A Yemeni Interior Ministry official escaped a bid on life when an explosive device blew up under his car in Sanaa yesterday, police said. They said the device went off minutes after Col. Abdullah Arab, interior minister's deputy assistant, left the vehicle outside his home in the northern Sanaa suburb of Jiraf. No one was injured in the explosion that left the vehicle severely damaged. The blast blew out windows of Arab's house and adjacent houses. Security forces cordoned off the area and police experts began an investigation.
"Fatima! Throw me another roll of toilet paper!"
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Make light of it, by all means, But until the US is ready to understand a world in which all parties involved know what the others are doing, it won't get far in the SAIT.
Posted by: anon and want to stay that way ||
07/30/2005 1:56 Comments ||
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#2
SAIT:
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
South African Institute of Tribology
Society for Auditory Intervention Techniques
Silly Anonymous Infantile Troll
"a world in which all parties involved know what the others are doing"
Yemen will soon receive seven detainees to be released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by the US Army, Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr Al-Qerbi said in remarks published here on Thursday. âThe US authorities have decided to free seven Yemenis from the Guantanamo base and hand them over to Yemen,â the minister told the Defense Ministryâs newspaper â26 Septemberâ.
The minister said that âYemen has received an official noteâ from Washington confirming the intention to transfer the men to their country. An ad hoc Yemeni commission was set up by the government to follow up arrangements for the handover, said Al-Qerbi. The seven Yemenis are among 25 men cleared by a US military Administrative Review Board, which considered them no longer posing a threat to the United States or its allies. Al-Qerbi did not say whether the men would face prosecution in Yemen or be freed.
Around 500 detainees are held at the US naval base detention facility, most of them were captured during the 2001 US-led military attack on Afghanistan that toppled the Taleban hard-line regime. Yemeni authorities are still checking the nationality of 110 Guantanamo captives who are thought possibly to be Yemenis.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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THE family of Zambian-held London bombings suspect Haroon Aswat said overnight they feared he may be extradited to face torture in the United States, and criticised Britain's handling of the situation.
The British national is suspected of links to the July 7 London terror bombings and is also wanted by US authorities over alleged attempts to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon.
"We are extremely concerned, distressed and disappointed by the attitude of the British government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in not providing consular access to Haroon," the man's family said in a statement.
British officials have refused to comment on reports that Aswat is the suspected mastermind behind the July 7 blasts that killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers, in three blasts on the London subway and one on a bus.
Aswat, 31, who hails from West Yorkshire in northern England, was detained on July 20 and is being held in the Zambian capital Lusaka, police confirmed Saturday. Britain was understood to be seeking access to Aswat.
His parents, originally from India but who now live in Batley in West Yorkshire, the county home to three of July 7 suicide bombers, blasted the failure of British authorities to contact him.
"It is very worrying that after more than 10 days the British government is still unable to verify that the British citizen detained is actually Haroon," they said.
"Our son, albeit estranged for many years, is surely entitled to the presumption of innocence, as any other British citizen.
The family noted press reports that unnamed British officials are in discussions with the US government over extradition of Aswat. "Yet our government and the FCO is dilly dallying and does not have the decency to confirm Haroon's detention."
"We wonder whether the government's attitude would have been any different if it was a white, non-Muslim citizen detained in a foreign country?" they said.
#1
They need a serious dose of STFU. These people (his "family") have no standing to speak of anything. This useless little prick is butt buddies with Osama and they have the balls to open their mouths. FOAD and be glad you are not locked up you worthless swine.
#6
"We wonder whether the government's attitude would have been any different if it was a white, non-Muslim citizen detained in a foreign country?" they said.
Uh, NO, not if he'd been one of the prime suspects in a terror bombing with 52 dead.
But then the supply, if not also the demand, of white, non-Muslims suspected in terrorist attacks seems to be pretty non-existent.
('Cept for old Johnny Jihad from Kalifornia.)
They've got this guy on numerous CCTV images carrying out the bombings: Play the race card but it's a joker.
Oh, and lady, the U.S. doesn't "do" torture. More's the pity.
#7
Yup, they're playing the race card. But so are you, Jennie.
But then the supply, if not also the demand, of white, non-Muslims suspected in terrorist attacks seems to be pretty non-existent.
For now, anyway. The IRA is quiescent after 7/7 and 7/21; that could change easily enough. FARC is lying low while Chavez pretends to be Santa Claus for South Americans but that could change too. And the MS-13 cop killers haven't tortured anyone lately, that has made the papers in this country any way.
Your eagerness to torture others is pathetic, Jennie. And you may or may not be accurate in saying that noone associated with the U.S. is torturing others in this war on terror.
Yes, it's a war. Yes, it's dirty. Let's not revel in it, okay? Or if you must, then go do it in your own name and not in mine.
Posted by: too true ||
07/30/2005 18:16 Comments ||
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#8
But, too true, the drive to cross international boundaries in order to actively target and kill large numbers of civilians by means of stealth is something unique to Islam. All Muslims are not terrorists, nor are all terrorists Muslim but damn near all large scale acts of international terrorism are perpetrated in the name of Islam. Note the key term "Islam". That is a religion and not a race hence any argument about "playing the race card" are specious.
#9
Speaking of playing "cards," I'm going to play one:
I'm sick to death of everyone picking on me and my views (which are pretty much like that of men here on RB) as if they were singular just because I'm a woman.
I know we don't engage in torture, but if they had to use it in interrogations at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib to get information they thought would save lives or stop future attacks, I don't have a problem with it.
And Islam isn't a "race," it's a religious/political system.
"too true," you sound suspiciously like "rkb." Same person?
If not, you should get together for coffee, preferably not here.
#11
Good for you that Fred made you a mod.
I was merely suggesting that you and tootrue could get together someplace else not that you leave the forum.
As for you being a woman (who hides behind neutered initials), you're not a warmongering, Right Wing neocon lady like me.
That's why I'm attacked.
#12
Well, Jennie, I'm opposed to torture (not sleep deprevation or stuff that fraternity would do, but real torture) not because of the poor widdle terrorists, but for our own sake. I could order troops to assault a position, but I don't think I could order them to actually torture a prisoner.
(No, I don't use My real name here, but there's a link to My personal home page that even gives a picture and a map to My house.)
#13
THE family of Zambian-held London bombings suspect Haroon Aswat said overnight they feared he may be extradited to face torture in the United States
Cry me a f*****g river...
Jennie... I am on your side. If this group of evil coagulated Homo sapiens DNA will spill beans of future endeavors, if some emphasis is placed on his personage, I have no problem either...
Bring him to Gitmo - All the left wing senators and ACLU sycopants say we are using Gulagian tactics there. OK let's use them...
Tell me where to find a rack, iron maiden, or better yet a bucket of lard to spread in his holding cell...
#14
As for you being a woman (who hides behind neutered initials), you're not a warmongering, Right Wing neocon lady like me. That's why I'm attacked.
No, Jennie, you are being attacked because you attack others and impugn their motives if they dare disagree with you.
As far as my identity, some here at RB know exactly who I am.
As far as my own stance on the matters under discussion, you clearly haven't a clue re: 'warmongering'.
And on the neocon front? I was a houseguest of Herman Kahn in the 70s, a classmate of mine was the daughter of Midge Dector, I was taught by close friends and colleagues of Leo Strauss. Some of us had ringside seats for the birth of the neocon movement, Jennie.
It would be prudent for you not to make allegations about people when you don't have the facts.
THE two terror suspects caught in West London demanded cops respect their HUMAN RIGHTS during the siege on their flat.
A witness said: âI heard one of them say âIâve got rightsâ.â
And an astonished security source said: âWe could not believe our ears when we heard them moaning about their human rights.
âWhat about the rights of the innocent people we believe they wanted to kill?
âWhat about the rights of the 52 people murdered by the four
suicide bombers on July 7?â
Bus bomb suspect Muktar Mohammed-Said and alleged Oval Tube attacker Ramzi Mohammed also told police they were too scared to come out of their flat.
Delivery driver Alex Ospina â who lives on the estate where the arrests were made â said he heard one of the men shouting to police.
Alex, 31, said: âThe police were saying âCome outâ, but the guy was saying he was scared.
âHe was saying: âHow do I know youâre not going to shoot me like the guy in Stockwell Tube station?â
âThe police told him: âThat was a mistake, itâs not going to happen.ââ
The speed of the police operation meant many terrified residents were trapped in their flats as cops stormed the building in Dalgarno Gardens, Notting Hill.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/30/2005 13:03 ||
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#1
Actually, the proper sequence of events should have been:
âHe was saying: âHow do I know youâre not going to shoot me like the guy in Stockwell Tube station?â
âThe police told him: âThat was a mistake, itâs not going to happen.ââ
"Hokay, we're coming out!"
"BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!!!"
"Sorry."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/30/2005 13:48 Comments ||
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#2
Better that catch them alive. They'll be singing.
#3
My "Human Rights" multiculturally-granted liberal rights for Muslims include access to generous taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, free housing, narcotics if I choose, free love sex with de white ladies, taxpayer subsidized "barristers" (lawyers), errr ... let me see, did I leave anything out?
#4
A witness said: âI heard one of them say âIâve got rightsâ.â
Unfortunately, the Brits will probably proceed as if this is true. The reality is, none of the bombers, or their supporters, have any rights.
o No uniform.
o No identifiable chain of command.
o Not openly carrying arms.
o Purposefully attacking civilian targets.
Milk them for whatever information they have. Then hang them in front of the Finsbury mosque.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
07/30/2005 14:33 Comments ||
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#5
Mike,
If I may...
"I'm afraid"
"That was a mistake"
"OK,I'm coming out"
BangBangBangBang
"Ooops,this is an accident."
Posted by: Stephen ||
07/30/2005 14:46 Comments ||
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#6
You know, the issue isn't that he doesn't have human rights -- the issue is how to balance those with the rights of others to survive and not be terrorized.
If I *knew* he was guilty of atrocities, I'd not have much sympathy for his own suffering thereafter -- although I think it is bad *for us* to be sadistic as revenge.
But of course we're not absolutely certain he is guilty here. So for *our sake* I think it's worth keeping the possibility of innocence open for now.
It's not that I share either the Euro relativism disease or a lack of anger about the attacks. I'm just concerned that we come through this period of history with as much of our values intact as we can -- while first and foremost defending ourselves.
#8
I'm just concerned that we come through this period of history with as much of our values intact as we can -- while first and foremost defending ourselves.
Right now, Job One is to keep ourselves intact.
Our values are no good to us if we're killed.
The Brit cops were kept at bay from these scumbags for 30 minutes, trying to talk them out of the apartment.
TV film showed that there were small children only 2 floors below.
Mass murderers who claim "human rights" for themselves while depriving others of theirs, including the right to live, should be given no quarter.
This is nothing but the IslamoNazis working our liberal legal benefit for their own ends and the U.K., sad to say, is one of the best places to do it.
Working the system has worked out very, very well for the evildoers.
The capture of these men shouldn't give us pause to worry about whether we're forsaking "human rights"--Clearly, we're not.
All the bad guys care about is staying alive another day because it's an opportunity to kill more kaffir and infidels.
If wheedling and whining with the cops (with lawyers) is their way to avoid the consequences of their actions, they'll certainly do it.
And here in the U.S., we have the spectacle of a judge giving the Millenium bomber a lenient sentence with time served, not the death penalty.
If his bomb(s) had gone off, there would have been thousands dead at LAX.
Usually, you're pretty reasonable, rkb, but not here.
Most of these criminal defendants are illegal immigrants, yet we're according them the same rights as citizens.
This case offers more proof that the law enforcement/domestic criminal prosecution of terrorists doesn't work.
Maybe it's time for both British and American soldiers to handle terror incidents and not our local police, with arrested suspects being taken to Gitmo, not the local pokey, for trial and execution.
There are worse things than dying. One of them is to throw away your integrity.
Now I'm not saying we're doing that ... not yet. But it can happen, it HAS happened to other civilizations in the name of security -- and it's worth keeping in mind.
#10
rkb, ah, so then we can then be the Noble Dead.
Trust me, if the Islamists win this war, they won't be reflecting on our superior values when we're they've murdered us all.
If they're able to set up the Kaliphate in a Muslim world, some of them might wish to have us and our values back, but by then it will be too late and none of us will be around to implement them.
The U.S. and our values got through WWII just fine even though we put all Japanese Americans into camps for the duration.
The Brits became such Germanophobes during WWI that they expunged all German names from daily usage--this applied to the Royal Family, formerly named Battenburg, changed to Mountbatten--and to dogs where German shepherds were renamed "Alsatians."
There are certain measures that must be adopted in wartime when lives are at stake that seem "uncivil" and extreme in peacetime.
So far in this war, I've seen very few "miscarriages of justice" in relation to war criminals; in most cases, liberal Western justice has only succeeded in freeing bad guys that we end up either fighting later or jailing again for the same reasons.
"Better dead than rude or unjust." is the motto for only deluded liberals who may or may not still be alive when the smoke from this clears.
#11
[T]he issue is how to balance those with the rights of others to survive and not be terrorized.
Ummm, no. Whatever sort of "human rights" these scum might have had, they clearly surrendered them the moment they decided to attempt to carry out terrorist acts. After all the term "human rights" presupposes that we're deaing with humans and I find these Islamofascist scum to be unworthy of association with the term "humanity" in any sense of the word.
#12
The U.S. and our values got through WWII just fine even though we put all Japanese Americans into camps for the duration.
You know, I've been around RB for several years and know how it functions for various readers. So I'm not going to get into a long debate on this one at this time.
But I think you're a bit naive about the impact on us of our actions in WWII - which I am not criticizing, by the way.
I've had long talks with a lot of WWII servicemen. Some of them were highly decorated war heros -- including my uncle/godfather. In their unguarded moments they've told me a bit about how they live with themselves after what they did and what they saw done. And I work every day with combat veterans from more recent wars.
Too, I've watched our country for a good long while now.
Like my uncle, this country was wounded by some of our actions in past wars. And like my uncle, we seldom talk about the fact that we're in pain. Today is the anniversary of nuclear holocaust. I don't take that lightly and I know it has shaped us since. America does what it needs to do -- but when we do something like drop atomic bombs on civilian populations it costs something inside.
So too when we hate.
Yes, yes ... tell me all about the necessities of war and the bravery of soldiers. I know all that - maybe better than some here, although less immediately than others. And blow off steam here, and find those who share your concerns, as I do, about where events are taking us. RB is a good place for that and I treasure it.
But don't try to convince me that we take necessary actions at *no* cost to ourselves. I know it's not true.
#13
rkb, aren't you forgetting that we've already incurred costs to ourselves?
There are 3,000 families of loved ones who died in the 9/11 attacks who've paid the price of us letting the Islamofacists kill with impunity...and that's just one instance.
Furthermore, I can't think of anything in Life worth mentioning that has no personal cost.
It's about responsibility, choices and consequences.
The soldiers I know about say that they did what needed to be done and that their consciences are clear.
Sometimes, war *is* the answer.
Are we lesser people for interring the Japanese during WWII?
I can't see it--there are millions of Japanese and Japanese Americans who are an integral part of our country now, as is Japanese life and culture.
Japan is now a strong ally in this war and the ties between the 2 countries have never been better.
The Japanese "forgave" us using the bomb.
Remember it took 2 to effect their surrender.
We saved thousands, if not millions of lives, by using the bomb and taught Japan an enduring lesson, because they, too, like our Islamist enemy, had embraced and were motivated by a "poisonous ideology," that of Bushido.
There is a war that Americans have agonized over and which has caused a lot of unhappiness to us and that was the Civil War.
Both North and South believed themselves to have superior "values", but only one side was right.
President Lincoln knew that in order to save the republic, it had to be proven that inexorably, one side--the right side with the better values-- had to fight and win the war, knowing well that there would be thousands dead.
To accomplish this end, he suspended the "human right" of habeas corpus for the duration of the war.
Our situation today is completely analogous: There may be some things we have to do for the war's duration to make sure that we win this war and that our values triumph in order for those values to survive, not to mention so that there will be fewer casualties from the enemy.
Letting the ACLU, Amnesty Int'l, the Hague and the UN determine the rules of engagement isn't one of them.
#14
Jennie, you're arguing with the wrong person when you say "sometimes war is the answer". I got that one, okay?
As far as the cost of 9/11, my daughter was a mile from the twin towers, friends of ours were in the wing of the Pentagon that was hit. Several of my neighbors work - or worked - as police and firefighters in NYC. Okay? I *get* that war has been declared on us.
And who said anything about the ACLU and the UN determining our actions? Not me.
I used words like 'integrity'. That's a wholly other, different and higher authority for judging our words and deeds.
#15
No doubt some one/group/government/whatever will find a way to blame the good ol' USA. When the USA finally [they were called "isolationists" in the last century] get their way, in some November in the future, WHO will they [fill in the lazy group here]blame then? Our forefathers for 2 centuries have sacrificed so we [evil Americans] can have the quality of life we live now. The rest of the world needs to stop their "belly-aching" & fix their own problems, & stop figuring new ways for America to "get involved". We'll be happy to help, but we're tired of being "the fall guy" for everybody else. Forget the 50,000 troops coming back, bring 'em all back, turn the corn the EU/Africa doesn't want anyway into Biodiesel or ethanol for our cars. Sorry for the rant, but this is current line of thinking in America. Just shut down the borders & take care of our friends.
#16
Jennie, if we're not going to bother with trying to maintain some sort of rights for citizens at home then IMHO we're bothering with the war for nothing.
To me, the whole point of the war was to make foreign governments fearful of supporting terrorism so we wouldn't have to take drastic action dometically and hope everything will work out when the electoral wheel turns and the President wielding all the dictatorial power is someone who looks at foreign terrorism as a "law enforcement problem" but who is a big fan of the Janet Reno school of law enforcement.
We've been down the road of protecting ourselves from foreign terrorists by giving the police extra law enforcement powers against local citizens; it was called the Clinton Administration, and it didn't work.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/30/2005 18:38 Comments ||
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#17
Integrity?
That word is meaningless in this context.
The IslamoNazi killers believe themselves to have integrity every bit as much when they kill infidels as any conscientious objecter to war.
Could I kill one if they were trying to kill me and my family and friends and still have "integrity?"
You bet.
In fact, my sense of integrity would actually be strengthened.
It's only when something is attacked that we truly find out that it's "worth fighting for."
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are worth fighting for.
Ask the Israelis, who so quickly will drop their guns to embrace peace.
It was only when they formed the nation of Israel, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, that they discovered they'd have to fight for their lives and liberties.
And it was men like my dad in the U.S. Army who fought Nazis, saw that Hitler was defeated and who liberated the death camps
who helped make the existence of Israel as a free, democratic state possible (in a long-range way, along with freeing Germany and the rest of Europe from Nazi domination).
I'm so proud of him (now long dead) and of every other soldier who's defended Freedom in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War, Gulf War I and now the WOT.
Everywhere we've fought a war, there have actually been many more lives saved than had we not joined battle and everywhere we've fought a war, we've left a land that is more free to enjoin peace.
I love this country and I love our military, present, future and our vats from wars past.
(That goes for our Allies, too.)
The only Higher Authority we have to answer to is God.
Why is it only with this war that we've done such Hamlet-like navel-gazing?
This is a luxury of peacetime which is a luxury we really don't have and for the deluded few who still don't "get it," the time they think they'll have for soul-searching is running out.
With every attack by the IslamoFacists, the number of philosophers, apologists, and ethicists dwindles.
Be sure and read all the articles on the failure of multiculturalism in the UK that have been ubiquitous since the 7/7 London
bombings.
If any people tried to respect human rights and have their "integrity" about IslamoFacism, it was them.
But as this story points out, no more.
Even in gun-hating, extremely liberal Britain, you today have heavily armed cops storming an apartment house with tear gas and making terror suspects strip naked and on live TV.
We are at war and the only option is to choose sides and then grab your weapons.
Pacifism and conscientious objection aren't an option anymore.
#18
Keeping our values intact. What is this horseshit?
Some foul things were done during WW2 in order to win. Our values were not compromised at all. Same thing with the Korean conflict and Vietnam. War is hell, hellish things happen. Much better to get it over with fast and brutal so healing can begin than to play games and let the conflict go on for decades because we're worried about our values being compromised.
If we lose I think we can all be sure our values will be compromised.
#20
Some foul things were done during WW2 in order to win. Our values were not compromised at all. Same thing with the Korean conflict and Vietnam. War is hell, hellish things happen.
Foul things were done. I'll disagree that our values were not compromised, but set that aside for the moment.
Heroic things were done, too.
We must do what we must do. What I will NOT do - but what Jennie and some others at RB DO do, is to pretend it's all fine and dandy. To wallow in the prospect of many deaths from nuclear attack, or casual use of torture along the way.
We will, as I said, do what we need to. But let's not pretend it's all sweetness and light or that we don't pay a price for doing it.
We do - and it IS an inner price and it DOES take a toll on our integrity.
Jennie, I'll respect your claims a lot more once you've actually killed someone and seen them die in front of you. If you don't feel like vomiting at that point, you and I part company in a very fundamental way. Because I do shoot, and I can shoot, and I will protect myself if I need to-- but I'll never feel triumpant about the prospect.
And neither do the combat veterans I most respect.
"Integrity? That word is meaningless in this context."
Then that's the difference between you and me."
This appears to be really stinging and decisive as a comeback, but it isn't.
One shouldn't try to occupy the moral high ground when they don't possess it and haven't taken it and you haven't.
To quote the great Rudy Guiliani, "We're right and they're wrong."
*THAT* is ingrerity.
We can be right and still pay a terrible price for doing what we need to do. It has happened before and I don't doubt it will happen again. It happened when we bombed places in Iraq and civilians with no connection to the Saddam regime other than as victims suffered.
It will happen again. We will defend ourselves and with luck will survive. But it's only on TV and in kid's stories that that happens without any lasting cost.
We must do what we must do. What I will NOT do - but what Jennie and some others at RB DO do, is to pretend it's all fine and dandy.
I don't pretend that it's all "fine and dandy."
Just the contrary, I hate this war and I hate that we have to fight it, but we do.
Or to wallow in the prospect of many deaths from nuclear attack, or casual use of torture along the way.
Nor have I "wallowed" in deaths from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You'd have to ask Truman, Tibbets and others if they "wallowed."
By 1945, the Japanese had killed plenty of us and vice versa.
Our generals felt that the U.S. could easily have 1,000,000 dead GIs if we'd chosen to invade Japan and no telling how many dead Japanese.
As for the "casual use of torture," I've seen absolutely nothing that leads to me to believe that any American, civilian or soldier, has engaged in torture, much less casual torture although I wouldn't have a problem with it being used to get Gitmo detainees to tell what they know about future attacks if it would save lives.
Jennie, I'll respect your claims a lot more once you've actually killed someone and seen them die in front of you. If you don't feel like vomiting at that point, you and I part company in a very fundamental way. Because I do shoot, and I can shoot, and I will protect myself -- but I'll never feel triumpant about the prospect.
What made me feel like vomiting was the sight of my fellow American citizens hurling themselves to certain death 100 stories from the top floors of the burning WTC on 9/11!
I don't have to kill anyone yet, but I'm armed and ready to do so, if it becomes necessary.
Death is ugly. So is war.
As a strong supporter of the war, I've never felt "triumphant."
That I won't feel until we're victorious.
But I know we're doing the right thing.
I mourn every soldier killed or injured in the war.
I wish we didn't have to send our sons and daughters over there, but we do.
They need our support here at home, not whining and crying over the "costs" of war, the "ethicity" of war, or whether we "feel good" about it.
Feelings are for liberals and that's what got us into this mess in the first place--We refused to intervene in Iran in 1979 because Jimmy Carter didn't want to hurt the "feelings" of the Ayatollah and he "respected the integrity of their 'freedom' movement.
Bill Clinton pulled us out of Somalia because it "didn't look nice" that we were having to use armed soldiers to carry out a peace-keeping mission to distribute food.
We found out too late after 9/11 that Osama Bin Laden had armed those killers in Mogadishu.
Now, they're picking up terrorists that tried to bomb London in Somalia.
What goes around comes around.
Daniel Pearl had a "peacenik" attitude somewhat similar to yours, rkb, and look what happened to him.
Ditto for Nicholas Berg.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."--Edmund Burke
Enjoy your smug sense of amorphous "integrity"--I'd rather gauge mine by what I did or tried to do to stop evil men from carrying out their dark deeds while you would advocate doing nothing.
You've chosen sides whether you admit it or not and that's the wrong side, the evil side, the side that can and must lose.
#24
you would advocate doing nothing.
You've chosen sides whether you admit it or not and that's the wrong side, the evil side, the side that can and must lose.
Jennie, with that statement you demonstrate that you do not have a clue about what I actually am doing to support our war against extremist terror.
I won't pursue this any farther in this thread or others tonight. I think I understand your point of view.
#27
I have a feeling I am going to request someone getting modded and that someone is going to deserve it. Someone needs to cool off. We are not the side of evil here. Someone needs to back away from their keyoard and get a grip on their attitude.
Consider this a request for someone who is not on the editorial staff here to STFU for a while and get a grip.
#33
I was going to walk away from this, but I will add one last comment.
Azcat and Jennie:
I am the wife of a retired military officer, the daughter, niece, aunt, cousin and 2nd cousin of professional military. With the exception of 1 generation my family has been professional military for nearly 300 years. I had ancestors who fought for our side in the American revolution. I had close relatives at Bastogne, at Normandy, at Sicily in WWII. Several came back decorated. Several came back badly wounded.
I had close relatives in Korea, in Vietnam, in the missile silos during tense atomic alerts, on nuclear subs. A good part of my family died fighting against the tyranny of Stalin; others died fighting Hitler.
I work with and for our military today. "Work with" as in "employed by". "Work with" as in "share office, lunch, social gatherings, personal joys and sorrows with".
"Work with" also, on some occasions, as in "talk with young soldiers before they go to Iraq and with them -- and sometimes their widows -- when they come back".
I am proud of our military, I supported and support our actions in Iraq and elsewhere. And I also know that we pay a price for those actions, both directly and indirectly.
I've read the materials we use when training officers in the ethics of military operations. I've talked with combat veterans about those materials. You are incredibly presumptuous to assume that to discuss the effects of warfare and tactics on the soldier -- and on the country as whole -- is to be on the other side.
A few weeks ago we buried a young officer, a few days after his wife gave birth to their 4th child. We were there to honor his sacrifice and hers. We were there to grieve with them and to be proud with them.
So don't you begin to suggest that I am on the other frigging side of this war. Two months ago I sent a bunch of young people off to fight in it, including a woman I have become quite close to. One month ago I welcomed several colleagues back from it.
I have decorations on my wall from 3 star commanders for my small part in it, including a civilian medal.
You may disagree with my point of view. But you will not be allowed to go unchallenged if you suggest -- without having a clue about me or my work -- that I am on the other side.
#34
I didn't say that there wasn't a cost or price to be paid in war, rkb.
I said that it was worth it.
I appreciate your service to our military, even though you are compensated by money, too.
I support our military wholeheartedly and their mission and their Commander-in-Chief.
I mourn and pray for every soldier who's given the ultimate sacrifice of his or her life and I pray for the healing of those who've been wounded in battle.
The U.S. didn't start this war, but we're going to finish it.
Our troops need our support for what they're doing around the world and I think it's them and not us who should worry about things like the personal cost of war and whether they can "keep their integrity" by fighting and killing the enemy.
Be careful, however, that your civilian quibbling, ambivalence, ethical brow-beating and undue criticism of our country and its military doesn't result in the weakness of our forces and the strengthening of the enemy.
The Islamists are already in control of 58 countries, but they want the whole planet.
Maybe there are still a few places one can go to escape having to take sides or to be safe from attacks, but they grow fewer and fewer with every day.
Neither the U.S. nor the U.K. nor Australia are now one of those places.
#35
even though you are compensated by money, too.
You really are a nasty piece of work, Jennie, aren't you?
When my husband and I agreed to take our current jobs supporting the military -- after he had retired from active duty service and moved into private industry -- we took a pay cut.
Together we now earn 1/3 of what we did before we accepted these jobs (and could do again).
We're not unique, it's true of many of my colleagues as well, in and out of uniform. You really don't have a clue about the military community do you?
#36
RKB - My family's history with the US military may not span three centuries as yours does but that's because I, as so many others, am borne of immigrant stock and we have not had the honor of having three centuries in which to serve this nation.
Trust me RKB, I understand your "price" better than many: my father spent a year on the front lines mixing it up with the Germans in France and Germany in '44-45. I, and my family, paid the price for that service every day of his life but itâs not a badge to be lorded over others in the manner in which you employ it. Itâs merely the cost of our freedom and way of life, a cost it is the duty of every patriot to pay when called. Merely because my family has suffered doe not make me morally superior to others.
If WWII isnât your bag perhaps you'd like to hear about my mother's youngest brother who voluntarily enlisted in the Air Force during Viet Nam. He left home an honor student and returned a raving psychopath unable to care for himself. Mayhap the family's 30 year battle that with the Air Force to admit his service (yes, you read that correctly, it took 30 years for the Air Force to admit that my uncle had actually served) would sway you. Believe me, his numerous stays in various mental institutions werenât a picnic.
If that's not sufficient perhaps you'd like to hear about my brother who is currently serving in Iraq. On his second day in-country a jihadi drove alongside his convoy and detonated a car bomb destroying the truck behind the one in which my brother was riding. My brotherâs five (yes 5) children were a random decision and a few yards away from growing up without a father.
So please spare me the lectures on the personal costs of war as I experienced them every day of my life. I, and I assume most here, are intimately familiar with them. The salient point is not that costs will be borne by those who fight wars but that our principles, our ideals, are greater than any cost which we, or our families, will be asked to bear. Our ideals are greater than any man, greater than any cost we might be asked to bear, and that is why we must prevail.
I say it again: Bravo Jennie. RKBâs family may have bled so that she can express her opinion but what she it forgetting today is that mine, and I assume yours, bled so we can express ours.
#37
The salient point is not that costs will be borne by those who fight wars but that our principles, our ideals, are greater than any cost which we, or our families, will be asked to bear. Our ideals are greater than any man, greater than any cost we might be asked to bear, and that is why we must prevail.
I think we agree on that AzCat - and if you don't think so, go read what I wrote again.
I never said it wasn't worth it. I did say the costs are real and sometimes subtle.
As far as lording it over people, I only reluctantly cited my family's work and my own in response to rather nasty personal attacks from you and Jennie. It was YOU two who decided that anyone you thought disagreed with you is "on the other side" in the great and dangerous war we are fighting. It was Jenny who asserted that if I disagreed with her, I was advocating doing nothing and was on the side of evil. For instance, Jennie wrote:
I'd rather gauge mine by what I did or tried to do to stop evil men from carrying out their dark deeds while you would advocate doing nothing.
You've chosen sides whether you admit it or not and that's the wrong side, the evil side, the side that can and must lose.
That demanded an answer, and I gave it.
By the way, a small point, but only one half of my family has been here since before the Revolution. The other half served for a long time in their country of origin before immigrating to this country at the beginning of the 20th century.
#38
What an embarrassing thread. I can see it now in KOS Kids: "RB melts down!!"
As said earlier this week, my patience with the asshats is about exhausted. My patience with the moonbats ia also about exhausted. I see red when asshats and moonbats natter on about human rights.
But having said that, there is NOTHING more important than integrity - personal and national. Each individual makes judgements about his own integrity. The debate here at RB helps us to define what affects our national integrity.
There is no excuse for resorting to the Democratic Underground style of debate. We don't have chance if we call BS and and name enemies at the first sign of disagreement. If this happens, then integrity is already gone.
#39
RKB, what I object to is your citation to your familyâs service in an attempt to stifle debate as that is the antithesis of everything for which your ancestors (and mine) fought and died. Your family and mine spilt blood so that you, I, Jennie, and millions more would have the right to freely express ourselves. Your attempts to stifle such debate on âpatrioticâ grounds I find the height of hypocrisy. To hold your familyâs service forth as a badge proving the superiority of your perspective to that of your fellow man flies in the face of everything your ancestors bled to preserve.
#40
Guys, Fred Pruitt gives a lot of thought to those he's tapped to stand in for him as moderators. In the old days (pretty much before my time, but anyway) he was able to handle Rantburg all by himself, but he does have a day job, and a family, and every once in a while ought to take care of his bodily needs...
Anyway, rkb, known as Robin to those who know her better than I do, had a well-established reputation before she stepped up to the plate to help run Rantburg. She has had at least two blogs of her own, plus is one of the founding members of the Winds of Change warblog. Whether or not you like what she has to say, you should give her the same respect you would give to Fred. Or anyway, at least as much respect as she gets from the future army officers privileged to take in her lectures each week.
#42
How could this thread get so nasty without any trolls involved.
I think both sides are missing the most important thing: We witnessed not only a terrorist who just lost, but the ideology of terror lost.
1) The 2 guys GAVE UP, surrendered. "You treasure life, we treasure death" is the jihadi slogan. Who won here?
2) Even more important, a jihadi claims he "got rights". Human rights? Those rights are our rights, the values of the Western Civilisation which the jihadi just started to claim. His world does not have them, our world has. Who won here?
What rkb said is important: It's not about them, it's about us. We won't be dragged down to their level. No one can remain without fault in a war, not even Americans, but they have always tried so much harder to maintain dignity and integrity even in the most atrocious fighting. It's the American soldier who carries the wounded little girl (who could well be the daughter of an insurgent) out of the danger zone (the Nazi soldier might have shot her, the jihadi bombed her). It's an American soldier, a doctor, who provided first aid to a sniper who just shot at him. And even in the jungle hell of Vietnam most US soldiers maintained their integrity. Those who did not suffered later.
When you talk with Americans about Hiroshima today, the majority will defend it as strategic necessity, but they don't gloat over it. I don't know many Americans who would look at a photo of Hiroshima with scarred bodies and say: "So what, served the bastards right, they attacked Pearl Harbor."
This is what rkb means: Wars leave scars, returning barbary leaves bigger scars.
It will not help us if we try to be like "them". We need to fight them, and the fight will not always be error free. But we chose our weapons, not they.
#44
trailing wife... maintaining your dignity and integrity in the camps was the most important thing, more important than that little piece of bread that often meant the difference between life and death.
Those who stole the bread from their companions did not survive, even when not caught.
Lose dignity, lose integrity, and you lose it all. And you never recover it.
This is what the terorists want. And they won't get it.
I wish someone would make a poster: To the left Signore Quattrochi, who showed the terrorists "how an Italian man dies"... and to the right that bare-breasted jihadi with hands up and whining about his "rights".
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/30/2005 22:51 Comments ||
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#46
Well said, TGA. I couldn't read all the back and forth between two regulars, but I did like your point-of-view! For you, TGA:
Herr, Du kanst brucken bauen
Aus eis und frost
darum bitten wir dich im vertrauen
bau eine brucke zchwischen west und oest
das die menschen die nach frieden streiben
kann hier ouf erde im frieden leben
Apologies to Goethe for the spelling errors. I'm glad you contribute to Rantburg!
Tu nur das beste in deinen sachen
das andre wird sich von selbe machen!
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2005 22:53 Comments ||
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#47
"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
#48
TGA, #44 was just a great comment, at several levels. Thank you.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/30/2005 23:26 Comments ||
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#49
I'll make one last comment.
In the beginning hours of the first Gulf War, I was in constant radio contact with a downed A-6 pilot. His bombadier was dead, he was wounded and unable to move. We scrambled CSAR to get him. With the helo five minutes from his position, I got to listen to him say 'they're coming' and then hear him shot to death.
Days before the end of the Gulf War, I interviewed two emaciated Iraqi army officers who were taken as EPWs. After being without supplies for a month, under constant bombing (including MOABs), and a significant number of soldiers in their unit shot for trying to desert, they themselves deserted.
Now if I was a 'righteous patriot' like Ms. Taliaferro and AzCat, I should have just taken my .45 and let them have it, like the A-6 pilot got it, right? Or told the SEALs guarding them to take them on a 'midnight walk' to the fantail? Surely at the very least they should have had their mattresses, food and water removed?
What I felt was pity. And that is what makes us warriors different.
TGA is right. And if you can't understand what he and rkb are saying, well, I pity you too.
#51
"Now if I was a 'righteous patriot' like Ms. Taliaferro and AzCat, I should have just taken my .45 and let them have it, like the A-6 pilot got it, right? Or told the SEALs guarding them to take them on a 'midnight walk' to the fantail? Surely at the very least they should have had their mattresses, food and water removed?"
That's not what I said, Pappy.
And circumstances are different now than they were in Gulf War I; even Saddam's Iraq had signed the Geneva Convention and wore uniforms.
If those soldiers had surrendered, then absolutely what you suggest would have been wrong.
I think some of our dads who were in the Greatest Generation would surprise you if they were honest about what they did to either Japanese or Nazi prisoners who fell into their hands.
The jihadies are different: no uniforms, no officers, no Geneva signatories and they kill civilians as well as soldiers both here in the West and Iraq without warning and with no mercy.
War is no picnic and it's not a humanitarian mission.
That being said, our soldiers conduct it with as much respect for the enemy as human beings as they can without being reckless.
I marvel at their courage and compassion every day.
And if it's not OK to proclaim you're a patriot, when can you, if you're defending your country?
After 9/11, I'd gladly put on a uniform but I'm almost 50 and not in very good physical shape, even for a woman.
So I do what I can to fight for America.
The most senior Islamic cleric in Birmingham claimed yesterday that Muslims were being unjustly blamed in the war on terrorism and that the eight suspects in the two bombing attacks on London "could have been innocent passengers". Right....Kinda like the Unabomber being an innocent, anti-government, anti-technology hermit.
Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city's central mosque, called Tony Blair a "liar" and "unreliable witness" and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators. News flash from the 21st century. It is called forensic science and DNA dipwad.
He said that Muslims "all over the world have never heard of an organisation called al-Qa'eda". Right, and I'm really George Bush.
Mr Naseem, who was speaking after police seized Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham, delivered his unprompted outburst when he was invited to a press conference with West Midlands police and Birmingham city council to help calm fears of racial or religious tension after the arrest. Oh boy am I calm now. Mmmmhmm. Don't feel any threat by the Islamic forces. Nosireeee.
It was held near the police cordon in Heybarnes Road, where Omar was arrested.
His comments shocked senior police officers.
Sources said that attempts to encourage Muslims to pass them information on the bombers' activities would be hindered. One said: "We are trying to gain the trust of the Muslim community and these kinds of comments have the opposite effect. All they do is encourage communities to close ranks against us." Give this man a ClueBat
To the obvious embarrassment of council officials and police standing next to him, Mr Naseem said the Government and security services "were not to be relied upon". By all means, don't rely on them. Vigilantes work very well.
He said: "Tony Blair has told lies on going to Iraq and in a court of law if a witness has proved to be a liar he ceases to be a reliable witness. So we cannot give our blind trust to the Government. Which court of "law" is this? Moooslem courts in the UK don't count.
"To have that trust it is important that the process of law should be independent, open and transparent. I am also sad that unfortunately the impression has been given that Muslims are to be targeted in this war against terror. There seems to be a directive to target Muslims. Why do we not have an open mind about this? 'Cause Moooslems keep blowing us up, asshole! I'll open your mind, with a .45 hollowpoint if you even think of threatening my familiy.
"Muslim bashing seems to be more earnest than the need for national unity and harmony. Terrorists can be anybody - we will have to see [whether the bombers are Muslims]. The process is not open; the process is not transparent; the process is not independent. I do not have faith in the system as it stands." We don't have faith in you and your communities to keep the hate out of our countries.
Mr Naseem is one of the most respected by who?!?! Osama?!?! Muslims in the city and is considered a zelot moderate. He has regular meetings with the chief constable to discuss religious harmony. News flash, they will only have religious harmony with us when we convert to Islam, bonehead. Read the rest of this guy's spew at link. The UK is gonna be sorry they let this moron in.
#2
"Muslim bashing seems to be more earnest than the need for national unity and harmony. Terrorists can be anybody - we will have to see [whether the bombers are Muslims]."
EXACTLY!!! I knew all along it was either disgruntled soccer fans or joooos. Mossad, I figure.
I see his point. It's unlikely that it was muslims. Islam is the religion of pieces peace.
Seriously, this is the crap the gets said in PUBLIC by these a-holes. What is the dialogue among muslims that doesn't make it to the light of day? I'm sure it's all denial, blame and rationalization. They're simply not able to look at their own failings.
#3
The leaders like this asshat need to go. The others will get the message and STFU, or they will get ye olde heave ho, too. They can preach their brand of sickness until the goats come home in Pakistan.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/30/2005 11:51 Comments ||
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#4
Why the very picture of a modern moderate muzzie
#5
Wow, turn this diptard into a export product to BF Arabia. Please UK, get a clue. If this person is typical of the average "moderate muslim" they must go back to islamland or interment. No choice any more people.
Dave D's #6 6. EXPULSION & QUARANTINE- Expel all Muslims from the U.S., make the practice of Islam within our borders a criminal offense, and refuse visas-- even for the briefest of visits-- to all Muslims and all citizens from Islamic countries. Substitute UK for US. We are getting there.
This in addition to their usual stuff (Israel behind bombings in iraq, Zarqawi an american puppet with his deeds done on behalf of the coallition, Benedict XVI hand in glove with GWB,...)
They are left wing loonies, hysterically anti-christian, and while the voltaire Network had some good press before 9/11 (it even provided material for some parlementary investigation), it is now in full PCT mode, but remain influential in some circles (it is not viewed as conspiracy theory, but as dissident investigative work).
Exist also in english (for KOS readers), in arabic (for Zarq fans) and in spanish (for Hugo).
#7
"Naseem is one of the most respected Muslims in the city and is considered a moderate. "
One additional piece of evidence that these is no such thing as a "moderate Moslem" if by that we mean someone who adheres to Western social institutions of freedom (not submission), individual rights (not jihad) and respect for the law (not sharia).
The Mythical Moderate Moslem is mythical because there can be no moderation in being a Moslem. That is, no moderation in our Western, Enlightenment conception of political tolerance.
The time has come to arrest and execute their leaders, and kick any protesting Moslem out.
They are at war with us. Their war has been declared 1400 years ago and waged against non-Moslems ever since.
#8
I know! It's angry French/Germans that didn't get the Olympics! They used the same technology we used to "fake" 9/11, Pearl Harbor, & the Moon Landing!
#9
I wonder though. How is it the US and Israel are so able to manipulate all those muzlims? Only weak minded people could succumb to such obvious manipulation?
The head of London's police has condemned the use of a high-voltage stun gun to subdue a suicide bomb suspect in Birmingham as "an incredible risk", saying it could have set off explosives.
Shoot to kill or shoot to stun?
The warning came as New York police revealed a 35-year-old man who was shocked with a Taser stun gun while in a police holding cell in Queens, New York, on Thursday died a short time later.
In what amounted to a humiliating public dressing down for West Midlands Police, the Metropolitan Police chief, Sir Ian Blair, said his officers could not understand why the stun gun was used on Yasin Hassan Omar in a raid in Birmingham. Newspapers reported Omar screamed in pain as he received a 50,000-volt shock.
Speaking on BBC television, Sir Ian was highly critical when asked why the stun gun was used.
"I can't imagine how that was used. We use Tasers in London regularly but a Taser sends electric currents into the body of somebody. If there is a bomb on that body, then the bomb can go off."
New York police defended the use of the stun gun on a man who had been arrested on drug charges. They say he might have ingested crack cocaine before his arrest and that he had become ill in his cell. When medical personnel were called to help him, he became unruly and combative, the police said, and officers used the gun to subdue him.
The stun gun, which is manufactured by Taser International, an Arizona company, incapacitates suspects with an electrified barb that delivers the shock. The gun is marketed as a non-lethal option for law enforcement or personal security, but sales have been falling in recent months amid safety concerns.
More than 110 people have died after being shocked by a Taser, although medical examiners have rarely cited the gun as the cause of death.
Not very stunning
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/30/2005 02:50 ||
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#1
Against non-bombers I can see the concern, but I don't see why the worry of setting off explosives by accident isn't a concern. (No, the would-be bomber's life does not concern me, except that you can't necessarily get intel out of a corpse.)
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
07/30/2005 3:09 Comments ||
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#2
Tasers have never been held to be the sole cause of death, ever as far as I can determine, and in the amazingly few instances where they have received some share of the blame (110 total vs ~400 shooting deaths in Wash D.C. each year?) they have defended themselves and prevailed - every time. The MSM has had a woodie for "getting TASER" for awhile, now - and gets soundly bitch-slapped regularly for its bias and moronic inaccuracies. The Press Releases page at TASER demonstrates it rather clearly. USA Today is the latest moron outlet to step on its collect dick. A look will show just how inane the press can be - this one's a hoot, heh. The Medical and Stats info is here - they've been studied to death, pun intended. Hell, most people don't even realize TASER has made three different types of energy weapons: stun weapons (7-14W), EMD weapons (18-26W) and Shaped Pulse⢠(18-26W) weapons.
As for a TASER setting off explosives, you can find in that last link the actual electrical current delivered - 0.0021 to 0.0036 amperes. I leave it to any bona-fide munitions specialists, but I believe you would actually have to hit and penetrate an electrical blasting cap for there even to be a possibility of explosion.
Oooo, TASER's evil! Let's "get" em! Pfeh on all the fools.
#3
So they showed 0.0036 amps as 3,600 amps? What's a couple of zeros? They got 'em in the article, just misplaced their location. Simple proofreading error! They do use proofreaders, don't they?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2005 7:07 Comments ||
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#4
The Filth Column has been actively campaigning against Tasers for years. Here in Cincinnati, we had a riot because the activist community constantly lied about police actions; to take away one of their talking points, the police started using tasers.
Then, a massively overweight man with a heart condition and high quantities of crack in his system had a heart attack after he was hit with a Taser. The activist community has used that to go after Tasers.
They've also sued the police because a beanbag gun bruised someone.
Personally, I think we should issue the police automatic shotguns and put 50-cals on their cars. Screw this "less lethal" crap and dial the lethality up to 11. I bet we'd see a lot less crime in a week or so.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
07/30/2005 8:07 Comments ||
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#5
Taser, schmaser. The only antidote for a boomer is a single (or five-a-pop) .44 to the head while your partner has him pinned to the floor. If he turns out to be a stupid, chilled Brazilian electrician you can show it wasn't 'racial profiling' unlike the hippy-dippy journalist Whitby who called him "asian".
Posted by: Harry Callahan ||
07/30/2005 9:35 Comments ||
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#6
.com-
FWIW, we always maintained the utmost in electrical safety when working with electrical caps during disposal ops. I vividly remember a demonstration during tech school of an electrical cap being set off by static electricity - but in all those cases, there were exposed leads involved. Now, given the level of Jihadi expertise we've seen so far, I would be pretty much expecting exposed leads. On the other hand, given how the Taser works, short of direct contact between the darts and the exposed leads I don't think it would be a risk.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/30/2005 9:56 Comments ||
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#7
So the choices are:
1) Tase the suspect and take some risk of detonating a bomb (if he has one), and some risk of killing him (bad if he's innocent, bad if he's guilty & could have given information.)
2) Shoot the suspect in the head with certainty of killing him (with the associated bad consequences) and STILL some chance of detonating a bomb (dead man trigger, reflex action).
3) Talk to the suspect with a minimal risk of killing him, but a much higher risk of his detonating a possible bomb.
Evaluate the situation in 5 milliseconds, and come up with the correct answer.
#8
don't know what all the fuss is about. I've been near set off by many a teaser, sometimes one of them big hair gals make me feel like my spine is directly wired to a 240V outlet.
#10
Glenmore---The presentation of your logical alternatives is absolutely Spockian. It should be part of an MSM article describing what a law enforcement officer is up against with a bombing suspect.
[/wishful thinking]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/30/2005 11:58 Comments ||
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U.S. negotiators at talks in Beijing have presented North Korea with data that America says is evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang continued to deny such a program exists, U.S. officials said on Friday.
They said the evidence was obtained from disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan whose secret network sold nuclear technology to North Korea.
It was presented as part of U.S. efforts to unblock a key sticking point at the six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
"The negotiators presented them with some of the Khan evidence and they tried to deny it. But they always deny it. We have a lot of facts and they (negotiators) have given the North Koreans some of them," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
The evidence, handed over in bilateral meetings held during the multi-party talks, related to a covert program to produce highly enriched uranium, or HEU, which has been an issue since Washington said it uncovered it in 2002.
Pyongyang admits to producing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
The Americans say North Korea initially acknowledged also having a secret HEU program when accused of that by U.S. officials but has subsequently denied the program's existence.
The issue is critical because the United States is demanding in the six-country talks that Pyongyang dismantle all its nuclear activities, including the HEU program.
Although U.S. officials are confident the HEU program exists, they say they do not know where it is. North Korea has thousands of underground tunnels dug for military use.
U.S. officials speculated the continued denial of the HEU program suggested Pyongyang was digging in for long and tough negotiations. "Eventually, they may want to get something in return for coming clean on this," one official said.
He added that "the information that was passed on (to the North Korean negotiators) was information we did get from Khan himself," although the official could not say if it was from Khan directly or through the Pakistani government.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/30/2005 03:01 ||
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A BUTCHER linked to accused French terrorist Willie Brigitte was this month criminally charged with lying to ASIO during a secret hearing into an alleged Australian terror plot in late 2003. Abdul Rakib Hasan, 35, appeared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on July 12 after being served with a summons by the Australian Federal Police. The Weekend Australian can also reveal that six men have been interrogated at secret ASIO hearings over the past month in connection with an alleged plot to attack landmarks in Melbourne and Sydney. Two of the men were questioned in Sydney. The other four faced ASIO lawyers in Melbourne.
At least two of the Melbourne men are understood to have been detained by ASIO for up to 24 hours. ASIO lawyers can question witnesses for a maximum of three eight-hour blocks. The use of the secret hearing powers can be revealed because the 28-day life of the questioning warrants has now expired. However, no details about what was discussed at the hearings can be publicly disclosed for the next two years. Anyone found guilty of breaching the ban faces five years in jail. The ASIO raids in both cities followed an eight-month inquiry into a group of men whom police suspect may have been plotting attacks against two Melbourne train stations and the Australian Stock Exchange building. Police suspect some members of the group also scoped harbourside targets in Sydney in the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve 2003. They believe one former member of the group was Saleh Jamal, who has been arrested in Lebanon on terror charges after allegedly fleeing Sydney while on bail early last year using another man's passport.
The alleged plot is not linked to Brigitte, who is now detained in Paris under French anti-terror laws. Brigitte has been accused of being a senior al-Qa'ida member with strong links to the terror group's outlawed Kashmiri affiliate, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Mr Hasan faces two counts of making a false or misleading statement under an ASIO questioning warrant on November 8, 2003. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He is now the second man facing charges in relation to Brigitte's alleged plot to launch a terror attack in Australia after his arrival in May 2003. The other faces a Supreme Court trial in February on a charge of committing an act in preparation for a terror attack.
Brigitte has told French anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere that he met Mr Hasan in Sydney. He has reportedly identified Mr Hasan from a photo shown to him in Paris in December 2003. Mr Hasan, who works at a Halal butchery in Sydney's Islamic heartland, was bailed to appear again on August 16. He was ordered to surrender his passport and report each Monday to Campsie police station in the city's southwest.
ROME - A suspect in the failed London transit bombings admitted Saturday to a role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one, a legal expert familiar with the investigation said. "It was performance art, really!"
Osman Hussain told interrogators he wasn't carrying enough explosives even to "harm people nearby," the expert told The Associated Press. The expert spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation, which under Italian law must remain secret. "We thought that the public was getting jaded by the giant paper mache Bush puppets, so we decided to up the ante. You know turn it up to '11' like in Spinal Tap" More kitman and taqiya follow.
#1
This loser needs to go back to taqiya school.
On the one hand he says,"Muktar urged us to be careful....(w)e didn't want to kill, just sow terror." While his lawyer is saying Hussain .... doesn't consider himself a terrorist.... HUH? That's enough to cause whiplash.
The United States has charged a Dutch citizen with conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq, the first U.S. criminal case connected to terrorist activities there, the Justice Department said Friday. Iraqi-born Wasem al-Delaema, 32, was arrested in May during a raid on his home in the Dutch city of Amersfoort. On Wednesday, U.S. authorities filed a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington and asked the Dutch government to extradite him for prosecution.
Among the charges is conspiring to kill Americans overseas. U.S. authorities allege al Delaema was one of several men calling themselves the Fighters of Fallujah who plotted attacks near that Iraqi city in October 2003. Dutch prosecutors say they seized a videotape showing Fallujah-born al Delaema and other masked men describing how they laid mines along a road where a U.S. military convoy was expected to pass. The tape's Arabic-language commentary said, "These are the explosives. The American vehicles travel over this road. As they approach, we can detonate them with a remote control from a distance of 500 meters, so our people won't be in any danger."
Most attackers slip away unnoticed. When they are caught, they typically face charges in Iraqi courts set up to try people suspected of crimes against coalition forces, Venable said. What makes this case unusual is that al Delaema was arrested outside Iraq, in a country that has an extradition treaty with the United States. "This prosecution serves notice that we will make full use of the laws and resources of our criminal justice system to defend Americans, and particularly members of our armed forces, against terrorist insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere," said Kenneth L. Wainstein, the U.S. attorney in Washington.
Dutch Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said it will be up to the Dutch courts to determine whether al Delaema is extradited to America. Al Delaema's Dutch attorney, Victor Koppe, denied his client was involved with any attacks.
... and this is absolutely classic taqiyya...
"He was in Iraq to plan his marriage and was kidnapped by insurgents who thought he was an American spy," Koppe told Dutch television. It was unclear what would happen to three other Iraqi immigrants detained on the same day as al Delaema. Also seized in the raid were guns, ammunition, telephones and a computer.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Koppe is the Dutch Ummah's go-to lawyer. I still want to know who is paying his bills.
#2
I wouldn't worry about it too much, Seafarious. Were you nabbed -- I'm assuming you are a guy, thus nabbable in most US jurisdictions-- you'd want an unapolgetic defender like Koppe.
To my mind, Holland and the USA are kindred countries, both making promising attempts at arriving at real tolerance in an imperfect world. Others try - Britain and Italy, to take two examples -- but the mask of tolerance often conceals the ancient desire of local elites and would-be elites to be patrons. In Holland and America it is possible to think, if impolitic to assert, that one's children should prepare for a world in which immigrants are their equals.
What Americans often don't get, until it concerns their persons or loved ones, is that the point of America is to allow everyone to fight it out on the basis of agreed-upon rules . Gay-atheist-dopesmoking-greyhaired-ponytailed-apologist for genocide - defense attorneys are not the problem. They are the canary in the mine, almost as wierd as the rest of us. Once the bird expires, our bowhunting, handgun soirees, gundog training, and roughshooting are next.
To my way of thinking, the tasty bit of this story is the hell it should raise in Holland.
Two cents, less: worth less probably than the paper it's not printed on.
Posted by: anon and want to stay that way ||
07/30/2005 3:40 Comments ||
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#3
anon and want to stay that way
Too many assumptions, including that Seafarious is a guy.
I like the idea of arriving at tolerance in an imperfect world, but I believe youâre wrong if you think that can be based on anything other than universal moral absolutes. When you say, âthe point of America is to allow everyone to fight it out on the basis of agreed-upon rules,â it strikes me that you are promoting Utilitarianism and social deconstructionism.
In my book, the deconstruction of socio-emotional cognitive concepts and schemas, and the traditions and mores honored worldwide and cross-culturally over millennia, is not a good thing. It was not deconstructionism that resulted in the Reformation, in Abolition, or in Suffrage. Those redresses of societal ills all came from a bedrock of Natural Law belief.
That said, I do think this scum should be given a robust and strong legal defense (sorry, itâs an occupational hazard). The defense we give the worst of us primes the system for when innocents someday get caught up in it.Then, after that defense, the scum should be taken out and shot -- after being drug through the streets.
P.S. If the lawyer has been less than candid -- as opposed to simply doing what criminal defense attorneys do -- then he should go down, too.
#5
There are many more of those around in the Lowlands...The video which shows this GI being sniped down on his bullet proof vest....also 2 Dutch speaking arabs on the video......
Police searched the apartment where a Somali-born Briton was arrested Friday, as anti-terrorism prosecutors prepared to interrogate the man suspected in the July 21 bombing attempts in London.
"Guido! My truncheon!"
"Si, signore!"
"And my moustachio wax!"
A police expert wearing white gloves and a jumpsuit to avoid contaminating possible evidence could be seen inside the lighted apartment late Friday. At one point, police shoved aside an armchair, looked behind it and scrutinized the corners of a room.
"Ahah!"
"A clue, inspector?"
"Yes! They own a dog!"
"And...?"
"The dog is not well-trained!"
Two police dogs were taken into the apartment building where Osman Hussain was arrested. Hussain, a naturalized British citizen, was described by Italy's Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu as "the fourth attacker on July 21 in London."
"I think of myself as the first attacker, and the other guys as numbers two, three, and four..."
"Shuddup. Guido, hit him!"
"Owwww!"
Britain will ask Italy to extradite Hussain, said Peter Clarke, head of the anti-terrorist branch for London's Metropolitan Police. Hussain is accused of trying to attack the Shepherd's Bush subway station in west London. Police reportedly tracked him down by tracing his cell phone calls across Europe.
Go ahead. Brag about your sources and methods. You're gonna miss them when they're gone. Dumbasses.
The ANSA news agency said he was arrested at his brother's Rome apartment. The brother, who was not named, also was taken into custody, ANSA reported.
"Stick 'em up, brother-boy!"
In the evening, plainclothes officers unloaded two desktop computers and stacks of video cassettes from a sport utility vehicle, prompting speculation that the material had been seized from the apartment. A few hours later, police lugged in more computers. Two top Rome anti-terrorism prosecutors arrived Friday evening at police headquarters. Police officials said they had not yet started to interrogate Hussain.
"Yeah! We ain't even started on you yet, Hussain!"
"[Whimper!]"
Metropolitan Police told Italian officials that a cell phone call intercepted at one of the July 21 bombing sites belonged to someone who lived in Rome, RAI state TV reported. Two days ago, the cell phone moved from London to Paris, then Milan to the apartment in Rome, RAI said. Italian police entered the apartment Friday, where they found Hussain with the phone, RAI said. ANSA said he offered no resistance.
"Hi, there, Hussain! Nice phone! Yer under arrest!"
"I give up!"
ANSA, citing unidentified sources close to the investigation, said that by monitoring cell phone conversations between the two men, police were able to follow the suspect's movements from London to Milan and Bologna and finally to Rome. ANSA said at one point during his few hours in Rome, Hussain made contact with a Somali who owns an Internet cafe near Rome's Termini train station and stayed there awhile.
Dumbasses. They're really gonna miss that source next time.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
sigh.... hey, I have no idea about the brand. I will say that handtruck not made for a real drum.
#2
The systematic disclosure of tracking means and who has been seen is a real loss. It betrays a lack of seriousness on the part of both Italian and British police.
Al-Qaida is not made of complete morons. They, too, can learn.
A federal judge yesterday reduced the sentences of three members of a "Virginia jihad network," ordering the resentencings to comply with a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed judges more discretion on such issues. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema was pleased that she had the chance to lessen sentences she had criticized as excessive. The Supreme Court ruling has resulted in hundreds of cases being sent back for resentencings nationwide, and yesterday's case -- in which a group of Muslim men were convicted of training for violent jihad abroad -- is perhaps the most high-profile.
Brinkema reduced defendant Seifullah Chapman's sentence from 85 years in prison to 65 years and shaved 20 years off Masoud Khan's sentence. She said she wanted to cut their punishments further but couldn't because the Supreme Court ruling applied only to federal sentencing guidelines. It did not cover the separate, congressionally imposed mandatory minimum sentences for certain firearms charges that drove the two sentences to a level Brinkema again called "really draconian." Even with the reduction, Khan, 35, will still spend the rest of his life in prison. Brinkema also lessened the punishment of the third defendant, Hammad Abdur-Raheem, from 97 months in prison to 52 months.
The hospital therapist pressed down hard against a ridge of crimson scar tissue on the shattered left leg of Marine Lance Cpl. Donald Ferguson. The corporal gritted his teeth.
His face red and contorted, Ferguson tried to snap to attention as a Marine lieutenant colonel approached. The officer's hair was cropped close on top and shaved on the sides, revealing a jagged pink scar across his left temple from a combat wound.
"Relax, relax," Lt. Col. Tim Maxwell said, resting his hand on the corporal's shoulder. "Just wanted to see how you're doing."
"Doing good, sir. How about you?"
"I feel like I got no brain left," Maxwell said. "My brain got whacked pretty good. I kind of have to fake it to get by."
On Oct. 7 in central Iraq, mortar shrapnel tore into Maxwell's skull, causing severe brain damage and lacerating the left side of his body. Seventeen days later, a rocket exploded near Ferguson in western Iraq, shredding his lower left leg.
The two Marines had never met before the 40-year-old colonel sought out the 22-year-old corporal in the physical therapy ward of the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune this month. Their encounter was part of an extraordinary endeavor by a Marine officer with a faulty memory and a speech impediment, in which the walking wounded helped care for injured comrades.
Even as Maxwell recovers physically and psychologically, he patrols military hospitals and barracks to comfort and counsel a handful of the U.S. service members injured in Iraq, which number about 14,000.
Sometimes Maxwell's speech is halting, and often his right foot "flops," as he puts it. He struggles to recall mundane words, like "strawberry" or "compass." But Maxwell, who has endured depression and self-doubt during his recovery, says he is determined to make sure that no wounded Marine is left alone to sink into depression or despair.
"People who haven't been wounded can't possibly understand the sense of loneliness and abandonment you feel," Maxwell, a slender, sharp-featured figure in a tan Marine uniform, said as he hustled through the therapy ward.
Maxwell, one of the highest-ranking U.S. service members wounded in Iraq, recalls encountering a 20-year-old Marine sitting alone inside a Camp Lejeune barracks in May.
"The kid couldn't use his arm. He'd seen his buddy killed. His family was in Florida," Maxwell said. "And he told me he felt so lonely and lost. I decided no Marine was going to be left all alone like that."
This spring, his solitary mission evolved into an informal effort approved by Marine brass. Maxwell has recruited several other injured Marines to help wounded comrades â most of them very young and far from home.
They tell them what to expect during surgery, therapy and recovery. They help them negotiate the military health system. They have heartfelt talks with wives and parents.
They also display graphic photos of their own wounds to show that even the most grievous injuries can heal. Mostly, they try to lift spirits during what is probably the most trying period in the lives of these soldiers.
"I want these families to know that their guys aren't forgotten," Maxwell said. "There are Marines here for them, right by their side."
Maxwell says the military will provide a small office and vehicles as he recruits more volunteers. A 10-bed living quarters for wounded Marines will open at the base on Aug. 8, he said.
Sometimes Maxwell brings along his wife, Shannon, on his visits. She helps him finish his sentences and fill in holes in his memory. She urges him to be gentle and patient. "I was a scary guy with a bad temper" as a battalion operations officer in Iraq, he said.
Shannon Maxwell says her husband doesn't remember rolling his wheelchair through a ward at Bethesda Naval Hospital just days after brain surgery in January, searching for Marines. He does remember the first thing he told her after awakening: "I want to be with wounded Marines."
Maxwell still longs for the intense bonds forged in combat. Every wounded Marine he has met, he said, has described a deep emotional void that develops after being ripped from a tightly knit unit.
"Worse than getting hurt is leaving the team," Maxwell said. "These Marines feel guilty: 'Did I abandon my buddies? Did I quit on them? How will they ever get along without me?'
"Their unit â their crew â is all they care about. So we've created a new crew for them."
Maxwell finds camaraderie in what he calls his "wounded warrior team." There's Staff Sgt. James Sturla, 26, a tank commander whose right hand was "de-gloved" â the skin, tissue and muscle ripped from the bone â during an attack in western Iraq in September. And there's Gunnery Sgt. Ken Barnes, 35, whose left arm was shattered by a roadside bomb in central Iraq in November.
Barnes was recovering in the hospital here last month when Maxwell called.
"He was so excited, it took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about," Barnes said. "But once I realized he meant reaching out to wounded Marines, I jumped at the chance."
Barnes has had seven surgeries. His left wrist was broken and his face and arms were tattooed by shrapnel. His left arm has lost muscle tone. His children call his injured hand "The Claw." Once a 225-pound weightlifter, he weighs 180. He can barely do three pull-ups.
"You get discouraged with how slow the recovery goes," he said. "I tell these Marines that no matter how bad things look, they will get better."
Sturla, who was recruited by Maxwell at the hospital in late May, has struggled through 24 surgeries on his hand, arm and back â including skin grafted from his stomach to his hand. His face is dotted with tiny purple shrapnel scars, and his right hand is still bandaged.
He was in the middle of his daily therapy recently when he encountered Ferguson. When Ferguson mentioned that he was awaiting a special shoe lift because he had lost an inch of bone in his injured leg, Sturla said he had just had surgery to remove excess bone growth.
"I wish I could give you my extra bone growth," he told Ferguson.
The two began exchanging war stories. Most Marines will not tell anyone except a fellow Marine the details of their injuries, Sturla said.
"They just don't feel comfortable sharing their stories with outsiders, even the nurses and therapists," he said. "But once I tell them what happened to me, they open right up. There's this huge release â they just talk and talk."
There are two basic questions most wounded Marines ask: Can I go back to my unit? Can I stay in the Marine Corps?
Until recently, wounded Marines who could not perform battlefield duties were forced to leave the Corps. Now the service attempts to find noncombat positions for them.
Returning to combat is rarely an option. Barnes, who is serving as a machine gun instructor while he recovers, says he has accepted, with deep regret, that he will never again be a combat infantryman. Sturla still hopes to return to Iraq with his unit as a tank commander in the spring if his hand heals properly.
Apart from telling severely wounded Marines that they can't rejoin their units, the most difficult part of the team's mission is persuading them to talk to psychiatrists. A 2004 New England Journal of Medicine study of 6,200 Marines and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan found that combat veterans with mental health problems did not seek counseling because they did not want to be seen as weak.
"They're afraid it'll stay on their record," Barnes said. "Plus, they figure they're tough, they're mentally hard, so they don't need a shrink messing with their heads."
Maxwell said he sought a psychiatrist after he realized he was severely depressed. He wept when he was transferred from the military hospital in Bethesda â where he was surrounded by wounded Marines â to a Veterans Administration hospital in Richmond, Va.
"I tell these kids: Don't be ashamed to see a psychiatrist. Don't be afraid," Maxwell said. "I tell them how depressed I felt, that it's normal to be depressed after what they've been through."
For Maxwell, counseling Marines is his own form of therapy. He is still recovering from surgery that removed a portion of his scalp to relieve brain swelling. The scalp flap was sewn to his abdomen in October and replaced on his head in January.
Early on, he said, he was bitter and angry. He had been a triathlete and marathoner and was proud of his physical prowess. Confined at first to bed and then a wheelchair, he had difficulty speaking and walking. Photos of him receiving a Purple Heart show scarlet bruises under both eyes and a raised red surgical scar snaking across his temple.
Shannon Maxwell described his progress: "At first, the doctors said he'd lose a lot of cognitive abilities and some of his personality," she said, sitting at home in Jacksonville with her husband and their two children. "So he's really exceeding the prognosis.
"He has the same personality and energy â he's just more sensitive now."
Lt. Col. Maxwell is able to swim, lift weights and run three miles. He has taught himself to read again, beginning with children's books. His speech pathologist, Anna Jurczynski-Martin, said Maxwell read at a third-grade level when he began seeing her in January. Today, he reads at a seventh-grade level and is improving weekly, she said.
At a recent therapy session, Maxwell held his head in his hands as he struggled to recall the names of everyday objects. He sweated through his uniform as Jurczynski-Martin showed him drawings â an exercise called "confrontational naming."
In January, Maxwell could name just 40% to 50% of the objects she showed him. On this test, he named 80% to 90%.
He was able to come up with "bed," "tree," "book," "pencil," "toothbrush" and "helicopter." But, squeezing his eyes shut, he couldn't remember "volcano."
"It explodes.... It smokes," he muttered.
"Starts with a 'V,' " the therapist said.
"Oh, 'volcano!' " Maxwell said.
She showed him a drawing of a tripod.
"You use it to lay mortar rounds," Maxwell said. He paused and said: "Yeah, 'tripod.' "
He stumbled over "accordion" and "asparagus," got "pyramids" and "tongs," but couldn't come up with "trellis," "protractor" or "abacus." He was sweaty and spent. The therapist ended the session.
"You showed significant improvement; you're doing great," she told him.
Despite his difficulty naming things â a condition called anomia â Maxwell's motor speech is good, and "cognitively, he is absolutely intact," Jurczynski-Martin said. "This man's motivation and focus are beyond anything I've ever seen."
Maxwell, a 17-year veteran with a chest full of campaign ribbons and awards, says he is determined to stay in the Corps if his condition continues to improve. But, he added, "I'll get out of the Corps if I stay the way, uh ... " â he struggled for the right words â " ... if I stay the way I am."
Maxwell spent much of a recent day patrolling the hospital ward, keeping up a steady chatter with nurses, therapists and wounded Marines. He focused on Ferguson and his badly injured leg.
He asked, as he usually does, about the Marine's family. Ferguson is married, with a 4-month-old son.
Maxwell asked whether Ferguson had spoken with a Marine comrade who was wounded in the same attack as Ferguson. The corporal nodded.
"That's critical," the colonel said. "Keep talking to him. I'm glad you got that going for you."
Maxwell paused, then mentioned how badly he had missed his fellow Marines in Iraq after being evacuated. He had felt helpless and abandoned, he told Ferguson.
"Being alone sucks, huh?" he whispered. The corporal stared down at his scarred leg. "Yes, sir," he said. "It's awful."
And some people wonder why we are OVER our recruiting goals for re-enlistment in the combat arms. Those who are warriors know what the real priorities are.
Posted by: too true ||
07/30/2005 08:46 ||
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#1
Maxwell's Marines. Awesome story - thx, tt! It's true, too (sorry about the pun, heh) - there is no way to talk to anyone about it that hasn't been there. These people are first-rate and Maxwell's idea is worthy of serious emulation and expansion. Kudos, Tim.
#5
Maxwell, a 17-year veteran with a chest full of campaign ribbons and awards, says he is determined to stay in the Corps if his condition continues to improve. But, he added, "I'll get out of the Corps if I stay the way, uh ... " â he struggled for the right words â " ... if I stay the way I am."
Just need to make 18, then he's locked into 20 unless he's court martialed or gets permanent disability. I suspect he'll make his 18 and 20.
Personally, I'd form a Veterans Regiment for these guys, above the active duty ceiling limit. They're going to be drawing pays and allowances anyway. These veterans are a relatively cheap supplement to the force structure. They want to still contribute. Detail/detach them from the VR to units and organizations that can effectively employ them. Certainly would do well in helping as garrison cadre to keep a units office/facilities operating back in the states when a unit deploys overseas, giving support to the family assistance groups, and doing the necessary but run around work just before the unit rotates back. Personally, I'd want a team of these men with the recruiters, to man the office when the recruiter is out calling on the road, and to be honest and upfront on what service does demand of the individual, but also what the service will provide in return far beyond the material compensation of existance. 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'.
#7
How can two such disparate people come from the same palnet?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2005 13:21 Comments ||
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#8
planet, I meant, jihadi jane and LTC Maxwell,two such different perspectives.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/30/2005 13:23 Comments ||
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#9
planet, I meant, jihadi jane and LTC Maxwell,two such different perspectives
Because Hanoi Jane is a fifth column socialist which means there is nothing of any meaning in this life for her but collectiviation and murder, even in the guise of a "woman of peace."
Maxwell is a patriot who has spent a career defending something worth defending, and even some things not worth defending such as Hanoi/Jihadi Jane's perfect First Amendment right to look like the traitor she has always been.
#10
You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather when I saw the source of this great story. Good to see that the LA Times adheres to the "stopped clock principle" - getting it right maybe twice a day. Up here in the Seattle area, such an inspiring story would never, never, NEVER see the light of day. Puget Pravda The Seattle P-I would flat refuse to run it unless the writer larded it with antiwar/antimilitary spin, and even the not-quite-as-leftist Seattle Times would likely turn up its nose as well. Thank God for blogs and online editions of REAL newspapers - it would be depressing to think that the type of L-Cubed thinking that dominates Pugetopolis represents majority opinion everywhere.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/30/2005 17:58 Comments ||
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Israel intends to construct a tri-wall and barrier as buffer from Gaza after the military pullout "to ward off Palestinian infiltrators," military Israeli sources are reported saying Saturday.
The Israeli media quoted the sources saying the plan is to construct two new fences in parallel with the existing wall to separate Israeli-controlled territory from Gaza. In some places, the sources said, there would also be a seven-meter concrete wall.
Costing around USD 220 million, Israeli army sources said even this tri-wall might prove insufficient to ward off attacks and urged the army to be on alert and prepared for operations in Gaza even after the pullout and disengagement.
The sources said, "this is the lesson from the Lebanon pullout." Israel is coming into frequent confrontations and combat with Hezbollah operatives since the 2000 pullout with a sole fence along the northern borders.
Back to the tri-wall, the sources said construction is ongoing on two 60-kilometer fences along the Gaza borders, these being barbed wire closer to the borderline from the electronic fence. The latter would have sensors and monitoring equipment as well as remote-operated watch towers and machineguns.
Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned this plan and was quoted telling Radio Palestine "those who seek peace build bridges, not barriers, and the Israeli mentality clearly confuses the two very distinct concepts of defense and security." The best approach is "dialogue," the Palestinian figure stressed.
He expressed anew anxiety that Gaza Strip might be turned into one big prison surrounded with walls and machineguns. "This is not acceptable and we shall not stand for attempts to create any such status quo," the official stated.
#2
Or a big UN and Euro welfare project. Israel tried engagement and got suicide bombers. That game is over. The paleos have to find a new one or stay with being the world's biggest welfare project. Frankly I don't care.
#3
A tactical nuke will be much easier to use once innocent (non-Paleo) bystanders are out of the way. Let the Muslim killers know without any doubt that any continuation of crossborder attacks will get just that response. Meanwhile, seal Gaza and forget it. It's a garbage dump anyway.
Posted by: mac ||
07/30/2005 10:08 Comments ||
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#4
The Israelis have the greatest anti-terror weapon of all for Gaza: turn of the potable water. The Gaza wells have gone saline, so it is up to the Israelis good will to keep the fresh water flowing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/30/2005 12:13 Comments ||
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#5
Escape from the Gaza Strip. Catchy. Better call my agent!
#6
Build the fence. We know what will happen if it's not there. The Paleos have no intention of not attacking Israel. Israel's existance is a red flag to the Arabs. These walls are needed.
#8
Israel will never shut off the water, Alaska Paul. Not as long as women and children live there. It is one thing to live in a rough neighborhood; it's quite another to become just another neighborhood gangbanger.
Minister of Interior Bayan Jabar AZ-Zubaiddi, has honored the detachment while they could killed a terrorism who wanted to explosive his car near the control point in Sowaib city in Baghdad, while they could killed 9 terrorisms including 5 from Syria in the north western village of Baghdad.On the other hand, Iraqi security forces had captured 40 wanted during their searching operations in different districts of Baghdad and some provinces then arrested 25 including 2 officers from Iran were slinked away from the boarders to Al-Nashwa city in Basra.Meanwhile, 25 men martyred and 35 injured in a terror attack carried by a terrorism wears an explosive belt aimed a recruitment military center in Mosul.
#2
.com, I couldn't help it. I just loved the translation, including this one "2 officers from Iran were slinked away from the boarders to Al-Nashwa city in Basra"
Muslims are emotional
The monthly Naya Zamana, in its June issue, carried a review of Zafar Aibakâs biography Khatiraat (1990) by Dr Pervez Parwazi. The book describes how an innocent young Muslim student of Government College Lahore was inspired by the clergy in 1925 into leaving India as Darul Harb (House of War) and entering Afghanistan with Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi and other âmujahideenâ to discover that it was a foolâs plan. Sindhi took money from the Russians to survive and Amir Habibullah was too busy copulating with his hundred young girls (concept of kaneez without nikah) to look after them. (Habibullah also fondled women of respectable families whenever he got a chance.) The main reason was that the Muslims in India were mostly uncivilised and uneducated and were under the spell of the equally uncivilised clerics. Afghanistan was supposed to be Darul Islam (House of Peace) according to the mullahs of India.
Urdu columnist as suicide bomber
Writing in the daily Pakistan, Asadullah Ghalib stated that some Urdu columnists had opposed the fatwa given by a number of ulema against suicide bombing. He said that if these columnists were so fond of suicide bombing, they should be sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and Palestine in the form of a gang of suicide bombers.
Is there an ummah?
Writing in Jang, Irshad Haqqani stated that the future shape of the ummah will develop among the young men who followed Islam but believed neither in the traditional ulema nor the values of the West, but understood Islam in their own rational way and were becoming gradually capable of representing the world of Islam and its population known as ummah. He said that in the coming days, the extremism of the ulema will give way to these Islamic scholars who will be able to bind the Muslim world together in such a way that the ummah will become a reality. He said the biggest drawback today was the illiterate nature of the Muslim masses who followed the traditional mullahs blindly.
A conspiracy of provocation
Columnist Nazeer Naji stated in Jang that the publication of an insulting cartoon in the Washington Times and the revelation of the desecration of the Quran in Newsweek was a plan to provoke Muslims into killing each other. In Pakistan and Afghanistan there was violent protest but those who died were all Muslims. He said no one knew who was fighting who in South Waziristan, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, but the violence against the mixed marathon in Gujranwala was like Pearl Harbour of Pakistan.
Actresses arrested in Gujranwala
The daily Pakistan proudly claimed that on its report, the administration in Gujranwala attacked the Anmol Theatre in the city and arrested four actresses and six others on the charge of spreading fahashi. The police was most efficient. It prepared for the operation and then assaulted the theatre and most competently arrested the actresses who were then taken to the thana and locked up.
Pakistani women without âburqaâ!
Quoted in Khabrain, visiting BJP leader LK Advaniâs family was shocked to see that women in Pakistan roamed around without burqa. They thought that with so much Islamic rigidity and Islamic laws, the women would be sitting at home or covered with burqa. They in fact noted that Pakistani women were good-looking and had a high sense of fashion in clothes.
Intermediate Board in âtrubbelâ
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, four student wings belonging to religious parties and banned jihadi militias had started threatening the Lahore Intermediate Board after a question paper was issued with two verses of the Quran inadvertently mixed together by a typist of the Board. The Board had apologised for the mistake and given the examinees concessions but the student wings demanded that an inquiry committee look into the matter of blasphemy against the Quran with a religious leader inserted in it on their recommendation. The âstudent wingsâ were Jamaat Al Daawa (Lashkar e-Taiba), Imamia Students Organisation, Islami Jamiat Tulaba (Jamaat e-Islami), MSF (Nawaz) and PSF (PPPP).
âLittle Pakistanâ is dead!
Writing in the daily Pakistan, Syed Akmal Aleemi stated that Coney Island Avenue was once Little Pakistan where a two-mile stretch was dotted with shops and restaurants owned by Pakistanis who roamed around in tehband, shalwar and dhoti while speaking Punjabi and Pushtu. After 9/11, however, most of the Pakistanis hoping to get naturalised had run away because of their illegal status. Now half of Little Pakistan was shut down and the rest of the shops were in the grip of manda (low custom).
Sectarian murderer triumphant after sentence
According to Khabrain, leader Gul Hassan of Lashkar e-Jhangvi (Sipah e-Sahaba) was making victory signs in court after being sentenced 45 times to death for killing 45 innocent Shia worshippers in Imambargah Ali Raza and Masjid Haideri in Karachi in 2004. He persuaded two suicide bombers to tie explosives around their midriffs and kill themselves for the sake of Islam.
Pakistan is secular!
The daily Khabrain quoted BJP leader LK Advani as saying that Jinnah had declared Pakistan a secular state. The fact that he had been asked to inaugurate the conservation of the Hindu mandir at Kattas also proved that Pakistan had no religious bias and therefore was a secular state. He said Jinnah was a great leader and Pakistan came into being because of him.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
jihadi militias had started threatening the Lahore Intermediate Board after a question paper was issued with two verses of the Quran inadvertently mixed together by a typist of the Board.
jeebus! mebbe ima beter scrap me "mohamed super star" screenplay ima ben writerin
#2
A conspiracy of provocation In Pakistan and Afghanistan there was violent protest but those who died were all Muslims.
Shock and awe: while the writer is mistaken about deliberate provocation, he actually understands the result of choosing to be provoked! This is progress ... for one person, at least.
#4
OT. Jackal, you asked yesterday about the location of the award winning rest area with rattlesnakes. I believe that's the rest area known as Sierra Grande located about half way between Raton and Clayton New Mexico on US 64/87. However, I can state with authority it is not one of the rest areas on I-25 between Albuquerque and Raton. Old men with bad bladders become experts in such matters.
#5
I thought I remembered it, if not exactly where. I was there in 1998 (6 years after winning the award). I don't remember the rattlesnake sign, but might have missed it as it was near dark.
Security forces raided a terrorist hideout used for planning and organising militant attacks and killed a militant and arrested another three, including an Afghan, in a military operation in North Waziristan, military and tribal sources said on Friday. The operation was carried out after the arrest of a militant leader, Amir Hamza, and his four accomplices on Thursday. A military statement said that one militant was killed while three others, including a foreigner, had been arrested in the operation conducted on a seminary, Shoaibul Uloom, and adjoining compounds near the Afghan border.
According to residents of Dargah Darpakhel near the Ghulam Khan check-post, more than 2,000 special commandos, troops and paramilitary personnel took part in the operation, which was the longest in recent months â starting at 3:30pm on Thursday and ending around 10am on Friday. âIn spite of repeated warnings to the inmates holed up in the compounds to surrender, the miscreants not only refused to lay down their weapons but resorted to fire,â the military statement said, adding that local tribal elders and political administration officials had also tried to persuade the militants to surrender. Local residents said that security forces shot dead a militant when he came out of the compound to throw a hand grenade at them, adding that the militant was later identified as Abdul Latif, a resident of Lakki Marwat district.
The military statement and local residents said that after killing Latif, security forces stormed the compounds and arrested three other militants, including an Afghan. The statement said that the troops found rocket launchers, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), detonators, booby traps and ammunition during a search of the compounds. Intelligence sources told Daily Times that letters âfrom Afghanistanâ suggesting how, where and when the terrorist activities could be resumed had also been seized from the compound. âSome of the letters spoke of terrorism in Pakistan while others gave broader outlines on how IEDs and small bombs could be made and how a rocket could be fired with a timer,â sources said, adding that the Amir Hamza group was believed to be involved in the recent rocket attacks on military installations in North Waziristan and the arrested militants were being interrogated by security agencies.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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Waziristan means "hideout" in Urdu. Well...if it doesn't, then it should.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
07/30/2005 1:41 Comments ||
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A Palestinian family released two United Nations Development Program employees yesterday afternoon, hours after kidnapping them in an attempt to secure the release of a clan member seized the day before by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigades. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the mainstream Fatah movement, to which Al-Aqsa is linked, began negotiating with the Abed clan for the release of the abductees, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and an Australian woman, shortly after they were dragged at gunpoint from a United Nations vehicle outside Gaza Cityâs Adam Hotel. The Abed clan threatened to kill the two if Jihad Abed, a senior Palestinian security official kidnapped Thursday by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, was not freed.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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Just a little family squabble. The UN are, um, like kissin' cousins, I guess.
A suicide bomber detonated explosives among Iraqi Army volunteers near the Syrian border yesterday, killing 25 and wounding 35, Iraqi officials said. Al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility. âOne of the lions of a martyrdom brigade of Al-Qaeda in Iraq carried out a heroic operation after he wore an explosive belt and entered a center of the idol-worshipping volunteers,â said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
The suicide attack occurred in Rabiah, 370 km north of Baghdad, as a crowd of young men gathered outside a municipal building to volunteer for the Iraqi Army, officials and survivors said. A wounded survivor, Rashid Hamed, said an American soldier asked them to move a short distance away. âMinutes later I saw a portly young man carrying a bag in his hand and heading toward us. I donât remember anything else but waking up in the hospital,â Hamed said from a hospital bed in Mosul, 100 km to the east.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2005 00:00 ||
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Um, okay recruits, this is how we're gonna do it. Line up in your speedos or undershorts and wife-beater tank-tops. Any dude sporitn' a jacket, pullover, sweater, gets a round in the head like that ther Brazilian chap in Lonod earlier this week.
#3
Biggest killer of Middle Easterners, aka mostly moslems- Islam itself. Biggest killer of non moslems- Athestic Regimes; aka Mao's China, Stalins Russia, Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Partei, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Castro's Cuba, Allende's Chile, Venesuela's Chavez, Etcetra, etcetra, etcetra. While many were killed by the cowardly gunshot to the back of the head (or in this case the cowardly homicide bomb, the vast majority were worked and starved to death. The left demands its sacrifices, more so than any (other) superstition, except perhaps islam.
Posted by: an dalusian dog ||
07/30/2005 14:05 Comments ||
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#4
Whatever happened to "take a number"? What's so difficult about this? Why keep lining up like lambs to slaughter? When they're ready for #35, hang the number out a window or use a bullhorn. Idiots.
Egypt said yesterday it arrested 25 people over the triple bomb attacks at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on July 23 and is on the lookout for a green pickup truck used for smuggling the explosives into the city. "At least 15 of the men we arrested have links to the attacks," said a state security source. "We now think that a cell of militants in Sinai conducted the attacks with the help of some international organization," he said.
"Inspector! How do you do it?"
Posted by: Fred ||
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Bomb disposal experts have confirmed that RDX was used in Thursdayâs blast on the Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express, which killed 14 people on the spot and injured nearly 64 others. The explosion occurred in a general coach of Sharamjeevi Express near Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh. Authorities say they suspect that RDX used on the train was part of the consignment used in the attack in Ayodhya earlier this month.
Shramjeevi Express, which reached Delhi yesterday afternoon, left the damaged bogey at Harpalganj Station near Jaunpur. Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav visited the site of the blast late last night and announced relief measures. âThe people who have been targeted are all poor people, workers and laborers. A full investigation will have to be carried out,â Lalu Yadav said.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Yemeni Interior Ministry official escaped a bid on life when an explosive device blew up under his car in Sanaa yesterday, police said. They said the device went off minutes after Col. Abdullah Arab, interior minister's deputy assistant, left the vehicle outside his home in the northern Sanaa suburb of Jiraf. No one was injured in the explosion that left the vehicle severely damaged. The blast blew out windows of Arab's house and adjacent houses. Security forces cordoned off the area and police experts began an investigation.
Yemen will soon receive seven detainees to be released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by the US Army, Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr Al-Qerbi said in remarks published here on Thursday. âThe US authorities have decided to free seven Yemenis from the Guantanamo base and hand them over to Yemen,â the minister told the Defense Ministryâs newspaper â26 Septemberâ.
A BUTCHER linked to accused French terrorist 
The United States has charged a Dutch citizen with conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq, the first U.S. criminal case connected to terrorist activities there, the Justice Department said Friday. Iraqi-born Wasem al-Delaema, 32, was arrested in May during a raid on his home in the Dutch city of Amersfoort. On Wednesday, U.S. authorities filed a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington and asked the Dutch government to extradite him for prosecution.
Police searched the apartment where a Somali-born Briton was arrested Friday, as anti-terrorism prosecutors prepared to interrogate the man suspected in the July 21 bombing attempts in London. 
Muslims are emotional 
Security forces raided a terrorist hideout used for planning and organising militant attacks and killed a militant and arrested another three, including an Afghan, in a military operation in North Waziristan, military and tribal sources said on Friday. The operation was carried out after the arrest of a militant leader, Amir Hamza, and his four accomplices on Thursday. A military statement said that one militant was killed while three others, including a foreigner, had been arrested in the operation conducted on a seminary, Shoaibul Uloom, and adjoining compounds near the Afghan border. 
A Palestinian family released two United Nations Development Program employees yesterday afternoon, hours after kidnapping them in an attempt to secure the release of a clan member seized the day before by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigades. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the mainstream Fatah movement, to which Al-Aqsa is linked, began negotiating with the Abed clan for the release of the abductees, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and an Australian woman, shortly after they were dragged at gunpoint from a United Nations vehicle outside Gaza Cityâs Adam Hotel. The Abed clan threatened to kill the two if Jihad Abed, a senior Palestinian security official kidnapped Thursday by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, was not freed.
A suicide bomber detonated explosives among Iraqi Army volunteers near the Syrian border yesterday, killing 25 and wounding 35, Iraqi officials said. Al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility. âOne of the lions of a martyrdom brigade of Al-Qaeda in Iraq carried out a heroic operation after he wore an explosive belt and entered a center of the idol-worshipping volunteers,â said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
Egypt said yesterday it arrested 25 people over the triple bomb attacks at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on July 23 and is on the lookout for a green pickup truck used for smuggling the explosives into the city. "At least 15 of the men we arrested have links to the attacks," said a state security source. "We now think that a cell of militants in Sinai conducted the attacks with the help of some international organization," he said. 
Bomb disposal experts have confirmed that RDX was used in Thursdayâs blast on the Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express, which killed 14 people on the spot and injured nearly 64 others. The explosion occurred in a general coach of Sharamjeevi Express near Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh. Authorities say they suspect that RDX used on the train was part of the consignment used in the attack in Ayodhya earlier this month.
