As BBC News is banned from reporting inside Zimbabwe, Peter Biles has been following developments from Johannesburg:
A week ago, we sat in the ballroom of a luxury hotel in Johannesburg. It was the annual dinner of the Foreign Correspondents' Association, and almost everyone from our Southern Africa press corps was there. For the guest of honour was Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change. Over the course of an hour or so, he gave us his assessment of the current situation in Zimbabwe.
There was a need, he said, to confront Robert Mugabe's dictatorship on the streets. Mr Tsvangirai made it clear he was prepared for a brutal response from the state, for the banning of meetings, and for arrests. "We've been to jail in the past," he pointed out.
Less than 48 hours later, Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of other activists were once again in police custody. And they were severely beaten in the process. The man who limped into court in Harare on Monday, with a serious head injury and his face heavily swollen, looked nothing like the confident figure who had sparred with the press, here in Johannesburg, a couple of days earlier.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Well hopefully it is the "beginning of the end" for Mugs - but oh my, what Morgan and the other MDC Supporters have endured in the last week, leaves a lot to be desired - it is just so depressing.
But then Mugs goes on and does the following:-
Mugabe threatens to expel envoys BBC
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel Western diplomats
whom he accuses of supporting the political opposition.
The veteran leader said diplomats who wanted to represent their countries
had to "behave properly" or they would be thrown out.
His government has faced criticism after opposition activists who tried to
stage a rally in Harare were beaten.
But the authorities say opposition protesters caused the violence.
Earlier in the day, the bruised and bandaged opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai, left hospital in a wheelchair.
His colleagues say he was beaten in police custody after his arrest at the
rally. Four of his colleagues remain in hospital.
UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has said she holds Mr Mugabe
personally responsible for Mr Tsvangirai's injuries, and the US has said it
is considering extending its sanctions on Zimbabwean officials.
But Mr Mugabe has rejected the criticism and used a meeting with members of
his ruling party's youth wing to hit out at diplomats.
"We will kick them out of this country," the French news agency AFP quoted
him as saying.
"I have asked the minister of foreign affairs to summon them and read the
riot act to them," he said.
"We shall tell the ambassadors that this is not a country which is a piece
of Europe."
Information copied & supplied from the Site: http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/index.
Mr. Thompson says that while a senator he was long concerned with U.S. intelligence failures.
"The CIA has better politicians than it has spies,"
he says, referring to the internecine turf wars that have been a feature of the Bush administration. A key problem, Mr. Thompson notes, is a general lack of accountability in government, where no one pays any price for failure. When asked about President Bush's awarding the Medal of Freedom to outgoing CIA Director George Tenet after U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq became apparent, he shakes his head: "I just didn't understand that." From an interview with John Fund of the WSJ - click the link to go there. He sounds like he has read Rantburg - we've been saying the same things here for years
#2
Moved. I like Fred Thompson, but time is officially short with California moving up its primary date to February 8, 2008. There is now less than 12 months 'til decision day. Thompson needs to declare he's in or out *now*, not leave the GOP to keep waiting for the Mahdi to emerge from the well.
Get in now, Fred, or we'll have to go to 'lections with the candidates we have.
#4
respectfully disagree, Sea. He should wait til late summer, let everyone else self-destruct and chew each other up, then jump in. He does have to worry about raising $ in a much shorter period, but I don't see anyone else, except perhaps Rudy, getting massive support.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2007 14:07 Comments ||
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#6
"You go into the election with the candidates you have, not the ones you wish you had."
-- Dunald Romsfeld
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/18/2007 14:15 Comments ||
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#7
Good one Steve. ANd right now, Fred Dalton Thompson is the only candidate I really *want*. The others will simply be voting anti-Hillary, not pro-(Guliani,Romney).
I will never vote for McCain. Never. I'll vote libertarian instead. He would probably be WORSE than Hillary in some ways.
#10
Quick take? I doubt either could be VP to the other. A good VP would be Duncan Hunter, who's not going to be voted in as POTUS, but would do a great job if needed. Good geographical balance (and ideological for Rudy) for both
* full disclosure: Hunter's my congressman
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2007 19:10 Comments ||
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#11
Frank, he's not my Congressman, but he is the only politician to whose campaign I have ever donated. Duncan Hunter is a good man, smart enough and tough enough to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done either as VP or Pres.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/18/2007 19:45 Comments ||
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#13
I think the public is hungry for a straight talker, someone who isn't going to bullshit them. Me, I long for someone who isn't going to be a Casper Milquetoast against our enemies, foreign OR domestic.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/18/2007 20:48 Comments ||
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#14
Hillary & John McCain - the Scylla and Charybdis of '08
As presidential candidates try to stake out an electable position on the war in Iraq, Americans are justified in wondering: Is it reality, or is it just politics? Can anyone's judgment be trusted during an election cycle? Dem simplicists are playing politics. My read of the Bush administration is that they are adapting to more realistic notions of the possibility of civilizing the Muslim rat-holes. A majority misunderstood the Muslim menace, so finger pointing is hardly reasonable. Only a Republican victory will ensure that the Ayatollahs are not handed the Middle East oil patch, as did Jimmy Carter hand deliver Iran to the robed beasts.
Some measure of comfort may be found in the dual reality that is Washington. What you see on TV isn't necessarily what you get away from the cameras. Off the set, honest discussions about Iraq and the war on terror have a different tone and content than one might expect based on the gibbering of talking heads. Even pundits are sometimes of a different mind off-camera than on. There's no underestimating the power of peer pressure in the green room.
Serious people, in fact, are increasingly concerned that our media-driven political environment makes honest debate impossible. Iraq has become a case in point.
Is bringing home the troops in our national security interest, or is it merely politically comfortable and expedient?
Behind closed doors, more-honest debates are taking place among Republicans and Democrats, led in part by members of the recently resurrected Committee on the Present Danger.
Its Tom Clancyish title is not far removed from its purpose, which is to strategically fight the bad guys - through education and advocacy rather than espionage. Members include such familiar names as Sens. (and honorary co-chairs) Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and the co-chairs, former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Among international members are Jose Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, and Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic. (For more information, go to fightingterror.org) They are "Clash" ideologues, and not nation-builders. However, I don't believe that the Clinton mentality, that led to the betrayal of the Serbs, has been shaken by the leading Dems. A bi-partisan consensus won't happen.
Originally formed in the 1950s as a bipartisan education and advocacy group to deal with Soviet expansionism, the committee was reorganized early this year to address the global threat of "Islamist totalitarianism" - the committee's new name for our enemy.
Part of the committee's concern has been the Bush administration's failure both to adequately communicate our mission and to properly name the enemy. Our war is not against "terror," but against a specific enemy - a virulent, religion-based ideology... "Failure"? There has been a clear change in direction of the Bush administration, toward fighting Muslim aggression, rather than detaching Muslim terrorists from the Wahabist and Khomeinist mosques that create them, and speaking of an ambiguous enemy: "terrorists." We are fighting Wahabist and Khomeinist operatives. And we should be killing them by the tens of thousands. Shelve the smart bombs, and bring out the Napalm.
#1
Unless there's something about the details or lineage that I missed, this is the third incarnation of the Committee. Perhaps its best known version was in the late 70s, when it sprang up to ring the bell about Soviet strategic nukyler and general military ambitions. As a young and stupid buck, I was generally dismissive of their concerns. Not they were vindicated in every way, but their basic premise that the Soviets had to be confronted proved fairly sensible. Pretty impressive line-up of members - while Woolsey has inexplicably fallen hard for the economically and strategically illiterate chimera of energy independence, he seems very solid on the big questions of the day.
We are fighting Wahabist and Khomeinist operatives. And we should be killing them by the tens of thousands. Shelve the smart bombs, and bring out the Napalm.
#3
Excalibur:
I forgot to mention the Ikhwanis (Muslim Brotherhood). Polls suggest that only 30% of Americans dislike Muslim/Islam. The truth of inherent Muslim aggression is not getting out there. The majority assumes that Muslims are like everybody else. They believe that because they don't understand the Koran, with its supremacist ideology.
#1
This wasn't even SJS (Sudden Jihad Syndrome), it was an all out preplanned terrorist attack. Too bad law enforcement authorities didn't have enough courage to take apart Al Noor Masjid mosque at the seams. One can only imagine what was being preached there.
#2
Too bad law enforcement authorities didn't have enough courage to take apart Al Noor Masjid mosque at the seams. One can only imagine what was being preached there.
Islam.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/18/2007 15:27 Comments ||
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#3
One can only imagine what was being preached there
Although the European Union warns against , those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the the Middle East, where there may soon be no Christians left in the cradle of Christianity, are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims, yet EU leaders continue their quest to merge Europe and the Arab world by making it easier for Muslims to enter and settle in Europe.
The fact that European leaders and media voice such concern for Islamophobia yet do very little to stop attacks against Christian Europeans demonstrates the creeping dhimmitude in Europe which has been accurately predicted by Bat Yeor. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries.
This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as crime, but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given hunting licence, granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
03/18/2007 10:20 ||
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#1
Google "Calcutta Koran Petition" to read of an actual court petition to have the Koran - a "manual of jihad" terror - banned. The Muslim "prophet" - self-appointed and without any objective basis - personally participated in hundreds of instances of war, plunder, hostage taking, arson, rape, torture, crop destruction, genocide, etc. One month before his exile journey (hijira), he claimed that his concocted deity ("allah") ordered abrogation of all the Koran prohibitions against violence. Once he set up his terror base in Medina (a Jewish majority village named Yethrib), he began his campaign of revenge and slaughter. Each and every martyr enticement - 72 hymen-regenerating sex-toys (houris) and 28 boys ("smooth as pearls"), rivers of wine, foods native only to the Hijaz area, crap and urination free eating and drinking (Muslims in "heaven" excrete by "belching"), began after the abrogation (nakash). When Pig-One of Islam realized that Jews weren't buying him as a "prophet," he concocted another abrogation, and forced Muslims to cease praying in the direction of Jerusalem, and towards Mecca. Although it is speculative, the omission of references to Jerusalem (al-quds) in the unholy koran, suggests that the phony prophet revised the koran, which is claimed to be the word of the-god, as dictated through an "angel." In any case, the koran was not put into writing for 17 years, when Muslims ruled Syria and put in their script (written Arabic is a derivative of Syriac).
#2
This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as crime, but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad.
If we had a single American candidate who was so plainspoken, I vote for that person regardless of party affiliation. Fjordman may end up being Europes savior, if they would only read his work.
In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins.
Tis merely a continuum of applied Islamic doctrine.
As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given hunting licence, granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims.
There can be only one reply:
Jens Orback, Democracy Minister in the previous Social Democratic Swedish government, said during a radio debate that: We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.
Just another of many dhimmis who steadfastly refuse to learn from history. Where, since Islams very beginning, is there a single case of leniencey being shown to those who have treated Muslims fairly to begin with? Ingratitude is a congenital feature of Islam and its followers.
#4
Arabs been skulking on the outskirts of Mid-Eastern civilization for (at least) 3000 years. Stealing everything not nailed down. Then Muhammad came and their normal way of making a living become Holy Jihad.
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.
