Ex-Iraqi officers Sunday denied accusations of plotting to attack the U.S. and British embassies in Yemen as their defense called the charges "invalid."
The defense attorney for the four Iraqis, Abdul Aziz Samawi, told the Yemeni State Security Court the prosecution extracted the defendants' confessions through at the intelligence prison, where they were held for more than two years.
He said "the prosecution evidence is therefore null and void."
The Iraqis, allegedly intelligence officers in the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein, were charged with coming into the country disguised as school teachers and planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, against the Western embassies.
The defendants claimed their signed confessions were taken after "physical and psychological torture," and one of them said he tried to commit suicide more than once to escape the abuse.
The prosecutor Sunday said he will prove one of the four men, Sami Nouh, was "in charge of a cell" in Sanaa planning to strike Western interests in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:57 ||
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The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz received two of the recently pardoned Saudi Activist; Ali al Dumaini and Matruk al Falih, at his palace in Mecca yesterday. The two received a royal pardon on the 9th of August.
The king also received princes, religious scholars, sheikhs, as well as the people and nobility of Mecca who offered their condolences for the passing of late king Fahd and pledged their allegiances to the Former Crown Prince according to the Koran and the prophetâs tradition. Ali al Dumaini clarified to Asharq Al-Awsat that they came out of their personal desire to meet king Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz and thank him for his generous initiative last Tuesday. They also wanted to pledge allegiances to him and wish him success in his bid to further develop and advance the nation. Al Dumaini said, "We thanked king Abdullah and pledged our loyalty in the presence of Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz, Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdulaziz, and Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Mutab Bin Abdulaziz. We were glad that the pillars of government were present and we seized the opportunity to show our loyalty to them and our trust in the ability of king Abdullah to carry on the progression of our country. It was also a chance to assure him that we would stand by him and work for our homeland.â
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Translation: "They made us come for PR purposes, but it's okay -- we wanted to case the joint anyway, and we are willing to lie to the American-loving infidel king."
Groups behind the July London bomb attack that killed 52 people and a failed attempt to strike again soon after appear to have been acting independently of an al Qaeda mastermind abroad, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
The Independent, quoting police and intelligence officials, said it was also likely that four July 7 suicide bombers were probably not linked to another group of four who failed to blow up explosives on buses and underground trains two weeks later.
But some of the report's conclusions were questioned by a terror analyst, who said it would be difficult for Islamic militants in Britain to prepare and set off explosive devices without some training in Pakistan, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
The newspaper said police and intelligence sources felt the fact there was no leader from abroad showed how other "self-sufficient" units could be hiding in Britain.
"All the talk about 'Mr Bigs' and al Qaeda masterminds looks like something from a film script at the moment," the newspaper quoted a police source as saying.
"Of course, things could change if new intelligence comes through, but it looks increasingly as if these people were largely working on their own. It is not something we expected."
The newspaper report quoted one counter-terrorist source as saying: "the key point is that the events were not connected. It appears they were self-contained, rather than being organized by some kind of mastermind."
The attacks have raised alarm in Britain that militants are living and operating in the country. Police have yet to establish whether they are acting alone or being directed by international networks like al Qaeda.
A police spokesman said they were investigating several lines of inquiry and would not comment on the details of the newspaper report. He would not rule them out either.
But a terrorism expert who did not want to be named said it took time and knowledge to prepare such attacks, and would not rule out the involvement of a foreign-trained mastermind putting the plots together either, possibly from inside Britain.
"They're crude devices, but I think there is a mistaken belief that you can just go on the Internet and download these things," he said.
"It was possible that they (the two groups of bombers) are not linked, but it's inconceivable that you could just spontaneously get a group of people together in two weeks, get the material, build the devices and carry out the attacks."
He said that "the old al Qaeda" had been "shattered" after U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the crackdown on militant groups in neighboring Pakistan since 2001.
But that did not mean that people who lived and trained in those countries could not now be operating in Britain.
He said both sets of men suspected of being behind the attacks were not particularly well educated and described them as "misfits."
"People like that generally aren't capable of building bombs. There is definitely someone who has catalyzed them, who has given advice on materials, provided technical expertise and maybe paid for all this," he said.
"I wouldn't rush to discount the idea that there is a mastermind or puppet master somewhere, it just may not fit the traditional description.
"The ringleader may be someone who lives in this country and spent sometime in somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan where they honed these skills."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:18 ||
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In recent weeks I have reported how the Ministry of Defence has been secretively committing billions of pounds to buying new equipment from European defence contractors, as it prepares to integrate Britain's Armed Forces with the EU's planned "Rapid Reaction Force".
One project after another has been brought to light by my colleague and fellow-researcher Dr Richard North, but the missing piece of this jigsaw was some central agreement that had set this unprecedented revolution in Britain's defence policy in train. This has now emerged, in a "secret treaty" between Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden in 2000, which at last makes comprehensible the startlingly consistent pattern of Britain's recent defence purchases.....
Only now are we seeing the fruits of this agreement, as the MoD closes down one joint project with the US after another, and commits taxpayers to spending tens of billions of pounds on German, Italian, Swedish and French equipment ready for the Armed Forces to be fully integrated with their continental counterparts. And the MoD will have pulled this off without it ever having been discussed by or voted on by Parliament. What is unfolding amounts to the most astonishing coup d'etat in our history.
#1
Well I know we are going to have to go it on our own sooner or later. It appears sooner is the probable outcome. I don't think we should be astounded.
The TRANZI proclivities of Europe don't favor it's survival. That they thought to keep this secret isn't that big a deal. Why would they want to publicize that instead of weapons programs they will be engaging in welfare programs. That they are reducing the sizes of their military to a size that can't provide for their own defense. Well I think we have inherited all we can of their culture and have the best and most useful of their gene pool. So so long, nice knowing you. You can have our TRNAZIs if you want them however.
#2
... is this the end of their involvement in Joint Strike Fighter?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
08/14/2005 4:20 Comments ||
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Edward-
You know, I hadn't thought of that before. I'm guessing that if all of this is true, then the other shoe will drop in a month or three at most. THAT will put us in an almost untenable position re the F-35, because all the numbers have been based on significant RAF/RN participation from the beginning.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2005 9:40 Comments ||
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#4
The British will continue with JSF. Only the JSF and Harriers will be able to operate from their two future carriers (no catapults) and only the JSF will have the performance to defeat aircraft in the 2010-2030 timeframe. The JSF will not suffer from low build rates. It's export potential has barely been scratched.
British EU spending is most likely being redirected to a common EU comms and C&C suite. Remember, European armies are 1-2 generations behind the US in comms and C&C and can't really operate in the same battlespace anymore.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 11:15 Comments ||
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#5
Which will be even more true if they use the Galileo constellation rather than GPS.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 12:00 Comments ||
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#6
Euro rapid-reaction with who's airlift assets? Hell, they cannot even take care of a domestic in their own back yard, re: the former Yugoslavia.
The Chicoms may not be world class in their military, but they have the big picture. The Euros do not know what REAL spending is in order to build up a credible military.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 15:36 Comments ||
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#7
They will attempt to use this to increase employment among whitecollar workers. And will spend a lot of tax monies to do it.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 15:37 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Few can denounce the "imperialist ogre" or "kingpin of evil" as well as the writers at North Korea's official news agency, and a California graphic artist is now cataloguing their rhetorical masterpieces on a Web site. Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, is the only regular source of the views of the secretive government of Kim Jong-il available to diplomats, journalists and scholars.
But there was no way for them to search the archives of KCNA until Geoff Davis, fighting boredom during a rainy San Francisco spring, decided to hone his Web design skills on a topic he had followed in news reports on the North Korean nuclear crisis.
"Their propaganda is often unintentionally hilarious and I couldn't find an existing searchable database of the KCNA on the Web. Thus, NK News was born," Davis told Reuters.
Launched in May, www.nk-news.net boasts of having nearly every KCNA article since December 1996 -- "over 50 megabytes of hard-core Stalinist propaganda ... each article written in the unique and indelible style of the KCNA."
Readers can get a taste of that KCNA style from recommended key word searches, such as "burning hatred," which turns up 18 articles. The targets of that hot wrath include Japan, Yankees, "U.S. imperialist ogres" and "class enemies." "Human scum" yields 25 KCNA reports applying that epithet to U.S.President George W. Bush, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and diplomat John Bolton. Rumsfeld also keeps company with Japanese officials in the "political dwarf" category.
The flip-side of withering scorn for North Korea's perceived foes is fawning praise for Kim and his father, state founder Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, is hailed as a "peerlessly great man" in 139 articles since 1996. "Inveterate" is another popular KCNA word and a search for it returns an entry describing "U.S. imperialists" as "a pack of beasts in human skin and the inveterate enemy with whom the Korean nation cannot live under the same sky."
"From browsing through the KCNA's propaganda, even the most casual observer can see that the regime is a cult," said Davis, 31, who makes his living producing graphics for court trials.
Davis took 10 weeks to build www.nk-news.net, which he calls a "hobby site," and spends $10 (18 pounds) a month to run it. He said he doesn't count page visits but he has tallied 5,000 searches and has received positive feedback from journalists and experts on North Korea.
For those seeking a comic diversion from blood-curdling diatribes and self-congratulatory reports, Davis created a "random insult generator" using pejorative words commonly found on KCNA. "You loudmouthed beast, your ridiculous clamour for 'human rights' is nothing but a shrill cry!" reads one insult. One click later and the message is: "You sycophantic stooge, you have glaringly revealed your true colours!"
Although he has found a source of satire in a country that is mostly known for weapons threats, repression and famine, Davis does not joke about North Korea's nature and says the world must not cut Kim's government any slack. "The 'axis of evil' remark pales in comparison to a single day of KCNA rhetoric," he said, referring a controversial 2002 Bush speech that lumped North Korea,Iran and prewar Iraq in a trio of malign countries.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2005 12:20 ||
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#1
Fred, I think you need to put this site on the blogroll.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/14/2005 14:30 Comments ||
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A very handy site -- it even has links to popular searches. My favorite -- "sea of fire" -- yields a disappointing 18 results. However, the ever-popular "on-the-spot guidance" yields 234 results over 10 years. Truly glorious! (And my randomly generated insult was "You politically illiterate lackey!")
Posted by: Jonathan ||
08/14/2005 15:14 Comments ||
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More evidence that the SKors should be left to their own devices.
SEOUL - A North Korean delegation arrived in the South on Sunday for joint celebrations of the 60th anniversary of independence from Japanese colonial rule despite the unresolved crisis over Pyongyangâs nuclear plans. The four-day event highlights renewed exchanges between the two Koreas and comes during a recess in inconclusive six-party talks aimed at ending the Northâs nuclear ambitions.
Two North Korean passenger jets flew from Pyongyang to Inchon, near Seoul, carrying 182 delegates led by senior communist party official Kim Ki-nam. Security was heavy at Inchon International Airport, but the North Koreans, wearing badges depicting North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, passed through the terminal in smiles and were warmly greeted by welcoming South Koreans.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has said Seoul planned to hold discussions with visiting officials to help negotiate an agreement when the six-party nuclear talks resume.
The North Korean officials were scheduled to visit the Southâs national cemetery during their visit where many of the remains of South Koreaâs war veterans are buried. The unprecedented visit to the national cemetery is seen by Seoul as a new turn in the two Koreasâ relations. âThere is a great historic significance in this since it marks the beginning of a process of healing the pain of an unfortunate past of division and national struggle,â South Korean Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said on Friday.
Conservative South Korean groups however said they planned to disrupt some of the events, including the national cemetery visit.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 00:52 ||
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#1
Well, we really should get rid of the biggest obstacle to reunification. Namely, the US Forces stationed there.
I know the guys will really miss the kimchee if we bring them home, but I think they'll adjust nicely.
#2
Note the flag in the poster, they can't even get the fields right.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 16:28 Comments ||
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#3
Iff the Norkies can have nukes andor nuclear energy then the Southies can have nukes and nuclear energy as well, which I am sure EQUALISM-loving Lefties and Commies all over the world, or at least in Asia, will support in the name of fairness ... NOT!? The last thing China wants are more JAPAN(S), and the last thing the Norkies want is to be reminded they are controlled from Beijing and have no real regional- or international manifest destiny without Beijing's permission - you know, the Korean-specific, Korean-controlled/decided freedom, independence, and sovereignty, etal. [from China]the Korean peoples fought for for so many decades!
Al Qaeda Militant Luai Sakra, arrested for organizing the double bomb attacks in Istanbul on 15-23 November, has claimed to have played a role in the September 11 attacks to World Trade Center (WTI) in New York.
How many newtons pressure on the #7 pliers when he said that?
Syrian citizen Sakra has confessed to Turkish police that he provided the attackers of September 11, accepted as the biggest terrorist attack of the history, with passports. Sakra, who has been interrogated in Istanbul Police Department Anti Terror Office for 4 days has made many interesting confessions. He noted that he knew Muhammad Ata, planner of the attacks on the WTI and Pentagon. Sakra claimed that he has organized terrorist activities for Jihad but he said that he drinks alcohol and does not pray.
Sarka said: âI was one of the people who knew the perpetrators of September 11, and knew the time and plan before the attacks. I also participated in the preparations for the attacks to WTI and Pentagon. I provided money and passports.â
Some of the passports, which Sakra claimed to have provided himself, were strangely found in the ruins of WTI. Luai Sakra, who is said to be one of the 5 most important members of Al Qaeda, said that he had no connection with the attacks in Sharm Al Sheikh, where 88 people were killed.
Confessions of Sakra, who was interrogated at the Istanbul Anti-Terror Directorate, have not been turned into an official statement. Sakra's conversations with police were written down as an official report signed by officials participating in his interrogation, but Sakra is using his right of silence.
Remarkable anecdotes have emerged between Sakra and the police during his interrogation. The Security Directorate officials told Sakra that he might perform his religious practices to have a better dialogue with him and to gain his confidence. "I do not pray. I also drink alcohol," Sakra told officials. Officials said Adnan Ersoz and Harun Ilhan, who were detained for connections to the Istanbul attacks, had perfomed their religious practices. The police said such an attitude at the top-level of al-Qaeda was confusing. Security officials noted the al-Qaeda militant has been undergoing psychological therapy and said the following about Sakra: "He has an intellect of a genius. He might develop plans according to momentary situation. There were medicines on him for his illness when he was arrested. He is still undergoing therapy either for manic-depression or panic attacks. He has no university degree but there are doctors and engineers among his siblings. He says he is of Turkish-origin."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:58 ||
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#1
These claim cannot be verified. The 9/11 Commission didn't mention his involvement, so it must be false.
Besides he's a drinker and not a prayer and, following the mental models of the CIA, drinkers and prayers don't intermix.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 23:01 Comments ||
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German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder rejected the threat of military force against Iran yesterday, hours after US President George Bush said he would consider it as a last resort to press Tehran to give up its nuclear program. Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the US-led war in Iraq, told an election rally in his home city of Hanover that the threat of force was not acceptable. "I am worried about developments there because no one wants the Iranian leadership to gain possession of atomic weapons," Schroeder said.
But if it comes down to a choice of Iran developing nuclear weapons and the U.S. beating the hell out of them, you'd rather they had nuclear weapons? Brilliant.
"The Europeans and the Americans are united in this goal. Up to now we were also united in the way to pursue this. This morning I read that military options are now on the table. My answer to that is: 'Dear friends in Europe and America, let us work out a strong negotiating position. But let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work,'" he said.
Actually, it's worked pretty well. Ask Mullah Omar. Sammy's out of the dictator business and Uday and Qusay are decomposing. There are Baathists among the guys we're fighting in Iraq right now, but they're never coming back to power. So the military option does work. If the military option's on the table it will make the diplomatic approach work better — there'll be an incentive to reach a deal rather than duke it out with the Marines.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
"Dear friends in Europe and America, let us work out a strong negotiating position. But let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."
Dear Schroeder, it certainly worked very well in Germany's case: it converted a nation once bent on genocidal conquest and domination of the entire planet, into a nation of pacifist perennial vacationers and pensioners with all the imperialist impulse of a bag of turnips. Force not only worked, it worked very, very well.
Almost too well, it seems.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/14/2005 7:58 Comments ||
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#2
"I ask you 'Does it advances the iterests of the Arian volk?'."
#4
I hope you're correct, TGA, but media stuf like this makes me worry. I'll feel lots better after the election and formation of a new government.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 10:10 Comments ||
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#5
Let's get Sammy swinging, sooner rather than later. A nice public hanging will stiffen the spine of our "allies" and tighten the sphincters of our "less than allies."
#6
Mrs Davis, campaigns will be campaigns. Stoiber is realizing that he needs to mobilize voters in the conservative South to upset losses in Eastern Germany.
Remember, he only lost the elections by 6000 votes which he could easily have secured in Bavaria with a little more effort.
#9
If it limps like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a lame duck.
If two people in negotiations have a sense of goodwill, and that there is give and take and a vision of the common good, then negotiations will proceed and conclude successfully.
If one of the negotiators has no intention of give-and-take and jacks the other around, then the only negotiating tool the other has is a big stick leaning agin' the wall in the corner of the room.
Without a stick, the EU3 don't have jack sh*t to back them up. Their only tool is appeasement, which has been used a few times in the last century, but to little avail. Nice bag of tricks you have in your kit, Herr Schroeder.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 15:45 Comments ||
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#10
I hope you're correct, TGA, but media stuf like this makes me worry. I'll feel lots better after the election and formation of a new government.
I didn't know Howard Dean had a sister?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 16:37 Comments ||
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#11
Hmmmmmmmm, so GLOBAL ISLAMIST/JIHADIST STATE does NOT extend or mean GERMANY nor to the German people, just as it doesn't to FRANCE - you betcha boy!? And "JIHADIST" > is NOT mean any future Global Islamic Govt./Bureaucracy will NOT be in a permanent "state of war" like the USSR-Red China -OOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, whether dedicated Muslim or Convert, "state of war" = you have no rights except thru the now Global Mad Mullahs, aka the Central Committee/Presideum of Global Mullahship!?
EFL, much more conspiracist nazi bullshit at link.
Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost a son in the Iraq War, is determined to prevent other mothers and fathers from experiencing the same loss.
Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media to demand a meeting with him and a good explanation why her son and otherâs sons and daughters must die and be disfigured in a war for Israel rather than for America.
Recently, she had the courage to state the obvious that her son signed up in the military to protect America not to die for Israel.
In a recent letter to âNightline,â she wrote the following hard-hitting words:
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracyâŠnot for the real reason, because the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. I don't doubt that Duke is an official spokesman for terrorist motives, but why should anyone believe him?
That hasnât changed since America invaded and occupied IraqâŠin fact it has gotten worse. We have J. Goebbels jr's word for that, it must be true.
Now, a gauntlet of personal attacks has been let out against her. A recent article on David Horowitzâs FrontPage and repeated by many pro-Israel zealots dares to compare her with that incorrigible American, me. Here is a FrontPage readerâs commentary published in the Lonestar Times.
âŠ(Sheehan) voiced vaguely anti-Semitic rhetoric when she alleged that the Iraq War was all about protecting Israel, i.e. a Jewish conspiracy (a similar opinion is frequently expressed by David Duke and his ilk).â â From the Lonestar Times August, 13, 2005
Imagine that, compared to David Duke just before DD himself weighs in to validate the analogy.
What do Jesse Jackass, Cynthia McNinny, and Al Sharpnot have to say about this? I'm sure Robert "Sheets" Byrd will understand though.
#1
Now that the pipsqueak fuhrer has weighed in, how much do y'all think Lumpy Riefenstahl (aka Mike Al-Moor etc.) will offer Mother Sheehan for the movie rights?
Hat tip Drudge. Don't know how long the link will be valid. Filed under 5th column because that is how is really pulling her strings....
Anti-war protestor and moonbat extraordaire Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq, is calling for Bush's "impeachment," and for Israel to get out of Palestine!
"You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares.
Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: "My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we'll put this war on trial." I guess its true that moveon.org and Soros are now controlling her and giving her the talking points. I almost (but only almost) feel sorry for the poor bitch.
"And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail." "And a pony! I definately want a pony! Gimme a pony or I'll hold my breath!
The 48-year-old California mom remains tented up in a ditch along the one-lane road that leads to Bush's Texas ranch.
As her protest entered its second week, hundreds of people with conflicting opinions about the war in Iraq descended on the area.
TIME mag reports in new editions on Monday: Sheehan gets support from her surviving son, Andy, in principle, but he recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her, "to come home because you need to support us at home." Anyone wants to bet Time doesn't mention her glowing response to Bush'es first meeting with her? Or that the rest of her family have, in effect, denounced her actions? I didn't think so either.
#1
I had already official filed hre under moonbat 1st class. So far she has declared that Bush had lied (because of the DSM) and that he had stolen two elections. I think after the Israel, Palestine, and no taxes comment the press will start to shy away from her (except Err Amerika).
#2
"You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares.
Oh, no you won't, Cindy. Do that, and you'll see terrorism like you've NEVER seen before. Guaranteed.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/14/2005 11:35 Comments ||
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#3
she's a moron, a tool, and a waste of air. The pukes using her and the media sucking on her are just as disgusting. Wanna bet her husband pays the taxes or gets a divorce? If she can spend the month camped out in Crawford, what job does she hold? None!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 11:40 Comments ||
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#4
If only the US would leave Sudan, then the Arabs wouldn't have been forced to kill over 2 million black Sudanese. If only the US left Thailand, the muslims wouldn't have to ambush buddhist monks ...
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 11:41 Comments ||
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#5
It is a sad thing. I feel bad for her consumed by her grief. The rest of her family has publicly backed away and I suspect her son is looking down from heaven thinking "Jeez, Ma! Knock it off, willya? I am a soldier".
#6
The KOSsacks want her only to speak via a "spokesperson". Perhaps, cause every time she opens her mouth it becomes more apparent what a total whackjob she is.
#10
have you seen her? The vacant eyes? She's an idiot, loving the attention
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 12:57 Comments ||
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#11
maybe if she moved her tent to a more stategic position she could spot OTM's coming over the border and do some good at least. On second thought, I wonder if those are some of the folks that she's been in cahoots with. What part of volunteer military doesn't she get. Sad, how very sad.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 13:25 Comments ||
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#12
Anyone noticed how little that racist b...h seems to care about genocide in Soudan? Or in fact about any other opressed people when Jews are not involved.
#15
Moonmat mom wants Condi's job. The longer she is in Crawford doing road work, the more foolish her contentions.
Was Casey killed because of Israel? It gets stranger and stranger, drifting, drifting, drifting....
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 14:46 Comments ||
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#16
She is like a Vampire, feeding on her son's carcass. He dies and she is reborn. She goes from a homelier than a wet hen nobody, to queen of the left. There is no draft, and her son could have joined the Air Force or Navy, but he joined the much more dangerous Army. He was nothing like her. His death seems to be the best thing that ever happened to her.
#17
FeralCat, If that [moonbat-mom] was what he had to come home to perhaps his honorable death was the best thing to happen to him.
People like her make me sick. They don't have even the concept of honor or sacrifice (or most of the other virtues). All they think about is me! me! me!.
#18
The report on his enlistment and re-enlistment to get away from mom was via a Sac valley radio show. A woman that claimed to be an aunt said that casey joined up to get away from her and his voaction versus her political leaning would lend some validation to that.
#20
The fit between her and the MSM is perfect. The MSM will use her as a useful tool to bash Bush and push their agenda. When her MI* becomes too high, or people become bored with the story, they will drop her in the story landfill and that will be that. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
*MI = Moonbat Index
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 16:03 Comments ||
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#21
I just heard the interview on CNN of Larry Mattlage (the Pres. neighbor). He evidentally fired a gun and scared the folks down at the tent camp. (He was preparing for Dove season.) He's fed up with the protests. I guess so after all of these weeks. I don't blame him for being upset with all of this mess in his front yard.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 16:36 Comments ||
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#22
When are her 15 minutes going to be up?
And why the hell can't these anti-war idiots SPELL, for heaven's sake? (Note to Cindy....."impeachment" is not a "t" word, but an "i" word. My foreign born hubby can spell better than you.)
#24
Anyone noticed how little that racist b...h seems to care about genocide in Soudan?
You're assuming she's even aware there's genocide occuring in Sudan. Hell, she probably has no idea there is a Sudan.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/14/2005 19:51 Comments ||
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#25
You know, I feel terrible for the woman for having lost her son. That is a cost that no one should have to pay.
But to see her campaign to ensure his sacrifice was in vain is absolutely sickening! Wasn't losing him for a cause bad enough, but now she wants to make the loss meaningless?
Posted by: Dar ||
08/14/2005 20:04 Comments ||
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American troops in Iraq face an insurgency whose limitless supply of weapons is forcing an unremitting bloodbath with no end in sight, U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch warned yesterday as he wrapped up a five- day visit to Iraq. "Saddam (Hussein) has spent the last forty years stockpiling weapons here," Lynch (D-South Boston) said in a phone interview from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. "The volume of Muslim fighters who are being urged to wage war against American troops that are on the ground in Iraq is basically inexhaustible." Strategic Problem #1: neither the White House, nor the House of Representatives nor the State Department nor Defense authorities, are willing to put an ideological tag on the enemy. The term Islamofascism that is used widely at Rantburg, has no currency in US government circles. One consequence is that Muslim leaders still attack the treatment of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib terrorists, as acts in defense of Muslims. But, if they are "Muslims" then is their terror, "Islamic"? CAIR, ISNA, AMC etc need to be forced to declare Muslim terrorists as apostate (murtad kaffir), under penalty of losing status as political-religious groups. Frankly, I support a shoot-on-sight policy viz all proven - in secret legal forums - terrorists, financiers and accessories.
Because Iraq's borders cannot be secured, any resolution to the conflict has to be a "political, not military" solution, said Lynch, who will meet with reporters to discuss his trip at his South Boston home tonight. "Political"! Like the Paris Peace (sic) talks with the Vietcong? The solution is: military. Iraqization will work to some extent, especially where US air services supplement ground work. One earlier tactical change - "reactive" to "pro-active" patrol tactics - that was implemented in Nov. 2003, reduced US casualties by 70% (from one month to the next), and put the enemy on the defensive. I favor immediate implementation of: disproportionate retaliation. In my opinion, it is the lack of a meaningful - ie: deadly - response to terror that fuels Islamofascist aggression, more than Iraqi reaction to native combat deaths. "Wahabi" is becoming Iraqi for "shit."
Lynch met with more than 30 Massachusetts residents serving in Iraq, visited wounded soldiers, met with military commanders in Baghdad and visited two U.S. Marine bases - at Al Qiam along the Syrian border and Balad in northern Iraq. Dems are getting good at partisan' bi-partisanship.
Asked what he would tell the parents of Massachusetts soldiers waiting anxiously at home, Lynch said: "I would tell the parents of those young men and women that, in my opinion, they are the very best Americans and how tremendously proud I am of their willingness to stand up for their country and to try to liberate that country."
A wounded soldier from Fall River, thrown from his vehicle and wounded after riding over a double-stacked anti-tank mine, was just one of many soldiers who were anxious to get back to fighting, Lynch said.
"The morale here, I think, ranged from between very, very good to excellent," Lynch said. "I found one of our Marines who had part of his left foot amputated who requested we assist him in getting back to his unit." Great! But morale could slip unless military resources are better directed at achieving their noble objectives.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/14/2005 00:08 ||
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#1
my opinion, it is the lack of a meaningful - ie: deadly - response to terror that fuels Islamofascist aggression
Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?
The reality is that we are in a 20-30+ year war. It will be fought in a variety of places and with a variety of means, none of which can fully be predicted at this point.
Lynch is right in tht sense. There WILL be a long military conflict. The only question is how much of it will occur in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Consider, for instance, the reports that Carlos the Jackal and also a major Mexican revolutionary leader have converted to Islam. We talk here about the alliance between the far left and Islamacists but my guess is that that alliance will rapidly evolve beyond rhetoric into a military / terror network partnership.
Those who realize the dangers of Islamacism and appeasement - including most Rantburg readers - need to understand that there is no quick fix to this. Nuking this or that city, a Russian-style clampdown a la Chechnya ... none of this is going to put a decisive end to the threat. There will be times when tactics are used - look at the operation to wipe out the Afghan warlord whose fighters killed the SEALs. But that's tactical, not a strategy.
One reason I push back against extreme calls for nuking this or that muslim city is that we have GOT to realize that we will need determination and endurance to win this war. There will be no quick fixes to Islamacism or to the security threats posed by major geopolitical changes going on right not.
And retreating behind a barrier at our borders won't work either. This is going to be a long, painful, difficult and uncertain war, folks. We can win it, but only if we realize what we're up against.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 8:08 Comments ||
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#3
The supply of cannon fodder is endless? Then why is the "quality" of boomers going down? The use of the afflicted (Downs Syndrome) and even donkeys and dogs speaks to a SHORTAGE of cannon fodder class minions.
Posted by: Dave ||
08/14/2005 8:08 Comments ||
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#4
Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?
Your brilliant comparision works only if you ignore the emnity existing between Russia and Checnya, dating back to the days of the Czars 150 years or so.
#5
Let us take a lesson from this. A US government employee is basically saying the US will lose this war. The press in their never ending quest to help kill Americans, gleefully reports this nugget while faithfully ignoring the good news in Iraq.
Now, if you are a terrorist in Iraq and you hear this, this is all you need to have to go to your contributors to ask for more explosives and fighters, because a US congressman says terrorism is winning.
To me, that is prima facie evidence of a person who is not with the military folks he just spoke with, inasmuch as the same people he spoke with have themselves on the line to advance the cause of freedom.
Can this congressman be reliably considered to be a patriot if he publically announces his own nation is losing a war?
I don't think so, and in fact this congressman is a defeatist: someone who would rather indicate to the world he thinks they are losing, than to ask the obvious question if you are truley supporting your own country in time of war, what do you need to win?
We killed traitors after WWII for broadcasting enemy propaganda. What is different from what this congressman is doing?
#6
Not sure about the "no quick fixes" there LOTP. How about this set of events;
1) The republic of Eastern Arabia is set up (40km in the Eastern part of SA) and the oil there managed by a pro-Western, non-religious government. The Saudi oil-ticks are then bereft of cash and cannot fund terror organisations around the world. .com's idea and he's written on it in the past.
2) The blockading of all Iranian oil and an ultimatum issued 'step out of line and you're history' (actually the way things are going, this might well happen anyhow)
3) Mass deportation of Muslims to recognisable Muslim countries (this has the added bonus of showing up Multi-Culturalism as the evil sham that it is)
4) Splitting Iraq into three countries - Kurdish north, Shia South and Sunni in the middle. The North and South get large amounts of oil, and the Sunni in the middle get a little too (see the maps .com posted a few days ago)
Essentially - cut off the supply of money, isolate those people who want to live in a 7th century 'paradise' into a place where they can't hurt the outside world and then watch the whole house of cards come tumbling down. Harsh? maybe, but what's the alternative? a 20-30 year war that might be withdraw from at any time by the election of a US president that doesn't have the cojones that Bush has? Or a 20 minute war that sees much of the Muslim world a radioactive ruin?
The problem is that for those events to come into play, the West is going to have to be hit -badly- by the Islamists. If that hit is nuclear, then the genie really is out of the bottle and noone (except Bush) knows what happens next.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/14/2005 8:39 Comments ||
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#7
I agree that this is going to be a protracted battle and that nuking the world's bad guys won't fix it. Blockades are a declaration of war and also at this point in time blockading Iran's oil fields wouldn't be tolerated by China who at that point may decide it's a good time to take back Taiwan while we're busy in a bloodbath in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and God knows where else.
The ultimate answer to the whole quandry is to starve them all out though. We need a Manhatten type project to develop another form of energy. Oil drives the Mid-east. Get rid of the need for oil and the whole area again becomes a non-entity that we can destroy as we please. In the long run that's the only ultimate answer to our present problems because as long as the world is dependent on mid-east oil we really can't deal with them to forcefully.
#8
Lyot -#1 my opinion, it is the lack of a meaningful - ie: deadly - response to terror that fuels Islamofascist aggression
Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?
So explain Afghanistan were the Russians lost and where American and multi-alliance sponsored democracy is now taking hold?
This is a war of cultures. All the Islamics have is numbers, just as the American Indian outnumbered the early British colonist on North America. It took a long time, but the 'West' was consolidated. There was no single 'final solution' forcused, organized or planned by the migrants from Europe. It was a long series of relatively small disassociated conflicts. Each side won some, lost some. Americans lost soldiers and settlers all the time to native attacks and ambushes which didn't cause a flinch in the well to do salon's of New York or Philidelphia, though it did generate 'humanitarian' outcries by the same when the Army executed the policies of the elected government in Washington. Sympathy was abundent for the 'distant' noble savage, who would just as likely make territorial displays of war against their neighboring clan as the white man. Not much really changes in human behavior over 4000 years of history, just the name of the players.
#9
Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?
Russia's problem with Chechnya isn't that violence doesn't work to combat terrorism, but that the violence has to be applied in a controlled and competent manner. The Russian military is primitive in both organization and tactics. Their once-feared intelligence services are ineffective. If they had effective intelligence driving their military, the Chechen war would be over by now.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 10:01 Comments ||
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#10
we have GOT to realize that we will need determination and endurance to win this war.
Did we ever realize we needed to have determination and endurance to win the Cold War? Perhaps at first. But by 1965 at the latest, we had settled into "peaceful" co-existance. By then no one any longer realized we needed determination and endurance, they just accepted the continued existence of the Soviet Union as "the way it is." I suspect this is how the current conflict will evolve, until they will have so weakened themselves that they collapse because of their internal contradicitions. They cannot win this war. We can only lose it. And useful fifth columnist idiots like Lynch are trying, howerver unwittingly, to do just that.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 10:05 Comments ||
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#11
They cannot win this war. We can only lose it.
#12
Did we ever realize we needed to have determination and endurance to win the Cold War? Perhaps at first. But by 1965 at the latest, we had settled into "peaceful" co-existance. By then no one any longer realized we needed determination and endurance, they just accepted the continued existence of the Soviet Union as "the way it is."
Until Reagan. Who did NOT accept that existence "the way it was" and did something about it. The Soviet Union did not simply fade away -- it collapsed under the pressure of military R&D and spending.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 10:38 Comments ||
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#13
And may I remind us all that Reagan's determination and endurance was required, because people here and in Europe regarded him as Satan, an irresponsible bully?
But that said, I agree with you Mrs. D., that this will be won in a series of encounters that will stretch on for some time and - barring some horrific miscalculation by the Islamacists - will have no single definitive battle and victory.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 10:43 Comments ||
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#14
He's from Massachusetts, for heaven's sake; Boston, no less!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2005 10:47 Comments ||
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#15
good point Bobby. Take this as seriously as Sheila "we landed men on Mars" Jackson Lee or Cynthia McKinney discussing foreign policy and the military
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 11:16 Comments ||
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#16
LOTP, Agreed and I do not diminish Reagan's impact, but it was an impact on Soviet elites effected in spite of the resistance from western elites. It relied primarily on the internal degeneration of the Soviet system, a house of cards ready to fall from the pushes of a man, a woman and a Pope. We endured by outlasing them. Again an example of not one side winning, but the other losing.
A long fight it will be, but after having survived a real threat from the Soviets and their fellow travellers, I am confident we have the strength to outlast these pikers. I just don't know if I'll live long enough to see this wall come down. Or to find out what the next wall will be.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 11:26 Comments ||
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#17
Stalin had no problem nipping the Chechen rebellion in the bud with a combination of ultra-violence and mass deportation to Siberia.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 11:28 Comments ||
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#18
Central Asia, not Siberia.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 11:30 Comments ||
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#19
We should not concede the proposition that there are infinite jihadis with infinite weapons so therefore we might as well give up, which is what Rep. Lynch seems to be saying. This has been an Islamist theme from the beginning ("We're willing to die but you life-loving westerners aren't.") If there were an infinite number of fearess jihadis Israel would have been pushed into the Mediterraneum sixty years ago, the Taliban would still be in power, and the "insurgents" wouldn't wear track shoes.
Nor should we assume that the parents of the young jihadis don't feel grief when they hear that Mahmoud Jr. briefly occupied the same space as chain-shot from a Bradley's main gun. Their losses are every bit as painful to them as ours are to us.
What we have here is a case of mini-hysteria brought on by the loss of the Marine AAV in Iraq and the Special Forces losses in Afghanistan, combined with the enemy's Number One Force Multiplier, our own media. Our army in Iraq is arguably the best ever fielded by anyone in any conflict. If we stay the course and let them do their job, we will defeat the enemy on the ground.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/14/2005 12:50 Comments ||
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#20
..any resolution to the conflict has to be a "political, not military" solution.
Well no shit Congressman. Political resolution is what we have been working towards for the last 2 years. But, you can't get to the political resolution without the military victory. The former without the later is just stage-managed surrender and of no use to us. Thanks for the puppet show Congressman. Like Kermit, you have no spine.
Ah yes. Again with the canard support the troops, but not the mission. Nice riff on the theme Congressman. And just what does it mean Congressman, when after 2 years of battle, the troops have good morale. It does not mean they are getting three square meals a day and 8 hours sleep at night, it means they are confident in their ability to kick the snot out of the enemy in any situation. Take a hint from the troops Congressman and not your hand-wringing constituents, they expect and are confident of victory. You have failed the test of leadership Congressman - your resolve has been duly noted and held in contempt.
#21
The way to win the war is to stop the money flowing to the Jihadists, the Madarassas. We in the civilized world, and I am not ethnocentric on the term, are financing our destruction with Petrodollars, petroeuros, that we work hard for and give to the oil ticks.
Look at Saudi Arabia. The so-called princes are getting wealthier and the per-capita income of the just-plain-joe Saudis is seriously decreasing. Unemployment among the young adults is 25% or so. This is a recipe for disaster in SA.
So the issue is how to deny the Saudi princes the money, or to ahem show the errant princes the errors of their ways. That is the big issue. I make no effort to minimize the valiant efforts of our military, but everything else is treating the symptoms. My tuppence worth.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 15:59 Comments ||
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#22
The way to win the war is to stop the money flowing to the Jihadists, the Madarassas.
#23
anon---Massachussets politicians are closet jihadists wannabes. It is implied that their money gets cut off, LOL!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 18:05 Comments ||
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#24
"-Massachussets politicians are closet..."
20 years ago, it was the NORAID supporting IRA.
Besides, to be Frank, some Massachusetts' politicians have been out of the closet for some time now.
Posted by: Dave ||
08/14/2005 18:26 Comments ||
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#25
The target is AMERICA, the objective is PC destabilizing and forcing/suborning America unto SOCIALISM and ultim COMMUNISM - the Burqua Boyz are just a DIVERSION, albeit violent. Remember, the Comie Clinton-led Dems are using the alleged arrogant, "Fascist" GOP-Right to conquer and dev GLOBAL EMPIRE WHILE RUSSIA-CHINA MODERNIZE VIA CONTROLLED OR LIMITED STATE CAPITALISM. As the alternate or antithesis to FASCIST SOCIALISM IS COMMUNIST SOCIALISM, I have no doubts Hillary and the Dems are waiting for new devastating terror attacks to occur ags America, Dubya, and GOP-dominated Washington, the US Congress and US Govt., thus justifying stronger and stronger, more militarized and centralized, aka COMMUNIST-STYLE, Govt- and National-State Controls.
"FASCISM" per se is gen considered by most academics/intelligentsia as an AUTHORITARIAN IDEOLOGY - any US-specific, CASUALTY-INTENSIVE [CIVILIAN] terror attack(s), espec where there are high civilian casualties + many domestic Political casualties, will be argued as requiring SUPER/EXTRA-AUTHORITARIAN NATION-WIDE MEASURES, which fits right up Communism's alley as an ideology of despotic, ultra-LeftConservative, Super-Regulatory ideo. Eight years of Clintonism absolutely justified Leftism-Socialism once, before, and forever, and SSSSSSSSSSSSHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, ultra-Left Communism also, as far as the power-mad Lefties are concerned, and regardless of defect or delusion. You can see it already on the programs of Amerikan SSR/USR Stae BUreau known as HOLLYWOOD AND BIG TV - with their "Reality Shows" and Commercials hinting or depicting ALTERNATE LIFESTYLES: Gay-Lesbian, wife/hubby-swapping, Group Sex, conspiring women, illegitimate birthrights, etc. THE LEFT'S MESSAGE IS NOT "TOLERANCE" OR "DIVERSITY", BUT THAT NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED FOR ANYTHING, ERGO SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH, THE NEED FOR GOVT-CONTROLLED REGULATION AND MORE REGULATION, BIGGER BIG GOVT., and ultim TO PAY MORE TAXES TO THE STATE. NEVER MIND WHAT THE REP SAYS - THE THREAT TO AMERICA IS "CREEPING SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM", i.e. STATE REGULATION AND CENTRALISM, AND ITS NOT A "NEVENDUM" CAUSE THE LEFTIES ARE GIVING AMERICA UNTIL 2015-2020 TO ACCEPT SOCIALISM AND SWO/CWO! AFTER 2015-2020, THEY RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE FORCE AND VIOLENCE EN MASSE TO [MILITARILY]DESTROY AMERICA FOREVER! WE ARE IN WW3, WE ARE IN COMMUNISM'S "FINAL CONFLICT" - BY PEACE OR WAR, AMERICA IS INTENDED TO LOSE, NEVER TO RISE AGAIN! THE FAILED/ANGRY LEFT WILL NOT ACCEPT AMERICA NOT WAGING WAR FOR GLOBAL EMPIRE - IFF AMERICA DOES NOT ATTACK, AMERICA WILL BE ATTACKED: Now you know why belligerent IRAN and NORTH KOREA: Iran = Norkies, etc. = 300K-500K US troops to invade and occupy, at risk of nuclearized, PC, "People's War" = Martial Law America = Socialist-Commie America; New 9-11's = only Communist, NOT "Fascist" domestic Regulation, and OWG, can save America from itself and new attacks. THE COMMIES AND CHICOMS HAVE NO QUALMS DESTROYING THE WORLD VIA NUKE WAR IF IT MEANS THEIR POWER - DO YOU AMERICANS OF THE CLINTONS' FUTURE USSA, A SOCIALIST SUBSIDIARY-SSR OF THE FUTURE OWG???
MEMORANDUM FOR: SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
Subject: Trip Report - Kuwait and Iraq - Saturday, 4 June through Saturday, 11 June 2005
1. PURPOSE: This memo provides feedback reference visit 4-11 June 2005 by General Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret.) to Kuwait and Iraq. (the numbers give a clue to how much was snipped. Sorry, I've lost the site to make a hat-tip, but it started as an e-mail for a retired Army friend.)
3. THE BOTTOM LINE---Observations from Operation Iraqi Freedom: June 2005:
1st - US Military Forces in Iraq are superb. Our Army-Marine ground combat units with supporting Air and Naval Power are characterized by quality military leadership, solid discipline, high morale, and enormous individual and unit courage. Unit effectiveness is as good as we can get. This is the most competent and battle wise force in our nation's history. They are also beautifully cared for by the chain-of-command -- and they know it. (Food, A/C sleeping areas, medical care, mental health care, home leave, phone/e-mail contact with families, personal equipment, individual and unit training, targeted economic incentives in the battle area, visibility of tactical leadership, home station care for their families, access to news information, etc).
3rd - The Iraqi Security Forces are now a real and hugely significant factor. LTG Dave Petreaus has done a brilliant job with his supporting trainers.
169,000 Army and Police exist in various stages of readiness. They have uniforms, automatic weapons, body armor, some radios, some armor, light trucks, and battalion-level organization. At least 60,000 are courageous Patriots who are actively fighting. By next summer--250,000 Iraqi troops and 10 division HQS will be the dominant security factor in Iraq.
4. Top CENTCOM Vulnerabilities:
1st - Premature drawdown of U.S. ground forces driven by dwindling U.S. domestic political support and the progressive deterioration of Army and Marine manpower. (In particular, the expected melt-down of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve in the coming 36 months)
2nd - Alienation of the U.S. Congress or the American people caused by Iraqi public ingratitude and corruption. Not to mention the MSM!
3rd - Political ineptitude of Shia civil leadership that freezes out the Sunnis and creates a civil war during our drawdown.
4th - "The other shoe" - a war with North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, or Cuba that draws away U.S. military forces and political energy.
6. Coalition Public Diplomacy Policy is a disaster:
1st - The US media is putting the second team in Iraq with some exceptions. Unfortunately, the situation is extremely dangerous for journalists. The working conditions for a reporter are terrible. They cannot travel independently of US military forces without risking abduction or death. In some cases, the press has degraded to reporting based on secondary sources, press briefings which they do not believe, and alarmist video of the aftermath of suicide bombings obtained from Iraqi employees of unknown reliability.
2nd - Our unbelievably competent, articulate, objective, and courageous Battalion, Brigade, and Division Commanders are not on TV. These commanders represent an Army-Marine Corps which is rated as the most trusted institution in America by every poll.
3rd - We are not aggressively providing support (transportation, security, food, return of film to an upload site, etc) to reporters to allow them to follow the course of the war.
4th - Military leaders on the ground are talking to people they trust instead of talking to all reporters who command the attention of the American people. (We need to educate and support AP, Reuters, Gannet, Hearst, the Washington Post, the New York Times, etc.)
7. SUMMARY:
a.. This is the darkness before dawn in the efforts to construct a viable Iraqi state. The enterprise was badly launched --but we are now well organized and beginning to develop successful momentum. The future outcomes are largely a function of the degree to which Iraqi men and women will overcome fear and step forward to seize the leadership opportunity to create a new future.
b.. We face some very difficult days in the coming 2-5 years. In my judgment, if we retain the support of the American people --we can achieve our objectives of creating a law-based Iraqi state which will be an influencing example on the entire region.
c.. A successful outcome would potentially usher in a very dramatically changed environment throughout the Middle East and signal in this region the end of an era of incompetent and corrupt government which fosters frustration and violence on the part of much of the population.
d.. It was an honor and a very encouraging experience to visit CENTCOM Forces in Iraq and Kuwait and see the progress achieved by the bravery and dedication of our military forces.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2005 14:36 ||
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#3
Bobby, here's a link to McCaffrey's full report and it may also be the site you had in mind.
Note that this link also includes items 2 and 5 missing from the General's report posted above.
NEW YORK (AP) - Radio communication broke down. Commanders lost contact with their squads. Noise and dust obscured the senses. One paramedic likened it to being in an infantry unit overrun by enemy troops. Yet, in the confusion at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters and emergency medical technicians improvised, and kept working.
Without direction from superiors and no plan to guide their actions, they followed their instincts and extinguished blazes, triaged casualties and comforted the injured, at a time when they could have surrendered to panic.
More details of their rescue efforts that day have emerged in an archive of interviews and audiotapes released by the city this week as a result of a court order. Among the hundreds of pages of transcripts are scores of instances where trained rescuers realized they were on their own.
Frank Pastor, an EMT who lost his helmet and his equipment running for his life as one of the towers collapsed, recalled finding himself in the lobby of a building surrounded by hundreds of survivors crying, ``Help me! We can't breathe,'' in the cloud of dust. ``I'm looking around to see what I can do,'' he said. ``I remember opening up this door. There was a slop sink. There was clothes hanging. I took the clothes and I started soaking the clothes, wetting them, started cutting out strips, giving it to kids, giving it to the mothers.''
Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy dusted himself off after the second tower collapsed and found a command post. ``At first we started asking, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?''' he said. ``Nobody really had a specific answer.'' He salvaged rope and some tools from parked emergency vehicles and began looking for ways into the mountain of rubble. After hours of searching, he and a companion lowered themselves into a deep pit, where they found a pocket of trapped civilians, firefighters and a Port Authority police officer who had survived.
Cassidy described who he used his body as a bridge to help the dazed officer climb up to a girder and reach clear skies. ``He gets up on my leg and then my shoulder, and he's up on the girder,'' Cassidy said. ``He lies there on top of the girder and he gives me the biggest hug and he starts crying.
``For me, it was like, 'All right. No time for sentiment. You've got to get going.''
The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls, released as the result of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families and The New York Times. Several city EMTs complained about their inability to communicate with the private ambulance corps. Some firefighters said they never heard the evacuation order. Many described difficulty keeping in touch with commanders or members of their own units.
But the chaos didn't stop rescuers from acting.
Fire Captain Bruce Lindahl recalled realizing, amid all the confusion, that someone needed to put water on the Trade Center's smoldering remains.
EMT Fermin Merrero described walking down the street, treating wounded people as they passed. ``Nobody was in charge,'' he said. ``I know what they teach you at the academy about we're going to triage, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. One thing about it, everybody kept their head. Everybody worked as a team.''
Paramedic Camille Marroncelli said that for many, the decision to keep going in the face of chaos came naturally. ``You react because it's second nature on this job and that's the only reason why people - a lot of people rose to the occasion, because it is second nature,'' Marroncelli said. ``If you stood there and really had to think about what you had to do, you would have been more paralyzed than you were.''
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 01:00 ||
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#1
Great article, but let's get to what the MSM needs to focus on: The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls
Ordinary Americans at their best.
All of which demonstrates that the TSA is clueless and useless. Passengers should remain prepared to join the 93rd Volunteer Infantry.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal agency in charge of aviation security is considering major changes in how it screens airline passengers, including proposals that an official said would lift the ban on carrying razorblades and small knives as well as limit patdown searches.
The Transportation Security Administration will meet later this month to discuss the plan, which is designed to reduce checkpoint hassles for the nation's 2 million passengers. It comes after TSA's new head, Edmund S. ``Kip'' Hawley, called for a broad review in hopes of making airline screening more passenger-friendly.
An initial set of staff recommendations drafted Aug. 5 also proposes that passengers no longer have to routinely remove their shoes during security checks. Instead, only passengers who set off metal detectors, are flagged by a computer screening system or look ``reasonably suspicious'' would be asked to do so, a TSA official said Saturday. Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require Hawley's approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision.
Why on earth does anyone need to travel with an ice pick?
``The process is designed to stimulate creative thinking and challenge conventional beliefs,'' said Mark Hatfield, TSA's spokesman. ``In the end, it will allow us to work smarter and better as we secure America's transportation system.''
The Aug. 5 memo recommends reducing patdowns by giving screeners the discretion not to search those wearing tight-fitting clothes. It also suggests exempting several categories of passengers from screening, including federal judges, members of Congress, Cabinet members, state governors, high-ranking military officers and those with high-level security clearances.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 00:58 ||
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#1
I bet ol' Teddy Kennedy thinks the exceptions for members of Congress is good news (wasn't he supposedly on some no-fly list?).
I'll just be happy when I can start wearing some other shoes besides flip-flops when I fly.
#2
It dawned on me today as I walked my daughter to the security line, in her flip flops, that we have no known islamic terrorist threat involving females on air transportation. Should we subtley ignore screening females to improve airport security cycle time, and see if the radical islamic assholes can bring themselves to not only involving "chicks" but training them too?
Bet they can't do it!
#3
Personally, if there's trouble I'd just as soon myself and others have their trusty ol' pocketknives handy on any flight. Why disarm the general public when bad guys can sneak on a ceramic knife anytime they want?
#4
Sorry, Capsu78, but the gang o' idiots running Palestine have already convinced some of their stupider broads (yep, using that term because they don't deserve any respect at all IMHO) to load up on the explosives.
How the hell are they supposed to know what clearances I have unless they learn how to read my facility badges, which differ depending on which agency controls the facility I happen to use that badge in.
Other than that, I'm all for the "high security clearance" exemption. I figure with the invesigation, polygraph, etc - Im no threat to anyone on the aircraft except a terrorist, whose neck I will quickly break.
#7
badges, I don't need no stinkin' badges...
but yes we need ice picks, lol
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 5:38 Comments ||
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I think the rational approach is that each passenger has the ability to be equally equiped. The unofficial SOP is Flight 93. The point is that no one or couple of passengers have better means to inflict injury or wounds than anyother.
"...in April 1986 Nezar Hindawi, a freelance Syrian-funded Jordanian terrorist and would-be agent of Syrian intelligence, sent his pregnant Irish girlfriend on an El Al flight to Israel, promising to meet her there to be married. Unknown to her, however, Hindawi had hidden a bomb (provided by the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)) in a false bottom to her hand luggage. His attempt to bomb the airliner in midair by duping his pregnant girlfriend was thwarted when the bomb was discovered by Heathrow security personnel."
This is the reason the professional security outfits - the Israelis - look at profiles beyond the young male Arab profile. The Israelis don't just search people by the way, they interview people before flights looking for these sorts of connections. Profiling is useful, but there is more than one profile to look for.
#12
Incidently, the pregnant girl was carrying Hindawi's child. The report cites some psychologist as labeling Hindawi "psychopathic". What a hoot. You can tell this report was written in the naive days of 1999 before psychopathic behavior was realized - by Rantburgers at least - to be a norm in the Middle East.
There are indications that the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network had a hand in the twin bombings that rocked Zamboanga City last Wednesday, leaving 26 people wounded, a government bomb expert revealed.
According to Superintendent Jose Bayani Gucela, the deputy police chief and commander of the city policeâs Explosive and Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, a pattern has emerged showing a "similarity to the previous bombings" three years ago. During the October 2002 series of bombing attacks in the cityâs Malagutay district, authorities traced the bombing to the Abu Sayyaf urban terrorist group (UTG), said to be behind the attack that left a dozen people killed, including a visiting US serviceman, and wounded more than 70 others.
The police and military explosives experts, along with their counterparts from the US, found that the Abu Sayyaf bombers used plastic explosives, more commonly known as C-4, in the bombing attacks. The investigation also led authorities, in just a week, to arrest five of the suspects in the bombing. Their arrest also led the police to uncover a new terror unit, reportedly trained by the JI in Sulu. Gucela, however, admitted they had yet confirm the reports and the kind of explosives used in last Wednesdayâs twin attack. "We have recovered the empty box of the timing device. But as of now we cannot confirm yet the kind of explosive that was used" in the twin blast, Gucela said.
"Nevertheless, we can establish there is a pattern of similarity of the previous bombing that we have experienced in Zamboanga City," according to Gucela, a US-trained bomb expert who led the investigation into the twin blasts. Gucela declared last Wednesdayâs bombing attacks "related to the ASG-JI pattern of placing bombings and explosions." Police have already filed criminal charges against the suspects. One of the suspects has been positively identified by witnesses who saw him planting an explosive device in a parked multicab before it went off. Police said they have strong evidence against the bombing suspects that would lead to their successful prosecution in court.
"(We have strong) evidence against them. We have already confirmed that these people are members of the Abu Sayyaf," Superintendent Prospero Noble said. Senior Superintendent Henry Losañez, city police chief, added he is optimistic they could solve the second blast that hit the St. Annâs Pension house and Chowking Building in the city. Losañez claimed they have some suspects in custody but declined to name them.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:21 ||
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A militant cleric jailed for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings will be among 53,000 inmates receiving sentence reductions to mark Indonesia's independence day, authorities and media reports said Saturday. Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, was convicted in March of conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.
Others convicted in the Bali blasts will also receive reductions in their prison terms, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin told the Jakarta Post. "Convicts with a record of good behavior can get up to 10-months remission," said Mayun Mataram of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Bali. Nineteen of the 24 Bali bombers jailed on the tourist island will get sentence reductions, said Mataram. The youngest son of former dictator Suharto, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, is also expected to have his sentence for assassinating a judge reduced when Indonesia celebrates its 60th birthday on Wednesday, Hamid said. The 43-year-old former playboy earlier this year had his 15-year sentence reduced by five years on appeal.
It is an Indonesian tradition to cut jail terms on holidays for some of the country's 105,000 inmates who exhibit good behavior, with only those sentenced to death or life in prison excluded. Authorities are expected to announce the length of the reductions Wednesday, but on average terms are cut by a few months. Attorney Wirawan Adnan, who represented many of the Bali bombers including Bashir, said his clients deserve a break just like any other well-behaved inmate. "This happens all over the world if you have been a good boy and don't cause trouble," Adnan said. "We're talking about human rights, and everyone should be treated the same whether you are a murderer (or) rapist."
But Peter Hughes, a survivor who suffered serious burns in the Bali attacks, said the bombers should serve out their entire sentences. "We don't like it but there is not much we can do about," said Hughes of Perth, Australia. "This is not justice. These guys are criminals and murders should be given heavy penalties without a reprieve." Bashir was sentenced in March to 30 months in jail for conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.
Will that pretty Aussie girl get a shortened sentence?
Don't bother replying, I think I know the answer.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Brilliant idea. Regards Bashir, Indo "justice" had already made quite the impression upon me. This serves to confirm it. The Gong Show had more class.
#2
Another way the Indonesians might celebrate their independence day instead would be to get together with friends at picnics and watch firework shows.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/14/2005 8:27 Comments ||
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Agreed, Mike. Reducing 53,000 sentences seems like a silly way to celebrate. Especially reducing sentences of people who would rob you of your independence.
#4
"We're talking about human rights, and everyone should be treated the same whether you are a murderer (or) rapist."
Hmmm, which am I, a murderer or rapist.... Of course they're exhibiting good behavior, they can't get their hands on any terror material while in prison. "53,000 inmates receiving sentence reductions to mark Indonesia's independence day"
I can think of a few better ways to celebrate. "We don't like it but there is not much we can do about,"
Let me count the ways....
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 12:51 Comments ||
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A United Nations investigator intends to question Syrian officials directly as part of a probe into the killing six months ago of Lebanese former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a UN official says. Detlev Mehlis will also probably ask for more time than the designated three months to complete his findings, the official said. "Detlev Mehlis needs to directly interview Syrian officials concerned. He needs to visit Syria for this purpose," UN spokesman Najib Friji said on Saturday. "The Syrians have agreed in principle to cooperate with Mehlis but he has yet to receive an official Syrian response to visit the country."
It was not clear which Syrian officials Mehlis plans to question, although he announced at the start of the inquiry that "we will ... investigate anyone who was in one way or another responsible for security in Lebanon at the time of the crime". Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper reported on Saturday that Mehlis had already questioned three Syrian officials in writing rather than in person after Damascus declined direct interviews. "In his report, Mr Mehlis will request an extension of his mission," Friji said. He declined to say how much more time Mehlis will ask the world body to grant him.
But Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said on Friday the UN mission may need a few weeks only beyond its 15 September deadline to complete the investigation. Siniora spoke after two hours of talks with Mehlis. "He gave me some ideas, but there is nothing specific," Siniora said afterwards, referring to the investigation. Mehlis, a German prosecutor, did not talk to reporters. The UN Security Council voted in April to authorise Mehlis' probe after a UN fact-finding team concluded that a Lebanese investigation into the killing did not meet international standards. The UN team has 30 investigators, including an explosives unit from Germany, crime technicians from the Netherlands, and divers from Britain - the bomb exploded next to the Beirut waterfront.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Posted by: DanNY ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
The Telegraph makes the mistake thinking that we would allow this to become a protracted war. (I don't think they understand our revolution isn't over either, it is renewed every generation.) We can react in much more suddenly, violently, harshly and brutally than anyone outside of ourselves can even fathom. We will not try and pacify Iran. Iran is not Iraq, after 20 plus years of "death to America" well will utterly destroy Iraq, there will be no Marshal plan, there will be no making our former enemies friends, there will be no Iran to make 'friends" with. This is totally outside of the UN's abilities to deal with. Our military is spread too thin for us to even consider going toe to toe with Iran without a New conscript army and long military build up. That will not happen. I can only suggest that all other nations stay out of our way when I comes time for the rubber to meet the road.
#4
The 2008 elections will possibly be too late. The MMs are gearing up their push for nukes. The US is spread thin in the military dept. The EUniks are a paper tiger, and Iranian MMs HAVE to get the US out of Iraq for their own survival. The MMs are seizing on the opportunity because the have to for survival of their system. It also helps to be crazy.
These are the givens, how we deal with the threat is the issue. The threat will not go away.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 16:23 Comments ||
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#5
The 2008 election will be to late. Anyone with a reasonably functional brain knows that our intelligence on Iran is sparse. Making decisions on the assessments of our intelligence agencies as the sole source of information is a huge mistake. This was writ large in Iraq.
#6
I also believe 2008 will be too late, both because for Iran and NK per se, within a narrow scope dev nukes is truly their only claim to "great power" status, plus Dubya is a man of action and a moralist - Dubya will want written, unbreakable commitments and actions from these nations iff they wish to avoid any US mil action. Since I believe Dubya also knows its the Commmies whom are ultim behind 9-11 and the Radic Islamists, Dubya knows it'll be more dangerous for America to back down from any mil or nuke confrontation with the Islamists, andor ags Russia-China over Radical Islam. No matter the risk to US-Allied forces, Dubya must defeat the Rogues before their LR nuke capabilities get to strong, and the Rogues know this - IOW, unless these regimes can be internally imploded despite their level of anti-US support received from Moscow-Beijing, AMERICA AND AMERICANS MUST BE WILLING TO ACCEPT SOME FORM OF LIMITED NUKE WAR LEVEL OF "ACCEPTABLE [COLLATERAL] CASUALTIES" AGS ITS MILFORS, GOVT., ANDOR CITIES. AMERICANS SHOULD HAVE NO FEAR BECAUSE AMERICA'S ENEMIES NO LONGER CARE ABOUT CO-EXISTENCE OR COMPETITION WITH AMERICA - THEY WANT AMERICA DEFEATED AND DESTROYED! THESE GUYS WANT AMERICA'S HEAD, BE IT THEY CUT IT OFF, ANDOR WE AMERICANS DO IT OURSELVES AND GIVE IT TO THEM, BY ANY EACH ALL AND EVERY MEANS NECESSARY!? * The GOP-Right are belabeled and criticized by the DemoLeft as "FASCISTS" - the Clinton-led Dems are both depending on these GOP "FASCISTS" while promo themselves as the PC antithesis to Fascism, which is COMMUNIST SOCIALISM, i.e. COMMUNISM - you know, Lefty SECULAR MORALISM where one doesn't have to believe in God to tell the truth, to say what they truly stand for!? Bill O'Reilly: "... the Panzers of [Left]Liberals/Marxists". The Lefties and Commies believe they can win because they lie to everybody, includ their own, includ to themselves.
an Observer investigation can reveal that, far from being moderate, the Muslim Council of Britain has its origins in the extreme orthodox politics in Pakistan. And as its influence increases through Whitehall, many within the Muslim community are growing concerned that this self-appointed organisation is crowding out other, genuinely moderate, voices of Muslim Britain.
Posted by: john ||
08/14/2005 17:51 ||
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Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said on Sunday a referendum would be held next month on a controversial amnesty aimed at ending 13 years of Islamist insurgency, but added that only a partial amnesty was on offer. "I invite you ... to voice your opinion in a referendum that will take place on Thursday, Sept. 29 over the draft charter for peace and national reconciliation," he said in a speech.
But only the relatives of the victims can vote.
Militants involved in "massacres and explosions in public areas" would be excluded from the amnesty, Bouteflika said, without giving further details. The amnesty would involve dropping legal action against Islamist rebels who had already surrendered, and against some still at large in Algeria or abroad.
Bouteflika urged Algerians to back his initiative, saying that the referendum would be "transparent, democratic and fair." He had initially been expected to propose a full amnesty for all insurgents, but scaled down the offer when the main outlawed Islamist movement, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), praised the al Qaeda network in Iraq for killing two Algerian diplomats last month.
"The kidnapping of our diplomats is part of attempts aimed at hampering national reconciliation," Bouteflika said.
The draft reconciliation plan also bars those behind insurgent violence from entering politics, an apparent reference to leaders of the now-banned FIS. FIS chief Abassi Madani and his deputy Ali Belhadj were released in July 2003 after serving 12 years in a military prison, but remained banned from politics and from speaking to the media.
Belhadj was detained again last month after he praised insurgents in Iraq and said they had the right to kidnap the diplomats.
Time for a remedial lesson.
Under the reconciliation plan, thousands of people who disappeared in the violence will be considered "victims of the national tragedy" and their families will receive compensation, Bouteflika said. A government human rights group recently said the number who disappeared was 6,141.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:53 ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is replacing body armor for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, citing a need for better protection that can withstand the strongest of attacks from insurgents, a spokesman said Saturday.
The effort, which began more than a year ago, would upgrade the protection used by more than 500,000 soldiers as well as civilian employees and news reporters. The first upgrade installed ceramic protective plates in the vests and was completed in early 2004.
Defense officials acknowledge the replacement processes have been slowed in part by debates over what is best for the troops. The current replacement is expected to take several more months to complete, said an Army official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of information affecting troop safety.
Pentagon spokesman Paul Boyce said Saturday, ``Obviously, the body armor is manufactured and tested to exceptionally high standards. This is not the type of technology that is readily available from a local hardware store. It's very exact.
``But as new technologies emerge, the Army works aggressively with the commercial industry to develop, test and produce the best possible equipment for our soldiers. Members of Congress have been briefed, and they have been fully supportive,'' he said of the latest replacement effort.
Maj. Gen. William D. Catto, head of the Marine Corps Systems Command, said he wasn't happy about the yearlong delay to replace the armor, noting that if defense officials had the capability, they would upgrade the protective garb right away. But he blamed the delay partly on a shortage of the raw material that is needed to strengthen the plates.
The new armor weighs about 18 pounds, about one pound heavier than the original plates, and consists of thicker plates that could shield soldiers against stronger attacks, according to the Army official. The heavier weight was one factor that hindered a quicker change, the official said, pointing to concerns that soldiers might not be able to move swiftly in the face of an attack. The official declined to release additional information or specifics about how much armor had already been shipped to Iraq.
The New York Times first reported the Pentagon's efforts Saturday on its Web site. It said upgrades will cost at least $160 million. The Times said it withheld details of which insurgent munitions are able to pierce the older body armor to protect troops still using it in the field.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 00:54 ||
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#1
The Times said it withheld details of which insurgent munitions are able to pierce the older body armor to protect troops still using it in the field.
Well, that would be a fucking first for the NYT by NOT printing stuff that is harmful to the troops.
#3
The Times said it withheld details of which insurgent munitions are able to pierce the older body armor to protect troops still using it in the field.
I agree it is strange, but don't worry - it'll leak out.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2005 10:49 Comments ||
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#4
You have to subscribe to the premium service to get it.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 11:15 Comments ||
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#5
Saw some video of troops with kevlar shoulder protection. Seems like a good idea, especially for vehicle mounted gunners.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 11:45 Comments ||
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#6
Saw some video of troops with kevlar shoulder protection. Seems like a good idea, especially for vehicle mounted gunners.
Whatever happened to those "Ball Turrets" that WWII planes had? Seems like a good idea to equip tanks with those. Maybe heavy hinges one one side to escape and a ring collar of armor to cover the turn mechanism.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 14:04 Comments ||
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#7
Ball turrets were a claustrophic purple heart box. We have enough technology to do something else.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 16:16 Comments ||
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#8
claustrophobic.....excuse me.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 16:16 Comments ||
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#9
I didn't comment on the Times' last statement about withholding information, comfortably certain that our regulars wouldn't fail me :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 18:30 Comments ||
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SRINAGAR â Two Muslim militant groups in Indian Kashmir have rejected a call by the regionâs top woman politician for a truce, saying their âjihadâ would continue until the Indians kill them the region was wrested from India.
The Himalayan regionâs top woman politician appealed to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday to help bring peace to the revolt-hit region by persuading Islamic militants to declare a ceasefire. âEncourage them to announce a ceasefire,â Mehbooba Mufti urged Musharraf. âPeople in Kashmir want peace, not violence.â
But the regionâs most powerful group, Hizbul Mujahideen, said it would not agree to any ceasefire in the 16-year-old insurgency against New Delhiâs rule. âThe jihad will continue until Kashmir is liberated from India,â Hizbulâs spokesman and Kashmir-based field commander Junaid-ul-Islam was quoted by a local news agency as saying late on Friday.
"A truce would be un-Islamic!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2005 00:49 ||
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For the first time in a decade, the founders and top political leaders of Hamas gathered on Saturday on the same stage, vowing to go on fighting Israel and claiming victory for the impending Israeli withdrawal. In a direct challenge to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas' top brass said Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement could not be the sole decision-making body and insisted it has the right to possess arms, the latest sign that tensions are heating up in the days before Israel's Gaza pullout, set to begin on 15 August.
At Friday's Gaza sea-front event, Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan said all events would take place under the official Palestinian flag, a warning to Hamas which is planning its own military-style celebrations. Taking responsibility for the Israeli pullout, Abbas promised the West Bank and Jerusalem would be next. But the Hamas leadership - positioned in front of the group's logo and a green Islamic flag - challenged the Palestinian Authority statement, saying their armed struggle had led Israel to evacuate settlements, and vowed not to lay down their weapons until the Israeli occupation ends. "Hamas remains committed to the choice of resistance as a strategic choice. Hamas remains committed to its military wing and its right to possess weapons," said Ismail Haniyye, a top Hamas leader. Hamas does not plan to battle the Palestinian Authority, Haniyye said, but said: "Hamas rejects the idea of allowing any single party to monopolise the decision-making process."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like a target-rich environment. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/14/2005 0:49 Comments ||
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#2
Hamas will try and take credit for the withdrawal, a la Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahlan won't want that to happen. Pass the popcorn?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 11:41 Comments ||
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Iraqi leaders, under intense US pressure, have reached tentative agreements on oil wealth distribution, perhaps the most divisive issue among for the country's ethnic and religious groups. Panelists finalising Iraq's constitution said on Saturday a deal had been struck to share the world's second largest known oil reserves, which are concentrated in the Kurdish controlled north and largely Shia south. "An in principle agreement has been reached late yesterday that Iraq's oil revenues will be shared between the Shia, the Kurds and the Sunnis," Sunni panelist Saleh al-Mutlaq said.
Many Sunnis fear that if Iraq adopts a federal structure, the country's oil wealth will be divided up between the Kurdish and Shia regions, leaving them with nothing. But Mutlaq explained that while a percentage of oil revenue would go to the federal government, the rest would be distributed centrally to each governorate according to its population size. "All the groups have agreed on this," said Mutlaq, one of the representatives on the 71-member constitution committee struggling to draw up a draft charter before Monday's deadline. Some reports indicated the federal government of each oil producing region would take a revenue share of about 5%, with the rest going to Baghdad for nationwide distribution.
A Kurdish member of the panel expressed caution over interpreting the apparent consensus as an end to problems over the division of Iraq's oil wealth. "The Sunnis have still not agreed to any of the main points ... but even if there is no agreement from them, the draft can still be passed in the National Assembly," Kurdish National Assembly member Mahmud Othman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm suspicious of that 5% figure. A 50:50 split would make sense and I'm willing to bet that is what has been agreed.
President General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday asked the army to be ready to maintain law and order in the country during the upcoming local government elections. "Be prepared to assist the civil administration should such a need arise to maintain law and order during the local government elections," ISPR quoted the president as instructing the top brass of the Pakistan Army. Chaired by the president at GHQ, the 92nd meeting of corps commanders was attended by the vice chief of army staff, corps commanders and principal staff officers. The meeting reviewed the internal and external security situation and operational preparedness of the Pakistan Army besides training and other matters of professional interest.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Hamas will not surrender its weapons to the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip after Israel's pullout from the territory, one of the movement's top leaders has said. "This army will continue to defend our homeland as long as one inch of Palestine remains occupied," Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters on Friday, after attending a training session of Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. "It is criminal to claim that there is only one weapon," al-Zahar said in reference to declarations by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insisting that the Palestinian Authority was the only legitimate security tool.
Zahar can describe it as criminal, but the Paleo Authority is the group that's recognized as the proto-government in the area. It's the organization with an observer at the UN, and it runs the Paleoparliament. They've even had elections. Hamas remains a political party and an armed militia. If it's not under government control, even a proto-government, then it's an outlaw band that should be broken up. Places like Somalia have militias running all over the place, pushing Armed Struggle™ as a way of life. The countries with the strongest "militias" are the ones that're highest (or maybe lowest) on the list of failed states.
During a keynote speech to the Palestinian parliament earlier this week, Abbas urged all armed groups to end their rocket attacks on Israeli targets, as part of a larger appeal for calm during the pullout. Abbas met al-Zahar and Hamas's two other top Gaza leaders on Tuesday in a bid to ensure the group's fighters would not seek to scupper the historic pullout of Israeli troops and settlers.
I'd guess that Zahar and Haniyeh are probably next on the list for helizapping next time a bus booms.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Any deal with a government that can't control Hamas, and they seem to support them not stop them is a very sad state of affair. They're telling us this up front too.
Even a King Kong type fence won't keep all the violence out.
As Han Solo said, "I've got a bad feelin' about this."
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 5:03 Comments ||
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How real proto thugocracy governments handle this is they invite in all the leaders of the various "factions" who are not programing to a big meeting. They get them all in a conference room seperated from their bodyguards. They then take them to the courtyard out back a shoot them and dispose of the bodies so they are never seen again. The Paleos can't even do this right.
#3
Why should they, given the limp-wristed way the PA has tried to enforce its authority? Why should they, when Israel's actions can only be interpreted as limp-wristed as well?
PESHAWAR: The Nowshera district returning officer (DRO) served notice on NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq on Saturday, summoning him for August 15 to explain alleged interference in the local government elections. The summons was issued after Chief Election Commissioner Abdul Hameed Dogar directed the Nowshera DRO to investigate complaints by Taraqi Pasand Group candidate Niaz Muhammad in Union Council Dheri Katthikhel that the senior minister was "interfering" to help Jamaat-e-Islami-backed candidates win.
Comes as a surprise, huh? I know. It floored me, too...
Haq, however, said he had not received the summons.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened."
"I am not interfering in the elections. The charge is baseless," he told Daily Times.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
He said federal ministers such as Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao and Minister of State for Water and Power Amir Muqqam had been "openly interfering" but had not been censured. "Why hasn't President Pervez Musharraf been summoned for his interference when he is asking people not to vote for extremists?"
"Why's ever'body alway pickin' on me?"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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President General Pervez Musharraf has admitted that previously his hands were tied when it came to reining in extremists in Pakistan, but says he is now "much stronger". In an interview to British newspaper The Telegraph, Gen Musharraf said that previously his hands were tied, either because of the 10-month-long confrontation with India in 2002 or political insecurities at home and abroad. "The situation is now far different from what I faced before," he said. "Now I am much stronger."
I wonder if that's apparent to anybody but Perv? We refer to him as a dictator, but he's not a dictator in the Baathist-Fascist-Peronist sense. There's no party structure other than the military at his beck and call, no brown-shirted street gangs, not even a particularly good propaganda machine; Pakland's press is pretty lively, across the entire political spectrum. What we don't see is the internal machinations within the military. Has he in fact consolidated his power base? I dunno. We don't see a parade of officers trooping out to sing his praises, but we didn't see any parades of officers trooping out to damn him, either except for guys like Hamid Gul and Aslam Beg, who've been moved out of their jobs.
Gen Musharraf said he had made it clear to the police and government ministries that they must crack down on banned extremist groups which have re-emerged under new names, close all "hate" publications, create a new syllabus for the madrassas and register them by December.
The coppers, as we've seen, often claim not to have gotten the memo. Perhaps Perv needs to crack down on the coppers, too...
"This time those madrassas who don't register by December will be shut down," he said. Now the government would no longer distinguish between "terrorists", Pakistanis linked to Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups, and Islamic "extremists" who fought in earlier jihads considered legitimate, such as that in Kashmir.
Good move, since they're now an amalgamated whole. Qaeda tasks Lashkar-e-Jhangvi just like it does al-Tawhid, and probably more directly.
Improving relations with India weighed heavily on the president's mind. "I see the sincerity of the Indian leadership. But if we can move faster towards Kashmir resolution my hands will be stronger to deal with extremism," he said. "I have told the Indians we can only control the extremists to a degree."
I think the entire world's noticed that. The entire world's noticed that Pakland is in a mess that Pakland got itself into.
He insisted that ISI officers dealing with Afghanistan had been changed "two or three times" since 2001 and nobody was left from the old guard who might have ideological affiliations with the Taliban, he said. "All this talk about the ISI being a government within a government is wrong."
In that case, the gummint is pretty deeply implicated in some pretty scuzzy thing. Best to continue to maintain plausible deniability. For instance:
Much of the Taliban resistance was being generated from inside Afghanistan, he said, but admitted that there were some Taliban elements clandestinely based in Pakistan. He accused the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam of allowing Taliban to use sanctuaries inside Pakistan.
That's an encouraging sign. As we've pointed out before, the Taliban is a Pashtun phenomenon that's being driven from safe havens in Pakistan. I don't even regard it as a native Afghan thing anymore the Afghans have their own form of lunacy, and it's not the Taliban. So it's not being "generated from inside" Afghanistan. We've made the assumption that it's being run by the ISI, but I suppose pushing it off on the JUI is pretty plausible. Certainly Fazl and Sami have historically been deeply involved with them.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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I've changed my mind, relented, General Perv is a sincere and admirable ally. And he looks so strident in his uni.
Perhaps some Draino, General?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 0:13 Comments ||
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Has he in fact consolidated his power base?
Hasn't he replaced all the Corps Commanders with his allies? He in untouchable now. The Pak army structure is well disciplined. Coups arise from army high command, never lower ranks.
There is zero chance of an islamic uprising. The Pak army (as a leaked ISI document clarifies) tolerates islamist protest because of a need to portray them as powerful with only the army as the cork in the islamist bottle. This guarantees a steady supply of american money and arms.
This blackmail - "apres moi le deluge" is an old pakistani tactic, first used by Liqiat Ali Khan right after independence.
No pak mobs will dare an uprising against Perv. Any genuine threat to the regime will result in an utterly brutal crackdown.
We must remember that the Pak army has probably killed more of its fellow citizens than any other armed force on earth.
Posted by: john ||
08/14/2005 19:39 Comments ||
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If there's no deadline, then there aren't any teeth in the order. That's fairly typical for Pakland. I wonder how many of the "students" will still be there in six months? And how many will be "lost track of"?
KARACHI: The government has set no deadline for expelling foreign seminary students as a host of logistics involved in the repatriation process still need to be worked out, Sindh Home Secretary Ghulam Mohtaram told reporters on Saturday. "We have to see if their home countries will accept them back," he said. The provincial government is preparing to send home 648 foreign students studying in religious schools in Sindh, Mohtaram said. "There are some 648 foreign students studying in madrasas in the province, of which 591 are in Karachi," the home secretary said. "The government has taken a policy decision on foreign students in madrasas. They will be sent back as soon as possible."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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"We have to see if their home countries will accept them back,"
#2
"We have to see if their home countries will accept them back,"
So the right to deport them is based on whether or not they will be accepted back?
sigh, whose decision is it anyway.....
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 12:24 Comments ||
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they'll be given a rifle and "deported" over the Line Of Control
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 12:51 Comments ||
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Why waste a perfectly good rifle?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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ISLAMABAD: Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opposition leader in the National Assembly, was deported from Dubai only because of his own wrongdoings, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said on Saturday. "The government was not behind Fazl's deportation. It's only his evil deeds that made the UAE authorities send him back," Rashid told reporters at a training workshop for journalists. Rashid said the United Nations was about to introduce laws for blacklisting religious outfits involved in terror and extremist acts anywhere in the world.
That sounds like a delightfully sensible thing to do, which makes me suspect that the UN is about to do no such thing. I have no idea whether the Pak government had anything to do with Fazl's deportation from Dubai, but I'm sure he earned it fair and square.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 15:30 Comments ||
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Heh, I'm afraid so... Pretty fine diversion, eh? Thingys within thingys, man.
BOB is the Military wing of the al Buddha of the Existential Plane between the Two Paper Storks - or so I gathered from my last visit by an astrally projecting Monk.
It's pretty stupid to piss off people who can project astrally, y'know. Like a Phildephia Experiment without all the magnets and shit. *Poof* and they're in KL wreaking havoc. ;-)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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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.
The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz received two of the recently pardoned Saudi Activist; Ali al Dumaini and Matruk al Falih, at his palace in Mecca yesterday. The two received a royal pardon on the 9th of August.
Al Qaeda Militant Luai Sakra, arrested for organizing the double bomb attacks in Istanbul on 15-23 November, has claimed to have played a role in the September 11 attacks to World Trade Center (WTI) in New York.
German Chancellor 
A militant cleric jailed for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings will be among 53,000 inmates receiving sentence reductions to mark Indonesia's independence day, authorities and media reports said Saturday. Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged spiritual head of the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, was convicted in March of conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.
A United Nations investigator intends to question Syrian officials directly as part of a probe into the killing six months ago of Lebanese former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a UN official says. Detlev Mehlis will also probably ask for more time than the designated three months to complete his findings, the official said. "Detlev Mehlis needs to directly interview Syrian officials concerned. He needs to visit Syria for this purpose," UN spokesman Najib Friji said on Saturday. "The Syrians have agreed in principle to cooperate with Mehlis but he has yet to receive an official Syrian response to visit the country."
For the first time in a decade, the founders and top political leaders of 
Iraqi leaders, under intense US pressure, have reached tentative agreements on oil wealth distribution, perhaps the most divisive issue among for the country's ethnic and religious groups. Panelists finalising Iraq's constitution said on Saturday a deal had been struck to share the world's second largest known oil reserves, which are concentrated in the Kurdish controlled north and largely Shia south. "An in principle agreement has been reached late yesterday that Iraq's oil revenues will be shared between the Shia, the Kurds and the Sunnis," Sunni panelist Saleh al-Mutlaq said.
President General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday asked the army to be ready to maintain law and order in the country during the upcoming local government elections. "Be prepared to assist the civil administration should such a need arise to maintain law and order during the local government elections," ISPR quoted the president as instructing the top brass of the Pakistan Army. Chaired by the president at GHQ, the 92nd meeting of corps commanders was attended by the vice chief of army staff, corps commanders and principal staff officers. The meeting reviewed the internal and external security situation and operational preparedness of the Pakistan Army besides training and other matters of professional interest.
PESHAWAR: The Nowshera district returning officer (DRO) served notice on NWFP Senior Minister 
President General Pervez Musharraf has admitted that previously his hands were tied when it came to reining in extremists in Pakistan, but says he is now "much stronger". In an interview to British newspaper The Telegraph, Gen Musharraf said that previously his hands were tied, either because of the 10-month-long confrontation with India in 2002 or political insecurities at home and abroad. "The situation is now far different from what I faced before," he said. "Now I am much stronger."
KARACHI: The government has set no deadline for expelling foreign seminary students as a host of logistics involved in the repatriation process still need to be worked out, Sindh Home Secretary Ghulam Mohtaram told reporters on Saturday. "We have to see if their home countries will accept them back," he said. The provincial government is preparing to send home 648 foreign students studying in religious schools in Sindh, Mohtaram said. "There are some 648 foreign students studying in madrasas in the province, of which 591 are in Karachi," the home secretary said. "The government has taken a policy decision on foreign students in madrasas. They will be sent back as soon as possible."
ISLAMABAD: Maulana 
