s because the US provides generous charity defence guarantees that the European governments have been free to fritter away their revenues on socialised health care and lavish welfare and all the other entitlements the Euro-progressives berate America for not providing for its own citizens. The non-arrogance of Washington is unparalleled in human history: it’s American muscle that tames Bosnia but it’s the risibly pompous Paddy Ashdown who gets to swank about the joint playing EU viceroy.

In Washington, meanwhile, cooler assessments are being made. America knows now what multilateralism boils down to: There’s no point pooling resources with people who have no resources to pool. There’s no point getting together and forming a whole that’s less than the sum of your individual part. If that sounds “arrogant” to Europe, well, do something about it. You don’t want Bush to topple Saddam? Fine. Sign a mutual defence pact with Baghdad. You like Yasser that much? Send your mythical Rapid Reaction Force to guard Ramallah. That’s what real powers do. But sneering civil servants being patronising about colonials isn’t going to cut it. That argument was settled in 1776.
Ouch.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut bskolaut@hotmail.com || 07/04/2004 12:28:01 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It is interesting that the US is the "odd man out", and that some people think this means that we're on the wrong side of issues. Churchill and Reagan were odd men out too.
Posted by: virginian || 07/04/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Bitch slap.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 9:08 Comments || Top||

#3  it’s the Euro-elite who tell people who they can vote for

Actually it was Europe that voted Arafat head of the Palestinians who the Israelis could talk to!!!!!
Posted by: Cynic || 07/04/2004 9:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Mr Bush is a polite, modest fellow. He speaks softly because he carries the world’s biggest stick.

Teddy Roosevelt getting quoted there. One of my favorite Presidents too.
Posted by: Charles || 07/04/2004 10:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Steyn with stilleto - tis a beautiful thing!
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 11:09 Comments || Top||

#6  In tribute to Mark Steyn, I have to comment that this article is 2 years old. That said, it'll still be good 10 years from now..
Posted by: cpm || 07/04/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||

#7  ON THURSDAY, to celebrate America’s Independence Day, I celebrated America’s independence – not just from George III but from the rest of what passes for the civilised world.

Great first line! George III ran the show at the time, but now is relegated to the bleachers of history. The USA has made many mistakes in her history and almost destroyed herself in a Civil War, but she has picked up herself, learned and moved to greater heights. Only a relatively few countries in this world do this. We are all human beings, with our strengths and foibles, but what a country these human beings have made! Let's keep her alive and well for the next centuries.

"Happy Fothajulai!"
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 11:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Happy Fourth of July to all americans! Especially for you Rantburgers, proud members of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, sterling defenders of the hegemon! 200 years+ and counting.
Posted by: Anonymous5089 || 07/04/2004 14:26 Comments || Top||

#9  I've had a bad day... but

Happy Independence Day!

General Longstreet align your division and the corps artillery.
Posted by: Bobby Lee || 07/04/2004 18:18 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Prince: US downright submissive to Israel
EFL
The United States should rethink its policies in the Middle East to counter frustration in the Islamic world over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd argued in an interview released Saturday.
We keep rethinking our position. We keep coming tothe same conclusion. Maybe we're right?
Hey, let’s negotiate a prisoner deal with this Prince...
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal told the German weekly Der Spiegel that "the majority of Arabs and Saudis find that America is doing too little in Palestine and is downright submissive to Israel."
Another reformist? Eh? Say Queen Prince Talal what have you done to solve this problem?
"America could force Israel into a peaceful solution and, in so doing, remove a significant cause of the terror we have," he was quoted as saying. "There is a lot of frustration in the Islamic world and America is not being helpful." The prince, a billionaire who has invested heavily in fostering U.S.-Muslim relations and is seen as independent of the Saudi government, stressed that "we are good friends of the United States, and I personally admire much about America."
OMYGODTHISGUYISSKULLF^%$ED! This could take me all day! But I really have to leave for a BBQ.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 07/04/2004 1:11:00 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I will help you, Dragon Fly:

"the majority of Arabs and Saudis find that America is doing too little in Palestine and is downright submissive to Israel."

should read:

The majority of Americans find that Saudi Arabia is doing too little substantive in Palestine and is downright submissive to terrorists, both in Paleostine and in Saudi Arabia. Take a look in the mirror and write me an essay on what you see.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 14:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Am I the only one who thinks it's absurd that these recent decendents of a goatherd call themselves "royalty"? The only thing royal about them it the complete pain in the ass they are.

Here's a suggestion for you, "prince": FOAD.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 15:07 Comments || Top||

#3  the 'slims, like this towel head, can suck my jew balls.
Posted by: Victory Now Please || 07/04/2004 15:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Bite me,AQ butt-boy!
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 22:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Sounds like Princess Buttercup needs a lesson in the fact that Saudia Arabia maybe needs to be occupied like Afghanistan was. Clearly the royal mooses I mean women need to have some very angry US Marines prodding them at bayonet point to their new luxury accomadations at chainlink fence city.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 07/04/2004 23:34 Comments || Top||


Saudis Condemn US over Mideast Policies
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 04:32 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well of course they do. It's the Arab Way.

Waleed, Walid, Whatever - he of the rejected $10M check when he suggested that America "deserved" 9/11 because of support for Israel - is still singing the same old out-of-tune tune...

“There is a lot of frustration in the Islamic world and America is not being helpful.”

Thank you. Thank you so much, Willy. Thank you very very much. Now Fuck Off. Go ahead. Run along.

Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:24 Comments || Top||

#2  And we should care about what they say . . . why?
Posted by: The Doctor || 07/04/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||

#3  And these guys think they have us over a barrow
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:05 Comments || Top||

#4  maybe there is so much frustration in the arab worlrd because a select few are living very well off all the riches. How is that the americans faults? and i agree with .com fuck off
Posted by: smokeysinse || 07/04/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#5  It's about time these two faced walking bedsheets get bounced out of there gold tinted tents, forever!

Let them eat oil!
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 15:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Is our mid-east policies the reason why Al-Q is attacking the soddies now? How 'bout a nice cup of the shut the f*ck up Walleed. Sure, we could make Israel more peaceful (i.e. vulnerable) if we decided to cut back on our aid, but, not one Arab country will ever be able to keep Hamas/Hezbollah in check. Wake up *ssholes.
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 16:28 Comments || Top||

#7  “We were too soft up to now on the question of terror,” he was quoted as saying. “But now our survival depends on the destruction of these terrorists.”

The truth leaks out at the very end of this article. If the Saudi's very "survival depends on the destruction of these terrorists," why are they exhibiting such delusional behavior as attempting to connect al Qaeda with Zionist efforts?

That sort of banana oil is what cripples any credibility they might have when it comes to fighting terrorism. Yes, they've been soft on terrorism way too long, and with horsesh!t like their "amnesty" plan they continue to be soft on it. Nothing has changed and America is not obliged to alter its plans one whit in order to accommodate a bunch of self-deluded morons who cannot bring themselves to face reality.
Posted by: Zenster || 07/04/2004 18:09 Comments || Top||

#8  FUCK THE WHOLE GODDAMN ARAB WORLD!!!! VAPORIZE 'EM ALL
Posted by: Halfass Pete || 07/04/2004 18:16 Comments || Top||

#9  BTW......GREAT PICTURE! And my sentiments exactly....to the arabs.
Posted by: Halfass Pete || 07/04/2004 18:24 Comments || Top||


Clashes ’leave 118 dead’ in Yemen
More than 100 people have died in clashes between followers of a rebel cleric, Hussein al-Houthi, and Yemeni forces, the authorities said. Interior Minister Rshad al-Alimi told parliament that 86 supporters of the cleric had been killed since mid-June, as well as 32 soldiers and policemen. The government has accused the Shia cleric of setting up an armed group and unlicensed religious centres. The minister said a siege in mountainous northern Yemen continued. Sources close to Mr Houthi said the death toll was closer to 200, Reuters news agency reported. The government also said 120 members of the security forces and 21 supporters of the cleric had been wounded during the clashes in Saada province. Over 185 followers of the preacher had been arrested, the government said.

Hussein al-Houthi is a member of the Zaidi community, a moderate Shia sect in the north of the mainly Sunni country. The government accuses him of setting up an armed group called Believing Youth and of staging violent anti-American protests. Anti-US sentiment in the region is high following the occupation of Iraq and some Yemeni clerics are known to preach hatred of the West.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 3:16:03 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  On the other hand, we seem to have only the government's assurance that this guy is more anti-American than the next Yemeni. One has to wonder if this isn't more about a Sunni majority taking the opportunity to obliterate a minority-sect warlord while the getting's good.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 07/04/2004 16:33 Comments || Top||


Jubail Workers Stranded Despite Govt Gesture
For people who want to see beyond the famed "arab hospitality" of sweet tea and all you can eat goat.
Authorities have waived the exit visa fee for the stranded Indian workers of Comet Contracting in Jubail, but they still have no air tickets to go home. Last month, the Indian ambassador took up the matter with Eastern Province Governor Prince Muhammad ibn Fahd who waived the visa fee and gave instructions to renew the workers’ expired iqama. The company had tried to charge each worker SR1,800 for the purpose. Arab News has reported that a member of the company’s administrative staff disappeared with the workers’ passports, making them virtual prisoners of the company. Without valid iqama and passports, their salaries unpaid for more than eight months, the 130 skilled and semi-skilled workers were in some cases starving and reduced to begging. They sued their employer for back pay and won, but the verdict was never implemented.

On April 12, the company’s general manager signed an undertaking with V.V. Narayanan, the first secretary of the Indian Embassy, agreeing to give the workers free air tickets as provided in their contract. Comet also undertook to send the workers home in groups of 20 within 30 days. The promise was broken. Later, the company asked the staff to pay SR1,800 for the renewal of their iqama and their exit visa. An official of the Indian Embassy’s welfare section said the mission was waiting for official confirmation of the fee waiver and would then take steps to send the workers home. Meanwhile, relatives in Karnataka are still waiting for the body of Srinivas Ravikumar, one of the 130, who died two weeks ago in camp accommodation.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 4:52:09 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


U.S. Cancels Celebration in Bahrain, Renews Warning
The U.S. Embassy's Independence Day celebration in Bahrain was canceled and family members of embassy staff and nonessential workers were asked to leave on Saturday, a day after a mandatory evacuation order for other Americans. An employee at the U.S. Embassy in Manama told Reuters the embassy canceled July 4 celebrations, which were scheduled for Tuesday at a hotel in the capital, "due to security concerns related to the advisory."

The U.S. government has issued a steady stream of warnings about the Gulf kingdom since Thursday, despite protestations from Bahrain's prime minister, who said his country was secure and able to protect residents. "The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer travel to Bahrain. American citizens currently in Bahrain are urged to consider departing," the U.S. Embassy said in an advisory on Thursday. "The Department has received information that extremists are planning attacks against U.S. and other Western interests in the kingdom of Bahrain. Credible information indicates that extremists remain at large and are planning attacks in Bahrain." The new warning, issued on Saturday night, said families of embassy staff and nonessential employees should consider voluntary evacuation, a State Department spokeswoman said. The Department of Defense issued a mandatory evacuation order on Friday for nonemergency employees and families of American military personnel. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the "temporary relocation," lasting at least 30 days.

Bahrain urged Americans to stay. "Bahrain has been and still is an oasis of safety, security and stability ... and is capable of protecting the interests of all individuals and institutions that it hosts," said Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/04/2004 12:47:53 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cancel celebrations? What celebrations? After Sept. 11th, the 4th of July has been celebrated in May. We are all terrified of even wearing a t-shirt with the flag on it, let alone having a party to celebrate.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 1:13 Comments || Top||

#2  For us, we decided to have the 4th of July celebration the same day as the National day of Kuwait
Posted by: Anonymous1781 || 07/04/2004 3:44 Comments || Top||

#3  4617,what are you talking about?
Come to Globe Arizona,or Roosevelt Lake.
Globe has a real nice small town fireworks show and parade.People will be haveing large family outings at Roosevelt for BBQ,fishing sking,etc.
I proudly display the American flag,and have a Flag sticker on the windshield and rear glass of my vehicle(so you can see it coming and going).

Who is us,1781?
Posted by: Anonymous5295 || 07/04/2004 8:18 Comments || Top||

#4  5295,that was me.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 8:52 Comments || Top||

#5  5295,that was me.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 8:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Anonymous5295,

I live in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. But thanks anyways for the invitation.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 11:07 Comments || Top||

#7  A4617, that well and truly sucks. This "nation", the "Kingdom" of "Saudi" Arabia, won't let Christians be christian or Americans be american. Why are we putting up with this s***, again?

Oh and A1781, welcome to Rantburg.

Happy Independence Day to all of you expat Americans and right-thinking people living behind the Oil Curtain...

BTW., you're all invited to DC when you get back Stateside!
Posted by: Seafarious || 07/04/2004 11:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Anonymous4617----Stay safe over there. Let us know when you are safely out of the Magic Kingdom. Our thoughts are with you on this 4th of July. We have sand up here, too, but confined to places with water nearby, heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#9  Thanks Paul and Seafarious.
We will be out here July 21st.

4th of July celebration..Saudi style:
There was a shoot out around 2:00 PM in the Azizia souk, better known as the Panda Mall. Nobody was hurt and everybody escaped!
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 12:14 Comments || Top||

#10  musta had em surrounded.... stay safe and get out intact!
Frank
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#11  A4617- I received a response regards the rumor of a chemical attack in Bahrain. Rather than piecemeal it to you, I'll just annonymize and quote in total. You'll note he's from the UK - and I'm damned worried about him, even though I know he's a tough as nails Scot and can take care of himself, heh.:

At the moment the intel seems to suggest that there may be an incident in Bahrain aimed at US Navy folks.

A fairly large number live in compounds or apartments in and around Manama, particularly those with families. Up until last week there was a general rule that no more than 50% of any apartment block or compound could be filled by US personnel but they have changed this to 25% and consequently there are a lot of people having to move to other accommodation under order.

Just more of the "lets get the soft targets" strategy currently being employed. Most folks seem to think that these freaks just want to take the whole of the Middle East back to the dark ages. They will be in control of course.

Since the Khobar blood bath the security on the causeway has been ramped up, if you can call perpetual kerb crawling by the police on both sides of the central island ramped up. They also have continuous boat patrols on both sides just going back and forward to keep other craft away from the elevated parts of the roadway. I have seen no evidence of armed patrols or even fixed
gun emplacements anywhere on the causeway. There is a roadblock security point about 200yds from the toll booths that you have to negotiate but half the time they don't show much interest.

Your rumour about chemicals is probably just that. Chemicals do not differentiate based on religious inclination and these folks have already
scored a couple of own goals which hurt their cause. One thing is for sure, if they decide to start anything in Bahrain the Government there will crush the dissidents PDQ, not like their brothers on the dark side who are not sure who is or isn't on board.

Just for your information, Al Rushaid are closing Village 3 where I live by mid July. I have moved over to an apartment in Bahrain at the weekend. Don't have a phone yet, have to acquire the CPR card first but should have that done in another week.

The Petroleum Centre is beginning to look like Stalagluft 47 with fences and barbed wire but pales into insignificance when you look at the compound area from the BQ right round to Al Bustan. Armed guards, Pillboxes, razorwire the
full nine yards. The Khobar "Green Zone"

Life is "interesting"


Well, I dunno if that answers your specific query well, but that's what he had to say... Looks like Al Bustan, The Khobar "Green Zone", has lost it charms, heh, glad I'm gone.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:00 Comments || Top||

#12  .com,

Thanks!
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 13:21 Comments || Top||

#13  A4617 - He's an ace. :-)
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||


U.S. in Deal to Return Saudi Terror Suspects -NYT
This article details the horse trading to get the British and Canadian(?) "alk runners" released. As far as I am concerned, Blair owes Bush big time on this one. This terrorist transfer is the camel’s nose in the tent that other countries will use to get their nationals released. I look forward to the time this prologue phase of the war comes to an end and the American deluge is loosed upon the Saudis.
U.S. officials reluctantly agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year as part of a deal involving Britain, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions. Citing senior American and British officials, all who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Times reported the arrangement called for Saudi officials to release five Britons and two others convicted of guerrilla attacks in Saudi Arabia. British diplomats believed they were tortured by Saudi security officers into confessing falsely.

Officials involved in the plan told the Times the transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo was initially resisted by the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department. The agencies questioned whether some detainees were too dangerous to send back and whether Saudi promises to keep the men imprisoned could be trusted. Saying that moving detainees "who posed a threat was a new endeavor," one senior U.S. official who backed the plan maintained it was done cautiously. "It was the first time we were doing this, and people did not want to do it," the newspaper quoted the official as saying. The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed in August.
Interesting coincidence...
While there was no indication at the time the releases were related, the Times quoted a U.S. official with knowledge of the negotiations as saying, "There is a link," adding, "This was two courses that converged and had a mutual attractiveness to them." A spokesman for the National Security Council denied on Friday the Saudi detainees were transferred in exchange for the British prisoners, the newspaper reported. "There is no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions," said Sean McCormick, who described the return of the Saudis as "part of the normal policy of transferring detainees from Guantanamo for prosecution or continued detention." But U.S. officials involved in the case said it was highly unusual, and that the detainees’ backgrounds raised greater concerns than those of others. Some officials said the case showed how factors beyond security and intelligence could influence prisoner releases, the Times said. The report said Saudi officials had given contradictory accounts of the current whereabouts of the five men, saying at first that one or two had been released, then denying any had been freed. The officials also gave contradictory accounts of their legal status, first saying they had been tried and convicted but later saying prosecutions were pending. Officials would not identify the five or describe in detail the evidence on which they had been held at Guantanamo. One U.S. official said two of the detainees had attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Posted by: ed || 07/04/2004 11:47:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We all know where the five men are. After being set free as a reward for memorizing the Koran, they went on to open up vegetable stalls in Medina or Mecca.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 1:10 Comments || Top||

#2  A prisioner exchange!
Isn't that what beligerient countries do with POW,s?
hhhmmm
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 8:26 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Report: N. Korea Leader to Visit S. Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has told a top Chinese leader he intends to visit South Korea at an "appropriate time," a former South Korean presidential aide was quoted as saying Sunday in news report. The North Korean leader had agreed to visit the South after hosting former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in Pyongyang for a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000. But the trip has yet to happen. Since the summit, there has been the election of President Bush, the election of a new South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, and the eruption of an international standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. Kim Han-jung, an aide to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, said a top Chinese official was told that Kim Jong Il intends to follow through on the trip and also meet former President Kim during the stay, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Kim Han-jung accompanied Kim Dae-jung on a five-day trip to China last week.
A meeting with Powell this week, then Kimmie to visit Seoul... Something's going on behind the scenes...
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 12:25:12 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Something's going on behind the scenes...

Yes, he is working on his golf game.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 07/04/2004 12:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Or else that was a veiled threat, as in, "I'll visit Seoul in a NBC protective suit".
Posted by: Mitch H. || 07/04/2004 16:31 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Ack, Gag, More Karpinski ...
EFL
The former military commander of Abu Ghraib prison claimed Saturday that she met an Israeli interrogator who was working at a secret facility in Iraq.
Seriously now, can’t we stuff a gasoline soaked rag in this Bitch’s mouth? Doesn’t she have a clue to the damage she is doing...to the cause, certainly, but more importantly to the safety of American Troops???
Although Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski told the BBC in an interview that no Israelis were working at Abu Ghraib, she claimed that she met an Israeli interrogator at an undisclosed facility while she was escorting a retiring four-star general through Iraq last year. "He was clearly from the Middle East and he said, ’well I do some of the interrogation here, and of course, I speak Arabic but I’m not an Arab, I’m from Israel," Karpinski said in an interview with the Today program on BBC Radio 4.
Unlike many here at Rantburg, I have no complaint against the press or the BBC, they are doing their job...my question is about military discipline...are General Officers allowed to blabber and blather on like this? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Why in the world isn’t this woman in the stockade and facing a General Courts Martial for losing control of her command????
"My initial reaction was to kind of laugh because I thought maybe he was joking," Karpinski said. "He did look like he was an Israeli. At that time he didn’t elaborate any more than to say that ... he was working with them and there was people from lots of different places that were involved in the operation," Karpinski said. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Bureau issued a statement "emphatically denying" her information, saying that there was "no basis whatsoever to the reports." An Israeli presence in Iraq could further turn Arab opinion against the coalition.
No shit, Sherlock.
Karpinski, an Army Reserve officer, was relieved of duty in Iraq on January 17, a day after the coalition announced an investigation into allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Relieved of duty was obviously not sufficent...she should have been summarily shot. This IS a war.
In fairness and full disclosure, it is to be noted that no one has been more critical of the soldiers in the Abu Ghraib scandal than myself. I have forgiven them nothing, and my scorn reaches far up the chain of command on this for a bunch of reasons, too numerous to go into now. This includes the Memo writers and, having read the entire memo myself, included a call for disbarment of these attorneys...for crappy writing and giving really stupid advice.

A serious country protects their soldiers from all kinds of threats...this would include threats from within the Army itself. All the field troops feel badly about this also, but most importantly, Abu Gabril put them in greater danger and made their difficult job even more difficult. (Sorry, rant off).
Posted by: Traveller || 07/04/2004 3:16:52 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  (rant on)
Gen Karpinski should be notified that the next interview she gives will be in Leavenworth. This dumbass does more to disparage the Army and US image with every gaseous emission coming from her "victimhood" mouth. STFU before you disgrace yourself further and damage the country you profess to care about. How did this idiot get that high? Were there no signs of lack of character before now?
(/rant off)
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#2  The more Gen. Karpinski, the more I believe she was less interested in becoming and staying a military officer than pushing a personal agenda.

Military officers well understand the concept of sacrifice and duty. It appears Gen. Karpinski wants to turn those things on its head. She has less and less honor with every syllable she utters, and she apparently believes the country, our allies, its citizens and her fellow military people should he sacrificed for her personal aggrandizement and agenda.

That makes her a very dangerous individual. Some civilian authority needs to tell her to clam up or resign her commission.
Posted by: badanov || 07/04/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Unlike many here at Rantburg, I have no complaint against the press or the BBC, they are doing their job...my question is about military discipline...are General Officers allowed to blabber and blather on like this? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Why in the world isn’t this woman in the stockade and facing a General Courts Martial for losing control of her command?

Gen. Karpinski is probably facing some disciplinary action, but since her inaction caused no physical harm, and no troops died as a result of her inaction, whatever change she is facing will likely be mild.

I am not familiar with Military Law, but I don't think they can get her on derilictiion of duty, but they could on some lesser charge. And it is likely that the DoD wants to dispose of this matter quickly, and may well not bother with anything more than the threat of some kind of administrative charge and punishment, all of which can be avoided if she ressigns her commission.

Whatever happens in the legal arena, Karpinski ever getting another command is likely out of the question and her career is probably over, and it is just as well, given her proclivity to shoot her mouth off against her nation's interests.

It is enough for me she was relieved of command before this lack of control began to spread.

As for the prisoners? It sucks to be them.
Posted by: badanov || 07/04/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#4  She squeals like a guilty pig, to foreign audiences no less.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#5  At some point someone should look at the names on her last promotion board. Some really bad judgement there.
Posted by: Yank || 07/04/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#6  I believe she can be charged with dereliction of duty. It was her duty to run that prison and keep control of those soldiers and she didn't. Now she is telling the press things she shouldn't and I think she will be repremanded further. At least, I hope so.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/04/2004 16:47 Comments || Top||

#7  A few things:

*NO* Israeli operator I ever met *EVER* admitted who he worked for, even when he knew that I knew. Especially ones that spoke Arabic and were involved in "sensitive" work. They just do NOT do that.

So this sounds like Bullsh*t to me.

Leaves us with 3 things: Either Karpinsik is making stuff up, or is leaking, or the BBC is making stuff up (and throwing Israel in there is just the sort of inflammatory crap they would put out).

In either of the first 2 cases, you have to wonder how the hell she ever got her star. Then you look at Clinton and the "affirmative action" types of policies - and that she is a Guard officer (meaning a patron of the Democrat political machine in her home state). That sort of answers how a incompetent, dishonorable, doding, buck-passing, political hack like her got into a command position.

And in either of those 2 cases, she should have her resignation on SecArmy's desk Tuesday Morning. Not retirment - resignation of her comission. And if she doesn't then they ought to bring charges.

Now, if the BBC is lying then General Karpinsky owes it to her command and nation to point out the lie, and demand a FRONT PAGE or repeated On-The-Air retraction and apology by the writer and the BBC.
Posted by: OldSpook || 07/04/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Bush close to naming new CIA director
The White House is getting close to naming a CIA director as counterterror officials warn of a heightened risk of attack leading up to the election four months away. The agency’s current head, George Tenet, leaves his post a week from Sunday, the seven-year anniversary of his swearing in. Poised to take over as acting director is his deputy, John McLaughlin, 61.

A senior administration official said White House aides expect the announcement of the next CIA director could happen soon. The official and others with knowledge of the process, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the selection process, said President Bush has not made a final decision and is unlikely to do so over the long holiday weekend. Officials close to Bush have said more than one person is under consideration to take over direction of the CIA and the 14 other agencies that make up the nation’s intelligence apparatus. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., is said to be on the list. Washington insiders have speculated for a month about who else may be: Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage; former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.; Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif.; former National Security Agency director, retired Adm. William O. Studeman; and perhaps McLaughlin.

Among factors the White House must weigh when deciding whom to name and when is whether a confirmation process before the election would draw attention to intelligence failures and how it would be perceived should an attack occur this summer with only an acting director in place. With his experience as a CIA case officer in the 1960s and as House Intelligence Committee chairman for nearly eight years, Goss has been considered the front-runner. A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said harsh criticism of intelligence agencies contained in a recent House budget bill that Goss oversaw did not go unnoticed by rank-and-file or senior intelligence personnel. "For too long the CIA has been ignoring its core mission activities. There is a dysfunctional denial of any need for corrective action," said the legislation, which includes judgments Tenet called absurd and ill-informed.

If Goss is positioning himself as a critic of the nation’s intelligence apparatus, McLaughlin is doing the opposite. In a speech last month to a Business Executives for National Security forum, McLaughlin defended intelligence agencies from widespread criticism that focused on intelligence shortcomings leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and estimates of the threat posed by Iraq. "What shortcomings there were – and there were shortcomings – were the result of specific, discrete problems that we understand and are well on our way to addressing or have already addressed," McLaughlin said, according to prepared remarks recently posted on the CIA’s Web site. "And the focus on where we are thought to have gotten it wrong has obscured – even more than usual – the successes we have had in the fight against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," he said.

McLaughlin cited in particular intelligence’s role in forming alliances against al-Qaeda, removing its Afghanistan haven and helping to expose weapons proliferation activities in North Korea and Iran. "Those are not the achievements of dysfunctional agencies," he added. A presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is to release a report this month on its findings and recommendations. The Senate Intelligence Committee also is preparing to release its investigation into the flawed prewar intelligence on Iraq. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., offered an unusually candid glimpse of his panel’s report Thursday. Its conclusions, he said, "literally beg for changes within the intelligence community. What we had was a worldwide intelligence failure."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 1:26:54 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I nominate Colonel Kurtz. Too bad Martin Sheen bumped him off.
Posted by: ed || 07/04/2004 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  I nominate Colonel Kurtz. Too bad Martin Sheen bumped him off.

Not true. He still posts occasionally at Right Thinking from the Left Coast. ;)
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 07/04/2004 2:12 Comments || Top||

#3  No on Armitage; yes to either Nunn or Cox, if they want the headache.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 3:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Can we get one that will be able to speak the truth?
Posted by: Anonymous2258 || 07/04/2004 3:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Is there no one mean enough, nasty enough, uncompromising and just this side of evil enough? We need an SOB. Attitude. Hardcore. No apologies.

We need...

Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 4:16 Comments || Top||

#6  Good thought .com. But I think it's time for the guy with the bad ticker to retire to fly fishing.

Regarding the linked photo: looks like Lufthansa and ANA flying into some holy spots. Is there a message in that?
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 07/04/2004 5:33 Comments || Top||

#7  I see James Baker is free. He would be sucking blood from the Saudi's necks within a week. How about the Ultimate Fighting Republican, Newt. The Dhimmi's would go nuts. I am salivating. Surely there is a better use for Newt than writing Amazon reviews. Nunn is ok. He is a patriot in my estimation. Do not make it a senior CIA career man. No Bureaucrats. If it has to be a CIA guy, do a George Marshall/Ike trick and reach way down in the organization. Whatever you do George, make sure he is your man.
Posted by: Zpaz || 07/04/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#8  Not true. He still posts occasionally at Right Thinking from the Left Coast. ;)

I like this colonel Klutz. He linked to a sight I've never seen before, called MooreWatch.
Posted by: Charles || 07/04/2004 10:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Anyone but Armitage.

Chris Cox seems an excellent choice.
Posted by: someone || 07/04/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||

#10  CL - "Regarding the linked photo: looks like Lufthansa and ANA flying into some holy spots. Is there a message in that?"

Naw, 'course not, that would be, um, unkind - I just likes airplanes, y'know?

Zooooooom!



Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:17 Comments || Top||

#11  That second photo is so wrong it's funny. Where do you find these things, .com?
Posted by: The Doctor || 07/04/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#12  Just slumming 'round the 'Net. Some of the bad neighborhoods have the best, uh, food (for thought), y'know? Example at the link...
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#13  OT but..........
The Blue Angels were up at Elmendorf AFB last weekend. Absolutely superb. And for a finale, when they taxied back to park. Precision and formation canopy opening, dismounting, and even chocking of the nosewheels. Total class act. Best of the best.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 14:00 Comments || Top||

#14  Wolfowitz.
Posted by: Anonymous5537 || 07/04/2004 15:28 Comments || Top||

#15  Q
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 22:00 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Freedom Tower begun
A 20-ton slab of granite, inscribed to honor "the enduring spirit of freedom," was laid Sunday at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the skyscraper that will replace the destroyed towers. The ceremony marked the start of construction on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, designed as a twisting glass and steel tower that evokes the Statue of Liberty, including a 276-foot spire resembling her torch. Gov. George E. Pataki said he chose July 4 to begin rebuilding to show that the terrorists who attacked New York on Sept. 11, 2001, didn’t destroy America’s faith in freedom. "How badly our enemies underestimated the resiliency of this city and the resolve of these United States," Pataki said. "In less than three years, we have more than just plans on paper — we place here today the cornerstone, the foundation of a new tower."

The cornerstone put in place Sunday is garnet-flecked granite from the Adirondack Mountains. Garnet is the New York state gemstone. It is inscribed: "To honor and remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and as a tribute to the enduring spirit of freedom. — July Fourth, 2004." Among the several hundred people at the ceremony were relatives of some of the people killed in the terrorist attack. "It’s a new beginning," said John Foy, whose mother-in-law was killed. "We all need to move on and rise above this."

Completion of the Freedom Tower is scheduled for 2009, and trade center leaseholder Larry Silverstein has plans to build four more towers between 2009 and 2015. Also planned for the site are a rail hub, a memorial that transforms the twin towers’ footprints into reflecting pools, and cultural space including several small theaters. The Freedom Tower is set to rise in a corner of the site that still holds the ruins of a parking garage. At 1,776 feet, a height meant to evoke the year of America’s independence, it will be the tallest skyscraper in the world, organizers say. The current tallest building is the 1,676-foot-tall Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, which includes a mall, office space and an observatory. It was completed in October with the installation of a pinnacle atop the 101-story building. The Taipei building is about 165 feet taller than the world’s former highest office building, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The highest freestanding tower remains the CN Tower, a 1,815-foot communications structure and outlook point in Toronto. The 110-story World Trade Center towers were 1,350 feet tall. Critics have questioned whether all five towers of the Trade Center complex will be built, especially after a jury verdict this year cut the insurance proceeds Silverstein is seeking to pay for the development from a possible $7 billion to a maximum of $4.5 billion. Silverstein still hasn’t signed an anchor tenant for the Freedom Tower, but said he has more than enough money to complete it with insurance proceeds. He has said he will use "traditional financing methods" to pay for the rest of the development.
Posted by: Korora || 07/04/2004 12:01:10 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Security Officials Urge Vigilance for American Independence Day
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 04:34 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


US Ports Remain Vulnerable to Speedboat Attack
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 03:20 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This speedboat attack thing, a la USS Cole, reminds me -- did anyone ever figure out where AQ learned how to build giant shaped charges? I remember at the time of the Cole bombing people were speculating that the expertise required for that bomb most likely came from a state with advanced technical know-how. Someplace like Iraq.
Posted by: virginian || 07/04/2004 13:54 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Muslim teacher shoots Thai policeman
A religious teacher who fired on a Thai policeman was shot and wounded in retaliation, marking the latest violence in the troubled Muslim south, Thai police say. The 28-year-old teacher, riding pillion, shot and wounded the policeman as he rode home on his motorbike after completing a night shift in the southern province of Pattani. Thai police said the officer returned fire, toppling the gunman from the motorbike. The rider escaped. "The gunman is a religious teacher at an Islamic school. He is in a serious condition," said Major General Paitoon Pattanasopon, chief of Pattani provincial police. He said the police were hunting for the motorbike rider and were investigating a suspected student of the teacher’s class.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 07/04/2004 2:26:19 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Motorcycles of Doom™ - why do they hate us?
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 14:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Good shooting! Hope they hang the a$$hole
Posted by: Ptah || 07/04/2004 17:51 Comments || Top||


Army Officer, 6 Rebels Killed in Samar Clash
An army officer and six communist rebels were killed in a clash yesterday in the central island of Samar, the military said. Soldiers from the army’s 14th Infantry Battalion were patrolling a village outside the town of Oras, in Eastern Samar province, when they encountered about 50 New People’s Army guerrillas. The patrol leader, Lt. Dixson Dacoro, was killed along with six rebels in a 45-minute firefight, said Maj. Gen. Glen Rabonza, commander of the army’s 8th Infantry Division. More troops were deployed to the area to pursue the fleeing rebels, who left behind their slain comrades and weapons, Rabonza said. Eastern Samar is one of three provinces on Samar Island, about 550 kilometers (345 miles) southeast of Manila, where guerrilla activities have intensified in recent months.
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 1:05:29 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iranian Aghajari Back on Trial, Death Penalty Charges Dropped
The retrial of Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari opened in Tehran yesterday, with the judiciary allowing a public hearing and all charges that could lead to the death penalty dropped. After nearly two years locked away from public view, the Tehran University history professor appeared weak and complained of being held for months in solitary confinement with the shadow of execution hanging over him. But Judge Mohammad Eslami confirmed during the hearing that the disabled war veteran no longer faced death for having called for a reformation in Iran’s state Shiite Muslim religion. Instead of upholding original charges equivalent to apostasy and blasphemy, Aghajari was yesterday accused of insulting religious sanctities, propagating against the regime and spreading false information. His charge sheet, read out by prosecutor general Reza Jafari, numbered 21 pages and also covered six years of Aghajari’s writing prior to his arrest. If convicted on all the counts — to which he has pleaded not guilty — he could face a total sentence of between five and 10 years in jail. The prosecutor requested a heavy sentence due to Aghajari’s “continued crimes”.
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 1:00:33 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Terror Networks
Arab columnists explains why the Arab World Likes Beheadings of the Kafr
EFL
Where’s the Arab Media’s Sense of Outrage?
By Mamoun Fandy
The apparent executions in Iraq last week of U.S. soldier Keith Maupin and U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun, and the confirmed beheadings a week earlier of South Korean Kim Sun Il in Iraq and of American Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia, left the media the world over horrified and uncertain about how much should be shown. Except in much of the Arab world, that is. As I scanned Arab satellite channels and Arabic newspapers, I found a lot of reporting on the brutal attacks, but very little condemnation and a widespread willingness to run the stomach-turning video and photos again and again...

In an article entitled "Blood of Martyrs," published last September in Tishreen, a major state-owned Syrian newspaper, she wrote in response to a Palestinian suicide bombing: "The blood of martyrs inscribes a scroll that can be read only by those with faith in their peoples and in the future of the [Arab] nation, who are convinced that however great their [personal] accomplishments, they are but a single link in the life of the homelands and the peoples. Therefore, they are ready for giving, the utmost of all kinds of giving, so that the scattered drops [of blood] join together to form a stream, then a river, then a gushing torrent." Articles like this, which glorify death and urge young people to be suicidal, are part of the steady diet that Arab youths are exposed to every day....

I traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon and saw for myself the effect on the young of the Arab media’s tendency, particularly on satellite television, to portray terrorists as resistance fighters and to broadcast in their entirety the videotaped messages of al Qaeda. One Egyptian student told me the Americans "deserve [killing] for their support to Israel and their occupation of Iraq." A Kuwaiti who recently graduated from a Pennsylvania university said of Americans, "Don’t believe them when they say it is al Qaeda that is slaying Americans. It is Americans who are killing Americans to justify their presence in the Arab world and to control Arab oil." In each country, I was struck that al Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, al Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is "cool" in the eyes of young people. Why? Arab culture is being corrupted by the media that glorify violence, but also by schoolbooks that present only one role model for Arab children: the Jihadists and those who excelled at battling non-Muslims.

He later complains that western media are unwitting tools of Arab terrorists without realizing that many in the media are willing tools.
Posted by: mhw || 07/04/2004 12:45:53 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is terribly sad, but not very surprising.
Posted by: The Doctor || 07/04/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Just an example of moderate Arabs. Our enemy.
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#3  The only logical, rational conclusion:

Unlike Jim Jones and his Kool-Aid...every Muslim must consume a giant STUPID pill before they become a "True Believer". That is the only thing that would explain the mass delusional state of Muslims.
Posted by: anymouse || 07/04/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#4  I should have said that the only good thing about this article was that it was in the Washington Post Sunday Outlook.

One step toward big media being able to say that the reason they hate us is because they are psychotic
Posted by: mhw || 07/04/2004 14:52 Comments || Top||

#5  What a perfect illustration of theocracy inbreeding itself into a sterile monoculture that is obsessed with delusions of ascendancy yet totally void of any legitimate game plan for obtaining it.

Unlike Jim Jones and his Kool-Aid...

I would argue that this is exactly like Jim Jones and his suicidal paranoia. Anyone or anything that threatens to topple Islam's teetering house of cards is assailed with a vigor that far exceeds all internal attempts at reform or peaceful coexistence with other cultures.

So convinced of its own supremacy is this highly introverted mindset that it cannot be bothered with such scruples as reliance upon peaceful conversion or not seeking retribution for apostasy.

Islam's focus is so narrowed as to lose sight of its own best interests. This will be its ultimate downfall and deservedly so. The unbelievable degree of wholesale slaughter that jihadists evince in the spreading of Islamic doctrine is its simultaneous refutation.

The human spirit does not respond well to coercion. While violence is effective, it is most definitely not efficient. Threats made to forcibly align people's thought produce only superficial cooperation at best. Only the harmonious forms of liberty and freedom engender authentic good will within the masses.

Islam will die by its own sword. Whether this happens sooner or later depends upon secular nations gaining clear insight into the implacable nature of jihad and the need for its extermination. Such Philistine notions of theocratic domination and conversion by force are exactly the sort of tainted principles that now poison Islam's spiritual well.

Hideous mutations like Wahabbist, Taleban and other Neanderthal mindsets are all fatal fruit of the same stunted and twisted tree. Unable to straighten its limbs by dint of their own desire to peaceably coexist, secular cultures will necessarily take an ax to the very trunk of Islam and shear it from all roots it once had. If it withers and dies, that will only be the fault of Islam itself and no one else.
Posted by: Zenster || 07/04/2004 17:56 Comments || Top||

#6  And you thought mainstream Christians were nuts.
Posted by: big dave || 07/04/2004 18:51 Comments || Top||

#7  They,(muslims), MUST ALL be vaporized. Every man, woman and child must be destroyed......Everything that moves MUST be destroyed.
Posted by: Halfass Pete || 07/04/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||

#8  ummm Pete? Even I think that's wrong, certain sign you've stepped WAY past civilized behavior
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 19:02 Comments || Top||

#9  you know what really kills me?
its all the muslims here in america. how awful for them. they cannot be a good muslim AND a good american at the same time. the two are complete opposites. so they have two choices really; to either keep there heads down, as most of them are doing, or to choose between being a good muslim, or a good american. instead of getting away from all this crap when they fled there home country, they have an even tougher choise to make here. i feel bad for them.
Posted by: big dave || 07/04/2004 19:03 Comments || Top||

#10  ummm Pete? Even I think that's wrong, certain sign you've stepped WAY past civilized behavior

Gotta go with you on this one, Frank G. Take a stress pill and a few deep breaths, Pete. The Middle East terror states are rapidly bringing about your dream without help from any outsiders. If they don't all kill each other soon, they will invite nuclear annihilation through their terror attacks.

Let their sort of butchering and savagery die with them.

instead of getting away from all this crap when they fled there home country, they have an even tougher choise to make here. i feel bad for them.

I used to, but not any more, big dave. America has so much to offer anybody who is willing to live within its laws that for someone to feel torn between a Neanderthal religion and the freedoms our nation offers is merely a result of their own stupidity.
Posted by: Zenster || 07/04/2004 19:13 Comments || Top||

#11  Zenster, big dave

Its not neccesarily stupidity. After all, in Islam, the penalty for apostacy is death. Nevertheless, there are apostates from Islam. Fred used to have a hotlink to http://www.faithfreedom.org/ - a site where the content is mostly created by apostates. There are other such sites such as http://www.secularislam.org/ and
http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/home.htm
Posted by: mhw || 07/04/2004 19:43 Comments || Top||

#12  Pete has issues.
Posted by: bigass dave || 07/04/2004 21:18 Comments || Top||

#13  To rid Chicago of crime it is best to just nuke the whole city.
Posted by: fullass pete || 07/04/2004 21:26 Comments || Top||

#14  Pete has been to the ice chest to many times today, hasn't he?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 07/04/2004 21:38 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Paleo Roundup: Cause/Effect Strikes Gaza Metal Workshops again
EFL
Four killed in Mideast violence as Israeli gunships target Gaza workshops
A Jewish settler and three Palestinians were shot dead in separate incidents of violence as Israeli helicopter gunships carried out a series of late-night raids on metal workshops in Gaza.
late at night, to avoid civilian casualties...the moral difference between the two sides
Palestinian security sources said the first airstrike targetted a metal workshop in the northern part of Gaza City, while a second missile hit another workshop in the south-eastern Zeitoun district, they said. A third missile was fired at a workshop in the Nusseirat refugee camp south of Gaza City.
Nice that the refugees learn a trade...not a marketable one though...
No casualties were reported from any of the strikes, but the workshops suffered heavy damage, the sources said.
objective achieved
An army spokesman said the air force had targetted weapons workshops in Zeitoun and in the Jabalya refugee camp just north of the city, but he had no information about the strike on Nusseirat camp.

"The two workshops were used by the Hamas terrorist organisation and other terrorist organisations to produce a variety of weapons, notably Qassam rockets," he said.

Earlier on Sunday, a Jewish settler and three Palestinians were shot dead in separate incidents of violence in the region.

The settler was killed during the early morning when militants ambushed his car on a road near the Jewish settlements of Mevo Dotan and Shaked in the northern West Bank, an army spokesman said. Islamic Heroes™
The radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to AFP.
offshoot? How about the left hand..
Further south, the army said troops had shot dead an armed Palestinian who was trying to infiltrate the Braha settlement near Nablus.

The gunman also belonged to the Al Aqsa Brigades, the group told AFP, naming him as 35-year-old Sakher Ramadan.

During the early evening, soldiers shot dead a young Palestinian stonethrower in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun as troops pressed a week-long incursion into the area to prevent militants from firing rockets into Israel.
good
The 18-year-old youth, whose name was not given, was hit by a bullet in the neck and died in a nearby hospital, medical sources said. An Israeli military source said troops had fired towards one of the ringleaders of a "violent disturbance" in the area.

And in Jerusalem, Israeli border guards shot dead a Palestinian they said was ferrying workers illegally into Israel in a stolen vehicle. Israeli police said Mohammed Nasser al-Shawaheen, 27, was shot after refusing an order to stop. He was carrying around a dozen illegal workers in his vehicle at the time.
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 6:36:45 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  S.O.S.D.D.
Posted by: big dave || 07/04/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Sudan Says Darfur Disarmament Under Way "Real Soon Now"
Sudan has started disarming Arab militias accused of sowing death and terror in its western region of Darfur and is confident the process will proceed smoothly, Foreign Minster Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Sunday. "It is under way," Ismail said, following his government’s pledge on Saturday to disarm the Arab "Janjaweed" fighters responsible for uprooting more than one million people and creating what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But rebels said the operation was a cover for preparations for a new wave of ethnic cleansing. They said a large government force was being mobilized in the regional capital.
Sudan’s promise has been greeted with skepticism by some human rights groups, which have joined U.S. officials in accusing the militia of carrying out ethnic cleansing campaign against black Africans. Underlining that skepticism, the rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) said it feared Khartoum planned a new offensive from Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur state. "The movement knows that under the cover of what is being termed ’the disarmament of the Janjaweed’, the government is preparing a new ethnic cleansing push after the mobilization of a large force from Nyala," the SLM said in a statement.
How do you say "Hudna" in Sudanese?
Posted by: Seafarious || 07/04/2004 4:40:58 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm too frickin' lazy to go look at a map. Guesstimating where to put Sudan...I think I got it wrong. Ignorant American, dontcha know...
Posted by: Seafarious || 07/04/2004 16:44 Comments || Top||

#2  War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. --Ambrose Bierce
Posted by: Quana || 07/04/2004 18:40 Comments || Top||

#3  South of Lybia,Southwest of Egypt.Follow the Nile and you will find it.
"rebels said the operation was a cover for preparations for a new wave of ethnic cleansing."

Yeap,watch and see.They are going to kill/rape/cleanse as many people as the can as fast as they can.Before the world takes notice.
Forlorn hope,but I hope there is a MEU & airwing standing by.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 22:52 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
Switzerland to review small arms exports to Sudan
Switzerland will review its weapons exports to Sudan after a report claimed that Swiss companies had sold more than US$4 million of small arms to the war-torn African state in 2002. The report published last week by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies said that Switzerland was the second-largest supplier of such weapons after Iran. The Swiss government, however, recorded exports of revolvers and pistols worth 4,144 Swiss francs (US$3,357). A spokeswoman for the nation’s Finance Ministry, Rita Baldegger, said Sunday that the government will investigate the inconsistencies and will contact its embassy in Sudan for customs documents and other information. "Such trade would not have been approved by us," Ottmar Wyss, responsible for export control at the Finance Ministry, told the Swiss weekly newspaper SonntagsBlick. "Either there is illegal export trade going on, or the numbers are wrong." The sale of weapons to the African country has to be approved by the Swiss finance and foreign ministries. The government has granted approval for exports of 17,000 francs (US$13,772) worth of small arms to Sudan since April 1998 for use as personal protection or sporting purposes.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 07/04/2004 3:56:09 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Neutral ehh....all about peace are ya!! These people are the biggest hypocrites in the world and something needs to be done with the Swiss!
I am ashamed to say I lived there for 5 years! What a bunch of inbred big eared hypocrites..
I get so fried when ever I read anything about the Swiss! I hate this little piece of shit country!

Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 07/04/2004 16:21 Comments || Top||

#2  ... the only good thing, it seems, are their gun laws.

(Are they true, btw, Long Hair Republican? Military automatic rifle in every man's home?)
Posted by: Edward Yee || 07/04/2004 16:34 Comments || Top||

#3  3 guns per house hold. The Swiss love there guns and are firm in their right to bare arms. They don't talk about it. The respect for guns is started at a very young age. Guns are presented and stressed to the children at the dinner table.

This is one of the only things I liked about the country when I lived there.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 07/05/2004 2:45 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Authorities Detain Six Ansar Snuffies
U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained six members of a militant group suspected of carrying out a series of assassinations in the country's northern region, Iraqi police said Sunday. The men reportedly belong to Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish group believed linked to al-Qaida. They were arrested in a midnight raid on a house in the Oruba district of Kirkuk. Five are Iraqi Arabs while the sixth is a Kurd, said Col. Sarhat Qader, a police official. "Two of the men were from Ramadi while three were from Kirkuk," Qader said.
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 12:41:09 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  panties on the head and leashes!

Let the Kurds interrogate them... "#3 truncheon, please"
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||


Iran Prepares Complaint Against Saddam
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 12:41 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mullahs for moola?
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Nah. Just putting in their two cents.
Posted by: Ptah || 07/04/2004 17:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Tehran will file the documents with the Iraqi court where Saddam is standing trial, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. He did not say precisely when the complaint would be lodged.

Let's make sure that it is necessary for all of the head mullahs to show up personally when formally tendering their complaint against Saddam in Iraq. A single well aliased Zarqawi car bomb would solve a lot of problems.
Posted by: Zenster || 07/04/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Pot, kettle, black.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 18:55 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Bangladesh Postpones Women's Wrestling
Organizers postponed Bangladesh's first ever women's wrestling competition moments before it was to start Sunday after threats from Muslim fundamentalists who termed the event "anti-Islamic." For two days, dozens of hardline Islamic protesters marched through downtown Dhaka, demanding the event be called off, and some groups threatened to block the gathering, which drew dozens of competitors from across Bangladesh. "Games such as wrestling are vulgar and indecent for Muslim women," Maulana Mohiuddin Khan, head of the Jamiatul Ulama Islami Bangladesh group, said Saturday. The women had been practicing Sunday _ and had even weighed in _ when news of the postponement came, frustrating competitors and coaches alike. "If women can participate in sports like swimming or even martial arts, why not wrestling ? We are not doing anything anti-social," said Papiya Kazi, 17, a handball player who took up wrestling two months ago in her hometown Narail, 70 miles west of the capital.
'Cuz the mullahs say so, that's why...
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 12:40:18 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Near as I can tell, breathing is "anti-Islamic."

Won't these wankers ever go away?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 15:54 Comments || Top||


Pakistan searching for 2 boomer babes
PAKISTAN police were placed on a high security alert today and searching for two suicide-bomber sisters out to launch strikes on government targets, police said. Police launched a huge hunt in the city for the two sisters aged between 18 and 20 years, following the disclosure by an arrested sectarian militant that they have been trained for suicide missions, police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP. "There is high alert in the city due to July 4 (US Independence Day), and though there is no specific threat we have been alerted by a militant, Gul Hasan, during interrogation that two of his cousins trained as suicide bombers will strike any day," he said. Security agencies have raided places in the outskirts of Karachi searching the two sisters, but so far have found no trace of them.

Police and paramilitary rangers have been deployed throughout the city while the US consulate, diplomatic enclave, western missions, foreign fast-food restaurants and sensitive government sites are tightly guarded, Mr Jamil said. Mr Jamil confirmed that the US consul general residence’s official July 4 function has been postponed. "The consulate officials have postponed the function on their own but we have no reports of any specific threat nor they have informed us," he said. A rocket exploded last week but caused no casualties, while another rocket and its launcher were found near the US consulate. Gul Hasan, of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was arrested in connection with the two suicide bomb attacks on a Shiite mosque in May in 50 people were killed. Mr Hasan told investigators that he had motivated his two female cousins to become suicide bombers. "My senior members will give them the target, which could either be a Shiite religious gathering of women, any police station or any official ceremony," Mr Hasan was quoted as telling his interrogators. "We have contacted their parents, who have confirmed that their daughters have been missing for the past five or six days, saying they were going on a noble cause," Mr Jamil said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:42:11 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Awright, finally - an excuse! So, um, look carefully, PakiWakis.



I was getting worried - all the Chechnysianonians wymyns seem to be off the bomb, these days.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 13:32 Comments || Top||

#2  So that's what under those burkas . . . I always wondered.
Posted by: The Doctor || 07/04/2004 13:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Girls know what guys like. Funny how that works.
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 13:49 Comments || Top||

#4  I hear they pack explosives
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 13:57 Comments || Top||

#5  .com - that is a superb photo! It'll drive the Islamonazis wild - good one!

Where did the picture come from, ahem for research purposes you understand!

And a Happy Independence Day to our former colonists!
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 07/04/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#6  PD.... excellent photo.
But I suspect you are having to much time on your hands. >)
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 14:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Tony (UK) - Oh boy - you've asked the toughest question possible for someone who does this as a hobby - and has about 15,000 images that struck my fancy. How the hell does one remember all of them? Lol!

First place to go is Curmudgeonly & Skeptical, Terpsboy is the master. Of masters.

Then Fark and look for the Photoshop entries - click on number of posts on right side to see what's been offered up by the left-of-Trotsky crowd at Fark. They're good with Photoshop, but most have the politics of a twit.

Then mosey over to Worth1000 (a pic is worth 1000 words...) - there are more images there than you can believe. They have ongoing Photoshop contests - for money, but you can tell it's more for fun and honor than anything. Overlap with the Fark crowd. You can even put up some money ($25, $50), specify the theme, and stage your own contest - I've Done it!

There are more sites like these, but I've lost a ton of links recently due to rebuilding my machine from scratch - and I mean scratch. I'm rebuilding my links lists now - and will periodically save offline, lol! But I'll have to run across them as they come up.

You'd be amazed by what you can find with old Google / Images, too. TURN OFF the Safe Search filter (req's cookies enabled) or it will remove anything like what you see above, heh.

I hope this helps a little. Anytime you find a site with anything good - check to see if they link to other sites. That's the way to build up a list, cuz they almost always do...

I have a higher-res of the above and I'll get it online and leave you a post on this article later when it's available, if you want it. It will only be up today, though. Limited space, heh.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Here's the hires...
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 15:48 Comments || Top||

#9  The bloke in black...what is he doing?
Posted by: Grunter || 07/04/2004 17:42 Comments || Top||

#10  Grunter - What the hell do you think he's doing? ;-)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 20:58 Comments || Top||

#11  LOL!
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 21:54 Comments || Top||

#12  thank you .com! i am bookmark this page for ole kepsakes. ima liking hot paki pokies. :)
Posted by: muck4doo || 07/04/2004 22:02 Comments || Top||

#13  Now Mucky,what would your Mamma say?
Posted by: Anonymous5295 || 07/04/2004 22:44 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Basayev sez the fight goes on
In a rare videotape address, Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev vowed to continue the separatist fight but said insurgents would not strike outside of Russia. Basayev’s address was received Friday by Arab television station Al-Jazeera in Qatar and broadcast over the weekend, the head of the station’s Moscow bureau, Akram Khazam, told Ekho Moskvy radio on Saturday. Basayev, shown wearing a military-style cap over his shaved head and with his trademark long, black beard, said that rebels will not target any Russians outside of the country, even those responsible for "slaughtering" Chechens, Ekho Moskvy reported. It was the first public appearance in two years by Basayev, who commands more authority than any other rebel leader, according to Ekho Moskvy. The new pledge contradicted Basayev’s warning in a letter on a Web site in March that Russians outside of the country would be attacked to avenge the killing of Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in a car bombing in Qatar. Khazam told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the station did not communicate with Basayev directly and did not know where the videotape was made. Chechen rebel leaders typically make pronouncements through letters or interviews published on a rebel Web site and the appearance of the videotape was relatively unusual.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:47:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is Basayev alive or not. This is the question.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 20:47 Comments || Top||


9 hard boyz jugged
Nine people suspected of being members in rebel groups were detained in Chechnya’s Achkhoi- Martan and Sunzha districts on Sunday, a Chechen Interior Ministry official told Interfax. "Special preventative operations are being held near the villages of Sernovodsk, Assinovskaya and Samashki, near the administrative border with Ingushetia. The operations are being conducted by the military and police. The nine detainees are being questioned. Firearms and ammunition were seized from them during detention," said Buvadi Dakhiyev, chief of the Chechen Interior Ministry’s special police force.

Dakhiyev said that the villages have not been sealed off and that transportation facilities are functioning as usual. The search operations are strictly targeted, he said. "We prepared for this operation thoroughly so as not to damage the interests of the local residents," he said. No one was injured during the operation. Dakhiyev said that most of the rebels detained in this district over the past few days were members of an armed group led by Doka Umarov. He declined to comment on the duration of the operation.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:48:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
3 dead in Baquba car boom
US-backed Iraqi security forces foiled an attempted car bombing Sunday outside their headquarters in a city northeast of Baghdad after they opened fire on a man who threatened to blow up his vehicle, according to local officials. Two bystanders and the attacker were killed. Iraqi officials in the city of Baqouba said Sunday morning that a man driving a car rigged with explosives tried to attack the National Guard building there. According to The AP, the attacker got out of the car and the Iraqi troops opened fire, killing the man and setting off the explosives in the car, police chief Waleed al-Azawi, said. Hospital officials reported that two bystanders were killed in the blast.

Another car bombing targeted a passing U.S. convoy west of Baghdad around 8:30 a.m. causing no injuries, said Maj. Phil Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division. In Baghdad, a blast shook the home of an Education Ministry employee. Also on Sunday, an Iraqi police official announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained six members of a group suspected of carrying out a string of assassinations in the country’s northern region. The men were reportedly members of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish group believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, said Col. Sarhat Qader of the Iraqi police.

Elsewhere, American troops shot dead two fighters and wounded a third when they staged separate attacks on an army patrol and a police station in northern Iraq, the military said. Five fighters attacked a military patrol in the town of Baiji at about 1:15 pm (0915 GMT) on Friday with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to a US statement released overnight Saturday. "The patrol returned fire, killing one anti-Iraqi fighter (AIF) and wounding another," it said. "The remaining three AIF fled." Just over three hours later, a band of 10 to 15 fighters launched an assault on US soldiers and Iraqi police at a police station in Baiji, 180 kilometres north of Baghdad. "The soldiers returned fire, killing one AIF firing from the rooftop of a nearby building," the military said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:40:28 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Turkey Pulls Military Observers From Iraq
Turkey is withdrawing the last of its military observers from northern Iraq, where they had been deployed since 1997 to oversee a cease-fire between two rival Kurdish factions, a government official said Sunday. There is no reduction, however, in the several thousand Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq, who have been hunting Turkish Kurdish rebels in the mountains for years, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Turkish military observers were sent to northern Iraq to supervise a British and U.S.-backed truce between the region's two main Kurdish factions, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party. The two factions had been fighting for control of an autonomous region in northern Iraq since 1991.

The official said the withdrawal would take place in the coming days. The observers "played an important role in bringing peace to the north of Iraq," he said. "Now, the mission of the (observers) is over," he said. The areas controlled by the KDP and PUK have been largely peaceful in recent years. The observer mission was expected to be withdrawn shortly after the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The number of Turkish military observers currently in northern Iraq is around 30, according to Turkish media. The observers numbered about 400 in the 1990s. Turkey has asked the United States to help crack down on Kurdish rebels based across the border in northern Iraq.
Posted by: Fred || 07/04/2004 12:21:49 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


A chilling Iraqi terror tape
Jihad leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the most wanted man in Iraq, this weekend released a telling window into his organization, Attawhid wal Jihad, or Unity and Jihad. In a slickly produced hour-long video Zarqawi lays bare the milieu of his suicide bombers, their safehouses, their rituals and their targeting guidelines. Given directly to TIME, the video is a bold, menacing statement of the group’s intent and capability. The subtext of this disturbing tape is that for the U.S. this is likely to be a long, drawn out fight in Iraq against a committed, well-organized enemy.

The tape contains many chilling scenes. When the chairman of the U.S. appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedine Salam, then the country’s highest Iraqi official, was assassinated last month in a car bomb Zarqawi quickly claimed credit. Now he shows the act, in graphic footage shot from a parked car: A convoy of white SUVs disappears down a Baghdad street, followed a moment later by a ball of flame and explosion so intense the windscreen through which the cameraman films cracks before your eyes.

When a suicide car bomber intercepted a convoy of security personnel for General Electric in the heart of Baghdad on June 14 Zarqawi’s information unit was there, ready and waiting. The three-vehicle convoy enters the screen and is followed down a crowded little street. As the lens zooms in the vehicles erupt in a blistering ball of flame. Three bystanders are seen turning their backs from the blast, attempting to cover their heads. In contrast to other videos of insurgent attacks, the cameraman does not flee. Instead he holds his position and zooms in on the burning suicide vehicle and the flaming SUVs. Survivors can be seen moving from the vehicles and attempting to take cover.

Each episode of this grim "Best Of" the militant group’s attacks over the last year is accompanied by professional-style editing, graphics and camera work. Explanations are given of each operation, the names of the suicide bombers, and the targeting justification. Apologies are given in Arabic screen titles for not showing all the available footage, citing technical problems and operational considerations.

One thing the video makes clear is that foreign fighters have developed a sophisticated organization in Iraq. Interviews on the tape, and living wills made by suicide bombers, show how Muslim men have been brought to the country through well-defined and clearly funded channels. Appearances are made by Saudis, Algerians, Libyans, Jordanians and others; the video even claims that one bomber had lived in Italy and played hockey for a premier club.

This is also a statement of Zarqawi’s rise in the jihad community. Prior the Iraq war he was a marginal figure in the larger al-Qaeda cluster of militant groups. The invasion and subsequent invasion of Iraq gave him and other insurgents a stage upon which to make their mark as mujahideen heroes, akin to the veterans of the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In this video, what is believed to be Zarqawi’s voice is heard only once, part of an audio tape he released last month threatening the new U.S.-backed Baghdad government and reinforcing to Islamic extremist recruits and financiers that he is the one to follow.

More fascinating than the unprecedented action footage of the suicide attacks are the long glimpses into the culture and mindset of the fighters. In the opening vignette a night vision camera records what’s purported to be a young suicide bomber’s living will and messages to his family as masked men crowd around him. The dozens of fighters then chant as he walks to the cabin of the tanker truck rigged with explosives. The men give the bomber a final hug and farewell. He turns to the masked figures and waves, as though he’s about to board an ocean liner for a holiday. Behind the wheel bomber shows off the wiring to the explosive device and the trigger, a button between the seats. The camera records the truck disappearing into the night and the devastating explosion as it reaches its target, the American position beneath Khalidya bridge, west of the restive city of Fallujah.

The group also repeats its claims of responsibility for the attacks on Italian soldiers in Nasiriyah in which 18 were killed, the truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the death of Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello as well as the bombing of the Mount Lebanon Hotel in March. In the hotel attack, the cameraman is positioned too close to the blast and the camera crackles with digital static as the torrent of yellow and orange flame rolls toward it.

This video speaks of a danger more organized than the one viewed through the snippets of the intelligence and glimmers of insight the public previously seen. It does not bode well for the immediate future of Iraq’s fledgling government nor the ultimate exit plans for the 130,000 U.S. troops still here.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:36:43 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So TIME is being used to spread terrorist propaganda and undermine the morale of those fighting them. No surprise.
Posted by: Seger || 07/04/2004 12:26 Comments || Top||

#2  accompanied by professional-style editing, graphics and camera work.

Could Al-Jitzz lending their studios to the cause? I wonder if there is any way to trace this back to the production studio....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 07/04/2004 12:30 Comments || Top||

#3  "It does not bode well for the immediate future of Iraq’s fledgling government nor the ultimate exit plans for the 130,000 U.S. troops still here."
TIME consistantly publishes this crap.
Posted by: rich woods || 07/04/2004 12:32 Comments || Top||

#4  It does not bode well for the immediate future of Iraq’s fledgling government nor the ultimate exit plans for the 130,000 U.S. troops still here

Oh fuck right off "Time", they said the same thing about the Nazi's "there ass got kicked" said the same thing about the Commies "there ass got kicked" on and on and on They were the doom and gloomers after 911. "Time" is shit.

It bodes very well for the USA, we have those fuckers right where we want them. They are not over here are they? Those IslamoNazi's are dieing every day are they not? Everyday more and more of those asshole disappear from the planet. They are fighting a war with our military on their turf. Is that not good for the USA? Is that not good for the whole fucking PLANET?!?!? They hate the USA, they know where to find us in there back yard. The problem is they are fighting the greatest most adaptible fucking force the world has ever imagined!!

If "Time" was a little more on the side of the USA just maybe they would feel some shame in what they publish. Doom and gloom...

When they publish something like this, to me, they have become the enemy. the 1st amendment does not travel over sea's. See Time reporter shoot Time reporter. See guy with camera from Time shoot guy with camera from Time see "little sheet head" in car filming shoot "little sheet head" in car filming.

Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 07/04/2004 12:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Ironic that this piece would be placed in the Time edition with Michael Mooreon on the cover.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Slime magazine is doing psych-ops for Zarqawi, useful idiots.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#7  would be more damaging if a substantial number of Merkins read Time. They don't, so it's not
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#8  Notice how the killers skip Al-Jizz and go right to Time.
When did Time get to be such a rag?
Posted by: Jen || 07/04/2004 15:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Funny that they show that they are essentially a cult.

Time has become a useless rag - a propaganda outlet, not a news magazine.
Posted by: OldSpook || 07/04/2004 16:47 Comments || Top||

#10  1) The tape shows off "Saudis, Algerians, Libyans, Jordanians" - notice a trend? Foreign fighters. American and administration types can denounce foreign fighters until the cows come home, but if they're bragging about it in their own propaganda, it's damned hard to refute. That makes them, by their own admission, invaders and aliens to the country. No wonder the Iraqis hate them.

2)LHR: Time was a conservative Republican rag during WWII. The wife of publisher Henry Luce was a Republican Representative from Connecticut. They hated Roosevelt, but were still hard-war all the same. The magazine has slid left over the decades. It's essentially a more exploitative twin of Newsweek, which was originally a left-centre alternative to Time's right-centre orientation. Time hasn't quite been the same since Ted Turner orchestrated their buy-out by Warner Bros.

3) It's always useful when the enemy informs you which atrocities they're definitely responsible for, and which they don't care to acknowledge. I don't see anything about the anti-Shia bombings - the Ashoura bombings, last year's massive bombing in Najaf, etc. One question - are they trying to dodge the consequences of Zarqawi's anti-Shia bloodthirst, are they not actually responsible, or Time just not interested in al-Tahwid's little "death to the Shia" quirk?
Posted by: Mitch H. || 07/04/2004 16:54 Comments || Top||

#11  I agree w/you Frank G. Aside from the well-informed (news freaks) and intellectual folks who post on this website, I don't believe there are too many average folks reading Time.
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 16:58 Comments || Top||

#12  JH - I used to subscribe to Time during/right after college 79-86 or so, but the leftys took it too far for my tastes, and when I cancelled, I told them why. Looks like they should've listened - their market share and credibility's at an all-time low
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 17:14 Comments || Top||

#13  Frank, I'll pick up the occasional time/newsweek/US news at the airport or maybe the PX on base if something looks interesting. Time, imho, had a good piece on Tom Jefferson in the last issue which I found worthwhile. I can handle some lefty slant if the critism is constructive & justified (I'm an independent), usually though, they whine too much for my taste.
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 17:33 Comments || Top||

#14  For me, Time was killed by the advent of CSPAN. Back when Colin Powell was on active duty, he gave a speech at the Naval Academy which was carried by CSPAN. A Midshipman asked him what he, a Midshipman, should do if gays are admitted to the military and he disagreed with the policy. Colin Powell said, you should resign if it violates your conscience. I took that statement straight up as advice on a matter of conscience. Not Time magazine. They turned that statement into a blurb to the effect that Colin Powell intended to resign if gays were admitted to the military. Huh? I realized then they were in the contoversy manufacturing business and were playing fast and loose with the truth. I cancelled my subscription. They used to be able to get away with that. Not anymore. CSPAN and the internet provided us with the means to directly access events such that we could fact check them. Big media still has not figured this out. Little Brother is watching. Long live distributed broadcasting.
Posted by: Zpaz || 07/04/2004 21:39 Comments || Top||

#15  Good point Zpaz, one more reason why competition in capitalism and an open society is a beautiful thing. You can always find someone who will give you the straight story, as well as hold those (as in Time's case) accountable who don't for their actions by canceling your subscription.
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 21:55 Comments || Top||

#16  that link isnt work.
Posted by: muck4doo || 07/04/2004 22:14 Comments || Top||

#17  not for me either,mucky.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 23:10 Comments || Top||


Group Denies Killing U.S. Marine Hostage
An Islamic extremist group denied in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that it had killed a U.S. Marine taken hostage last month. The Ansar al-Sunna Army issued the statement in response to reports by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry that the group killed Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, an American of Lebanese descent. The Lebanese statement followed a declaration in the name of Ansar al-Sunna posted Saturday on two other extremist Web sites that it had killed the Marine, who is of Lebanese origin. Hassoun’s fate was unknown.

"The media have published, quoting the Lebanese foreign ministry, that the Ansar al-Sunna Army has killed the American hostage, from Lebanese origin, who was kidnapped in Iraq," the statement said. "In order to maintain our credibility in all issues we declare that this statement that was attributed to us has no basis of truth," the statement said. It added that any statement in its name "that any statement that is not issued through our site doesn’t represent us." The original claim of having kidnapped the Marine was issued in the name of "Islamic Response," the security wing of the "National Islamic Resistance - 1920 Revolution Brigades," rather than the Ansar al-Sunna Army.
Posted by: Anonymous5089 || 07/04/2004 9:44:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Group Denies Killing U.S. Marine Hostage
Yet.

The fate of the Islamic world is in your hands, assholes.

Choose well.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 14:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Miss Barbara-
Sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody did kill CPL Hassoun, but he wasn't supposed to...yet. The rest of the Merry Mujhaddeen are now scrambling to cover it up...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/04/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||

#3  You're probably right, Mike.

And I really don't expect these murdering fanatics to choose well.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 15:45 Comments || Top||

#4  2 sets of people you really do not want pissed at you like that: Biker Gangs and Marines.

Anyone else can be reasoned with or bought off. But not those 2.
Posted by: OldSpook || 07/04/2004 16:40 Comments || Top||


Iraq: Bomb kills oil-for-food auditor
One has to wonder who really killed this man. How close was he to discovering additional truth concerning U.N. creeps getting rich off the oil of Iraq.
An Iraqi official heading an inquiry into alleged corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme was killed by a bomb on Thursday, it has been revealed. The official, Ihsan Karim, died in hospital after a bomb placed under one of the cars in his convoy exploded. The board he headed had been given independence from the government as it investigated commissions paid to members of the former regime. In return, the regime allegedly gave billions of dollars worth of contracts. The General Accounting Office of the US government has said that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his associates raised some $4bn in illegal revenue by imposing oil surcharges and commissions on suppliers of goods to Iraq under the programme. Mr Karim was appointed by the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, as head of the Finance Ministry audit board in April. The board tasked international accountancy firm Ernst and Young with investigating commissions paid to the former government. It was not clear whether Mr Karim had been targeted because of the investigation.

A spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, the former financier and Iraqi opposition leader who has drawn attention to corruption in the programme, said the board was ill-equipped to handle the probe. "The assassination of Mr Karim is very worrying," Zaab Sethna said. "Bremer appointed the audit board and left them on their own." "It is impossible to speculate who killed Mr Karim, but the oil-for-food corruption involved very powerful people inside and outside Iraq," he added. Under the oil-for-food programme, Iraq was allowed to sell limited quantities of oil to ease the impact of UN sanctions on its people. Billions of dollars worth of goods flowed through the programme, which was managed from New York through the French bank Paribas.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 3:11:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraqi foreign minister says foreign nations aiding insurgents
Iraq’s interim government has evidence that neighboring countries have helped Iraqi insurgents and will publish its findings this week, a senior minister was quoted as saying Sunday. In an interview with the London-based Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq had intelligence showing that foreign nations had provided financial support, logistical assistance and training to militants who have waged a campaign of bombings, shootings and kidnappings since the fall of Saddam Hussein. He did not name the countries, but the newspaper said Iraqi officials have pointed to Syria and Iran. "Since we started to look at the security situation, we have seen how foreign governments have been helping terrorists," Zebari was quoted as saying. "Why they are doing it we cannot say, but we know where the support is coming from. We have plans to put this before the public within days and it will have a substantial impact. "Foreign support for terrorists is ongoing," he added. "But it will backfire on those governments. A stable and peaceful Iraq is a better neighbor for them."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:32:56 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good luck.
Posted by: Ptah || 07/04/2004 17:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Why they are doing it we cannot say

How about this reason: they are scared of democracy.
Posted by: mhw || 07/04/2004 17:41 Comments || Top||

#3  GOOD! Can't authorize pre-emptive strikes and increased firepower on the border if you don't acknowledge the problem.
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 18:23 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Israel: Fatal ambush greets 5 Arab terrorists
Five Palestinian Arabs on their way Thursday to inflict pain and death on Jews near the Gaza Strip community of Netzarim instead found themselves on the receiving end of Israeli army rifles. The five men were killed during a heated gun battle that reportedly lasted for a number of hours. At least one other terrorist was wounded and three of his comrades were arrested. Ealier in the day, IAF choppers attacked a group of Arabs planting a roadside bomb.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 2:59:52 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope that every Paleo attack is met with an overwhelming and decisive response.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 12:27 Comments || Top||

#2  "Aim the death ray, Heim, my son! They cannot escape the Zionists!"

"Yes, sir, Papa Avi!"
Posted by: The Doctor || 07/04/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
In pictures: Saddam & Iraqi ex-Ba'athist leaders in court
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 04:29 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now watch the looney left cry out about humane treatment and legal rights. Should have shot these monsters on the spot.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 14:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Gotta disagree with you there Captain.

If we'd killed them out of hand as they were captured, all well and good.

But the best thing that can happen is that the Iraqis try these pieces of filth using their own laws (I notice that they have re-introduced the death penalty that Bremer didn't allow), find them guilty (but we should be prepared for some 'weird' decisions that might smack of cronyism or Arab 'honour') and then execute them using whatever methods they want (it seems they're thinking of hanging - a rather dishonourable way for an Arab to die).

And a Happy Independence day to our former colonists! :)
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 07/04/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||

#3  We even gave these Iraqi Nazi-like mass murderers new suits.

What do the terrorist's give our men?
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 15:26 Comments || Top||

#4  What do the terrorist's give our men?

Orange suits. Apparently in Islamoworld that is what condemned men are dressed in when they are executed.

By the way, it seems as if Robert Fisk named the judge in the Saddam trial, against explicit requests not to do so, and now the judge's life is endangered.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 07/04/2004 16:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Fisk does his best for his Islamic masters. Why didn't those backwards assholes kill Bob when they had the chance? He'd have understood..
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
MMA endorses government stance on foreigners in Waziristan
The two top Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leaders Friday endorsed the government’s stand on registration of foreigners hiding in various parts of South Waziristan Agency. The MMA leaders Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Qazi Hussain Ahmad have supported the government stance on the issue during an important meeting with NWFP Governor Lt Gen. (Retd) Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah at Governor House here on Friday night. Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani was also present on the occasion.

Though no official statement either from Governor’s House or Chief Minister’s House, about this meeting was issued so far, the two MMA leaders claimed that they have discussed with the governor the Wana situation as well as other administrative affairs of the province. The MMA secretary general and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Jamaat-e-Islami chief and MMA’s acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and Senior Minister Sirajul Haq also attended a detailed briefing on BoK at the office. Answering a question, Fazl said that they met the governor on the advice of MNAs from tribal areas. Qazi Hussain Ahmad added that they discussed in depth the over-all situation of tribal areas and exchanged proposals and suggestions. To another question, Maulana Fazl endorsed the government’s stand on registration of foreigners hiding in different parts of South Waziristan Agency. It is a genuine demand of the government, he said. While Qazi said that immigrants are bound to follow the host country’s rules. They, however, stressed use of peaceful and political means for sorting out such issues.

Maulana Fazl said that they also briefed the governor about impacts of economic blockade against Ahmadzai Wazir tribe and on behalf of the MMA, asked him for early lifting of these curbs. However, the Governor informed the MMA leaders that these sanctions have been eased for the last several days, assuring further relief in this regard. The MMA leaders said that they also suggested the Governor to ensure maximum relief to common tribesmen and direct the authorities concerned not to misuse their powers under black laws of Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). To a question Qazi Hussain Ahmad ruled out possibility of Governor Rule in the province, saying the MMA govt is stable and has backing of people of NWFP and Pakistan. He further said that affairs of the provincial govt is running smoothly and there is nothing to be worried about and cited an example of satisfactory law and order situation in the province.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:30:02 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: North
Libyans expose GSPC camp in Tibesti region of Chad
Libyan secret services have found a desert operations camp belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group called the GSPC after "intercepting" members of the group near the border with Chad, a French newspaper said on Sunday. The paper, Le Journal du Dimanche, said that a source close to the counter-espionage services of a European country told it of the discovery by Libyan agents 10 days ago in the mountainous region of Tibesti that spans Libya’s southern border with Chad. The French newspaper said that the GSPC -- the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat -- was recruiting actively in the Tibesti region and buying arms and vehicles with German ransom money paid for the release of tourists in the Sahara in 2003.

Le Journal du Dimanche drew a link between the camp that the Libyans had discovered and renewed talk of possible attacks on European and U.S. embassies or similar targets in Africa. "Above all, it appears that the GSPC is clearly preparing terrorist attacks in Africa, on American or European targets -- including French ones -- be they economic, diplomatic or tourist sites," the newspaper said. Bin Laden, in an audiotape on April 15, gave European states three months to pull troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries or face attacks such as the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people on March 11. Muslim militants claiming links to al Qaeda have vowed attacks on Europe once the "truce" expires on July 15, several newspapers said last Friday. Governments and analysts played down the threat, although a U.S. intelligence official has said the risk should not be ignored or dismissed, regardless of the authenticity of the purported statement by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. Excerpts of the Abu Hafs statement were published by two London-based Arabic newspapers, Asharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat. Al-Hayat said the letter arrived by e-mail dated July 1. It is not clear how close the Abu Hafs group is to bin Laden himself.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:28:31 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ..Well, that'a awfully kind of the Libyan SS...but I have a hard time believeing it was entirely altruistic.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 07/04/2004 15:05 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
6 hurt in Kabul work accident
An explosion at an illegal bomb factory in the Afghan capital wounded at least six people, a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force said today. The blast in Kabul’s Afshah neighbourhood yesterday hurt three children, two women and a man, Commander Chris Henderson told reporters. He said police had arrested three men. ’’It is believed that the explosion occurred as the three men were assembling bombs.’’ Police said they were holding the father of the family, who had brought the bomb-making material from neighbouring Pakistan. ’’It is actually fortunate that the people assembling these explosive devices met with misadventure as their intended actions could easily have killed many innocent people,’’ Henderson said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 07/04/2004 11:43:35 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They must have got some Paleo bomb making directions. Afghan boomers must be suffering from the same loss-of-talent-and-institutional-memory syndrome that the Paleos have. Making bombs around your family, especially children shows that they are morons.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 12:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Worst combination: Paleo bomb making + Hek bomb throwing.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/04/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#3 
Making bombs around your family, especially children shows that they are morons.
Retroactive birth control, perhaps, AP?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 15:47 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Group Denies Killing U.S. Marine Hostage
Why is the Lebanese government making statements over the fate of an American? When Johnson was beheaded, the English Government (I am assuming that Johnson was of English extract) did not come out to give information or confirm anything.
An Islamic extremist group denied in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that it had killed a U.S. Marine taken hostage last month. The denial by the Ansar al-Sunna Army left the fate of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun unclear. The group said it had no connection to a statement in its name put out on other Web sites claiming Hassoun’s slaying — leaving open the possibility that the Marine was killed by another group or that he was still alive. A Lebanese foreign ministry official in Beirut said Hassoun, a U.S. Marine of Lebanese heritage, was believed to be dead. Lebanon’s chief of mission in Baghdad "is trying to confirm the killing 100 percent, but it seems to be over," the official told The Associated Press. "We understand that he was slaughtered. God help him."

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it was checking into the report of the 24-year-old Hassoun’s death but had no confirmation. On Sunday the military said Hassoun’s status remains "captured." The Ansar al-Sunna Army issued Sunday’s statement in response to reports by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry that the group killed Hassoun. "The media have published, quoting the Lebanese foreign ministry, that the Ansar al-Sunna Army has killed the American hostage, from Lebanese origin, who was kidnapped in Iraq," the statement said. "In order to maintain our credibility in all issues we declare that this statement that was attributed to us has no basis of truth," the statement said. "We have an official Web site for publication, any statement that is not issued through our site, doesn’t represent us," it said.

The statement did not say whether Ansar al-Sunna Army is the group that snatched the 24-year-old Hassoun. The claim that Hassoun was beheaded, posted on other Web sites Saturday, was issued in the name of "the Ansar al-Sunna Army in Qaim," a town near the Iraqi border with Syria that has seen frequent clashes with militants. It was signed by Abdullah al-Hassan bin Mahmoud, a previously unknown figure labeled as "the prince" of the group. The original claim of having kidnapped Hassoun — in a video aired last week on Al-Jazeera television, showing the blindfolded Marine with a sword brandished over his head — was issued in the name of "Islamic Response," the security wing of the "National Islamic Resistance - 1920 Revolution Brigades," rather than the Ansar al-Sunna Army.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 07/04/2004 11:03:21 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Chemicals Not Found in Iraq Warheads
EFL
Sixteen rocket warheads found last week in south-central Iraq by Polish troops did not contain deadly chemicals, a coalition spokesman said yesterday, but U.S. and Polish officials agreed that insurgents loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorist fighters are trying to buy such old weapons or purchase the services of Iraqi scientists who know how to make them. The Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said in a statement yesterday that the 122-milimeter rocket rounds, which initially showed traces of sarin, "were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals." The statement came just hours after two senior Polish defense officials told reporters in Warsaw, based on preliminary reports, that the rocket rounds contained deadly sarin and that actions by the Polish unit in Iraq kept them from being purchased by militants fighting coalition forces.

Yesterday’s coalition release also said that two other 122-milimeter rounds, found by the Poles on June 16 with help from an Iraqi informer, tested positive for small quantities of sarin but were "so deteriorated" that they would have had "limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces." Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, told Fox News on June 24 that "some" old sarin and mustard rounds have been discovered in scattered places, demonstrating "that the Iraqi declarations were wrong at least in . . . amount." But Duelfer cautioned he was not ready to make any judgment whether there were any "still concealed" military-capable stockpiles. Dukaczewski said the Polish unit in Iraq paid an undisclosed sum of money to buy the rockets last month after an informer there told the Poles that militant groups were seeking to buy such weapons for up to $5,000 apiece. "We bought all the shells available," Dukaczewski said. In Washington yesterday, a senior intelligence official said he was unaware that the Poles purchased rather than found the weapons. He said the United States had been told they were discovered at several sites, mixed in with conventional 122-milimeter rockets and without any distinctive markings.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 07/04/2004 4:31:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At $5K a pop, as long as the game lasts, the Arabs will lead the Poles to more such finds, methinks.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 4:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Note the press source; The Washington Post ..
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 4:38 Comments || Top||

#3  The do seem inordinately pleased, don't they... Fading to irrelevance, they spin and clip and twist and nudge for all they are worth.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 4:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Damn CIA agents ...
Posted by: Anonymous14993 || 07/04/2004 5:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Given that our *side*, not just the US, have been finding huge stores of what clearly are chemical weapons, stored in bunkers and ready to us *as* chemical weapons, and *with* the means to deliver them, and *yet* we ADAMANTLY DENY that they ARE chemical weapons, doesn't that raise a question?

We are not doing this to entertain ourselves.

The UN resolution that the US used to invade Iraq,
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441,

http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2002/sc2002.htm

states that the PURPOSE of the US invasion is to insure compliance to the weapons inspection regime.

In other words, if the US ever finds WMDs OR ever certifies that there are NO WMDs, it has no further UN justification for being in Iraq at all.

Which means, bottom line, that until Iraq has an elected government that officially requests the US to stay in Iraq with a 'Status of Forces' agreement, like with Germany, there WILL BE NO WMDs found, nor will the US certify that Iraq is "WMD FREE."
Posted by: Anonymoose || 07/04/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#6  That's an interesting theory, Anonymoose. Would certainly explain why there have been dozens of WMD "finds" reported by troops in the field and the press, then denied by the authorities after further "testing".

But I can't picture the administration hounding itself to electoral defeat on the basis of a technicality. There have been a number of later UN Security Council resolutions which would cover our presence in the country. The occupation legitimacy issue is already in play.

A better guess would be that they're holding the various discoveries in reserve to wait until the Kerry campaign commits itself to a "no WMD" soundbite. That would explain Kerry's caginess about covering his bases in case WMD are found.

Meh, that's a cynical, goofy way to view the world, assuming that both campaigns are lying through their teeth, and distorting our pursuit of the war. The Razor would demand that we simply conclude that the WMD testing equipment used in the field is terribly inaccurate.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 07/04/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#7  According to this report in Agence France Press (no less!), the Poles are sticking by their story that the WMDs were there:
Poland stands by 'poison gas' find Iraq
Posted by: Jen || 07/04/2004 12:28 Comments || Top||

#8  Best guess: They're sitting on as much of the info as possible because they don't want the enemy to know that there're caches of readily available chemical weapons all over Iraq. "Nope, nuthin' to see here, move along."
Posted by: AzCat || 07/04/2004 13:52 Comments || Top||

#9  AzCat: Now *that* theory I like. It's plausable, clever without being convoluted, and appeals to both left-wing and right-wing prejudices - to the left, that the adminstration can't control stockpiles, to the right, that they've lying to us with the very best of intentions.

It's also thoroughly unfalsifiable with OS material. I nominate this theory for "new WMD meme of the month".
Posted by: Mitch H. || 07/04/2004 17:02 Comments || Top||

#10  I like it...especially if W reveals it in October, or maybe during the Dem convention. The DNC/DU/LLL collective heads would burst, like in Mars Attacks. Ack, Ack-Ack!
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Kashmir Korpse Kount
Eighteen people were killed and 66 others injured Saturday in separatist-linked violence in Indian-held Kashmir which included an explosion in the heart of Srinagar, police said. Two people were killed and 35 injured in a blast on a main Srinagar road used by government officials including Kashmir’s Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, whose residence is 500 meters away, police said. The explosives were concealed in a hand cart near the main information office for tourists visiting the scenic Himalayan valley town, a police spokesman said.

Three Indian army soldiers and three militants were killed Saturday in a fierce gunfight in northern Baramullla district that erupted after troops launched a search operation, the spokesman said. Indian troops also shot dead three militants in the northern Machil sector after they entered from Azad Kahmir, claimed army officer Rohit Yadav at Sonapindi post near the disputed border. Two more rebels were shot dead by Indian troops in southern Doda district, police said. A policeman was killed and two others injured in a rebel ambush in southern Poonch district. A grenade attack in central Anantnag district injured four soldiers and 25 civilians, four of them critically, police said. Suspected militants shot dead four people overnight, including a policewoman and a surrendered militant, police said. The motives for the killings were not immediately clear
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 07/04/2004 3:41:40 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Interview with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the founding chief of Hizb-e-Islami, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted Afghan warlord who carries $25 million on his head. He used to be the Central Intelligence Agency’s `blue-eyed’ boy during the United States’ proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
I think they're confusing him with Masood...
Hekmatyar stayed in exile in Mashad (Iran) until Teheran, annoyed by his anti-U.S. statements, asked him to leave the country in March 2002.
Iran was more afraid the U.S. was going to find a Northern Alliance within their country and kick the snot out of them.
Mohammad Shehzad, a freelance journalist based in Islamabad, conducted this interview with Hekmatyar over the phone from Peshawar. Hekmatyar was talking through a sat-phone from an unknown place in Afghanistan. Excerpts:

Jehadist like Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin believe that the Kashmir jehad could break up India just like the Afghan jehad led to the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Being a veteran jehadi, do you think that is possible?
One has to be realistic in analysis. The USSR was a superpower. It was the number one enemy of the U.S. It is true that the USSR broke apart through the Afghan jehad. But the Afghan jehad was financed by a number of countries. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. spent money like water in the Afghan jehad. The dynamics of the Kashmir jehad are totally different. India is not a superpower. It is not the U.S. enemy. It is not a potential threat to anyone in the region. The Kashmir jehad is not financed by foreign forces the way the Afghan jehad was financed. Moreover, the Kashmir issue is more of a political nature. In our case, the forces of `unbelief’ had invaded Islam. That similarity does not exist in the case of Kashmir. So, I don’t think India will break apart through the Kashmir jehad. According to my understanding, the Indian economy is improving. It is Pakistan that is heading towards disintegration. The Pakistan Army is committing state terrorism in South Waziristan. The MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement) is committing sectarian terrorism in Karachi. Baluchistan is also not at peace. It is also in the grip of sectarian violence. So, lawlessness and anarchy are writ large on Pakistan’s face.
It’s strange that he seems to be sucking up to India while dogging the Pakistanis. Maybe he really will try to get into Afghan politics in future and his trying to make some new friends..

Are you saying that what is going on in Kashmir is not a jehad?
No, I am not saying that. Of course, it is jehad. You asked me whether the Kashmir jehad could break apart India or not. I am saying it cannot. I am not denying that the mujahideens’ struggle is not jehad. It is 100 per cent jehad and I salute all the Kashmiri mujahideens - Hafiz Saeed, who is my leader, has fought jehad in Afghanistan; Syed Salahuddin, who is a great freedom fighter, as well as Maulana Masood Azhar who has given India a tough time.
So Lashkar-e-Taiba is running the Hekmatyrs Afghan operations?

You have just admitted that the U.S. and Saudi dollars had made the Afghan jehad successful. You are currently fighting a jehad against the U.S. - without the foreign support. How are you going to win it this time?
You are right that we don’t have the U.S. or Saudi support this time. But if you have studied the history of Afghan jehad you would know that the foreign assistance came much later. The Afghans had waged a guerilla war of their own within their meagre resources and gave the Russians a tough time. It was the courage and determination of the Afghans that attracted the foreign support. Jehad is not fought with the money alone. Jehad requires passion. In a nutshell, we have sufficient wherewithal to carry out jehad for years. And we are quite confident to throw the U.S. out of Afghanistan. In fact, the sense that Afghanistan has become a quagmire for the U.S. has prevailed upon [George] Bush. That is why the U.S. is trying to find an `honourable’ exit from Afghanistan as a face-saving measure.

This statement contradicts the one you made last year in the course of an interview you gave me for The Sunday Times. You had predicted the U.S.’ disintegration through your jehad...
It must be in a different context. But one thing is for sure. The U.S. cannot stay in Afghanistan for a long time. It will have to pack up and leave. Otherwise, Afghanistan will become its graveyard and that would be the first nail in the U.S.’ coffin.

Your aides - Commander Khalid Farooqi, Maulvi Sarfraz Janbaz and Abdul Hadi - have recently met Karzai, General Fahim and Zalmay Khalilzad. Karzai and Khalilzad have promised not to issue any statement against you. Karzai has allowed you to participate fully in the country’s political activities and re-organise your party. When are you going to accept his offer?
These are just rumours spread by the U.S. through its media to demoralise the mujahideens. We could join hands with Karzai if he could ask the U.S. and the coalition forces to vacate Afghanistan and leave the future of Afghanistan to the Afghans. It is obvious that Karzai cannot accept such demands because he is an American stooge. It is true that Karzai these days is wooing some former mujahideens to muster support for the forthcoming presidential election. This is not his act. He is doing it at the U.S.’ behest. But this is not going to make life easy for the U.S. or Karzai because the so-called mujahideens Karzai is talking to are `paper-tigers’. The real mujahideens are the Taliban and people like us. We matter, not them. We will continue to fight Karzai and his master - the U.S. By the way, Karzai’s days are numbered. Very soon, our mujahideens will get him.

How could peace be restored in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan used to be peaceful. Unfortunately, it became a centre for the big powers’ intervention. First of all, the Russians interfered in its affairs and destroyed its peace. Then Pakistan tried to make it its fifth province. The notorious ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) installed the Taliban and tried to remote-control Afghanistan from Islamabad. Now, the Americans are doing the same experiment. When the foreign interference ends, peace will return to Afghanistan.

Are you behind the recent killing of the Chinese?
I have no idea about it. The Taliban have split now. The other faction is led by Mullah Soban. It could be his brainchild. I have expelled some miscreants from my party. It could be their handiwork. I really have no idea.

But the Afghan government strongly suspects that you have masterminded it. They have good reasons to believe this. In fact, you have admitted it `off-the-record’ while talking to some journalists...
It is not true. I cannot accept the responsibility if some miscreants have masterminded it at the U.S.’ behest. I believe it is the handiwork of the Americans. They have used some greedy mujahideens for this inhuman act to defame the true mujahideens. I suspect that the Americans have also masterminded the killing of Chinese in Gwador, Baluchistan. The U.S. agenda is to malign jehad and jehadis.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 07/04/2004 3:38:37 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Question: "why do all your Islamic Heroes™ throw hand grenades like little girls?"
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#2  ...a veteran jehadi....

Not too many around can claim that handle.
Analogy:

There are bold pilots
There are old pilots
There are few old and bold pilots
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 11:51 Comments || Top||

#3  AP, aren't there some enemy sea vessels glass balls from Japanese fishing lines you're supposed to be vigilantly watching for? Your country your family is depending on you!
Posted by: Seafarious || 07/04/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Just sent you an email a few minutes ago. I am getting a weather briefing. Ceilings may be lower across Prince William Sound. Being single engine and on wheels, I like to have altitude to reach land with my plane. Flying low altitude over long stretches of cold water is inviting oneself to become crab bait if the mill quits. Remote but a factor.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 07/04/2004 12:06 Comments || Top||

#5  What happen to the Twin Otter?
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 14:42 Comments || Top||

#6  It is also in the grip of sectarian violence. So, lawlessness and anarchy are writ large on Pakistan’s face.
Thank you Gulbudeen, we'd never have realised this unless you pointed it out...
The notorious ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) installed the Taliban and tried to remote-control Afghanistan from Islamabad.
The notorious ISID backed a certain Hekmatyar for years, indeed one could almost have described him as a Pakistani stooge. Didn't the ISID decide to back Taliban for one reason above all others, namely that the Taliban showed that they could actually win battles unlike a certain former ISID protege?
You had predicted the U.S.’ disintegration through your jehad...
Have mercy on the poor man, he wouldn't be a real Jihadist if he didn't foam at the mouth & rant nonsensically from time to time...
Posted by: Dave (UK) || 07/04/2004 18:47 Comments || Top||

#7  I remember this guy!
He was the pitching coach for Tampa Bay!
Posted by: Shipman || 07/04/2004 21:56 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
More Jewish Superpowers: Israelis can now see through walls.
Hat Tip: LGF (Charles’ comments are very funny on this one)
Israeli scientists have developed revolutionary new radar technology that will allow people to see through walls.
or the covers of Arafat’s red binder?
The radar system, developed by the Herzliya-based Camero company, can produce a three-dimensial image of what lies behind a wall by the use of ultra-wideband technology, Haaretz newspaper reported Thursday. The quality of the pictures is similar to that produced by ultrasound and they can be taken from a distance of up to 20 meters (yards).
Even Saudi burqas aren’t that thick. Bwuwahhaahhhaaa!
The company’s chief executive Aharon Aharon said an initial prototype of the device was expected to be ready in 18 months and could help rescue workers find victims of disasters.
I could think of a few other applications, like the prevention of certain disasters.
"When disaster victims must be rescued from a collapsed building or a fire, time is of the essence," Aharon told the paper. "Rescue forces often invest enormous resources and precious time in combing the rubble, or endanger their lives by entering the flames, even if it is not clear that there are any survivors behind the walls."
They could use it in Gaza to find any survivors who need to be finished off.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 07/04/2004 1:44:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wait til this gets miniturized and installed into soldier's sunglasses. That will get the Arab street howling all over again. "All your women are belong to us".
Posted by: ed || 07/04/2004 1:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Now, Palestine children will never dare throw stones at Israel tanks !
Posted by: Anonymous52223 || 07/04/2004 2:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Now the Israelis can see the Arab parents telling their children to throw rocks at Israelis and stop them before they get hurt. The Arab parents can be ID' quickly and locked up until they can act like real parents.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 3:03 Comments || Top||

#4  This must be condemned by the World Court, before it is too late.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 3:16 Comments || Top||

#5  I'll settle for what in the underground tunnel.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 3:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Ah the famous red binder. What secrets it holds.

Can you imagine what the Arab press is going to do with this? The Zionist death rays (tm) and now this...

And what do you think the Palestians will do?

Hopefully, shit themselves.

Oh, and by the way - a Happy Independence day to all you former colonists!
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 07/04/2004 8:45 Comments || Top||

#7  Thank you,cosiun Tony.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 9:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Tony, it is a logical development. Now the IDF will know where to aim the death ray.
Posted by: GK || 07/04/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||

#9  #8 Tony, it is a logical development. Now the IDF will know where to aim the death ray.

Oh, you mean a specific target, rather than just a general direction
Posted by: cheaderhead || 07/04/2004 11:24 Comments || Top||

#10  Raptor - you're more than welcome.

GK - like it centurion!

Seriously though (if it's possible to be serious in a thread where we're talking about death rays!) - stories like this are bound to freak out the Arab Street (TM). Since 9/11, I, along with many of you I'm sure, have spent a lot more time examining the media in the Arab world, using sites like this, LGF and many more. One thing seems to shine through - the tenous version of reality that is being pumped to the Arab Street (TM) by their media. I don't think it hurts the Israelis to have their enemies think of them as having something like 'superpowers'.

Although we're all talking about the WoT implications of this technology (I know that's what I thought of first of all), the Israeli CEO is only talking about the humanitarian aspects of it. If an Arab country invented this (some hopes), what do you think they'd use it for?
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 07/04/2004 11:49 Comments || Top||

#11 
tenous version of reality
Tony (UK) - you're being too kind to the Arabs. Like our LLL moonbats, they're totally divorced from reality.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 14:24 Comments || Top||

#12  And thanks for the kind wishes, Tony (UK). May you all always be our friends.

I'm reminded of a large sign seen in London on the occasion of our 200th Independence Day celebration: "Happy Birthday, America. Love, Mum." :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 14:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Speaking of tenuous versions of reality, I was watching Fox this morning where a bubbleheaded bleach blond was interviewing a journalist. I can't remember his name (darn it)but he asked an Iraqi why he supported Tater when Tater was the one who murdered a rival Cleric on the steps of their most holy site. The answer was, to me, unbelievable. The one he was interviewing said it wasn't Tater, it was "the Jews". Yesterday the same bubblehead interviewed Wayne Rogers and said, "Why shouldn't we listen to the French? They know a lot about the Middle East because they have a lot of Muslims in France". I almost laughed my ass off. Wayne Rogers doesn't think we should ever have anything more to do with the French. He's one of the few Hollywooders who support the President.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 07/04/2004 16:39 Comments || Top||

#14  Wayne's gone into the real world - financial wiz
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 17:04 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Saboteurs strike Iraqi oil pipeline
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 01:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The terrorists cowards (most likely Iranian-Syrian-al-Qaida) strike again knowing this is their only real economic method of damaging Iraq's main source of exported revenue.

Nobody's attacking Iran's OPEC oil exports which continues to flow freely to global customers, while profits are utilized to disrupt neighbouring oil from being exports.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 2:33 Comments || Top||

#2  It won't be long before Iran's OPEC oil exports are shutdown, via the coming naval blockade.
Posted by: ZoGg || 07/04/2004 11:31 Comments || Top||

#3  What a wonderful day that shall be.

For over 25 years the mullahs have been spreading hate and terror around the globe thinking nobody can stop their madness.

The U.S. Navy is about to fix the Iran problem.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 15:11 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Israeli man killed in West Bank car ambush
Sun 4 July, 2004 05:45
At least one Palestinian gunman has shot and killed an Israeli man in an ambush on his car in the West Bank. An army spokesman said the man’s wife, who had been accompanying him, was not injured but was being treated for shock. The shooting occurred early Sunday morning on a road in the Jenin area of the northern West Bank, between the Jewish settlements of Mevot Dotan and Shaked, a military source said. The Israeli man had died at the scene.

A local militant group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the shooting. In a statement the group said the attack was revenge for Israel’s killings of seven of their leaders in a raid last week in the West Bank city of Nablus. A Palestinian witness said he saw two gunmen open fire on the Israeli car accompanied by a bus, as they passed along the road near the village of Yabed. Soldiers launched searches in Yabed for the gunmen, witnesses and a military source said.
Posted by: .com || 07/04/2004 1:36:33 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Think about this. An uncle of yours, is driving home from his place of employment as he does every night. The route taken is the one he always uses after work. All of a sudden two hired killers from a an outlawed hate group open up with a machine gun killing your relative instantly. The cowards run off into the dead of night confidant nobody witnessed their act of cold blooded hate crime.

You discover the horrible news regarding your relative when there local precinct police inform you in person. The police captain states your uncle was murder because he was an American.

Israelis are confronted with these brutal hate crimes each day of the week.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 07/04/2004 2:45 Comments || Top||

#2  What happened to the revolutionary new radar technology that will allow people to see through walls?
Posted by: Anonymous1781 || 07/04/2004 3:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Seeing through walls won't stop a bullet. So what's your point, Anonymous?
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 07/04/2004 18:48 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Iraq Declines Jordan's Offer to Send Troops
Iraq declined Jordan's offer to send troops to help stabilize the country on Saturday, but said it would welcome peacekeeping forces from Arab countries that do not share its borders. "We welcome the support of Arab and Islamic countries...but there are many ways for these counties to stand with the Iraqi people and offer a helping hand," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference. "There are sensitivities over the participation of neighboring countries in peacekeeping forces, but these countries can back United Nations activities." The interim government and its predecessor, the Governing Council, have consistently refused to allow any troops from neighboring countries to enter Iraqi territory. But Zebari welcomed an offer by Yemen, which does not share a border with Iraq, to send peacekeeping troops provided they were under United Nations or Arab League command. "With regard to Yemen's proposal, we are in principle for the participation of Arab peacekeeping troops from beyond the immediate neighbors," Zebari said.
Maybe they can guard the new UN compound.
Posted by: Steve White || 07/04/2004 12:51:07 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What UN compound? ;-)

(My opinion on this is two-fold - the news about Allawi's proposed amnesty shook me, but Zebari's declining combined with their acceptance of Yemen's offer reads like a gentle, sensible and reassuring form of realpolitik.)
Posted by: Edward Yee || 07/04/2004 1:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I believe the Yemeni brigade is already in Iraq, under Zarqawi's command.
Posted by: ed || 07/04/2004 1:58 Comments || Top||

#3  The UN compound in East Burlap.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 3:13 Comments || Top||

#4  I think Iraqis are just a tad pissed off at their
nieghbors right now.
Posted by: djohn66 || 07/04/2004 7:28 Comments || Top||


Decapitation: Execrable, but effective
Given the choice, most people would opt for a straight bullet to the head rather than have it sawn off with a cutlass. However, personal preference has not figured highly in the modus operandi of Iraqi and Saudi insurgents for whom decapitation has become the method of choice for dispatching POW’s and collaborators.
(including their mouthpiece, Al Jazeera)
Until the shooting death in June of US soldier Keith Maupin, the insurgents had made a point of beheading their captives and disseminating the grisly scenes over the Internet. Most people would recoil at the mere thought but experts say that is precisely the aim.
In war, ascendancy in the horror stakes can be a major battlefield gain.
"It gives people an enormous feeling of their own power that they can threaten this fate to their opponents," believes Professor Ian Robins, a London-based traumatic stress psychologist who specialises in treating war prisoners.
Special place in hell for the terrorists and their mouthpiece.
Posted by: Capt America || 07/04/2004 12:37:51 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I haven't talked much about my experience in Vietnam, but most of you probably know that decapitation was a common form of mutilation there.
The Vietnamese supposedly had a superstition that cutting off a man's head would cause his spirit to arrive headless in the afterlife and he wouldn't be able to find his way about.

It just happens that I was in An Loc, RVN, the day after the long NVA siege of that town was broken in 1972.
I met a South Vietnamese militiaman, a "Ruff-puff" (from Regional Forces/Popular Forces) who had been there throughout the siege.
He was very grateful for the support our airpower had provided and I was the first American pilot he had met in person.

He offered me a present: a recently killed NVA's severed head. He held it up by the hair, right in my face.
I was frankly about to piss my pants in horror, but I managed to politely decline (thereby displaying some cultural sensitivity before the term was popularized).
I mean, seriously, you don't want to offend someone who is holding a severed head even if he's on your side.
If I had been thinking a little more quickly, I might have said, "er, no thanks, I already have a head and I'm not sure where I would put another one."
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 07/04/2004 1:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, Atomic, that was a nice VN story. Ahhh, memories....

Best Wishes, (wait, wait, wait....lol) One other thing. I just had this conversation over a Tacitus a couple of days ago...and I thought I might ask you also:

...I am curious if you have ever returned, post-war, to SEA? I am currently debating a new invitation to spend Thanksgiving in Viet Nam with a bunch of guys, probably in Hanoi, though possibly HCMC also.

I refused to go last year, and will probably do so again this year. Maybe I sould do my returning in baby steps, starting in Myanmar and moving East, (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos) finally ending in Na Trang, or some place I am familiar with.

This is a real weirdness in me. I really loved VN, Cambodia and the people across SEA...but I won't go back. I took the fall of Saigon very hard. It is bitter in my mouth and still is.

People find my position on this to be very odd.
I am curious if you had any similar feelings, or if you had ever returned to VN for a visit?

Real Best Wishes,
Posted by: Traveller || 07/04/2004 1:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Traveller,
My feelings mirror yours almost exactly. I have been to Thailand several times during the last 30 years and to Cambodia once, however.

I also loved Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. The RVN was a less than ideal state, as the media never tired of reminding us, but it was a damn sight better than the Stalinist slave-camp that replaced it after our Congress cut off aid in 1974, thereby guaranteeing the success of the NVA's spring offensive in 1975.

I am especially bitter that the Republic of Vietnam has almost been erased from history in the years since, like an executed regime opponent in Orwell's 1984.

A few years ago, I was at a symposium on the Vietnam War at Texas Tech and happened to meet an alleged expert on the war from the University of New Mexico, a self-described liberal who was too young to have been an adult when the war ended.

This person (whose first name was the same as my last name, oddly enough) had only the vaguest idea what the RVN was and, so help me, had never heard of Nguyen Van Thieu.
(For others, Thieu was the last President of the Republic of Vietnam and managed to escape the collapse that inevitably followed the Congressional sellout of his country.)

It happens that Thieu (who died in 2001) was also at the symposium. I introduced the ignorant "expert" to him with the words, "Mr. President, this is one of our leading liberal historians of the war but he had never heard of you before today." Thieu was apparently very amused by this and the lib expert slunk away never to seen again, at least at the symposium.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 07/04/2004 2:06 Comments || Top||

#4 
Dearest AC:

Another great Atomic Conspiracy story! I don't think I'd ever go to symposium on VN, (I'd never have a reason to...lol)

But since one good story deserves another, recently some friends took me down to Little Saigon, aka Westminster, in Orange County, CA, and I was surprised to see the old yellow, with 3 red stripes, flags from the RVN fluttering from every lamp post, all up and down every major street as far as you could see throughout the city.

This was just before a delegation from Hanoi asked to visit Westminister but was refused on the grounds that security for the delegation could not be assured, considering the feelings of the people of Little Saigon.

No wonder! I asked several Vietnamese about this, and they all felt that if any North Vietnamese commie rat-prick bastard set foot in Westminster there would be major trouble.

Personally, I am trying to mellow or chill or find some psychological distance on this. It has been about 37 years since I've been in country, and I still am certain that I couldn't go to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi without going crazy.

Maybe if I wait another 50 years...(grin)

Best Wishes,




Posted by: Traveller || 07/04/2004 2:43 Comments || Top||

#5 
On Topic:

I think a little escalation in the shock and horror department is called for. We should start feeding terrorists to mean, nasty and half starved swine.

Something similar to what was portrayed in the movie "Hannabil" (sp?).

That would drive those silly forkers over the edge. We could film each feeding, and drop the whole mess on the Internet.

CiT
Posted by: Crazy in Texas || 07/04/2004 8:13 Comments || Top||

#6  AC: Thanks for the stories--and for your service.
Posted by: Mike || 07/04/2004 8:58 Comments || Top||

#7  "POW’s and collaborators."
So who wrote this crap?
They are hostages,murdered by thugs and barbarians.
CiT,I like it.
Posted by: Raptor || 07/04/2004 9:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Destroy al-Jazeera and imprison those who fund it. Seriously.
Posted by: Chris W. || 07/04/2004 10:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Hanging, a proud British and American Tradition.

Or perhaps I should say, "In Praise of Hanging".

The Arabic Islamic cultures are very familiar with the practice of hanging, due to the British, and both respect it and associate it with dishonor. The reason being that all sorts of unpopular villains were hung, so it loses any trace of "martyrdom" associated in their minds with many other violent forms of death. A hanged Islamist would not go to heaven--not officially, mind you--but in the minds of the people.

I have heard it suggested that the new Iraqi government is considering adopting it as their new means of execution, though I'm not sure. But I think it would be a smashing good idea.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 07/04/2004 10:31 Comments || Top||

#10  Moose - at the very least they should hang Saddam and his cronies, as a message to the rest of the Arab world (who left them to suffer under Saddam for 30 years) as much as a method of dispatching the bastards to HELL.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 11:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Hey, even the 'enlightened' French figured out manual head removal was not clean or humane. Enter Dr. Guillotine.
Posted by: Don || 07/04/2004 11:15 Comments || Top||

#12  What good is a human punishment. When catch terrorists, let's re-introduce an old German favorite. Breaking on the wheel. Take a captured terrorist, tie him to the wheel, then take a mace or hammer and break all the bones in his arms and legs into multiple pieces. Then put the wheel up on top of a post so they die of exposure. According to German records, the longest anyone lasted is four days. It is humane? Hell no. But it is brutal and nasty and sends a very clear message.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 07/04/2004 12:19 Comments || Top||

#13  Hey, AC and Traveller, thanks for your service in Vietnam!
Might I recommend the fiction book "In Country" by Nelson Demille about a Vietnam vet who goes back and his impressions?
While I didn't serve in that war (graduated high school in '74) and have never been there, I think Demille did and the book struck me with his comparisons of then and now and how little the place had changed, particularly in the South.
Posted by: Jen || 07/04/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#14  My Dear Lady, Jen:

I must briefly sojourn beyond this country’s borders, but before I take my leave, I feel compelled to tell you how happily and yet oddly also your little thank you for our service, AC’s and mine, struck me when I first saw it this morning.

Coffee may be a restorative to a sleep weary spirit, but words of praise can discombobulate also. First, it struck me that this is the first time I have heard such a “Thank You.” I know that your words are sincere and I thank you back for them, but is does seem strange to finally hear this after all these years. I don’t know what to make of it. I am reasonably sure that AC would agree that we did what we did simply because it was our War, our time, and we simply did our best with no small measure of heroism, terror and passing periods of abject cowardice and fear. We were all just human and such an admixture of emotions seem to me at least not at all unusual. They were difficult times.

As you are aware, returning veterans of Viet Nam did not find much gratitude, and certainly not much solace for those of us that returned to college campuses. However, going to college was an opportunity I would never have had without my Army service considering my hard scrabble background. So, all in all, I suppose it was a fair deal all around.

In any case, thank you for the book reference, I will try to find it, and may I recommend back to you a fine slim volume titled, Viet Nam, the Necessary War, that may place all of this in a proper worldwide context.

I will ponder and reflect on the meaning of your small missive, and I give you every assurance that it was greatly appreciated.

Though we remain on opposite sides of the political aisle, I remain,

Sincerely,

Your Humble and Obedient Servant,

Traveller

(Oh, I’ve been reading 18th century text, and thought that I would just carry on in that vein...lol)
Posted by: Traveller || 07/04/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#15  CiT>there's a popular blog that Pershing, while stationed in the Philipines caught and executed 49 of 50 Muslim terrorists. Before their execution he had a dozen hogs slaughtered and thrown in a ditch; entrails, blood and shit all over the place. Pershing then had the muslims executed and threw their bodies into the same ditch w/the aformentioned dead swine. The 50th Muslim was sent free to tell his living compadres of what happens when you attack Americans. I'm not sure if the story is true, but I like the intent.

AC/Traveller> thanks for your service.

To all> Happy 4th.

Semer Fidelis,

Jarhead
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 16:48 Comments || Top||

#16  dittos here, gents and ladies who served - thank you!
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 17:10 Comments || Top||

#17  Dammit! I can't believe I typoed Semper. Well, I never claimed to be sharp.
Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 17:27 Comments || Top||

#18  Traveller, the book you recommend by Michael Lind sits on my shelf. I pull out that book anytime someone says My Lai to me. I ask them to read pages 151-156. Lind describes the North Vietnamese "Land Reform" program. That policy in practice was the deliberate execution of up to 15,000 people because they belonged to the wrong class - landlord farmers. (Thank you Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh and now Robert Mugabe for your innovations.) It was portrayed by our muck-racking vanguard press as a noble attempt to redistribute land to rectify "injustice". (Thank you Tom Hayden.) Then I ask them to see the difference between the murder of innocents by individual soldiers in an act of passion and the deliberate North Vietnamese policy of atrocity. Of the three crimes described above, I am tempted to believe the crime committed by the abettors in our press outweighs the North Vietnamese one - almost. Your service was in a noble cause, Traveller and AC, as noble as the fight against Hitler, the Soviets and Saddam. I thank you for it.
Posted by: Zpaz || 07/04/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#19  Jarhead:
"CiT>there's a popular blog that Pershing, while stationed in the Philipines caught and executed 49 of 50 Muslim terrorists."

I too have read accounts of Gen. Blackjack Pershings exploits against Moslem insurgents during the Philipine Campaigns. I have been unable to substantiate the stories involving the pigs, and the one freed fighter. I suspect it is a bit of historical fancy.

None the less, I would endorse it mightily, except I view it as a waste of tasty pork. So, that is why I propose feeding the Islamofreaks to the pigs. Alive of course.

I've been considering what could be done with the swine scat. Some rather interesting and provocative marketing scenarios come to mind.

To all who have served, Thank You! God bless!

CiT
Posted by: Crazy in Texas || 07/04/2004 19:14 Comments || Top||

#20  Jarhead
"Dammit! I can't believe I typoed Semper. Well, I never claimed to be sharp."

A few years back while doing some...work, at Fort Huachuca. There was a Gunny that used to ride his charges without mercy, especially the Marines.

He used to always ask them: "Marine, do you know what Marine stands for"? The only acceptable answer was, No GUNNY! One did not steal the Gunny's thunder.

The Gunny would then inform the hapless Grunt that Marine stands for:

(M)Muscles
(A)Are
(R)Required
(I)Intelligence
(N)Not
(E)Essential

That is all, carry on!

CiT
Posted by: Crazy in Texas || 07/04/2004 19:24 Comments || Top||

#21  "(M)Muscles (A)Are (R)Required (I)Intelligence (N)Not (E)Essential"

CiT> that's a new one on me. Some others:

Grunt - Ground Replacement UNTrainable

Pogue - Person Other then Grunt

ARMY - Ain't Ready for Marine Yet

Posted by: Jarhead || 07/04/2004 21:46 Comments || Top||

#22  Jarhead
"Grunt - Ground Replacement UNTrainable"

I had heard this one before, the other two were new to me. As an ex-Lower form of Marine life (Squid), I really appreciate these bits MilHumor.

Almost makes me nostalgic for my Navy days. Almost.

CiT
Posted by: Crazy in Texas || 07/04/2004 22:00 Comments || Top||

#23  Breaking on the wheel,feeding to pigs.all nice but I'd like to have these maggots read my bumper cticker("Nobody beats America:NOBODY!")while my rear wheels are grinding their face into hamburger.
Posted by: WhiteHouseDetox || 07/04/2004 23:06 Comments || Top||

#24  I'm a USAF vet:I tried to enlist in the Marines but I scored too high on the IQ test and was placed in the Air Force.
Posted by: WhiteHouseDetox || 07/04/2004 23:09 Comments || Top||

#25  rrriiiggghhht

and I got kicked out of the astronaut program for excessive testosterone
Posted by: Frank G || 07/04/2004 23:19 Comments || Top||

#26  Hey Trav, many came back not so whole, My brother went to VN a slick feilding second baseman. He came back a gutted junkie. He's now a broken man. Has done many years behind bars, He just got out of 3 months jail for parole violations, he didn't make his restatution. His GI bill went to learning how to do jouneyman level concrete work. But after a few years the meany took him back. Last year he had his heart attack. The VA Med. did him right. They saved his life. He has been lately trying to pay back their work for him by hanging out with the other meds at the VA.

To bad, another DA found out about his wherabouts and violated his parole again. 18 months Trav. Asshole that he is. So please don't pin the donkey on your chest. Yes VN service, way to go. bad luck for some, good luck for others.
Posted by: Lucky || 07/04/2004 23:45 Comments || Top||

#27  Lucky, more than 3 million people served in Vietnam during the war. Traveller and I have apparently done quite well in the years since, but (if I may presume to speak for Trav) we are very much aware that this is not true of everyone.
It irks me though that the unfortunate minority became representative of all VN veterans, which is demonstrably an injustice and a slander.
The great majority of Vietnam veterans are productive, law-abiding citizens now nearing retirement age.
It has been demonstrated over and over that many of the most disturbed "veterans," including some featured on network documentaries, were not veterans at all but impostors.
Not only are those vets with difficulties falsely portrayed as typical, but they are often falsely portrayed in and of themselves.
The number of homeless vets, for example, is miniscule compared to those who battle heroically (yes, heroically) against emotional and psychological problems while still trying to function in society.

I was an aviator, a pretty cushy job by most standards, especially compared to humping a rucksack through the bush. I slept indoors and ate hot chow almost every day.
On the other hand, our fatality rate was about 1 in 5 and I backed up my .45 with a cyanide capsule after I learned what happened to captured flyers in the South or Cambodia (as opposed to the North, where they had some propaganda value.)
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 07/05/2004 0:09 Comments || Top||

#28  AC, I know! My service was a shoe shine operation. But the hollywood version of vets screwed is very real to me. It's not a lie always. My brother Mike is a poster child of that hollywood version.

There is always going to be this gray area regarding wht went on in VN. That those in charge of the ops were so blind to how to fight a war without any thought to what victory meant.

May I say, that I've jousted with Trav a few times, but only in jest. His comments are always sober and well intended. But most of the folks I knew who went to VN, not all, came back screwed, dead or missing things. That was war.

Mike was giving back, but, oh well, mandatory sentencing means 18 months. I hope he servives AC.

Posted by: Lucky || 07/05/2004 0:27 Comments || Top||


Iraqi, Not U.S., Cash Spent on Rebuilding
The U.S. government has spent 2 percent of an $18.4 billion aid package that Congress approved last year after the Bush administration called for a quick infusion of cash into Iraq to finance reconstruction, according to figures released Friday by the White House.
This a WP hit piece. It gives the impression that the CPA was incredibly inept. It does so by implying that money disbursed is the same as money obligated. They are either incredibly ignorant or incredibly mendacious. Take your pick.
Only $366 million of the $18.4 billion U.S. aid package had been spent as of June 22, the White House budget office told Congress in a report that offers the first detailed accounting of the massive reconstruction package. U.S. officials involved in the reconstruction blame security concerns and bureaucratic infighting between the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House for delays in the allocation of funds. By the time the Pentagon’s contracting office in Baghdad began awarding contracts, the risk of kidnapping and other attacks aimed at foreign workers was so dire that many projects never began. Several Western firms that won contacts have summarily withdrawn their employees from Iraq.
More WaPo spin. See, the idea is that the US is incompetent. Actually, the key measure of the amount of funds on contract is not mentioned.
Fewer than 140 of the 2,300 reconstruction projects that were to be funded with the U.S. aid package are underway, the officials said. Officials with the contracting office contend the amount of money actually spent does not reflect the full scope of work being performed. A more accurate figure, they said, is the amount of money allocated for reconstruction work. Just over $5.2 billion had been allocated as of June 22, according to the White House budget report. "The money that is disbursed is typically not disbursed until the work is completed, so it doesn’t give the best picture of what’s going on," said John Proctor, a spokesman for the contracting office. "Some of our projects take months, or even years, to complete."

Spending patterns have been different with the Iraqi money. The Coalition Provisional Authority, the now-dissolved U.S.-led occupation administration, spent or locked in for future programs more than $19 billion from the $20 billion Development Fund for Iraq, which was established by the U.N. Security Council to manage Iraq’s oil revenue, said Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, the watchdog arm of Congress. Two former CPA officials involved in contracting issues said the CPA spent money from the development fund faster because it was not governed by the same rules requiring competitive bidding as the money from Congress was.
Posted by: RWV || 07/04/2004 12:28:40 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll take "incredibly mendacious" for $200, Alex.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 07/04/2004 0:30 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
64[untagged]

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2004-07-04
  6 hurt in Kabul work accident
Sat 2004-07-03
  Iraqi oil-for-food investigator bumped off
Fri 2004-07-02
  Jordan may send troops to Iraq
Thu 2004-07-01
  10 al-Houthi hard boyz bumped off
Wed 2004-06-30
  Sammy to face death penalty
Tue 2004-06-29
  US expels 2 Iranians; videotaping transportation and monuments in NYC
Mon 2004-06-28
  Iraqi handover of power takes place 2 days early
Sun 2004-06-27
  10 Afghans Killed After Vote Registration
Sat 2004-06-26
  Jamali resigns
Fri 2004-06-25
  Another strike on a Fallujah safehouse
Thu 2004-06-24
  Fallujah ruled Taliban-style
Wed 2004-06-23
  Saudis Offer Militants Amnesty
Tue 2004-06-22
  Korean beheaded in Iraq
Mon 2004-06-21
  Iran detains UK naval vessels
Sun 2004-06-20
  Algerian Military Says Nabil Sahraoui Toes Up

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
44.210.240.31
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Background (16)    (0)    (0)    (0)    (0)