George Galloway is under criminal investigation over allegations that he lied to the US Senate about his role in the Saddam Hussein oil-for-food bribery scandal, American prosecutors have disclosed. The controversial MP now faces the full weight of the US justice system. Scotland on Sunday can reveal that Galloway has been referred to the US Department of Justice, two federal prosecutors and to the district attorney in Manhattan, New York, over claims that he has committed perjury.
The Respect MP told senators under oath in May that neither he nor anyone on his behalf had benefited from the oil-for-food regime conducted by Saddam. Last week, however, two reports - one from the US Senate, the other from the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) of the United Nations - claimed his wife and a close friend working in Iraq had received oil funds granted by Saddam for Galloway. The chairman of the Senate Committee, Norm Coleman, sent a dossier containing both his evidence and that provided by the UN to prosecutors on Friday. As perjury is a felony in America, Galloway could face trial in front of a jury, and a prison sentence of up to five years.
They have also sent their report, with the findings by the IIC, to Sir Phillip Marr, the standards commissioner for the House of Commons, and to the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The Charities Commission has stated it wants to examine the claims that illegal Iraqi oil money was laundered through a charity - the Mariam Appeal - on which Galloway was a trustee. Galloway denies the appeal was operating as a charity.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
As perjury is a felony in America, Galloway could face trial in front of a jury, and a prison sentence of up to five years.
Stay out of places where there is an extradition treaty, Georgie. Otherwise you may learn about bendovers in Leavenworth... Most any country will accept 5-years as not being excessive.
#7
Having sorted through the public information on Galloway and his Mariam Appeal (including trip and expense reports to parliament) things do look very fishy in that fraudster sort of way. The missing records only confirm what it appears to have been. Matters little to his constituency I'm sure. He's quite a nasty little hypocrit (considering the descriptions of his personal life and the odd smile in his pics I'd even go so far as to wonder whether he is damn close to being a sociopath) and they like him that way it seems.
#8
When George lies, it is no big deal, but when somebody called Scooter does, we throw the book?
Posted by: john ||
10/31/2005 8:16 Comments ||
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#9
Any chance a Belgian or Spanish judge will indict him?
[crickets chirping]
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/31/2005 9:51 Comments ||
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#10
Lied to the Senate...? Hardly surprising, who hasn't? Remove the cookie duster and Galloway has a striking resemblance to Mohamed Al Fayed. Check it out. http://www.alfayed.com/
President Vladimir Putin said Monday he won't seek a third term in 2008, but vowed not to allow "destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the door open for drastic action in the event of a crisis.
In an interview with Dutch media on the eve of a visit to the Netherlands, Putin reiterated that he opposes changing the constitution to prolong his time in power â a possibility that has been widely discussed because his popularity and control over parliament. But Putin said that the 2008 presidential election will be a "serious, difficult test for Russia" and stressed that full power and responsibility for the fate of the country will remain in his hands until the new president is sworn in. "I will not allow any destabilization in Russia, in the interests of the ... peoples of the Russian Federation," Putin said in the interview with Dutch broadcaster Netwerk and financial newspaper NRC Handelsblad.
He did not elaborate, but the statement raised the possibility that Putin could take unpredictable measures in the name of stability in the event of unrest or a political crisis in the weeks between the election and the new president's inauguration. He suggested such actions probably would not be necessary, saying that he believes "the political forces in Russia are mature enough to understand their responsibility to the people," and said the election would be a fair one in which the candidate with the most votes will win.
"We'll have my buddy Jimmy Carter in to oversee the elections."
"At the same time, I want to draw your attention to the fact that according to the constitution, authority is handed over to the new president after he takes the oath of office, and until then the current president holds full responsibility for the situation in the country," he said.
"One never knows what might happen in the meantime. We live in unpredictable times, you know."
Russia's experience with power transfers purely by election is limited: Putin was made acting president by Boris Yeltsin before he was first elected in 2000, and Yeltsin became president when Russia was still part of the Soviet Union. With the Kremlin seeking increasingly tight control over politics and society and nervously eyeing other ex-Soviet republics where longtime leaders have been ousted recently, tension is palpable more than two years before the March 2008 election.
Putin has repeatedly said he opposes changing the constitution to remain in power â without strictly ruling it out â and has also hinted vaguely of a continuing role for himself and said he will try to groom a mouthpiece successor. "Of course, I am not indifferent about whose hands the country that I have dedicated my whole life to ends up in," Putin said. "But if every new head of state who comes to power changes the constitution as he sees fit, soon there will be nothing left of this state."
#2
By acclamation, lol, who needs an election? It's just another of those decadent Western notions, anyway. Regardless, he's got all the hooks in place to run the show - whether in front of the cameras or not. He's KGB to his toes - with a strong dose of megalomaniacal Russkie Al Capone tossed in.
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- The agreement to re-locate 7,000 U.S. Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam in the South Pacific is just one component of a far more ambitious transformation of U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific theater. This includes a much closer coordination between U.S. and Japanese forces, while making them more mobile and flexible and less static. Japan, which is planning to re-write its post-1945 constitution to modify its celebrated "pacifist" clauses, has agreed to expand its own defense forces and to train and operate them alongside U.S. troops. For the first time, Japan has agreed that a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier can be based in Japan and to deploy powerful X-band radar systems, used to track long-range ballistic missiles.
The expansion of the U.S. base at Guam with new submarine and stealth bomber deployments alongside the 7,000 Marines fits into a broader U.S. strategy of "forward deterrence," which is revolutionizing traditional naval doctrine and practice. Ships are now kept at sea for much longer periods simply by rotating crews. The destroyer USS Fletcher has been kept at sea for 24 continuous months by the use of replacement crews from the USS Kinkaid and then the USS Oldendorf and then the USS Elliot -- saving the usual monthlong transit time from California bases.
The old Marine Expeditionary Units, which lacked defensive and offensive firepower, are being transformed into Expeditionary Strike Groups that include attack submarines and guided missile cruisers and destroyers to become far more powerful and self-reliant forces for amphibious attack. The Navy has already deployed two of these new task forces in the Pacific, led by the amphibious landing ships Peleliu and Belleau Wood and another in the Mediterranean led by the amphibious landing ship Wasp. The Belleau Wood task force was commander by a Marine general, as part of the broader effort to overcome the traditional demarcation lines between the different services and to inculcate the practice of working jointly.
The commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet, for example, has been assigned the additional duties as commander, Joint Task Force 519. The Navy calls this "a fully deployable joint task force capable of planning and executing any contingency, whether it's evacuating civilians from danger zones or fighting a major conflict for the U.S. Pacific Command." The deputy commander of the Joint Task Force is an Air Force three-star general (who is also the vice commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces) and the chief of staff is an Army two-star general, who is also the deputy commander of U.S. Army Pacific.
After the first Expeditionary Strike Group deployment, Col. Michael Regner, commander of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, told reporters that the strike group had forged "the closest working relationship between the two sea services" that he had seen in 27 years of service.
All of this transformation could yet go much further. Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, now retired but widely seen as the father of force transformation in the U.S. Navy, and the man who coined the penetrating term "global systems administrator" to define the U.S role in the world, notes that the performance of the Navy's amphibious ships has traditionally been measured by the number of sailors it takes to support a Marine who is going ashore.
"The most efficient U.S. Navy ship will be the LPD-17 at 1.77 Marines per sailor," Cebrwoski famously told a Center for Naval Analyses seminar. "On the other hand, if you look at what the Australians did in East Timor, using commercial high-speed catamarans, they are between 25 and 50 Marines per sailor. Using a ship that is one-tenth the cost and three times the speed. And the commercial ship has less than half the draft so consequently it can go into five times as many ports to include many unprepared."
On the record, the Navy is both coy and bland in talking about the new threats and missions these changes are meant to address. "The Asia-Pacific region is more important today than it has ever been for the United States", says the official mission statement for the U.S. Pacific fleet. "Since Sept. 11, 2001 one of the Fleet's primary operational missions has been fighting and supporting the Global War on Terrorism. At the same time, the mission of dissuading and deterring potential regional threats from traditional and trans-national threats alike has continued to grow. Increased Navy visibility in the Western Pacific as a means to accomplish these missions has become paramount."
But it is no secret that the new challenge in the region, and the new spur to Japan's willingness to intensify its alliance with the United States, is less the threat of terrorism and even the threat of North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and rather more the growing economic power and military potential of new emergent powers like China and India.
Terrorism, after all, is hardly the threat that inspired the Navy to open last year a operational command in San Diego, the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, charged with reviving the atrophied Cold War skills that had been honed against Soviet submarines. And while part of the threat is still Russian-built submarines, it is increasingly because they have been sold to China.
The threat is complicated, however, by India, the only other power operating an aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific theater, and currently buying the very advanced French-built Scorpene submarines that incorporate stealth technology. And while the U.S. strategic partnership with India is strengthening fast, just keeping track of the new Indian subs may furnish the graduates of the new San Diego anti-submarine warfare school with their toughest challenge.
But then the graduates of the new San Diego school are going to include Japanese naval personnel as well as Americans, under the new defense agreement. And depending on the progress of diplomacy, Indian naval officers may also be heading to the San Diego school, all as part of a transformation of Asia-Pacific geo-politics that is more a result of China's surging growth than of the war on terror.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 10:10 ||
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#1
On the other hand, if you look at what the Australians did in East Timor, using commercial high-speed catamarans, they are between 25 and 50 Marines per sailor. Using a ship that is one-tenth the cost and three times the speed. And the commercial ship has less than half the draft so consequently it can go into five times as many ports to include many unprepared
And if you only use the military as "sys admins" no doubt that's more or less adequate.
Of course, there's the niggling possibility of real combat ops, in which case the Marines and sailors might want a bit more power and protections. But hey - as Clinton showed, we're past all that icky violence now.
#3
The East Timor operation was an unopposed landing into a port.
The reason the Aussies used commercial ships is because they had no other capability. I wouldn't call that a winning strategy. If I recall correctly, they had one modern high-speed amphib, that was restricted to 11 knots or whatever the convoy speed was.
Posted by: john ||
10/31/2005 18:21 Comments ||
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#6
?
Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command has been open - at Nimiitz and Harbor Dr for as long as I can remember, across from NTC (or..the old NTC site). Was it ever mothballed/minimized?
Another question for the more knowledgable - how far have the Chicom subs ranged successfully in any kind of exercises? I assume we have/will have ABM capabilities on Guam, but wonder about SLCM vulnerability. Our ASW capabilities should be top notch
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/31/2005 19:32 Comments ||
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#7
Most of the best of what little the Aussies had during WW2 went off to serve with the Brits. In any case, the Chicoms reportedly want to adapt US West Point-style rugged wilderness training for the PLA, espec for the officer corps of the ground forces. Question is - what "Wilderness" does the PLA in gener intend to fight on? The PLAN is also proceeding wid development of cheap, multi-armed, fast ARSENAL SHIPS as combat surface support for PLAN task forces. NORTH KOREA is also reportedly opening its northern railway systems to the Chicoms.
As for the new US CVN to be based in JAPAN, the USA should base one in Guam also, and more subs and USAF assets, as Guam is shorter linear distance to either Taiwan andor the Malaccas, plus it is dubious to expect that one CVBG can effec handle two or more local theaters at once, whether conventional only or nuclear-possible. The ongoing dev and modernization of both North Korea's and China's LR missle capability also prioritizes Guam over Hawaii-US West Coast in terms of response time unless the USDOD intends to give up ground to the PLA o'er the Western and Central Pacific areas.
#8
I dont know about putting to many eggs in one basket like Guam. Guam scares me, if we make it the center of our force Pacific then China may just take the risk and hit it with a nuke. It would only take one or two and Guam would be gone with our core Pacific force. Nuke mainland Japan would be like sending one into Hawaii or San Deigo answered with full force no question the public out cry would be undeniable without responce, where as Guam a small island low civilian pop large ehh Huge military target makes me question that another puss pres like Clinton, whould he counter in kind with nukes all out, would he make limited counter, would he negotiate, would he allow conventional bombing of mainland china now, this bothers me I am sure in the future we will again get a cream puff for a leader and china will move on us at our weakest time not strongest. Guam is strategic but unless we can openly declare any nuke strike on US forces or people anywere anyhow will be answered with overwhelming annialation on the offending source and make that un-changable doctrine no override, I just dont trust to make it center to our Pacific force posture.
#9
that was my point. I'd like to see a little spread in forces. Of course, use of a nuke against our military anywhere should be met with a withering decapitation strike - conventional or nuke (for lesson's sake)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/31/2005 23:22 Comments ||
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AMSTERDAM â The lawyer representing Samir A., 19, has sought to question a man, named only as S.B., about his alleged links with the security service AIVD. Lawyer Victor Koppe suggested to an appeal court on Monday that the AIVD - via S.B. - may have had foreknowledge of a robbery at a supermarket in Rotterdam in 2004. The robbery led to a police search of A.'s home. A. was one of the young Dutch Muslims arrested by anti-terror police earlier in October on suspicion of planning terror attacks.
Monday's court case involves the State's appeal against the decision by another court earlier this year to clear him of charges relating to his arrest in 2004 after the robbery. He was charged in that case with plotting to attack parliament buildings in The Hague, the Borssele nuclear power station and the AIVD's headquarters. The prosecution said plans of the buildings were found in A.'s house when police searched it.
The judge decided Samir had an above average interest in religious violence but there was insufficient evidence he was planning terror attacks. The prosecution is appealing this decision. A. has decided to remain silent during the appeal because he claims the prosecution has no real evidence against him.
Koppe suggested on Monday that the AIVD was aware of the armed robbery. "I don't rule out that the robbery was carried out with the foreknowledge of the AIVD," he said. The lawyer wants to question 28-year-old S.B. from Rotterdam to verify whether he is an informer working for the AIVD. S.B. was arrested last Friday in relation to the armed robbery in Rotterdam and involvement with the Hofstadgroep. The authorities allege the Hofstadgroep is a Muslim terror group.
The latest arrest came after a media report suggested B. may be working for the AIVD. It suggested that B. was involved in the supermarket robbery and had contact with Samir and other members of the alleged Muslim terror group, the Hofstadgroep.
Jason W., another alleged member of the Hofstadgroep, has claimed S.B. provided him with hand grenades last year. Two police officers were seriously injured by hand grenades during a raid to capture Jason W. and another man in The Hague last November. The two suspects were overpowered after a 14-hour siege.
The prosecutor told the appeals court that S.B. was not arrested until Friday because he had been difficult to trace. S.B. has refused to answer questions so it has not been possible to establish whether he has had contact with the AIVD. Following his arrest, the national office of the public prosecutor's office (OM) said there was no evidence S.B. was working for the security service.
Separately on Monday, Hogeschool Leiden announced Samir A. would not be allowed to continue his chemistry studies there.
So, in a nutshell, A's mouthpiece sez B (aka S.B.) was a stoolie working for AVID. B gave grenades to W who is in the same group as A, and stuck up a market after telling AVID about it. B ain't talking now. A has a above average interest in jihad and isn't gonna get his chemistry merit badge anytime soon. That certainly clears things up.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 13:36 ||
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A call for a change to a century-old French law to allow the state to fund new mosques has sent sparks flying in a society deeply attached to the separation of religion and state.
Concerned that a shortage of mosques is allowing extremists to gain a foothold among Frances 5.5 million Muslims by funding places of worship, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month named a panel to look into the prickly question.
Due to report to the government in June next year, the committee is being asked, among other things, to suggest ways of reviewing the 1905 secularity law that bans the state from funding places of worship.
The initiative placed Sarkozy squarely at odds
with both president Jacques Chirac and prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who sees the century-old law as one of the pillars of our republican system and rejects the idea of updating it.
True, more work is needed to recognise the rightful place of France's Muslims, de Villepin said, but as members of a strictly secular community.
The two men, rivals both aiming for the presidency in 2007, tried to smooth over their differences on this and other matters at a joint press conference this week.
Sarkozy has repeatedly argued that breaking the French taboo to provide public money for mosques and imams would be the best way of bringing the Muslim community into the mainstream, out of the garages and basements it is often forced to use as unofficial prayer rooms.
"To separate French Islam from foreign influences," Sarkozy said last month, "let us give it the means to be independent."
Islamic radicals are already thought to control 20 mosques in the country, according to France's domestic intelligence service, which also says militants are increasingly congregating in secret prayer-rooms, out of sight of the authorities.
A year after a hotly disputed ban on Muslim headscarves and other religious signs came into force in French schools, the debate on funding is the latest in a string of delicate negotiations between the French government and its large Muslim minority.
Despite France's reluctance to be seen as supporting any religious group, concerns over the rise of Islamic extremism have led it to take a more and more active role in the affairs of the Muslim community in recent years.
Two important steps have already been taken to bring greater transparency to the way the religion is funded.
In 2003, French Islam obtained its first ever officially-recognised representative body, the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM), which has responsibility for issues ranging from the funding of mosques to the ritual slaughter of animals.
Now a recognised public institution, it is the government's main point of contact with the Muslim community.
And in June this year a government-backed 'Foundation for Islam' was also set up to oversee the financing of the religion in France, grouping private donations from France and abroad, held in a state-owned bank to ensure maximum transparency, to pay for building and renovating mosques as well as training imams.
Many in the political establishment are against taking the states role any further, including the CFCM president Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Paris mosque, who immediately backed de Villepin in opposing any change to the secularity law.
But other voices within the CFCM took a less hostile view and the influential rector of the Lyon mosque, Kamel Kabtane, supports a review of the 1905 law.
Among the majority Roman Catholic Church, the conference of bishops said it believed the current church-state balance should be upheld, but did recognise that certain "practical problems" needed tackling.
The response from other religious groups has been mixed: Protestant leaders said they would welcome a rethink of the law, but Jewish community leaders have come out against any change.
A collective groan rose from the press following Sarkozy's announcement with the conservative Le Figaro warning it would fuel the tug-of-war between his camp and followers of Chirac and de Villepin, already at odds over economic policy and such issues as Turkeys bid to join the European Union.
Meanwhile, the opposition Socialists scolded the government for sending out mixed messages on such a sensitive issue, and urged the president and prime minister to keep their ministers in check.
#1
Wow..that is a really bad idea. When you have a gun pressed to your head, you don't offer to buy the bullets.
The Islamists don't care where the mosques come from or who builds and pays for them,they know no gratitude - infidels is infidels.
Good bye France, thanks for the....umm....ah, oh I know Sophie Marceau!
#2
Sarkosy thinks he can make the muslims dependent on the state. Not sure its the best approach, but at least someone is taking the issue seriously.
BTW, IIUC, the Protestants support this cause they have trouble getting new churches built, just as muslims have trouble getting new mosques built - both cause of opposition by local authorities. Though the Muslims tend to have trouble from local conservatives, and Protestants (usually african origin, and evangelical) tend to have trouble from lefties.
French Jews of course have as many Synagogues as a declining community needs, so dont share the Protestants concerns.
#4
A big part of the problem is having 15% of the population dependent on the state for their food and shelter, allowing them idle time to channel their inadequacies into islam and believing they are really the ubermensch receiving their jizya. Now the state wants to formally subsidize seething too? If the French had any sense or survival instincts, the only thing they would subsidize is boat fare to the maghreb.
Posted by: ed ||
10/31/2005 10:06 Comments ||
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#5
Hey, I never turn down jizyah, no matter what it looks like.
#7
Didn't the French win the Battle of Algiers, but fail at the hearts and minds programe a few years back (1950's)? Have they learned nothing from the Arab mind? Or more importantly I suppose, have not we?
EFL. What a dolt. Now that things are stabilizing and looking up he wants to say I told you so for domestic election purposes? And right before a trip to W. No chance for Crawford ever again. Does W really have to put up with Prince Chuck and Pagliacco in the same week? Howard and Blair should visit next week.
Since the Italian MSM is even less reputable than their American counterparts, we'd better wait for the transcripts.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the eve of a trip to Washington, said he repeatedly tried to persuade US President George W Bush against invading Iraq. How soon can we read the transcripts? Those should be rich.
The Italian leader voiced his unease with the military operation to topple Saddam Hussein during a television interview to be broadcast on Monday - the same day he meets Bush. When was he the bigger idiot? When he objected but sent troops or now when he claims he was stupid before?
Berlusconi is one of Washington's strongest allies but he did not send troops to join the invasion, preferring to despatch troops only after the fall of Baghdad. "I tried many times to convince the American president not to go to war when I din't know how it would turn out," Berlusconi was quoted as saying by La7 television network, which recorded the interview. "I tried to find other avenues and other solutions, even through an activity with my good friend and mentor the African leader (Libya's Colonel Muammar) Gaddafi. But we didn't succeed and there was the military operation." One of Berlusconi's staff said he knew Berlusconi had given La7 television an interview, but could not confirm the comments. Giuseppi, do you think he'd say something that dumb?
Berlusconi pulled about 300 soldiers from Iraq earlier this year as part of a phased withdrawal, leaving about 2,900 troops there. He is trailing in opinion polls ahead of April elections to centre-left rival, Romano Prodi, who promises to withdraw all Italian forces from Iraq if he is voted into office. Berlusconi's answers in the interview were unclear since La7 only provided small excerpts. The Italian leader has been defending himself against accusations in Italy that the country's intelligence agency, possibly after government pressure, passed-off fake documents to Washington used to bolster claims of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. The devil made me do it.
The documents purported that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger. Joe Wilson told me it would shorten the war.
His office has sent out two statements in the past week categorically denying the accusations, made by left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper. Sismi intelligence agency chief Nicolo Pollari is due to address a closed-door parliamentary panel over the matter on November 3. Bush cited intelligence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address in 2003 before the Iraq war. As MSM hero Joe Wilson so reported at the time.
The claim fuelled criticism from the husband of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose identity was later leaked, sparking a scandal that led to the indictment of Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. This sentence would have been Pulitzer material if it had contained the word quagmire.
"I have never been convinced that war was the best system to make a country democratic and help it escape dictatorship, even a bloody one," Berlusconi was quoted as saying by La7. We should have left Mussolini in power.
#1
Berlusconi's answers in the interview were unclear since La7 only provided small excerpts.
His office has sent out two statements in the past week categorically denying the accusations, made by left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper.
This article is obvious propaganda and not credible. The only real question I have is...is this an 'article' or just a compilation of political buzz words?
I know *I* sufferd pain and anguish in this incident. Any attorney volunteers?
If you wonder why Americans have grown increasingly cynical about our legal system, here's a poster child: A Manhattan jury has found the New York Port Authority negligent in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center - a terrorist act that killed six and injured nearly 1,000.
But here's the really disgraceful part: The jury assigned 68 percent of liability to the Port Authority and only 32 percent to the terrorists. Ponder that. The owners of the building bear more than twice as much blame as the terrorists who detonated the bomb.
Worse yet, under New York's law of proportional liability, since the Port Authority was more than half to blame, it (read: taxpayers) must pay 100 percent of any damages awarded for pain and suffering. That verdict clears the way for separate lawsuits by more than 400 plaintiffs to determine the amount of damages. Their lawyers are seeking a total of $1.8 billion. Needless to say, the lawyers would pocket far more than any of the plaintiffs.
Let's give the devil his due here. Several years before the 1993 bombing, the Port Authority's own security consultants warned that the underground parking garage was vulnerable to an attack by terrorist bombers. They recommended security measures that included closing the garage to the public. After weighing actual costs against possible benefits, however, the Port Authority decided not to take their advice.
Following the verdict, several jurors said the security report carried great weight in their deliberations. That's typical in cases like this, which can create perverse incentives for commercial landlords. Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute explained the problem to The New York Sun: "In order to avoid a legal nightmare, landlords would have to either incorporate all security recommendations, at a great cost, or avoid commissioning the security reports altogether to eliminate a paper trail of liability."
David J. Dean, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, was clearly presenting the report as a smoking gun. "The case was never about blaming the terrorists," he said. "It was about what the Port Authority should have done. They disregarded the advice of their own experts and other experts. They were motivated by money."
But there's a fatal flaw in Dean's reasoning. If you don't see it, consider a hypothetical case: Early this year, police in Collier County, Florida were hunting a rapist who had struck twice within a week. Authorities warned women to take precautions - keep doors locked, don't go out at night, trim shrubs where an attacker could hide, etc.
Suppose a woman called a yard service about trimming her shrubs, then decided not to because of the cost. The attacker then hides in those shrubs and assaults her. Her medical bills run sky-high. Who is liable for the harm done?
According to the logic of the Manhattan jury, the victim is responsible by a margin of more than 2 to 1. According to the plaintiff lawyer's reasoning, this isn't about blaming the rapist; it's about what the victim should have done. She was warned by experts - but was motivated by money to ignore their warning.
When that sort of reasoning is enshrined in case law, common sense is the first casualty. It obscures the most fundamental question of who bears moral responsibility for deliberate acts of violence.
Even granting, for the sake of discussion, that the New York Port Authority was negligent, it remains beyond doubt that the terrorists carried out a deliberate act of murder.
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the bombing, proclaimed at his sentencing: "Yes, I am a terrorist, and I am proud of it."
In failing to place Yousef's malevolent intent at the center of its deliberations, the Manhattan jury reached a verdict that is worse than mistaken. It is a disgusting caricature of justice.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/31/2005 12:52 ||
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Next, we'll all be guilty of whatever any other countries do when they attack us because we haven't all moved to Perfection, Nevada and built bunkers to live in...
Posted by: Phil ||
10/31/2005 14:04 Comments ||
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(CNSNews.com) - Groups representing the family members of slain American soldiers in Iraq are upset with anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan and her group for the alleged "misuse" of the term "Gold Star."
The gold star, usually displayed as a pin or banner, is a symbol representing family members of soldiers who die in combat. American Gold Star Mothers (AGSM) is one of several groups open to Americans who qualify, apply and pay dues. Founded in 1923, AGSM offers emotional support to mothers and encourages people to volunteer their time to help veterans who might be disabled obtain their military benefits.
The problem, the groups say, is that the name of Sheehan's anti-war group, Gold Star Families for Peace, sounds similar to non-political groups like AGSM and Gold Star Wives of America. Members of four gold star groups in August asked for "an end to the misuse of one of the nation's most sacred symbols - the Gold Star - to politicize efforts for ending the war in Iraq." An ad hoc coalition of gold star families on Friday criticized Sheehan for using the term for political gain, stating that they were "thoroughly disgusted with Cindy Sheehan and her publicity stunts."
Sheehan established Gold Star Families for Peace in January 2005 and gained media attention in August for her protest outside President Bush's Texas ranch. Sheehan demanded a meeting with Bush during her protest, which was dubbed "Camp Casey" after her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. She had earlier met with president in April 2004 along with other families who had lost loved ones in Iraq. Sheehan has also organized protests in Washington. She was arrested in September for protesting outside the White House without a permit. Then she returned to Washington on Wednesday to commemorate the 2,000th U.S. soldier being killed in Iraq. Sheehan and her supporters staged a "die-in" near the White House grounds without a permit and were arrested again.
American Gold Star Mothers president Judith Young said the problem with Sheehan's group is that people get confused and assume she speaks for all gold star families. "It's just that when someone says she's a gold star mother ... they associate it with us." Young added that every time Sheehan is in the news, her group gets e-mails and calls supporting and attacking the group because they think Sheehan speaks for the organization.
Good point to remember, the bitch in the ditch runs the Gold Star Families for Peace. Don'r blame the wrong group.
Young does not believe Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, intentionally chose to confuse people by using "Gold Star" in her group's name, but another gold star representative was more suspicious of Sheehan's motives. "What the Left does is they hijack traditional symbols of America and turn them inside out for their own anti-American motives," Kristinn Taylor told Cybercast News Service. Taylor is a spokesman for the coalition criticizing Sheehan.
In its statement, Taylor's group said it was "angered that Mrs. Sheehan is once again using our fallen loved ones against our wishes to undermine the cause they voluntarily gave their lives for." Representatives from Gold Star Families for Peace did not return calls and e-mails requesting comment for this article.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 08:15 ||
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DEATH to sheehanistas and all they represent!!!
Najaf - Around 100 women dressed in black marched on Sunday in Najaf, the holy Shiite city south of Baghdad, to demand that ex-president Saddam Hussein be put to death. "No to an adjournment, yes to the death penalty," chanted the women, clad in black abayas as they made their way from the school of religious studies down the city's main thoroughfare.
The women carried banners which read: "The cries of martyrs echo still, we demand the death of Saddam Hussein," as well as photos of victims of his regime. Other posters pressed the Najaf court to severely punish "terrorists" now in detention, in reference to suspects arrested following attacks on Shiites in the city.
The march was sponsored by two leading Shiite groups - the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and followers of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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I for one wait on pins and needles to find out if Saddam is guilty or innocent. If only a jury could come up with a verdict then I could get on with my life and stop wondering if poor Saddam is being mistreated.
#3
Ed: Right on! Beam ole Scottie up, he'll get to the bottom of it. His book "End Game" should have landed him in prison. The leftest media said nothing about it however. They'd rather carp on Plame.
KIRKUK, Iraq -- Providing money, building materials and even schematic drawings, Kurdish political parties have repatriated thousands of Kurds into this tense northern oil city and its surrounding villages, operating outside the framework of Iraq's newly ratified constitution and sparking sporadic violence between Kurdish settlers and the Arabs who are a minority here, according to U.S. military officials and Iraqi political leaders.
The rapidly expanding settlements, composed of two-bedroom concrete houses whose dimensions are prescribed by the Kurdish parties, are effectively re-engineering the demography of northern Iraq, enabling the Kurds to add what ultimately may be hundreds of thousands of voters ahead of a planned 2007 referendum on the status of Kirkuk. The Kurds hope to make the city and its vast oil reserves part of an autonomous Kurdistan.
Kurdish political leaders said the repatriations are designed to correct the policies of ousted President Saddam Hussein, who replaced thousands of Kurds in the region with Arabs from the south. The Kurdish parties have seized control of the process, they said, because the Iraqi government has failed to implement an agreement to return Kurdish residents to their homes.
But U.S. military officials, Western diplomats and Arab political leaders have warned the parties that the campaign could work to undermine the nascent constitutional process and raise tensions as displaced Kurds settle onto private lands now held by Arabs. "If you have everyone participating, it'll be a clean affair and you can accomplish your goals," said Lt. Col. Anthony Wickham, the U.S. military's liaison to the Kirkuk provincial government for the past year. "But don't go behind people's backs, which they have a bad habit of doing," he said, referring to the Kurds. "Does that bring greater stability to Kirkuk? No. It brings pandemonium."
"Our patience is about to end," said Hussein Ali Hamdani, a 64-year-old Sunni Arab tribal leader. "There are 137 houses in this village now and in each there are at least five" Kurds. "We will protect our land and not abandon it. It's our honor."
"The Arabs will not give up Kirkuk," said Mohammed Khalil, the leader of an Arab bloc within the Kurdish-dominated Kirkuk provincial council. "If America really wants to help Iraq, it will try to stop the Kurds from gaining control over Kirkuk, which would start a civil war."
"Please don't let them kill us!"
U.S. military officials said they had sought unsuccessfully to persuade Kurdish political leaders to avoid repatriating Kurds onto private lands, a practice they said had inflamed tensions across the region.
Kirkuk, a city of almost 1 million, is home to a combustible mix of multiple ethnicities, a contentious past and enormous potential wealth. Kirkuk's precise demographic makeup is a source of dispute, but Kurds are believed to represent 35 to 40 percent of the population. The remainder is composed primarily of Arabs, ethnic Turkmens and a small percentage of Assyrian Christians.
The Kurds, saying they have a historical claim, hope to anchor Kirkuk to Kurdistan, their semiautonomous region. Kirkuk holds strategic as well as symbolic value: The ocean of oil beneath its surface could be used to drive the economy of an independent Kurdistan, the ultimate goal for many Kurds.
With the Kurds firmly in control of the provincial government, Kirkuk already shows signs of a remarkable transition. The names of many streets, buildings, schools and villages have been changed from Arabic to Kurdish. Thousands of Kurds who flooded into Kirkuk after Hussein's fall are still living in a soccer stadium, a city jail and vacant lots. The landscape is replete with ubiquitous gray concrete blocks of the new Kurdish settlements.
Lt. Col. Don Blunck, of Meridian, Idaho, operations officer for the 116th Brigade Combat Team, which has overseen security in Kirkuk since December, said "tens of thousands" of Kurds have resettled in the city and surrounding villages over the past year, many with the help of the parties. Arab and Turkmen politicians said as many as 350,000 Kurds have been relocated into the Kirkuk region since Hussein's fall.
Kurdish officials declined to provide exact numbers, but they said the parties had taken over the repatriations because the Iraqi government had moved too slowly and failed to provide resources to Kurdish families desperate to return to their homes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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Talk about biased.
The Kurdish parties are adding 100,000s of voters, yet Saddam only displaced 'thousands' (and only killed a few baby ducks).
operating outside the framework of Iraq's newly ratified constitution I recall Kurds returning to areas they were removed from was specifically written into the interim constitution. I don't know how the new constitution changes things but since its only just been ratified, its irrelevant to process that has been going on since long before.
The Kurdish parties have seized control of the process. No need to mention they are the duly elected regional government.
as displaced Kurds settle onto private lands now held by Arabs. Wonder where they were displaced from? Couldn't be the private land they are now returning to, could it?
"If America really wants to help Iraq, it will try to stop the Kurds from gaining control over Kirkuk, which would start a civil war." Funny, I could have sworn they gained control when they won the election.
but Kurds are believed to represent 35 to 40 percent of the population. Kinda odd they got more than 55% of the votes then and before most of the 'influx' of kurds in the last year.
sporadic violence between Kurdish settlers and the Arabs. Ah yes! Kurd = Israeli Jew, Sunni Arab = Palestinian. That explains everything.
Amman, 31 Oct. (AKI) - Military prosecutors have indicted 15 Jordanian militants charged with plotting suicide bombings against the United States and Iraqi forces in Iraq, Jordanian media reported on Monday. Five of the men - all Jordanians and Palestinians aged between 22 and 36- were not in court, as they remain at large. If the suspects are convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison. They will stand trial sometime next month, and the five fugitives will be tried in absentia if they are still on the run, a court official was quoted as saying.
The men have been charged with possession of automatic weapons and planning acts that could have harmed Jordan's relations with a foreign countries - a reference to Iraq and the United States - and entering and leaving Jordan illegally. The suspects intended to travel to Iraq through Syria through the porous Syrian border, to lay attacks against US and Iraqi forces. Some fell out with other group members and were arrested re-entering Jordan, while the rest were detained as they tried to enter Iraq. The indictiment also alleged the group received help from a Syrian-based contact, identified as Abu Adam al-Tunisi, who allegedly rented a safe house of the Jordanian cell members. Al-Tunisi has been identified as an al-Qaeda recruiter in previous trials.
In August, the authorities in Jordan - a staunch US ally - announced they had arrested a Syrian, Mohammed Hassan al-Sihly, who they believed had masterminded rocket attacks on US warships in the in the southern port of Aqaba and the Israeli resort of Eilat. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks, which killed a Jordanian soldier.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 10:14 ||
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Agents of the al-Qaeda network have infiltrated the Gaza Strip from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, a senior Israeli military official charged on Sunday.
Brigadier General Danny Arditi, head of Israel's anti-terror unit, told army radio that in the days following the Israeli troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which ended on September 12, al-Qaeda militants had slipped into the territory through the southern border with Egypt.
"The breaching of border along the Philadelphi corridor has allowed activists from al-Qaeda and world jihad agents into the Gaza Strip," Arditi said.
Hundreds of jubilant Palestinians stormed Gaza's southern border with Egypt in the immediate aftermath of the pull-out, leaving Palestinian and Egyptian officials helpless to stop them.
Three weeks ago, the head of Israeli military intelligence said he believed al-Qaeda had established a base in Sinai.
General Aharon Zeevi told cabinet ministers that the Egyptian authorities were aware of the base, but were wary of launching a full-frontal assault for fear of exacerbating tensions.
Earlier this month, the anti-terror unit advised Israelis to steer clear of the Sinai, a favourite holiday destination, over intelligence reports that Islamic extremists were planning to kidnap tourists on beaches.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/31/2005 00:08 ||
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Iranâs hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the latest cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital that "if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever", according to a Tehran-based newspaper.
Ahmadinejad was addressing a cabinet meeting held to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation at the Tehran Stock Exchange, the daily Ruznet reported on Sunday.
Ministers and experts disagreed with all the different views and proposals raised at the meeting, which came to an end without any concrete results. Tempers flew high and participants shouted at each other during the discussion, according to the daily. Frustrated with the inability of his economic advisers and experts to come up with any solution, Ahmadinejad told them that the only way out of the current stock exchange and financial market problems was to "frighten" speculators by hanging two or three of them.
Iranâs ultra-Islamist President first sent jitters through the countryâs markets when he said on the eve of the presidential elections in June that "stock exchange activities are a kind of gambling and we are against them". Gambling is banned in Islam.
Nervous investors have been transferring their capital to other countries, and Dubai has benefited palpably from the flight of capital from Iran. The Tehran Stock Exchange has lost 20 percent of its value in the past four months.
"At the moment there are no buyers in this market, only sellers", the newspaper Ruznet wrote. "Economists believe the situation is becoming more difficult to handle day by day".
Incendiary statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian officials have contributed to the creation of an atmosphere of uncertainty and instability in the countryâs financial markets, according to analysts.
#1
The Tehran Stock Exchange has lost 20 percent of its value in the past four months
Wow!
yeah, hanging speculators.... that calmed the jitters. This guy is as mad as a mad hatter. Purges will be coming soon as I'm sure many in powerful positions in Tehran can see he's stark raving mad and are thinking of off-ing him while they still can. No dobut Ahmadinejad is already paranoid about it and we'll either see him off-ed or he'll start the off-ing in 5,4,3,2..
#2
pass the popcorn? Surely the CIA (in all its' incompetence) can find a tipping point here. Cause disarray, in the confusion take out the nuke prep sites and stand back and say "it was an internal thing"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/31/2005 22:04 Comments ||
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#3
true, Frank. The faster they act the easier it will be in the long run. Ah-am-mad's gotta know that just because he is paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get him and will start purging now.
In which the LA Times would really really like to spin the arabs-as-victims and middle-east-stability-at-all-costs memes, but can't evade Assad's role in Hariri's murder.
Having secured most key positions in the past few months, the new generation of Iranâs Islamic revolutionaries is now invited to prepare for playing âchickenâ with the United States. âThe Satanic powers want to play chicken with us,â says Gen. Muhammad Hijazi, the man in charge of the Islamic armyâs office of war preparation. âWe must show that we are eagles.â
The idea that the Islamic Republic faces a game of âchickenâ against the West was publicized last month by Ali Larijani, the new âsecurity czarâ in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadâs administration. But the man who first came up with the analysis is Hassan Abbasi who has emerged as Ahmadinejadâs chief strategic guru. Abbasi heads the Center for Security Doctrines Research of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC). His friends call him âThe Kissinger of Islamâ, after Henry Kissinger who served as US secretary of state in the 1970s.
âTo Iranâs new ruling elite, Abbasi is the big strategic brain,â says a European diplomat in Tehran. âMore and more officials quote him in meetings with foreign diplomats.â According to Tehran sources, Abbasi is the architect of the so-called âwar preparation planâ currently under way in Iran. Last month Abbasi presented an outline of his analysis in a lecture at the Teachers Training Faculty in Karaj, west of Tehran. The lecture merits attention because it offers an insight into the way the new leadership in Tehran approaches issues of international politics.
According to Abbasi, the global balance of power is in a state of flux and every nation should fight for a place in a future equilibrium. The Western powers, especially the United States, still wield immense military and economic power that âlooks formidable on paper.â But they are unable to use that power because their populations have become ârisk-averse.â
âThe Western man today has no stomach for a fight,â Abbasi says. âThis phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man.â
Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved âslightly higher risksâ than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind. And even then, the US went into Iraq because of President George W Bushâs âreadiness to do what no other American leader would dare contemplate.â
According to Abbasi, the US knows that the only power capable of and willing to challenge it across the globe is the Islamic Republic. The reason is that the Islamic Republic not only enjoys âstrong backing from its peopleâ, but also has the support of millions who are prepared to kill and die for it across the globe.
The vanted "Arab Street" who'll fight to the last...Iranian
Abbasi claims that the US and its allies have played three games against Iran.
The first was a âcarrots and sticksâ exercise designed to tempt a section of the Tehran leadership away from radical politics while frightening another section into submission. The next game was âgood cop, bad copâ and had the more sinister objective of confusing and dividing the Islamic leadership. Finally, and starting just over a year ago, the âsatanic powersâ played a new game which Abbasi has dubbed âtrigger-at-the-ready.â In this game they put the metaphoric gun at the Islamic Republicâs temple with their finger on the trigger.
He sees it, but doesn't quite get it...
Abbasi believes that the trigger was pulled, firing only a blank, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed an anodyne resolution on the Islamic Republicâs pursuit of nuclear power last month.
Abbasi, that was somebody else's water pistol against your temple. You'll never see our bullet coming..
âNow that the satanic powers have failed to achieve their goal with all those games they are preparing for a new game,â Abbasi says. â This new game is known as the Chicken Strategy in which the two sides move toward each other with speed until one side quits.â
Donkey cart vs BUFF, place your bets
It is not clear whether Abbasi or other mullas have seen Nicholas Rayâs âRebel Without A Causeâ. But it was in that film, starring James Dean, that âplaying chickenâ was introduced to broader audiences. According to Webster dictionary, the phrase refers to âany of various contests in which the participants risk personal safety in order to see which one will give up first.â The quitter is designated as âchicken livered.â
Abbasi and his disciples in the new Islamic elite believe that this is the best time to engage the US in a âgame of chicken.â âThe Western regimes lack popular legitimacy,â Abbasi told his audience. âThe Western economy is based on shaky foundations that depend on oil. Divisions within the Western camp, the Westâs economic fragility, and the distrust of the people (in Western countries) toward their governments render their side vulnerable.â
Abbasi believes that when President Bush says that no option is off the table, implying that force could be used against the Islamic Republic, he is only playing chicken. âThe Americans are not ready to send a million men (to defeat the Islamic Republic),â Abbasi said. âEven economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic will fail thanks to opposition from the Western public opinion and the refusal of most countries to implement (them).â
Who sez we'd invade?
Abbasi claims that in a game plan presented to Ahmadinejad, he has concluded that the idea of a major US military attack against Iran is âa bluff.â âOur game plan shows that any attempt at imposing an embargo on Iran would push the price of oil to $110 per barrel,â Abbasi said. âAnd if we were to be subjected to military attack the price could top the $400 mark.â
A brief military clash with the US at this time could do wonders for the Islamic Republic. The regime would be able to crush growing internal opposition in the name of national solidarity. It would also revive the regimeâs revolutionary credentials. The raid on the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 gave the new Islamic regime an aura of radicalism that it lacked because a revolution led by the mullas was hard to sell as a progressive, anti-imperialist movement. Abbasi also recalls that Iraqâs invasion of Iran in 1980 was âa blessing from Godâ because it gave the revolutionary regime another chance to prove its resilience.â
Stand by to receive more gifts from above
In true Nietzschean form he believes that since a limited war with the US will not kill the Islamic Republic; it is bound to make it stronger.
He doesn't comprehend what "limited war" means to a Hyperpower, we'll try not to crack the planet
But it is not only the US that Abbasi wants to take on and humiliate. He has described Britain as âthe mother of all evilsâ. In his lecture he claimed that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the Gulf states were all âchildren of the same mother: the British Empire.â As for France and Germany, they are âcountries in terminal declineâ, according to Abbasi.
Well, he's got a point..
âOnce we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover,â he told his audience.
Abbasiâs strategy may be in tune with the current macho mood in Tehran. But the new Tehran leadership should think twice before it embarks on a potentially deadly, and totally unnecessary, adventure on the basis of childish assumptions about Iranâs power and the Westâs weakness.
If they really think in Tehran that they can fight and win, it's coming
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 14:46 ||
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âOnce we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover,â
Iran:
Tiny economic size.
Military Puny.
Pathetic Research.
Run by religious lunatics.
Whereas, after the Anglo-sphere defeated Saddam, the Arabs actually ran.
Syria had few vocal supporters ahead of a Security Council vote Monday on a tough resolution that would threaten sanctions if Damascus doesn't cooperate with the U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Even Security Council members concerned by some provisions of the resolution did not object to sending Syria a stern message. The United States, France and Britain had little doubt the council would approve the resolution.
Syrian state media, meanwhile, urged the council to ignore American pressure and adopt a "balanced" resolution.
The three countries co-sponsored the resolution to follow up last week's report by a U.N. investigating commission, which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others. The report also accused Syria of not cooperating fully with the probe.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said that adoption of the resolution by foreign ministers "is to show the intensity of the concern, and to make it very clear at the highest level what we expect."
The latest draft would require Syria to detain anyone the U.N. investigators consider a suspect and let investigators determine the location and conditions under which the individual would be questioned. It also would freeze assets and impose a travel ban on anyone identified as a suspect by the commission.
Those provisions could pose a problem for Syrian President Bashar Assad as the suspects include his brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the chief of military intelligence.
If Syria does not fully cooperate with the investigation, the draft says the council intends to consider "further measures," including sanctions, "to ensure compliance by Syria."
Ahead of Monday's vote, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted a dinner for her counterparts from France and Britain, as well as Russia and China, who oppose the resolution's threat of sanctions.
The two-hour dinner meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was a last chance for the five permanent veto-wielding council nations to discuss the resolution.
There was no immediate word from the ministers, including Rice, Russia's Sergey Lavrov, China's Li Zhaoxing, Britain's Jack Straw and France's Philippe Douste-Blazy, on their two-hour dinner meeting.
Lavrov and Li, who met alone for about 45 minutes before dinner, refused to say how they will vote. "Just wait and see," Li said.
Russia said last week it opposed sanctions against Syria, its longtime ally. Late Sunday, Lavrov said that Russia fully backs further U.N. inquiry into Hariri's murder but criticized what he described as attempts to turn the Security Council into an investigative body.
"We are concerned that the draft resolution's co-authors are not just trying to support the commission, but also to meddle into its sphere of responsibility," Lavrov said in comments broadcast by Russia's Channel One television.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Friday the resolution has the nine "yes" votes required for adoption and will likely have more by the time of the vote. "I don't foresee a veto," he said, a view echoed by his French and British co-sponsors.
But council diplomats said that if Washington, Paris and London want unanimous support from all 15 council nations _ which would send a more powerful message to Syria _ they will have to drop the sanctions threat.
Otherwise, the resolution will likely be adopted with 12 "yes" votes and three abstentions _ Russia, China, and Algeria, a non-permanent council member and its only Arab representative, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment ahead of the vote.
The United States urged foreign ministers of all 15 Security Council nations to come to New York for the vote to send a high-level message to Damascus that the international community is demanding its cooperation with the probe _ and almost all the ministers are coming.
Tishrin, a government newspaper in Syria, criticized the draft as "tough and unbalanced" and called on the Security Council to adopt "a balanced and objective" resolution "that would not be a clear translation of the U.S. administration's will."
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa also flew to New York Sunday to attend the council meeting and meet with some of the foreign ministers and Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
As al-Sharaa headed to New York, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem toured Gulf countries in what appeared to be an effort to rally Arab support ahead of Monday's council meeting.
Syria's official news agency, SANA, quoted Moallem as saying he was bearing a message from the Syrian president to the leaders of Gulf countries concerning "the dangers Syria faces" as a result of the U.N. action.
In Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Moallem delivered a message from Assad to King Abdullah "on the current situation in the region ... and the debate under way in the Security Council concerning the (Hariri) investigation," SANA said.
Moallem traveled to Qatar on Sunday where he told reporters that the resolution was prepared in Washington, Paris and London prior to the release of the report by the U.N. investigation.
SANA quoted him as saying the resolution was "dangerous" and aimed at hurting Syria, not uncovering the truth in the Hariri assassination. But Moallem said that Syria will "continue to cooperate" with the U.N. investigation despite "legal and political gaps in its report."
Assad on Saturday ordered that a judicial committee be formed to investigate Hariri's assassination. A presidential decree said the committee will cooperate with the U.N. probe and Lebanese judicial authorities.
While Syria has rejected accusations of its involvement in Hariri's killing, it buckled under international pressure and withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon in April, ending a 29-year presence in its smaller neighbor.
#2
So long as the "rain" is in a semi-molten state, I'm all for it. A Spectre gunship comes to mind.
If there is one single concept that promotes international diplomacy, it well may be the principal of International Soil. For Iran to glorify their abject violation of this important notion is symptomatic of its overall disregard for functional foreign relations of any sort.
American leadership should take an equal measure of umbrage at Tehran's sordid festivities as Israel has from the Iranian president's recent hostile remarks. My own feeling is that each and every participant in this parade is an enemy of our nation who is deserving of nothing more than swift and calamitous death.
#3
To the tune of Neil Diamond - Heartlight:
Turn on your Arclight
Let it explode wherever you go
Let it make a happy glow
For all the islamic world to see
Turn on your Arclight
In the middle of a jihadi's parade
Make them go boom
Gonna make them fly across the moon
You and Khamenei
Posted by: ed ||
10/31/2005 1:04 Comments ||
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#4
Question of the day: do Iranians hate Americans with the same fervor with which they hate the mad mullahs? Who do they hate more? Enquiring minds want to know. This kind of indoctrination has to take effect at some point.
Posted by: Rafael ||
10/31/2005 1:18 Comments ||
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#5
Tehran Weather Forecast:
Very Bright - Partly Cloudy
Temperature 60M°C
Pressure 20psi (140kPa)
Winds 400kmh - NESW
Ash Precipitation
#9
Didja notice that Fred's meters have all been giving strange readings lately? I just checked his Acme Precision® Barometer and it has gone all wonky too.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid al-Mualem was touring the Gulf on Sunday to drum up Arab support on the eve of a United Nations meeting to discuss possible sanctions against Damascus. In an apparent effort to head off a tough draft Security Council resolution backed by the United States, Britain and France, Syria launched its own investigation on Saturday into the killing of Lebanese former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The inquiry, ordered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will question Syrian civilians and military personnel and cooperate with a UN inquiry that has already implicated senior Syrian officials in the Feb 14 assassination, officials said.
Mualem delivered a letter from Assad to Saudi Arabiaâs King Abdullah on Saturday to confirm Saudi support of Damascus at Mondayâs UNSC foreign minister meeting, which was expected to demand Syria cooperate or risk economic sanctions. âKing Abdullah confirmed the kingdom stands by Syriaâs side against the pressures it is being subjected to by some international sides,â said SANA, Syriaâs official news agency. It said Mualem told King Abdullah that Syria was willing to cooperate with the UN team probing Haririâs murder and that he would deliver this message to other Gulf states. Assad discussed the issue with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during Mubarakâs surprise visit to Damascus on Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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King abdullah may send them a nice letter, but he wont use KSAs influence to protect Syria. Harriri was IIUC a personal friend of the King.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said yesterday he feared the United Nations would âunfairlyâ punish his country as the world body prepares to issue a resolution threatening sanctions against Damascus. âSome quarters within the Security Council are trying to turn it into a tribunal whereby Chapter VII (of the UN charter) would be unfairly applied against Syria,â Muallem told reporters after arriving in Qatar from Saudi Arabia.
He described as âdangerousâ a resolution which the Security Council is expected to pass today threatening sanctions against Syria to force it to cooperate with a UN probe which has already implicated Damascus in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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Former Iran president Mohammed Karensky Khatami criticized the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements calling for the annihilation of Israel. In a speech delivered at the Koran Museum in Teheran on Sunday, Khatami said that the leaders of the state should avoid statements that caused Iran political and economic damage throughout the world.
... whether they're state policy or not.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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What Khatami is really saying is that the Iranian prez should keep his sentiments about Israel to himself and not make a big issue about it. Keep the course but turn down the PA system.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/31/2005 1:27 Comments ||
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#2
inneffectual quasi-moderate Muslim watch.
and yeah, knowing enough to avoid statements like this is the beginning of rationality. Which Ahmadinejad aint got, IMHO.
#3
Khatami's criticism of Ahmadinejad's recent statement has probably sparked a huge amount of anxious activity in the 70 virgins holding area. I wonder if he prefers blondes?
Extremist Islamist organizations such as Al Qaeda have become well known in recent years for trying to accomplish their objectives through violence. Less well known, however, are the organizations devoted not to direct action but to ideological struggle. Of these, the most important is Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT, or the Party of Liberation), a transnational movement that has served as radical Sunni Islamism's ideological vanguard.
HT is not a terrorist organization, but it can usefully be thought of as a conveyor belt for terrorists. It indoctrinates individuals with radical ideology, priming them for recruitment by more extreme organizations where they can take part in actual operations.
HT's exact size is difficult to confirm because the group is composed of secretive cells, but its membership is estimated to number in the hundreds in European countries, such as Denmark, and up to tens of thousands in Muslim countries, such as Uzbekistan.
Because many governments recognize the threat it poses to them, HT is banned in most of the Muslim world, as well as in Russia and Germany. But until recently, it has been allowed to operate freely elsewhere - most notably in Britain, where it has played a major role in the radicalization of disaffected Muslim youth.
Since HT occupies a gray zone of militancy, with its activities involving more than mere expression of opinion but less than terrorism, regulating it poses a unique challenge to liberal democracies.
Hizb-ut-Tahir was founded in 1953 by a Palestinian judge who asserted that the only way to re-establish the kind of Islamic society promulgated by the Prophet was to liberate Muslims from the thoughts, systems and laws of nonbelievers and replace the Western nation-state system with a borderless umma ruled by a new caliph.
Under the current leader, Ata Abu Rashta, a Palestinian who had served as HT's spokesman in Jordan, HT has become more aggressive. But to avoid problems with law enforcement, HT scrupulously refrains from engaging in criminal or terrorist activities.
For the global revolution it seeks, HT does not believe it needs large numbers; hundreds of supporters in critical positions are deemed more important than thousands of foot soldiers.
HT envisions a three-step process.
The focus in the first stage is on building the party through recruitment and propaganda. Prospective candidates are brought in through study groups.
In the second stage, members are asked to blend in with the population and infiltrate the government.
When the second stage is complete, the ground will supposedly be ripe for the third: an Islamic state. HT believes it can carry out the revolution in a nonviolent manner, relying on the penetration of government institutions and the recruitment of key officials.
Negotiating the demographic decline of the 21st century will be treacherous for countries that have proven their capacity to innovate and grow. For the Islamic world, it will be impossible. That is the root cause of Islamic radicalism, and there is nothing that the West can do to change it. - Spengler
Posted by: john ||
10/31/2005 18:09 ||
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I reject their axiom, that declining demographics is based in declining religion. Throughout the 20th century, it was noted that when a given nation reached a relative economic plateau, its birthrate invariably dropped to 2.1 children per family.
Religion, or the lack thereof, had no noticeable effect.
The only other major causitive factor was government. Government policy on its own had little effect until birth rates were at this plateau, but then they could reduce birthrates further. This could be done by making having children more difficult, expensive and demanding on potential parents, who then chose to have even fewer children.
So if religion does have any effect on demographics, it is either so localized, or so unnoticeable, that it deserves little mention.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan has no plans to cut its defence spending despite needing billions of dollars to rebuild after a catastrophic earthquake devastated the north of the country, President Pervez Musharraf said on Monday.
Asked at a news conference if Pakistan was considering cutting defence spending, Musharraf, who is also Pakistan's army chief, replied: "No, we are not contemplating ... not at all contemplating any defence cut.
"There is a security requirement which is separate and there is the earthquake requirement which is totally separate," he said. "We don't want to do one and jeopardise the other. This would be most unwise."
Musharraf said Pakistan would host an international donors' conference to be attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Nov. 19 to raise funds for reconstruction after the Oct. 8 quake, which devastated wide areas of Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province.
Musharraf said financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank would be invited along with Pakistani industrialists.
He said Pakistan was very happy with an agreement with India to open five crossing points over the military Line of Control separating Pakistani and Indian Kashmir and said it was a "great opportunity" to move forward a peace process with India.
He repeated Pakistan's condemnation of bloody bomb attacks in New Delhi on Saturday claimed by an obscure militant group linked to Pakistan-based militants.
"I say that Pakistan stands with India on this act of terrorism which has been perpetrated in New Delhi. We condole with India, we condole with all families," he said.
"I would like to give the total and unequivocal support from Pakistan in any investigation that India would like to carry out."
Musharraf said India and Pakistan should make the earthquake an opportunity to move towards a solution to their rivalry over Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars since independence in 1947.
"I think we should, may think of demilitarisation of the whole of Kashmir," he said. "I think this is an opportunity we should utilise for a solution, for moving towards a solution. I think this is a great opportunity."
The massive costs of rebuilding after the earthquake, which Pakistan has estimated at more than $5 billion, had raised speculation about defence deals, including Islamabad's plans to purchase F-16 fighter aircraft from the United States.
Less than two weeks after the quake, Swedish defence group Saab announced an 8 billion crown ($1 billion) order from Pakistan for an airborne surveillance system, of which Ericsson would a have a one third share.
The system includes Saab 2000 turboprop aircraft equipped with airborne radar from Ericsson.
Posted by: john ||
10/31/2005 17:56 ||
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October 31, 2005: The âcommando Olympicsâ going on in Afghanistan has brought commando units from over a dozen countries together to pursue Islamic terrorists. In addition to all the cooperation, thereâs also a lot comparing notes. One thing everyone has noted is the large number of useful gadgets American Special Forces troops have. The most envied item is the American Raven UAV. What makes this little (4.2 pounds) bird so popular is its low cost ($25,000 each) and performance (can stay in the air for 80 minutes at a time). The Raven is battery powered, and carries a color day vidcam, or a two color infrared night camera. Both cameras broadcast real time video back to the operator, who controls the Raven via a laptop computer. The Raven can go as fast as 90 kilometers an hour, but usually cruises between 40 and 50. It can go as far as 15 kilometers from its controller on the ground, and usually flies a preprogrammed route, using GPS for navigation. Each Raven unit consists of three UAVs and one ground control station. Ravens are launched by turning on the motor, and throwing it into the air. It lands by coming back to ground at a designated GPS location (and bouncing around a bit.) The Raven is made of Kevlar, the same material used in helmets and protective vests. On average, Raven can survive about 200 landings before it breaks something. While some Ravens have been shot down, the most common cause of loss is losing the communications link (as the aircraft flies out of range) or a software/hardware failure on the aircraft. Troops have taken to putting a label on each aircraft, saying, in the local language, that if the aircraft is returned to the nearest American military unit, there will be a reward. Several lost Ravens have been recovered this way.
Several foreign special operations organizations have expressed an interest in American UAVs, and the way they are used in the field. The British SAS recently purchased a larger micro UAV, the BUSTER (backpack unmanned surveillance targeting and enhanced reconnaissance). Similar to the Raven, each aircraft weighs ten pounds, is launched via a small catapult, and lands via a built- in parachute. BUSTERâs big advantage is that it can stay in the air for four hours at a time, and fly as high as 10,000 feet. This makes it useful for âstake outâ type patrols, where you want to keep an eye on a suspicious building, or cave entrance, for a long time. BUSTER can move at about 60 kilometers an hour and the entire system is light enough to be carried in a backpack, and hauled long distances by the guy wearing the backpack. BUSTER is basically an improved version of the American Pointer, a larger (nine pound) micro-UAV that could only stay in the air for two hours at a time, and was a favorite of American Special Forces before they got the Raven..
New micro-UAV designs are coming out each month, which is why the troops like the low cost, and donât mind the attrition (everything wears out in the field.) When the current UAVs wear out, there will be new and improved models to buy as replacements.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/31/2005 09:16 ||
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Is it just me or is this sort of stuff just scary cool?
Posted by: Jim ||
10/31/2005 10:31 Comments ||
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Al-Jazeera, the Arab news service growing by leaps and bounds worldwide and spreading its reach into the western world, has a new name for suicide bombings â "Paradise Operations."
An accredited Arabic-language translator spied the new phrase in the current issue of the Arabic-language news site.
In a story about the Russian foreign minister criticizing the Palestinian Authority for failing to combat terrorist movements, a paragraph reads: "Ariel Sharon ordered the defense minister Shaul Mofaz previously to undertake wide attacks on the movement of the Islamic Jihad, whose military wing yesterday undertook (||am-ma-li-a al cha-deer-ra) operations of paradise, which killed five Israelis and injured tens of Israelis â or whoever was standing around."
Previously suicide bombings have been called "ammaliat in-ta-har-i-a" â suicide operations.
#1
Expect the BBC making a similar change on its website..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/31/2005 8:25 Comments ||
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When the Israelis wipe out Gaza, be sure to call it an Assisted Paradise Operation.
Posted by: ed ||
10/31/2005 9:08 Comments ||
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Based on...
Oh Lawd, I'm on my way - Porgy & Bess
Oh Allah, I'm on my way,
I'm on my way to the 72.
I'll be blowin' up, upon the road
Head in the tree, legs in the ditch.
Oh Allah, I'm on my way, Paradise Operations Im-a doin' today.
Allah! The time is now!
At the end much carnal bliss.
President Pervez Musharraf said on Sunday that any country contributing to terrorism and militancy must be stopped. In an interview with the Saudi newspaper Arab News, Musharraf urged a reconciliatory approach in international relations, but was adamant on the issue of extremism. âLetâs put an end to terrorism, extremism and militancy,â Musharraf told Khaled Almaeena of Arab News. âIf the actions of any country are contributing to suicide bombings, militancy and extremism, they must be stopped.â
But then he turned his hat around and said...
The president advised the US, Syria and Iran to refrain from confrontation and adopt a reconciliatory approach in international relations.
Perv? Syria and Iran are drivers of extremism, terrorism, and militancy. So how do you control them without "confronting" them?
He said that confrontation with Iran was not possible for the world community at present. âI tell (the US administration) that we have to close fronts,â Musharraf told Arab News. âWe cannot afford so many fronts. We have a front in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Kashmir. Let us close all these fronts because they are affecting the Muslim world.â
How about if we make them all one front and kick ass from one end to the other?
Musharraf urged Syria and Iran to exercise restraint in their approach. âI would not make that kind of statement, because anything that serves to increase confrontation, which should be avoided,â he said and added: âWe must concentrate on things which assist reconciliation instead of confrontation.â
Posted by: Fred ||
10/31/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
AMSTERDAM â The lawyer representing Samir A., 19, has sought to question a man, named only as S.B., about his alleged links with the security service AIVD. Lawyer Victor Koppe suggested to an appeal court on Monday that the AIVD - via S.B. - may have had foreknowledge of a robbery at a supermarket in Rotterdam in 2004. The robbery led to a police search of A.'s home. A. was one of the young Dutch Muslims arrested by anti-terror police earlier in October on suspicion of planning terror attacks.
Italian Prime Minister 
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid al-Mualem was touring the Gulf on Sunday to drum up Arab support on the eve of a United Nations meeting to discuss possible sanctions against Damascus. In an apparent effort to head off a tough draft Security Council resolution backed by the United States, Britain and France, Syria launched its own investigation on Saturday into the killing of Lebanese former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The inquiry, ordered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will question Syrian civilians and military personnel and cooperate with a UN inquiry that has already implicated senior Syrian officials in the Feb 14 assassination, officials said. 
Former Iran president 
President Pervez Musharraf said on Sunday that any country contributing to terrorism and militancy must be stopped. In an interview with the Saudi newspaper Arab News, Musharraf urged a reconciliatory approach in international relations, but was adamant on the issue of extremism. âLetâs put an end to terrorism, extremism and militancy,â Musharraf told Khaled Almaeena of Arab News. âIf the actions of any country are contributing to suicide bombings, militancy and extremism, they must be stopped.â 
