#3
You bastards know nothing but rape anyway, it's how your burqa whore mothers conceive you, it's what you do to each other in those shithole mosques of yours, and it's what you have taken from the West for 500 years because you are too cowardly and stupid to stop it, and because you enjoy it so much, of course. You can bribe the Euros to back you, with money we let you have for now, but they are only whores you have bought for the night, at the cost of your souls.
We could kill one million Islamo-savages every day and not even raise a sweat, and you know it. All you do is murder helpless prisoners, then gloat about your non-existent manhood. Don't let Bush's peacenik bullshit fool you. We want you dead, and, as usual with your kind, we will have our way.
#4
Well I prefer the tight little rectums of muslim anarco-facist gay boys that can't spell like SHARON HUNTER KILLER. Allan be praised.
Posted by: Trolling for Allan ||
08/24/2004 3:04 Comments ||
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#5
AC, I think we have encountered Mucky's evil twin.
With respect to the link, whoever is trying these guys needs to take into consideration that the perps may not be suitable for release into society until they are old enough to be restricted to baby food and other soft fodder. I don't understand how they got past screening and into the military. These guys are sociopaths and didn't get that way during their assignment in the sandbox.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 3:06 Comments ||
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#6
You threatened my daughter, shithead, because you don't have the guts to threaten me, even under the anonymous cover of the internet. Such is the manhood of the holy jihad warrior, a craven coward even in his anonymity.
You are too stupid, bugger-boy, to realize that she, herself, would cut your guts out, bake the pieces into little cakes, sell them to the hippies and Islamo-punks you hang out with, and then donate the proceeds to the Likud war chest.
Sure, dipshit, it happens all the time. Don't you read Al-Ahram? Do you even know what it is?
#8
Ironically, SH, this is an American report, prepared by American officers, and freely discussed in, where else?, the United States.
Yet it becomes yet another excuse for the sub-human dregs of the planet to vent their insane hatred of Americans (as a substitute for their justified hatred of themselves), and their support for serial rapists and torturers like Saddam and Castro.
Of course, this is really only more proof of their unfitness to survive, since it highlights the enormous gulf between their pigsty criminal society and our civilization.
Has anyone ever seen a comparable internal report on abuses in Islamo and communist prisons?
#13
Castro and Osama have obviously sent their top rhetoritician here to battle the Rantburgers.
His girlfriend still has to suck Castro's hemorrhoids for her daily heroin fix, though.
#15
Fred, I hate to say it, but the spectre of is looming at Rantburg.
Sorry, but I like this place and I'm getting sick of this shit.
Posted by: Another Dan ||
08/24/2004 4:11 Comments ||
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#16
Yikes. Ten thousand apologies! Mods, fire away.
Posted by: Another Dan ||
08/24/2004 4:12 Comments ||
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#17
You know, gang, it is usually good advice not to feed trolls, but this one was eating so much shit I just had to keep dishing it out till he exploded.
#20
You're the one eating shit and getting his head handed to him, dumbass. Why would I need sympathy?
On that note, I'll have some decaf coffee from my VC-skull cup and retire for the night.
I'll give even money Fred can have this asshole's name and address posted here by tomorrow night. Check back.
#21
OMG a My eyes, my eyes damm it! No quite as bad as the troll but damm near it.
I will be happy to provide a throw away email account, thats why most don't require them. I will even provide a real one if that is required. It wont stop trolls however.
#25
"Is there a reason for this thread? I thought these things had subjects.
Posted by: Mister Write 2004-08-24 5:04:12 AM "
S'pose the answer to this is , yes . To break the secret islamic code hidden within poorly constructed sentences , and to find one word spelt correctly . Ohh , and to inform SHARON HUNTER KILLER that caps lock is located underneath the TAB key :)
#26
Gee, RBers, look at it this way: my first impression when I read this headline was "We must really be getting to the bad guys!"
Great work, America and Viva Bush!
#28
Yes it is. Like a Mussolini minus the comic hand gestures.
Posted by: ed ||
08/24/2004 7:28 Comments ||
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#29
make sure you wash your hands, with soap, when you're done with dickhead, k?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 8:16 Comments ||
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#30
From the article: An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings.
Oh, dear. They were frightened. How can Americans live with themselves knowing teens were frightened in a war zone.
Oh, dear.
From the troll:
I THINK THAT IS YOUR DOUGHTER EATING SHIT NOT ME YOU RETARD ASS DO NOT TRY TO WARNING OR TREATH ME BECOUSE YOU NOW THAT YOUR WORD ARE INTERNET IRELEVANT AND ILLEGAL
1) Your caps lock button is on.
2) You gotta be a democrat. They are the only ones concerend with 'illegal words.' Heck I think they may have even invented the concept of an illegal word.
#31
looks like another product from the Whole Language school of spelling and grammar too. Phonics-phobics, why do they hate us?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 9:01 Comments ||
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#32
Yup, I agree it's high time for an email-confirmed registration process for commentators and posters. I know it's more work for you, Fred, so I'm hitting the tip jar now!
Posted by: Dar ||
08/24/2004 9:04 Comments ||
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#33
Rats. I was up watching the Olympics on RB lifeguard duty late Saturday night and had a guy like this, posting links. I just dumped his posts; I didn't know I could keep him and play with him.
#34
If nothing else, this has exposed the real nature of the European dhimmi consituency: rapists, illiterates, petty criminals, and homophobes.
As for threats, I obviously don't take orders from Italian gutter-trash or accept their verdict on my language.
Incidentally, people who actually knew what they were doing, as opposed to Euro-doper punks, have tried to harm me. I am still here and some of them are not. Draw the obvious conclusion.
#36
Atomic Conspiracy You know, gang, it is usually good advice not to feed trolls, but this one was eating so much shit I just had to keep dishing it out till he exploded.
SO YOU FAG REPUBIC GEORGE SUCKER ARE YOU TRYING TO LOOK FOR SIMPATY?
#37
I THINK THAT IS YOUR DOUGHTER EATING SHIT NOT ME YOU RETARD ASS
DO NOT TRY TO WARNING OR TREATH ME BECOUSE YOU NOW THAT YOUR WORD ARE INTERNET IRELEVANT AND ILLEGAL
#38
Atomic Conspiracy YOUR MOTHER CONCIVE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE BROWN DARK MUSCULLS OF SOMEBODY ELSE AT THE MOMENT OF YOUR BIRTH.
THAT CAUSE A LOT OF FRUSTRATIONS
PLUS YOUR DOUGTHER IS DATTING A SPIKE,
THAT IS THE REASONG THAT YOU ARE ATOMIC FUCK UP ABOUT POLITICS
#39
Atomic Conspiracy I WILL FIND YOU,
AND I WILL FIND YOUR DOUGHTER AND WIFE AND EDUCATE ALL OF YOUR REP.. CONS..IN A DE SADE WAY
ps: A BUON INTENDITORE POCHE PAROLE
Former Cabinet minister now professional whining loser Robin Cook says he is "deeply troubled" by an increase in prevention of terroristm raids to prevent terrorism. Mr Cook said "raids under the Anti-Terrorism Act...are now running, staggeringly, at 10 times the level of three years ago". Gosh! Now why would that be?!
He said such raids risked "alienating" the very people organising terrorist acts Britain needed for a multi-cultural society. I'll call Gnomey's bluff: why do we need a multicultural society?
He was speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Monday where he made the annual make Donald Dewar turn in his grave speech.
"I'm deeply troubled by the increase in raids," he told the packed audience. "There were 30,000 raids under the Prevention of Terrorism Act last year from which less than 100 individuals were charged with offences relating to terrorism." "See - if we'd only held 3,000 raids, we'd have 90% less terrorists!"
He added: "There's a real risk that if we continue with that we will end up alienating the very people we need for a successful multicultural society and a successful appeal to people around the world of a different culture." OK, I'm stumped. Anyone here speak PC? Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bulldog ||
08/24/2004 8:35:59 AM ||
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Link ||
[2 views]
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#1
Complete fucking twat.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/24/2004 8:44 Comments ||
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#2
Howard, don't hold back, tell us what you really think :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 9:03 Comments ||
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#3
I'm at work and have limited time to respond. I would like to add to the above: completeandutterfuckinggingerpubedtwatthat deservestohavehisheadviolentlystavedinwithaclawhammer..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/24/2004 9:20 Comments ||
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#4
LOL!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 9:24 Comments ||
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#5
Howard, hilarious!
And to think I was just gonna call him an ass!
#6
30,000 raids? Sounds like a number pulled out of his well impacted rear w/o any connection to anti-terrorist actions.
Britain needs a sanctuary zone completely free of investigations, searches and raids for terrorists. I suggest a 100m zone centered on Cook's house.
Posted by: ed ||
08/24/2004 9:33 Comments ||
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#7
Dang, Howard--that almost looks like one of those horrid, infinitely long German nouns, like Nahverteidigungswaffe or Kabelnetzbetreiber or Umfrageergebnis!
Posted by: Dar ||
08/24/2004 9:36 Comments ||
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#8
Don't get me started on the Krauts when I'm in this mood!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/24/2004 9:57 Comments ||
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#9
Assuming his numbers are right (he should have access to them), 300 raids per charged suspect doesn't sound very effective. That doesn't mean the problem Cook thinks it means, of course, but does that sound like a good ratio to those of you who know the business? 30,000 raids sounds fine, but I'd like to hear they got more than 100 bad guys out of them.
#11
30,000 raids and the Muslim Council of Britain would have sandbagged their central office. Just hyperbole from a once senior figure now sadly forgotten by his party and the public. I think 3,000 raids is nearer the mark - although 30,000 would impress upon our muslim 'friends' the need to co-operate or leave.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/24/2004 10:17 Comments ||
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#12
The real question is why does Britain need to be a multicultural society? Seems to me it already had a pretty successful society.
#13
The real question is why does Britain need to be a multicultural society? Seems to me it already had a pretty successful society.
If you're a 'Liberal' like Cook, your idea of the perfect society is something more akin to South African apartheid than most people would instinctively think desirable. All in the spirit of protecting the brown-skinned types from the corruption than is genuine liberal western culture, you see...
The '30,000 raids' figure is nonsense. Probably sourced from somewhere like alMaj. We probably don't even have 30,000 police officers.
#14
According to Statewatch magazine ( a watch dog organization covering all the EU nations):
âBetween 11 September 2001 and the end of March 2004 there were 561 arrests under the Terrorism Act (TA) 2000. But by the end of January 2004 only 100 people had been charged and there had been just six convictions for offences actually related to terrorism (including two for membership of the previously entirely legal International Sikh Youth Federation). Two hundred and thirty people arrested under the pretext of prevention of terrorism were subsequently charged with other offences, mainly deception or violations of immigration legislation. The supposed anti-terrorist provisions are being used as a dragnet to pick up and criminalise failed asylum seekers, or foreign students or workers whose visas have expired.â
It appears that Mr. Cookâs 30,000+ number arenât actually âraidsâ but the more numerous âStop and Searchâ operations, as recounted here:
Stop and search
At the end of last year(2003) Statewatch magazine reported that the number of stop-and-searches carried out under anti-terrorist operations during the year was more than double the figure being officially given out by the Home Office, and stood at 71,100 instead of the claimed 32,100; some police forces having counted their anti-terrorist stop-and-searches under the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, rather than under the TA.
The percentage of arrests resulting from TA stop-and-searches was just 1.18%, compared to 13% for the ordinary criminal stop-and-searches made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
#15
The White Knight of truth just rode by.... My hero!! - visit us again some time!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/24/2004 10:57 Comments ||
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#16
The UK needs a multicultural society so that the liberal party doesn't have to admit they were wrong in promoting mass emigration from Pakistan after the war.
The UK doesn't need a multicultural society, its' a small world after all and everythings interconnected so all of the benefits are there without the constant grinding away between cultures over underwear ads and pig statues.
#18
When I read this at the BBC this AM I asked myself why the U.K. needs a multi cultural society. Cook is a moonbat thats no news. This story has not been fact checked. The figures are bogus. Typical BBC trying to mak an issue where none exists.
Governments in Mexico and Central America are on alert as evidence grows that al-Qaida members are traveling in the region and looking for recruits to carry out attacks in Latin America -- the potential last frontier for international terrorism. The territory could be a perfect staging ground for Osama bin Laden's militants, with homegrown rebel groups, drug and people smugglers, and corrupt governments. U.S. officials have long feared al-Qaida could launch an attack from south of the border, and they have been paying closer attention as the number of terror-related incidents has increased since last year.
The strongest possible al-Qaida link is Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 29, a Saudi pilot suspected of being a terrorist cell leader. The FBI issued a border-wide alert earlier this month for Shukrijumah, saying he might try to cross into Arizona or Texas. In June, Honduran officials said Shukrijumah was spotted earlier this year at an Internet cafe in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Panamanian officials said the pilot and alleged bombmaker passed through their country before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Mexican and U.S. border officials have been on extra alert, checking foreign passports and arresting any illegal migrants. In a sign of a growing Mexican crackdown, eight people from Armenia, Iran and Iraq were arrested Thursday in Mexicali on charges they might have entered Mexico with false documents, although they did not appear to have terrorist ties.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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#1
I worry about AlQ activity in Latin America only as long as the funding sources, primarily SA's Wahhabis I believe, are still operating unimpeded. Shut off the money - and they're all just local thuggish "Shining Path" bands. Assuming Chavez and Lula and other latin "leaders" don't get into the asshat-funding biz, that is - and this was why Lula's overtures to the Arab League a few months ago got my attention. The drugs and kidnap for fun and profit rackets are all they'll have to fall back on. What I don't quite get, is why the countries that have this relatively petty infestation can't (or won't) deal with it with the intent of wiping them out.
South America is a huge disappointment, falling far short of its potential in every single respect, like Africa, and for the same sort of reasons. Sad.
#3
You're dead right. The Afghan trade has proven that it's hard to get them to go straight, money makes warlords - and kingpins - which make a political hash out of everything within reach.
I have no doubt that AlQ has been in contact with the Columbians - none at all. And the Columbians will deal with anyone.
Chavez is the situation that makes me craziest, at the moment. Such a grand opportunity squandered. Sigh.
And Lula is probably cooperating in some fashion with the Arabs - he certainly jumped when they called and sat at their feet like a good boy. As for nukes, sigh...
The nuke genie is out of the bottle. How can it be contained, again? Can it be contained, again? I'm afraid Dave D and Atomic Conspiracy and others have called it correctly, whether writing about more localized issues or not: it can't be and it won't be.
I wonder if, a decade or so on, whomever is left will be comparing the Western countries as various players in I Claudius with the World as the Roman court...
#4
Tom Clancy wrote a novel about jsut that (Latin American Drug lords getting together with AlQ terr-types).
He bailed the US out by a super secret agency that does wet-wrok removing targets by stealth with a nearly untraceable ricin-like substance.
Nice dream, but we need to expect this possiblity and do something.
Securing our southern border should be item number 1 to start solving this problem.
Triple fence, 12 feet tall. Concertina wire on top. Fence zone 5 ft deep, 12 ft wide concrete underneath. Seismic sensors. Automated Surveillance (UAVs, EO and IR cameras, overlapping fields, etc), and adequate trops to man them and back them up, as well as patrols.
#5
One addition: ground surveillance radars coudl handle large areas. And agressive patrolling would raise the risk factor: good OP/LP would catch a lot and deter even more.
#8
I'm sick of the prohibition on drugs. I believe that eventually we will treat drugs much in the same way we treat alcohol. If we were to allow addicts to get the drugs from a pharmacy instead of a drug dealer, these drug lords would be out of business tomorrow.
It's ludicrous to think, that by making drugs illegal we make them unavailable. I have never purchased drugs in my life, but if I suddenly decided I wanted to heroin or crack or pot or whatever, I'm willing to bet that I could get in my car and locate someone who could supply me, within an hour...no matter what city or state I was in.
Don't dare tell me how cruel I am. What I think is cruel is that people addict women to drugs so they can turn them into prostitutes. I think it is cruel that millions of innocent people are mugged, robbed and even murdered to supply a $20 fix. The illegal drug trade is far more cruel than making drugs available (perscription only) through a pharmacy could ever be!
Just think, the drug lords would all be out of business tomorrow if we allowed junkies drugs made right here in the good ol' USA.
#9
B that's a complicated issue.
The Dutch were (half) down your path and came to deeply regret it.
No simple solution for that one. But on the day someone sells your 12 year old daughter heroin or crack for a dollar, and you can do nothing about it, you'll think again.
Maybe not heroin, but cocaine would become a mainstream fix. Cheaper, but abundant.
#10
B I am with you on that one. I don't think the government should tell adults what they can see, read or put into their bodies. That would defund a hell of alot of crime in this country and around the world.
#11
Mmmmmmm .com I might argue with you a bit on that one. The southern hemisphere nations failed because they were set up to fail, via the early 70's equivalent of globalization. You cannot simultaneously strip-mine a nation's wealth and expect it to develop into a mini-U.S. So while I share your disappointment with the governments of South America and Africa, I tend to finger culprits much closer to home: the U.S.- and U.K.- dominated World Bank and IMF. About the worst I can say of our friends in the south is that they opted to swim with the sharks, for which they are now paying the ultimate penalty: widespread civil unrest and economic chaos for the forseeable future.
#12
Have to go with True German Ally on this one; I think access is half the battle when it comes to drugs.
Most of the stuff is so highly addictive that anything you do to increase availability, including legalization, will just result in more addicted kids. Some shit you simply can't mess with. Drugs, weapons-grade plutonium, and high explosives have no place in American homelife.
And B, I too have never been a drug user or done a drug buy... but driving around downtown L.A. in broad daylight, a man walked up to my open car window and offered to sell me whatever shit I wanted. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
I hate the war on drugs, but then I also hate the whole idea of a War on Terror. "War" on a pack of semiorganized fanatics? That ain't war. You don't militarize an entire nation just for that.
Far as I'm concerned the war on terrorism ended with the overthrow, rightly or wrongly, of the Iraqi government. Everything since then has been occupation or intel/counter-intel stuff.
Anybody besides me notice that the Bush Administration no longer talks about Osama bin Laden? We hear constantly about this lieutenant nabbed, or that lieutenant being sought, but nothing about the big kahuna himself. I think Poppa bin Laden, good friend of the Bush clan that he his, asked our President something along the lines of: "Sure, go ahead and round up those lieutenants and the other jihadist scum. But please, please don't touch our little boy Osama."
So maybe Michael Moore got that part right.
Funny thing is, I think finding Osama is the one thing that would clinch the election for Mr. Bush. But I don't think we'll ever know the truth of it.
#13
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-osorio010803.asp
On January 5 (2003), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's former personal pilot dropped a bombshell that has been ignored by just about every major U.S. news organization: The Venezuelan president, according to the pilot, gave al Qaeda a substantial sum of money following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Also google Venezuela's Margarita Island, for instance: http://www.militaresdemocraticos.com/articulos/en/20030422-01.html
On February 13 this year (2003), at London's Gatwick Airport, a Muslim with suspected links to Al Qaeda was arrested after a grenade was found in his luggage. His ticket shows he flew in from Colombia. But it turns out he actually began his journey in Caracas. He was a Venezuelan. And there are reported to be more like him.
A London newspaper reports Osama bin Laden has established a training camp on Venezuela's Margarita Island, a tourist destination that also has an Arab-Muslim community and a bad reputation as a hangout for smugglers and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Posted by: ed ||
08/24/2004 7:23 Comments ||
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#15
Unfortunately the 'drug war' is anything but. Both political parties really dont want to fight it -- its their 'pet issue'. If they really wanted to fight the 'war on drugs' they would have some real laws (and enforce existing ones). Such as death penalty for people who sell to drug dealers, smugglers, illegal makers (meth labs...), etc....
If it really is a war on drug then take the farking kidd gloves off dammit.
#16
Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda, have sympathizers, financiers, and terror cells worldwide.
Outside of Lebanon, one of the places that Hezbollah is strongest is in the area of South America known as the Triple Frontier, where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet. There is a large Arab community in Paraguay and Brazil, where law enforcement and government official âbribingâ is rampant. Reportedly, the Triple Frontier provides terroristâs a lucrative funding, recruiting and location for training camps. In return for access to raw opium (from Afghanistan), drug lords have reportedly made their transportation and infiltration networks available to the terrorists.
And, while joining with the U.S. in the war against terrorism is seen as politically expedient, thereâs a reluctance on the part of government officials in respect to the war on drugs, which provides ready cash to their private coffers.
#17
MW: I think Poppa bin Laden, good friend of the Bush clan that he his, asked our President something along the lines of: "Sure, go ahead and round up those lieutenants and the other jihadist scum. But please, please don't touch our little boy Osama." So maybe Michael Moore got that part right.
Whatever MW is on, it's better than illegal drugs.
#18
The War on Drugs has two sides, supply and demand. If we do nothing about demand, I have total confidence supply will find a way. After all, we can't keep drugs out of prisons today. To do something about demand, we have to punish users, who ever they may be, and the higher in the social order the better, harshly, very harshly and utterly without remorse. A few highly publicized incarcerations for decades of celebrities and children of the wealthy and powerful will do it. Several suicides on the way to conviction won't hurt either. Until we recognize this as a national security issue, which it is, this won't happen. When we do, everything will change within two years. Look at what the Chinese had to do to overcome the opium pushed on them by the westerners who so fear it now.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 10:41 Comments ||
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#19
Itâs easy to dismiss this idea, but hear me out. Itâs worth giving it a moment of your time considering how much evil in this world that comes from the profits of illegal drugs.
First, let me clarify; Iâm not advocating that we make highly addictive drugs freely available, over the counter, like we do alcohol.
Itâs a nice fantasy to think that your children, in their nice neighborhoods, donât have access to hard drugs â but fantasy it is. What separates your children from hard drugs isnât that hard drugs âarenât availableâ, but more likely, a myriad of other factors, that result in your children not having access to the local children who use do hard drugs.
Access is half the battle, and right now, access is completely unlimited. Saying other wise, is just plain ol, dunking-your-head-in-the-sand, wishful thinking. Currently, if your children wanted cocaine, crack, heroin or methamphetamine, it would be more difficult for them to get it with a prescription at a pharmacy, than it would be for them to buy it from a friend at school.
If we supplied the addicts through legal channels, using prescriptions and pharmacies, it seriously put a dent in the billions made by drug lords. And though it would not cut off the illegal supply for rave-party recreation use, smaller profits like like that would only be attractive to neighborhood punks.
We gotta do something other than what we are doing now â because as this article highlights, the billions and billions from the profits of illegal drugs funds the coffers of tyrants and terrorists â and it wonât EVER stop funding them until we find a way to legally supply the already addicted with their drugs.
whew! Glad I got that off my chest!
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 10:44 Comments ||
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#20
For some people drugs are just too addicting. One weak moment, whether drunk at a party, just wanting to fit in with the gang, or just feeling down, can lead to addiction. Legalization does lead to more addicts.
On the other hand the war on drugs makes the personal tragedy of addiction a societal sickness. It fuels local, national, and international crime. It ruins neighborhoods and countries.
The only hope I see is in medical research into the causes of addiction. Not all people are prone to addiction. There are genetic links. There is progress being made in this area.
Find out how to prevent or cure the addiction and then decriminalize the use of drugs. As with alcohol, people would still responsible for their actions. A pilot or surgeon who uses drugs on the job would be guilty of criminal negligence.
#21
But please, please don't touch our little boy Osama." and just cause you are paranoid - it doesn't mean they aren't out to get ya - dude.
light up..and leave me alone.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 10:57 Comments ||
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#22
anonymous - good thought. Agree also it is about supply and demand. But I don't believe that we can put "demand" back into Pandora's box and close the lid. It's too late for that, now. Even in countries where death is the penalty - addicts abound.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 11:02 Comments ||
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#23
Agreed. Legalize the damn stuff and tax the hell out of it. Gov't makes $, Dope dealers go broke, and maybe you can walk down a city street at night without getting killed for the $20 in your pocket.
#24
But I don't believe that we can put "demand" back into Pandora's box and close the lid.
We can't close the lid, but we can substantialy reduce demand, we just don't want to pay the price...yet.
Neither demand nor supply will ever be eliminated completely for any victimless crime, it's just a question of how big an inudustry we want the activity to be. It's now so large that it is becoming a national security issue. That's too big.
I also do not believe legalization will work for one simple reason. No legalization scheme I have ever heard of includes sales to children. Children are among the weakest members of society who are most easily pulled into the illegal drug culture. Drug pushers will simply focus their atention on whatever group is excluded from legalization.
And the price? Sending one of Bush or Kerry's 12 year old kids to jail for 20 years for smoking a joint. Put that on page one with a color photo and film at 11 and every mother in America would become a front line trooper in the war on drugs. If we can't do that as a society, we aren't serious about the war on drugs.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 11:18 Comments ||
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#25
DLS,
When my mother grew up, they had prohibition.
When I grew up they had State Stores with no liquor on display.
My kids drive by the Wine and Liquor Shoppe where they have liquor out front like a supermarket and discounts galore.
I expect my grandchildren to have regular advertising and promotions in the media.
A state bureaucracy wants to grow, like any other. When you distribute drugs through the state, you simply make the state the low cost distributor to legalized populations. You do nothing to demand and you only force the illegal distributors to focus on the populations not legaly served.
Talk about putting your children in the bullseye.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 11:25 Comments ||
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#26
Whatever your stance on drug illegality/legalization, 20 years in prison for smoking a joint is not a punishment proportionate to the crime.
Yes there probably are connections between terrorists and drug lords-those relationships are still in their infancies and should be hammered by the US, but let's not lose sight of the real prize-elimination of Islamic jihadism in our time.
#27
Mister Left: Mmmmmmm .com I might argue with you a bit on that one. The southern hemisphere nations failed because they were set up to fail, via the early 70's equivalent of globalization. You cannot simultaneously strip-mine a nation's wealth and expect it to develop into a mini-U.S.
While the banana republics of Latin America were flirting with socialism, fascism and economic autarky, the countries in East Asia were making toys, clothing and shoes and developing their infrastructure. The Latin American countries never learned to crawl, and it'll take a while for them to learn to walk, let alone run. All this despite having a huge advantage in transportation costs by being so close to the most lucrative market of all time - the US of A.
Mr. Left appears to think that globalization is a net negative for developing countries, when the truth is that it's a huge positive. Globalization is how East Asia developed, assisted by America's open market. And globalization is how the masses around the world will rise out of poverty.
#28
Headline: Al-Qaeda seeking to recruit Latin Americans
This is no particular surprise, given the huge numbers of Arab immigrants in Latin American countries. Christians from Arab countries have been fleeing repression for decades. And Muslims are now joining the Christian diaspora in an attempt to escape the failed economic policies of Arabia.
#29
20 years may not a be proprotionate punishment for smoking a joint. It is a way to get large numbers of 12 year olds to stop smoking joints.
20 years is a proportionate punishment for those who erode the national security by funding those who threaten our country.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 11:49 Comments ||
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#30
Children are among the weakest members of society who are most easily pulled into the illegal drug culture. Drug pushers will simply focus their atention on whatever group is excluded from legalization.
What on earth makes you think that children are being excluded now???
I acknowledge your overall point. Small time crooks will always obtain valium or methadone or muscle relaxants.. or whatever.. and resell it just like they do now. So heroin or crack would be no different. The difference is that you don't see "valium" cartels out there, bringing down governments - because the really big bucks are going to the legal drug companies reducing the profits for the illegal trade down from billions to mere thousands.
A drug cartel isn't going to be able to support a distribution network, like they do today,in every city in America, if each time a child actually does become hooked, they are eligible for a perscription.
I suppose there would be some point in the drug companies trying to hook people, but we don't see them doing that with muscle relaxants, valium or methadone, which are equally addictive.
The point is that the drugs are available, the children are being targeted; nothing is being prevented - it's just that the money earned is illegal and unregulated and going to tyrants and terrorists who wish to kill us all, not just those foolish enough to try drugs.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 11:53 Comments ||
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#31
20 years is a proportionate punishment for those who erode the national security by funding those who threaten our country.
I guess you believe that your child will never smoke pot. hah, hah!
But then I'm sure you mean, someone else's child should spend 20 years in prison, not yours.
#32
anon: I guess you believe that your child will never smoke pot. hah, hah! But then I'm sure you mean, someone else's child should spend 20 years in prison, not yours.
I think punishing consumers with hefty sentences is a lousy idea. The existing method of punishing dealers is morally the right thing to do. Consumers are inflicting harm only upon themselves - dealers are inflicting it upon hundreds of people. The punishment should fit the crime.
#33
Anon, If we are serious about the war on drugs, then, yes, my child too. My point is that if we are not willing to answer yes to our own child, we are not going to change anything.
Note this article on what it took for China to kick the drug habit in the 20th century...Communist dictatorship and terror.
The longer we wait, the more corrupt officials we have, the more money in the game, the harder it is to quit.
And maybe we shouldn't quit. Let's legalize and make drugs so cheap that the pushers are forced out of business. Social acceptability follows and then you have 25-50% of adult males with drug habits as China did at the turn of the 20th century. Look at TGA's comment about the Netherlands. I expect that would evolve into a serious national security issue.
each time a child actually does become hooked, they are eligible for a perscription
So, kids can get legal drugs as long as they get illegally hooked first? And how long does the prescription last? And when it ends and the kid has the same life problems that led them to take the first illegal hit why won't they go back to the old dealer and get another? Or will we just have slow motion legalization for kids too?
Let me also state that I am not advocating these policies, only stating that they are the only ones likely to be successful. Frankly, I doubt the American legal system would allow effective measures to be implemented. And so we will see illegal drug dealers and terrorists have more and more in common as we finance their activities until we get to the point where the threat from them is so great that we are willing to entertain the solutions I have suggested. I used to believe in legalization, but I doubt it would work. I suspect the drug cvartels are the best retailers and distributors of goods in the world next to Wal-Mart. And I doubt they'll wither away just because we legalize their product.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 12:48 Comments ||
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#34
1. Availability and addiction
"Most of the stuff is so highly addictive that anything you do to increase availability, including legalization, will just result in more addicted kids"
The first thing to note is that drug addicts are not a random sample. The cause and effect is not clear. Are they screw ups because they use drugs, or do they use drugs because they are screw ups.
When analysing a situation, its always good to go to extremes. What if alcohol was free. Would you personally consume more? Undoubtedly alcohol consumption would increase overall, but would alcoholism increase significantly? I doubt it. Not all people have equal preference for alcohol, and those who have a propensity for abuse are not deterred by cost.
Now let's make the same argument for drugs. Legal and free. Would the entire population become enslaved? No, for the same reasons as above. The individuals most likely to abuse drugs already do so. Its similar to the expression "locks only keep honest people out".
Increased availability would definitely increase drug addiction at the margins. But if one weighs that versus the cost of the war on drugs it may be cheap. Policing, legal, incarceration. Not to mention the indirect costs of increased crime and social problems. As well as the human cost to all the victims. If even a fraction of the monetary costs were applied to treatment instead of WOD, I wouldn't be surprised if overall addiction dropped. Add the potential for not only reducing policing costs, but collecting taxes.
Posted by: Joe Shmo ||
08/24/2004 13:36 Comments ||
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#35
we aren't going to agree on this...so let's agree to disagree.
each time a child actually does become hooked, they are eligible for a perscription So, kids can get legal drugs as long as they get illegally hooked first?
That's better than them turning to prostitution, like they do now. Quite frankly, if my kids did get hooked..I'd prefer they could get their drugs safe and legal - rather than having to rob me, my neighbors and themselves in the process.
You used prohibition as an example, but the reason we repealled prohibition is because it gave rise to the mob and all of the underworld that comes with it.
Sure, Holland was a failure, but they made it too easy to get the drugs. England provides methadone to addicts in much the way I propose, but it doesn't work because they made it too hard. However, it didn't encourage new addictions, just got rid of some of the crime associated with it.
I would agree with you that increasing penalties would help...but just like you point to Holland, I can point to any country that has the death penalty and show you that no matter how stiff the penalties...it doesn't stop it. While it probably decreased the drug trade in China..I'm sure even you wouldn't be willing to say that it stopped it altogether.
What we are doing now doesn't work. Even if you are right about increasing penalties - it's not politically feasible to think that we will suddenly start giving life sentences for drugs any time in our life time.
The status quo is completely ineffective as drugs are freely available to your children RIGHT NOW, should they want them.
Maybe we are both right. A combination of increasing penalties and ridding the illegal sales might do some good.
We aren't going to solve it ...but we have to do something differently than what we are doing now.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 13:40 Comments ||
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#36
2. Failed states and South America
Imagine that all countries could be divided into one groups based on either successful or failed state. I call a state failed if it has little or no economic growth outside of resource plundering.
Next divide further based on whether they have resources or not.
US is an example of successful with resources, Singapore successful without resources, Iraq (and Saud) failed with resources, Afghanistan failed without resources.
Patterns develop. Failed states with resources are riddled with cronyism and a often zero sum tribal mentality.
Failed states with resources are the most dangerous because they have the potential for diverting resources into infernal machines. Check of Iraq. Who's next?
Failed states without resources are dangerous in that it harbors those that want infernal machines. Pre-911, there existed no practical reason to be concerned about failed states, other than moral reasons. Most of those acting on moral reasons, were do gooders who were more interested in giving people fish than teaching them how to catch it. Giving people fish is pointless since it will be stolen by the thief running the country.
Why do some states fail, and others do not? Is it our mandate to fix these states for moral reasons, or more recently for selfish reasons (economic or security)? Important questions.
Posted by: Joe Shmo ||
08/24/2004 14:00 Comments ||
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#37
"Sure, Holland was a failure, but they made it too easy to get the drugs"
Also consider the fact that Holland attracted drug addicts from far and wide. Any attempt at legalization cannot be a local one. And using Holland as an example is not entirely fair either. Hard core drug users do have a bit of a community, and Amsterdam became the place to go. Sort of like the rise of the Auto Mall.
Posted by: Joe Shmo ||
08/24/2004 14:06 Comments ||
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#38
If only I had taken Conversational Latin in college. Coulda been a translator. Ah well...
#39
First of all, let's get this thread back on track. We don't need Latinos recruited and trained by al-Qaida coming across our southern border, blowing up things. As someone who's actually done a bit of targeting, let me tell you that the United States is horribly vulnerable. I could set off three 100-lb bombs in each of three cities in three different Western states, and cost the United States about $80 BILLION in economic damage. We have 13 million illegal aliens in the United States. We have no idea who they are, where they're from, or what they're doing. Another 2000-3000 come across our southern border every month, almost unhindered. We ignore it. How incredibly, incredibly stupid!
The biggest problem in Latin America is the sense of entitlement that is culturally inherent in its colonial history. There are families from the original Spanish conquerors who still believe they have the RIGHT to rule those countries, and manage to continue to hold the reigns of power, mainly through control of the economy, the political process, and high military and government offices. As long as that continues, and until the people themselves decide to put an end to it, it will continue. Just look at Mexico, where 70% of the land is controlled by 2% of the population. It's worse in many Latin American countries. The local Church, the local government, universities, and social ogranizations constantly reinforce this, either overtly or covertly.
As for drugs, as with any criminal activity, the action's hottest where it's easiest. When you allow people to own weapons for self-defense, violent crime drops. When you allow people to really step on druggies, and step hard, drug use will decline. That means grabbing dealers at any level and locking them away for life. That means finding distributors and executing them. That means forcing rehabilitation on users, including detoxification, hard work, and isolation during the period of detoxification. The only way to do that is to get rid of lenient judges, fire scumbag district attorneys that don't want to prosecute drug offenses, and stomping the shit out of anyone in the justice system that's caught aiding and abetting druggies. Unfortunately, we've been fighting the "war on drugs" about like we've been fighting the "war on terror" - half-assed and sloppy.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/24/2004 15:18 Comments ||
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#40
OP-True, we've been fighting those wars the same: half-assed and sloppy; but equating the threat to America of suicide bombers and Islamicist jihadis with the threat to America of drug addicts is where we disagree. One ruins one life, maybe more; one is the extermination of our culture, our nation, and EVERYONE IN IT.
We are being "incredibly stupid" by throwing up our hands about illegal border crossings, and I can't figure out for the life of me why George Bush has been playing such softball with Vincente Fox. What, does Mexico have something on us? Why on earth would we propose what Bush proposed recently if we are trying to get traction on immigration reform?
#42
An end to drug prohibition would, of course, deprive terrorists and criminals of a major funding source.
There is another, and potentially more important, consideration however.
The relationship between drug culture and the authoritarian pop-left is so obvious that we seldom bother to take note of it. Anyone who has ever been to a major lefty demo knows that this is true. I am convinced that most of the anger we see from rank and file left-conformists is actually rooted in resentment of the drug laws. Campus lefties or middle-age retro-hippies are unlikely to fall for the left's crude propaganda to the degree that they allege. It is reasonable that this propaganda, from Noam Chomsky to LA Weekly, is in fact a rationale for the transference of anger. Few lefties actually know any welfare recipients, or ordinary Palestinians, or homeless people, yet they swallow the left's propaganda as though it were holy writ. On the other hand, they all know some otherwise innocent person who has run afoul of the drug laws.
I submit that this is the real source of the anger that drives the far left rank and file, and that cynical lefty power-seekers and their corporate and Arab masters exploit this to gain a level of support they would never have otherwise.
Legalize marijuana and hashhish, and those hordes of mumia-cong and trustafarian conformists will forget politics and spend their lives dumb, happy, and stoned.
#43
I'm willing to split some of the difference with those who disagree with me. Stiffer penalties for those who sell, will discourage many from the trade.
But what I'm not willing to agree to, is the idea that drug addicts are somehow bad people, who choose to be addicted. These people aren't prostituting their bodies or robbing people because they are bad people, they are doing it because the drugs have made them sick. They are ill. Thanks to a few foolish decisions in their lives, the drugs have overwhelmed them and made them slaves to the need for more.
We don't deny cigarette smokers medical care for their lung cancer - though it is a disease of their own foolish making. So why deny the drug addicted the medical care they need to prevent them from having to rob, prostitute and do whatever it takes to feed their ILLNESS. Yet that is what we do today. We turn them into the streets and say, "We are sorry you are sick - go live in the gutter."
Someday, we might find a medicine that stops the addiction - but that's tomorrow - not today. Saying.."they just need to stop taking drugs"..is like saying to a cancer patient "just stop smoking and the cancer will go away". But they already HAVE cancer. That's the same with addicts. The damage is done. While some respond to rehab, some do not. So what to do?
Here's one more thought. I don't make hooch in my bathtub and sell it for several reasons. 1. I'm honest. 2. If I wasn't, the penalties are stiffer than the profits which would make worthwhile. Why, because the distilleries can make and distribute if far cheaper and easier than I can ever hope to do with my bath-tub brew.
How often do you hear of someone brewing up a batch in the bathtub anymore??? Never. There is not enough money to make it worth while. Yet..not so long ago, the mob was actively involved in this trade. The end of prohibition ended that.
We need to decide how we want to deal with addicts. Right now we just say, "Go to rehab and get over it." Like you could tell a cancer patient, "stop smoking clinic and get over your cancer". It's insane!
It's cruel. It's ineffective and it won't stop the evil people in this world from supplying them with drugs in exchange for the billions that it will provide them.
So..yes, I think we should provide legal, clean, cheap, drugs to addicts until we can offer them better. But yes, I agree we should do our best to make them unavailable to everyone else. It won't stop drug use, but it will put the cartels out of business.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 17:35 Comments ||
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#44
B. I would suggest not spliting the difference. I could go your way easily. But I simply doubt it would put the cartels out of business. It might shrink their business and that might be a violent event while it lasted. And they would no longer make enough money to be a significant source of funds to terrorists, But they would stay in business, preying on the weak. And we would have a culture that would sooner or later tolerate a large amount of drug use by a large portion of its population.
I don't think people who use drugs are bad people. I think they are people at a bad time in their lives. And most people have bad times in their lives, some for most of their lives. If drugs are easily available to people when bad times come more will use them to address their problem symptomatically for a longer period of time with more deleterious consequences. But their lives will go on.
Finally, my last word, there are no good solutions. One must chose the bad consequesnces one wishes to live with. I only object to thinking there is an alternative with out bad consequences. I think funding the terrorists is a terrible consequence.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 19:16 Comments ||
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EFL. I'll just give you the highlights...
...Bush during his recent election campaign in Wisconsin State again let loose such outbursts as hurling malignant slanders and calumnies at the supreme headquarters of the DPRK.
...This can not be construed as remarks made by a politician with sound reason and sensibility to reality but as a base tongue-lashing that can be made only by the stupid.
... This clearly proves that the DPRK was quite right when it commented that he is a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality as a human being and a bad guy, much less being a politician. Like the way they add on "bad guy" to this. That's gotta hurt!
It was none other than Bush who started wars in Iraq and other parts of the world to commit genocide as he pleases. Bush's assumption of office turned a peaceful world into a pandemonium unprecedented in history as it is plagued with a vicious circle of terrorism and war.
Bush is a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade and his group of such tyrants is a typical gang of political gangsters.
It is, therefore, by no means fortuitous that Bush is ridiculed and censured as an idiot, an ignorant, a tyrant and a man-killer not only in the U.S. but in various parts of the world. Not to mention he's a "bad guy".
#2
"Bush is ridiculed and censured as an idiot, an ignorant, a tyrant and a man-killer not only in the U.S..."
Maybe thats why I never understand how they come up with these ridiculous conclusions. Those people outside the US must be seeing all the stuff that is censored over here while the sheep back at home never get a chance to see it. I should move somewhere where I get better news coverage, perhaps France.
MORE than 100 planned terrorist attacks have been prevented since 2001, according to Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. Mr Ruddock refused to divulge how many had been thwarted in Australia, saying most of the planned acts were in the US and Britain. Intelligence gained from captured terrorists, spying activities and electronic intercepts was responsible for most of the preventive actions. "It is important to recognise we have been targeted," Mr Ruddock said. "There are people among us, working and living in our community, who would seek to do us harm," he said.
Mr Ruddock told the third annual Australian Homeland Security conference in Canberra yesterday that the Australian and international intelligence community was making inroads into thwarting the terrorists' plans. He also warned that a planned Labor judicial inquiry into spy agencies would distract key senior officers from their task of fighting terrorism. "Nearly two-thirds of Al-Qaeda's leaders have now been captured or killed and more than $200 million belonging to . . . terrorist accounts has been seized." Mr Ruddock also warned against using a "broad brush" in relation to targeting terrorists.
Meanwhile, an American terrorist expert estimated that about 70,000 trained terrorists remained at large around the world. Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Centre for International and Strategic Studies in Washington and former counter-terrorism adviser to president Bill Clinton, told the conference via satellite that the Iraq war was a mistake and had pushed many moderate Muslims towards terrorism. He said the Bush Adminsitration had failed to understand the war against terrorism was an ideological campaign and that targeting states or individuals was not the answer. "You have the potential to marginalise and alienate," he said.
Mr Ruddock said society should be bolstering moderate Muslims. "More Muslims have died as a result of terrorist activity than non-Muslims." Mr Benjamin said only about 3500 Al-Qaeda or other Muslim terrorists had been "taken out" since September 11, 2001. Many of those were the leaders, but the remaining 70,000, trained in Afghanistan, were active in communities around the world. Mr Ruddock said the September 11 terrorist attack, which had so far cost the US economy about $120 billion, represented an "extraordinary return on investment". "All of this damage came at the expense of the lives of just 11 suicide bombers and about $500,000," he said.
There's always an excuse for not taking action, isn't there? 70,000 cannon fodder with no leadership and no funding is a nuisance, not a threat. It's the combination of countries that foster and support terrorism as a matter of policy — such as Iran and Syria — and stateless organizations — such as al-Qaeda, al-Tawhid, Lashkar e-Taiba and the Learned Elders of Islam — that represent the enemy. Once they're destroyed, the cannon fodder will have to get jobs and won't have the time to be Lions of the Desert.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 11:44:21 AM ||
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#1
"All of this damage came at the expense of the lives of just 11 suicide bombers and about $500,000," he said.
This clueless statement totally ignores the 70 billion dollars the Saudiâs spent over thirty years seeding the ground for our current problems. It also ignores the support and training provided by Iran for a separate group of terrorists.
It also ignores that countries such as China and France have their own reasons for causing the US problems. And that many countries and people are reacting to an increasingly globalized culture and economy with rising anti-Americanism.
9-11 was the bomb and Al Qaeda was the group that delivered the bomb. But the enemies the US faces are the forces that nurtured the terrorists. The money and blood the US is spending is to counter that broader enemy.
So far the âreturnâ on the Islamic investment has been the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam, the awakening of the US to the Islamic threat, and the willingness of the US to confront terrorists sponsors throughout the world.
Before this is over the âreturnâ will look far worse for the Saudiâs, the Saddamâs, Iranian mullahs, etc.
#2
Mr. Ruddock needs to go back and re-do his math, and check his facts. Nine-Eleven was not the first, nor the only, terrorist attack on the United States, nor was it the only terrorist attack by al-Qaida. We cannot forget, or marginalize, the first WTC bombing, the Khobar Barracks attack, the embassy bombings in Africa, or the attack on the USS Cole. Secondly, there were 19 terrorists on those four airplanes, Mr. Ruddock, not 11.
The total cost to al-Qaida was also substantially higher, although most of those costs were after-the-fact costs, due to US response. How many al-Qaida fighters have been killed since the US invasion of Afghanistan? The Taliban government has ceased to exist. The free and open training grounds are gone - today all training has to be done as clandestinely as possible, and always with one eye open for a sudden rush of Tomahawk missiles - or worse. I'm sure recruiting has also suffered, but we don't have access to the records to judge that.
The money hasn't dried up completely, but it's slowed from the massive flood pre-9/11 to a mere trickle of its former self, and what money does get through carries with it the potential of being tainted. Each DAY sees another half-dozen of the better-trained operatives, even the higher leaders, being killed, captured, or driven underground. The United States is in the midst of a long-term pitched battle to suck dry the entire Islamist movement by killing those with the desire to carry that movement forward. The killing fields of Iraq have bled dry half a generation of those most dedicated to the cause. The operation continues.
Of course, I can understand Daniel Benjamin's behavior. Anything to distract from your own failures to do anything substantial in the fight against those who have targeted this country, anything to marginalize your own failure to grasp the obvious facts that there were people who had declared war against your nation, and anything to protect "your" president is ok, isn't it Mr. Benjamin?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/24/2004 13:12 Comments ||
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#4
Meanwhile, an American terrorist expert estimated that about 70,000 trained terrorists remained at large around the world. Daniel Benjamin,
The propaganda is getting so bad, they don't even try anymore. Meanwhile? Yes, we are talking about all of the terrorist attacks avoided and MEANWHILE... a world a way and nothing to do with this article, we found someone who said something negative about GW.
I guess it was time for coffee and the reporter couldn't find a negative GW quote to fit the story...so he just stuffs this completely unrelated one in.
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 23:01 Comments ||
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#5
oops..my bad. I guess he was a sattelite feed into the conference. Doh!
Posted by: B ||
08/24/2004 23:02 Comments ||
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A Moroccan accused of helping the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers, but acquitted by a German court, may continue his university education in Germany, a court ruled on Tuesday. Abdelghani Mzoudi had been charged with aiding and abetting the murder of about 3,000 people and belonging to a terrorist group, the Hamburg cell of al Qaeda that prosecutors say led the attacks. But in February he was acquitted. The court in the northern port city argued it was not convinced of his innocence, but that there was insufficient proof to convict him. Mzoudi is facing a prosecution appeal against the acquittal.
A different Hamburg court ruled on Tuesday that Mzoudi must be allowed to continue his education at the publicly-funded Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. He studies information technology and electrical engineering there. The university had attempted to prevent Mzoudi from continuing his studies on the grounds of what it described as his "radical Islamic fundamentalist" beliefs. Mzoudi challenged this in the court, which ruled that his interim grades were the sole criteria for determining his eligibility to continue his education. Mzoudi's friend and countryman Mounir el Motassadeq is the only man to have been convicted over the 2001 attacks. Last year Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years by the same Hamburg court that acquitted Mzoudi. Earlier this year, Motassadeq won the right to a retrial which is currently under way in Hamburg. Germany wants to deport both Moroccans once all legal proceedings are concluded. The city state of Hamburg argued both posed a "particular danger" to Germany. Three of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots also studied in Hamburg.
#2
So now he is free to spread his radical anti-german anti-western dogmas and will be seen as a "hero" having beat the system.
I do not blame the German people TGA. I blame the secular huimanist judical system. That said one must remember the German court system was used by the NAZI party to legalize it's murderous reign of terror and will not do any thing which might be a repeat of that past evil, even if it makes errors. That is a deeper perspective of it's unwillingness to convict this little punk jihadist. He will meet a sad end I am afarid anyway. What goes around come around, though not as quickly as we might like.
Would the words be more interesting than "dicker schweinhund"? ;-)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/24/2004 21:33 Comments ||
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#4
Well, let him enjoy his moment in the sun. There is still the appeal pending. Should this fail he will still be removed from Germany. He won't be able to fight that because German antiterrorist laws say that we can remove aliens who are a threat to Germany and training in a terror camp in Afghanistan certainly qualifies.
So in a few months he'll be on a plane to Morocco.
#5
TGA, if this happened in the US, I think that the push would be to see the guy's transcript. There are several things that you mihgt find:
1. He is taking no classes or is not showing up to classes becuase they conflict with his activism. In that case the government needs to look at whether it is funding anything worthwhile.
2. He may be a poor student.
3. He may be a straight A student in a WMD curriculum.
The govenement would probably not be allowed to release that type fo information. That's what newspapers are good at.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 22:49 Comments ||
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#6
TGA: So in a few months he'll be on a plane to Morocco.
With any luck, the Moroccans will disappear this guy in a sand dune.
I'll admit, it sure is an unusual headline ...
Polish neo-Nazis have raided a camp housing Chechen refugees near Warsaw, the Chechenpress news agency reported Tuesday. The agency said up to 20 Polish youths burst into the Moshna camp 20 miles from Warsaw and attacked residents with broken bottles and gas pistols. During the attacks, which came in several waves Sunday night, Molotov cocktails were also hurled onto balconies in an attempt to set the camp ablaze. The camp houses more than 100 Chechen refugees including children. Parents say they are now afraid to allow their children to go to school outside the camp fearing their safety cannot be guaranteed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:00:32 PM ||
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"I hate Polish neo-Nazis!"
Posted by: Jake Blues ||
08/24/2004 12:33 Comments ||
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#2
What the devil is a "gas pistol"? Pellet guns?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/24/2004 12:34 Comments ||
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#42
Looks like some script-kiddy discovered the Perl HTTP library.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/24/2004 14:02 Comments ||
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#43
wow - I'm in a fetal position from the sting.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 14:04 Comments ||
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#44
Nah, you yave to remember that with the few brain cells these people have they have no long-term memory. Hence, after they post they forget what they just did and figure they still have yet to do it.
They're slow...it just takes then 40-50 tries for it to sink in.
#47
Yeah, what Mitch H said. What the heck is a "gas pistol"? Maybe its full of beans...
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/24/2004 15:42 Comments ||
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#48
More detail. Which "Neo-Nazi" Group?
The one that drinks cheap wine outside a conveniance store, gets drunk, picks a fight, then calls his drunk, unemployed friends for more troublemaking.
This is a seriously overblown story, from what I gathered from the Polish press.
What the heck is a "gas pistol"
Air gun or rifle. They use little canisters of compressed air. Available at Walmarts everywhere.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/24/2004 16:10 Comments ||
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#49
Oh... I was figuring it was a bean powered blunderbuss with internal connectors
Stumbled across this by clicking the "Random" link on someone's Milbloggers banner. Great insights into a drill sergeant's experience and the next generation of soldiers he's cultivating.
Posted by: Dar ||
08/24/2004 6:01:22 PM ||
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For Alabama National Guard units that have had lengthy tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, some questions hang in the air when they return: Who is staying in and who is getting out? The answers usually start coming after each returned unit has its customary 90-day cooling-off period and holds its first weekend drill. The largest Alabama Guard unit to return from Iraq, the 877th Engineer Battalion, had its first weekend drills earlier this month at its northwest Alabama armories. And at those drill sessions, only 19 of the 555 soldiers who attended said they wanted to hang up their helmets or were seriously considering it. "The first drill looks very optimistic as far as retention of the quality soldiers that we have," said Capt. Mark Holland, the battalion administrative officer. "We hope that over the next 60 days that continues."
Of the 19 soldiers who may leave, about half had served more than 20 years and were eligible for retirement, while the others had reasons to leave that ranged from job conflicts to their desire to spend more time with their families, Holland said. When Guard units such as the 877th were deployed for up to a year in and around Iraq, many of their members had never been away from home for such a lengthy period, and more than a few vowed to get out once they got home. "That's just talk," said Spc. Charles Walker of Fayette, a member of the 877th's C Company who has two brothers and a sister in the battalion. Walker and his siblings are staying in. "You get upset with the system, you know, but you're not going" to leave, Walker said. "I love being in the National Guard, I really do."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/24/2004 7:50:16 PM ||
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The media hounds who are completely divorced from military culture pickup on the gripping to expound about how the mission is 'destroying' our military and morale is low. Of course soldiers/legionaires have been bitching since Caeser's time, it goes along with uniform or tunic. It is the shared experience of hardship and danger that builds bonds, builds the brotherhood that last beyond instances in time. Oh, don't ever expect the media to get a clue.
Posted by: Don ||
08/24/2004 8:25 Comments ||
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Instaguy noted it, so it'll get out
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/24/2004 8:41 Comments ||
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EFL
A U.N. human rights expert called for the immediate release of an estimated 725 Taliban fighters taken prisoner in Afghanistan in 2001 and access to hundreds of other detainees held by U.S. forces. Let my people free so that they can mistreat the populace.
The former Taliban combatants — including an estimated 350 Pakistanis — are being held in "inhuman" conditions, and Afghan government officials agree there is no legal basis to continue their imprisonment, Cherif Bassiouni told a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to a transcript released here on Monday. While the United States says it has never put a hold on their release, he said, "there are allegations that the U.S. authorities ask that they continue to be kept in detention." Bassiouni, a law professor at DePaul University in Chicago who is the U.N.'s independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan, talked to reporters Saturday at the end of an eight-day trip to Afghanistan. He said he would be formally reporting to the U.N. General Assembly on Afghanistan's human rights situation in October... I would not be surprised to discover that Bassiouni has connections to Ramsey Clark.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 1:06:35 AM ||
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Cherif Bassiouni This guy is a major pinhead. He has written at least 44 books. He claims "The term crimes against humanity has come to mean anything atrocious committed on a large scaleâ¦" He also is pushing for "weapons control" I can't find his email address or he would get a nice vulgar email from me thanking him for his treason.
A Thai general who was moved out of the largely Muslim south after his troops stormed a mosque during an uprising in April will be sent back to the region, Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh says. Chavalit said General Pallop Pinmanee, accused by government-appointed investigators of using excessive force, would head the southern border province development board. Pallop appeared to show no remorse on Tuesday for storming the mosque on a day when more than 100 Muslims were killed in an uprising in the largely Malay-speaking south that no one has explained adequately. "We can't act like a wimp," said Pallop, who has admitted ignoring Chavalit's orders to end the mosque confrontation peacefully but has faced no disciplinary action apart from being pulled out of the south. "This is urban guerrilla warfare," Pallop told Reuters. "We have to resort to all means to bring peace to the region quickly. We have to search, destroy and reconstruct the region." Pallop will be based in Pattani province, home of the historic Krue Se mosque his men stormed. "Unity among agencies is the most crucial part now, so I've appointed him to help me in my work," said Chavalit, who is responsible for national security. "The violence is worse than ever" and had reached a "critical" stage, Chavalit said. Insurgents have ambushed officials, police and soldiers from the pillions of motorcyles and the army said on Tuesday it would search every motorcycle carrying a male passenger in a bid to halt such attacks. "If honest citizens feel inconvenienced by our searches, please condemn those villains who have wreaked havoc on our people," the army said in a statement.
Indonesia's military offensive against separatists in Aceh province has failed to crush the insurgency and has left government forces in a quagmire from which they cannot escape, a senior rebel commander said Monday. Tjut Kafrawi, commander of rebel forces in eastern Aceh, also pledged that the insurgents would press on with their struggle for independence regardless of the outcome of Indonesia's presidential elections. ``We are still a strong force,'' Kafrawi told The Associated Press in one of the first interviews with a rebel leader since the government announced recently it had made major advances against insurgents in the region rich with oil and natural gas. ``We will continue our fight,'' Kafrawi said from a jungle base in eastern Aceh.
Kafrawi dismissed Indonesian military claims it has killed about 2,000 fighters of the Free Aceh Movement and captured thousands of others since May, when the government ended a six-month truce, pulled out of internationally brokered peace talks and arrested rebel negotiators. ``Only a fifth of the casualties are our fighters, while the rest are civilians,'' Kafrawi said. Foreign analysts say the military offensive - in which the government has engaged about 55,000 soldiers, marines and paramilitary policemen - has barely made a dent in the insurgency, a guerrilla force estimated to number about 5,000 men and women.
Initially, the United States backed efforts by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center, which arranged the cease-fire, and provided funding for the peace processor process. But the Bush administration regards Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim nation - as a key ally in its war on terrorism, and is now reluctant to criticize Jakarta's conduct for fear of alienating authorities here. Although the rebellion poses a serious threat to Indonesia's unity, the conflict has been dubbed ``the Forgotten War'' because it has never captured much international attention.
I think most of the world is hoping both sides lose...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:39:37 AM ||
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Indonesiaâs military offensive against separatists in Aceh province has failed to crush the insurgency and has left government forces in a quagmire from which they cannot escape, a senior rebel commander said Monday.
Financial support for Al Qaeda and the size of its operating budget have plummeted in the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the network "continues to fund terrorist operations with relative ease," according to new findings released Saturday by the commission that investigated the strikes. The report from the panel also says that the Saudi government provided lackluster cooperation to stanch the flow of money to Al Qaeda for two years after the attacks, but began to respond more aggressively after several Al Qaeda strikes in the kingdom last year. I'll retain my skepticism on this one. The members of the Golden Chain still haven't been jugged, after all ...
Al Qaeda's annual budget appears to have shrunk from about $30 million a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to as little as a few million dollars a year now, the commission reported. Funding for the terrorist network has shriveled during that period, partly because of the more aggressive stance by Saudi Arabia in combating Al Qaeda financial support, the report said. But the financial falloff has not caused a commensurate decline in Al Qaeda's capabilities because the attacks it sponsors are relatively inexpensive. It has shed high-cost obligations, including its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the network can still find ready funding from its most solid supporters, the report said.
The findings were released in an exhaustive study of Al Qaeda's financing that was completed by the Sept. 11 commission's investigative staff. The material served as a basis for several sections in the commission's final report, released last month, that dealt with terrorist financing. But the study released Saturday was more lengthy and detailed than those sections of the final report.
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Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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The international community should cease interfering in the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the country's foreign minister told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview published Tuesday, as peace talks organised by the African Union made some progress. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail also challenged UN estimates of the number of people killed in the 18-month conflict, and accused the United States of deliberately blocking the search for a solution. "The international community must stop intervening in our country," Osman Ismail said in the interview.
He said what had started as a long-running tribal conflict had "degenerated after multiple foreign interventions." He said many of Sudan's rebel movements had received training in Eritrea and other African states that had a "strategic alliance" with the United States dating from the time of president Bill Clinton's administration. Now, "some NGOs (non-governmental organisations), some circles in the United States", particularly the state-run USAID cooperation agency, have been trying to stop a peace accord for a seperate rebellion in southern Sudan, he said. The US Congress' recent vote to declare the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, a "genocide" was, he added, a result of "both parties looking to seduce the Afro-American vote in the next presidential election." I wish the 'Afro-American' community cared enough about Sudan to let it effect their vote.
I wish the Afro-American community could find Sudan on a map...
Asked about UN figures estimating that more than 30,000 people have died and more than one million been displaced in the conflict, Osman Ismail replied: "Give us names, show us the graves. Our estimation is around 5,000 dead, including many soldiers and policemen." His government, he said, was "on the verge of concluding a peace accord".
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"We want a stop to this bloodshed in the city of Najaf," said the aide, Sheikh Ali Smaisem. "We will negotiate with the same delegation from the [Iraqi] National Conference, and we want them to bring a representative from the government." Translation: you are killing our "recruits" faster than we can replenish them. Let's talk for awhile so that we can bring more people into the slaughter a few days later.
#1
Regroup, rearm, resupply through the catacombs. Buy more time on Al Jizzara.
NOW is the time for Allawi to publicly declare Tater a thug and a murderer, in effect to deligitamize and (*horrors!*) humiliate him and take him out of the political arena, if not this vale of tears. It is time to resolve this issue and move on to Fallujah.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/24/2004 19:55 Comments ||
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This is what happens when asscracks like Sadr are not dealt with promptly. After the offer to be a part of the political process was spurned the first time, he should have been taken out with no questions asked, instead of repeated pleas to disband his thug army, enter into the political process (again), or whatever. Now this whole merry-go-round is looking to make yet another revolution. AGAIN.
I don't honestly believe that every single one of the Shiites is totally retarded, but I am beginning to wonder if they're really worth the lives and effort expended on them.
#5
I know that I am ethnocentric and not culturally Sennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsitive, but anyone that does that Massive Headwound Harry scalp cut and bleeding thing (esp. on their kids!!!) might not be all there. When martyrdom becomes the driving thing for the religion, I question their ability to rationally work through things. There seem to be various degrees of it, but the top dogs (clerics) do seem to be pushing it pretty hard.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/24/2004 21:35 Comments ||
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B-a-r: "I don't honestly believe that every single one of the Shiites is totally retarded..."
You don't? And why would that be? Have you factored in the centuries of inbreeding? How about the completely whacked out belief system and the indoctrination in same since birth?
"...but I am beginning to wonder if they're really worth the lives and effort expended on them."
The answer is no, they are not. This is a failed culture that is beyond redemption. They need to...go. All of them.
If we conquered and subdued Islam tomorrow, it would take several generations to undo the damage that hundreds of years have wrought.
We would be better off declaring this a failed line in human evolution and remove the infection. As a species we will be better off in the long run.
Besides, it isn't as if they don't plan on doing the same thing to us.
Opposition activists in Bangladesh attacked railway stations and battled police across the country on Tuesday on the first day of a two-day strike called to protest against a deadly grenade attack at the weekend. More than 80 people were wounded in clashes with police when protesters smashed railway stations and removed tracks to stop trains and attacked government buildings, witnesses and police said. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse anti-government mobs shouting: "Punish the bombers". The dawn-to-dusk strike was called by the main opposition Awami League after a deadly Saturday grenade attack on a crowd listening to a speech by party president and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina escaped with minor cuts, but 19 people were killed and about 150 wounded. "This is a heinous and barbaric attack," Foreign Minister Morshed Khan told Reuters in an interview. "If we can avoid the blame game, all parties should put their heads together, take stock of the situation and identify the culprits." The most high-profile victim, the popular head of the Awami League's women's wing, Ivy Rahman, died early on Tuesday. "Ivy Rahman's death intensified the countrywide protest," Abdul Jalil, general secretary of the party, told Reuters. The League later said the strike would end early -- at noon on Wednesday -- to allow people to attend Rahman's funeral.
The secular party, which helped lead Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan in 1971, blamed Islamic fundamentalist partners in the four-party ruling coalition for the violence and demanded Prime Minister Khaleda Zia resign. The government has rejected the accusations and blamed the attack on groups that want to destabilise Bangladesh. The image of Bangladesh as a role model Muslim-majority democracy had taken a short-term hit, Foreign Minister Khan said. "This image has taken a temporary hit." he said. "In a matter of months Bangladesh will be again resilient and, Inshallah (God willing), we hope we will be able to take the culprits to task." Dhaka was open to the idea of foreign help to investigate the blasts but at a later stage and if required, he said. Several countries, alarmed at the attack on a former prime minister, have offered to help. They include the United States, India and Britain. "After the initial assessment of the incident, should we require help from any country, we shall not hesitate to go to the best source or sources of such assistance if necessity demands," Khan said.
Analysts said the attack had put pressure on Khaleda Zia's government, accused of inaction after other bombings but said they saw no immediate threat to its stability. "I don't think the government's stability is immediately threatened by the latest attack," said Dr. Dilrowshan Zinnat Ara of department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Dhaka University. "But if such incidents continue and the government is unable to rein in those involved ... the ultimate result is unpredictable," he said. In the capital, Dhaka, police used bamboo canes to chase off hundreds of left-wing activists trying to halt rickshaws. About a dozen were wounded, police said. Dhaka's normally teeming streets were largely deserted and schools, shops, offices and colleges were shut. Armed police patrols patrolled the streets of main cities. More than 160 people have been wounded in clashes between opposition activists and police since Saturday's attack. Bangladesh has a history of political violence, military uprisings and bombings in which two presidents -- Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Khaleda's husband Ziaur Rahman -- were killed in 1975 and 1981 respectively. Khaleda condemned Saturday's attack and on Monday asked for a meeting with Hasina to express her sympathies. Hasina refused. It would have been the first meeting between the rivals in 14 years.
Algeria's largest Islamic insurgency group has threatened to launch major attacks against the regime. The Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call has warned Algerians to stay away from government installations in major cities. The statement, posted on an Islamic Internet website on Aug. 21, warned Algerians to keep away from police stations and other security installations. The Salafists said they would not be responsible for passersby killed in these strikes. "We are innocent before Allah of the blood shed of those innocents who walk near these places," the Salafist statement said.
That's understandable. They're less likely to be armed...
Bomb blasts, karo-kari, honour killing and other such crimes against humanity have claimed as many as 765 lives during the January-July period this year in Sindh , according to a report prepared by an NGO, the Aurat Foundation, which said that a big number of the victims appeared to be women. The report said that more than 300 women were murdered in different incidents. About 67 people, majority of them women, were killed after being accused of extramarital affair and labelled as karo-kari.
The figures showed that 142 people died in bomb blasts in the province during the period whereas 277 people, 137 of them women, committed suicide owing to unemployment, forced/underage marriages, domestic problems, etc.The report stated that 44 females, including minor girls, were subjected to rape and six of them were murdered after being raped. It said that 163 women were among the 434 people kidnapped during the seven-month period whereas 149 were held hostages. Six girls and women were sold in Ghotki, Hala, Dadu and other towns, it added. Regarding custodial deaths, the report said that five people were tortured to death by police who also stripped and severely tortured another nine. The NGO pointed out that despite imposition of a ban by the Sindh High Court on jirga, 30 jirgas were held in Sindh.
Posted by: tipper ||
08/24/2004 4:55:13 AM ||
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President Pervez Musharraf has said that a Libyan Al Qaeda suspect masterminded the two attempts on him last December. He's "the mastermind behind the two plots," Gen Musharraf said this in an interview to the Time magazine, to be published on Aug 30. The Time conducted its own investigation about this new suspect and after talking to US officials it reported that Abu Faraj Farj, 30, is believed to have replaced Ron JeremyKhalid Sheikh Mohammed as Al Qaeda's chief of operations.
Al Qaeda's former chief of operations... reportedly gave a list of Al Qaeda operatives who were planning terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad to his American investigator but Farj was not on the list. US intelligence officials, however, told the Time magazine this week that Farj has taken over much of KSM's role: devising plans for terrorist attacks inside the United States and directing Al Qaeda agents and helpers to that end. "He's big," a US counter-terrorism official told the magazine. "He's a major player." The report points out that Pakistan has placed a bounty of $341,000 on his head but says that catching him won't be easy.
According to the report, Pakistani security agencies believe that Farj is operating out of the rugged tribal belt on the Afghan border, where 100 Pakistani troops were killed in June fighting Al Qaeda suspects and their local supporters. The report says that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding in this region as well and has proven so elusive. It warns that new leaders seem to be stepping in to fill the vacuum, and Farj in particular is emerging as a prime focus of the terrorist hunt.
Posted by: tipper ||
08/24/2004 4:50:48 AM ||
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What? No video endorsement from OBL himself?
He's not elusive, just well protected by tons of rock courtesy of the USAF.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 01:22 ||
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I have become convinced that there is a very, very, high level mole in our government. I was just watching the history channel on the build up of Al Qaeda, and it just seems so blindingly obvious that someone is tipping off our enemies to our most sensitive information.
bin Laden and Sadaam seemed to know, if only hours or moments in advance, of impending assination efforts.
The head of the Northern Alliance was assinated just before he coordinated with CIA against the Taliban and bin Laden.
This acticle is yeat another perfect example of this persistent luck on the part of our enemies. No one is ever so consistently "lucky". It's becoming so &^%$#@( obvious that someone, very high in the food chain, is tipping them off.
But ..hey, no one will listen to me. I'll just have to be content to say, "uh, huh, I knew that"...when it comes out 30 years from now.
Seriously, I imagine that Sadaam's boys knew which scientists knew what and they probably know where all the scientists are, but the mortar shot is a fluke. The guy who got beat to death with tent poles the other day, though, he definitely did something that Sadaam's fellows or the Shia or some otehr criminal element didn't care for.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 2:06 Comments ||
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The partisanship this election cycle has no bounds, that seems apparent - with Leahy, Rockerfeller, and others being willing complicit leakers and game-playing assholes.
In Iraq itself, Chalabi certainly might've played a major role up until about a month ago when they raided his house and the charges started flying. No doubt there are others, including the closet Ba'athists - for whom this would be a priority if they're still on the Al Douri payroll.
#4
Wouldn't surprise me one bit - the Manhattan Project, for one, was full of Communist sympathizers, who gave all sorts of information. Heck, the chief trainer for the CIA and the head of counterintelligence for the FBI were both traitors! I'm sure that there are several highly-placed individuals who are passing information to the enemy.
#5
Yup, Chalabi. Turns out he was party to all kinds of high-level stuff, which he then turned around and sold to the Iranian intelligence service.
If we played it loose with Ahmed and friends, I don't doubt there are others who were privy to stuff they shouldn't have been privy to. There are other signs of a widespread security meltdown: the mysterious outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and the Administration's leaking of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan's name as an al Qaida/Pakistani double agent. Someone in this government has a very low regard for national secrets and will readily reveal them if the price, or the politics, are right.
Funny thing about rot; it is seldom confined to just one apple in a barrel. B, you're probably onto something serious here.
#6
Who do you think are translating all those top secret Arabic, Persian and Pashto language intercepts. With the ease of communication and travel these days, it's even more stupid than having German and Japanese immigrants translating Enigma and Magic intercepts during WW2.
Posted by: ed ||
08/24/2004 6:42 Comments ||
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There are other signs of a widespread security meltdown: the mysterious outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and the Administration's leaking of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan's name as an al Qaida/Pakistani double agent.
Khan's name was leaked by the Pakistanis. If you paid attention to the news, you'd know that.
As for Plame, it's doesn't look like her name came from the administration. I suspect Wilson "leaked" her name while playing the "anonymous source" game, then tried to score more political points off it.
I'm amazed at the way some people fell for it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/24/2004 6:51 Comments ||
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Mister Write: There are other signs of a widespread security meltdown: the mysterious outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame
People like Valerie Plame who go in under official cover are already outed to foreign intelligence services. Just as we follow around every Russian or Chinese diplomat in America, the opposition follows around every American employee working at American embassies or consulates. Basically, the only people who did not know Plame was not a spy were people outside of the intelligence services.
If Plame were an illegal - i.e. an operative working under unofficial cover, as a businessperson, academic or journalist, without diplomatic immunity - then there might be real damage. But she wasn't. And illegals are never posted to embassies unless they're already outed to foreign intelligence agencies.
The fact is this - if Plame was such a hotshot recruiter, why is she working behind a desk? Agents are in fear for their lives all the time, because they are basically betraying their countries for ideological or monetary reasons. The only person they trust is typically the person who recruited them. If Plame were such a great spy recruiter, she'd still be in-country instead of sitting behind a desk in Virginia.
#10
A friend of mine that works for NIMA told me that Valerie Plame's name was on the CIA PUBLIC roster as early as 1982. Listing her as an "undercover" operative is ludicrous. The only thing that was supposed to be kept "close-hold" was her marriage to Ambassador Wilson, for obvious reasons - the stench of nepotism.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/24/2004 13:38 Comments ||
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Well actually, I think there's a logical explanation for the very obvious de-emphasis on capturing Osama bin Laden. Have you noticed that the rhetoric now from the White House is all about catching this top lieutenant or tracking that one? Not one word about Osama. Go to the Administration's web site and search through their recent posts on homeland defense; the last official mention of Osama was in an interview Dick Cheney gave six months ago.
I figure Salem bin Laden, Osama's half brother and a well-known business partner of the Bushes, might have asked for a little favor on behalf of his blood relation.
If I'm right, then it's "death to al Qaeda" but never to Osama, half-brother to one of the world's richest and most influential men. After all, the Saudis do own 14% of our country.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, promised Monday that his country would not allow Islamic militants to disrupt the Afghan election from Pakistani soil, but Western diplomats in Afghanistan charged that Pakistan was, in fact, a sanctuary for Afghan militants.
More like Pakistan is the home of the Taliban...
While Mr. Musharraf, playing host to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, vowed that anyone seeking to act against Afghanistan from his soil would be stopped, the diplomats said Pakistan was turning a blind eye to just such activity. "They are training, financing and organizing these operations on Pakistani soil," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "There is evidence from people who have been picked up in Afghanistan than they are receiving training in Pakistan."
Three senior diplomats, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were speaking now because Western intelligence agencies had concluded that the Taliban were planning major attacks to disrupt Afghanistan's first presidential election, scheduled for Oct. 9, including spectacular attacks in Kabul, the capital. They called on Pakistani officials to rein in Taliban operations immediately. "If these attacks do take place, the responsibility will be shared," one diplomat warned, referring to Pakistan. "Our process is being attacked from the territory of Pakistan. That is the responsibility of Pakistan."
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Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:31:57 AM ||
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A defense lawyer representing one of three Americans accused of torturing a dozen Afghan prisoners in a private jail showed video in court yesterday of Afghanistan's former education minister congratulating the group and offering his help in arresting terrorists. The tape showed former minister Yunus Qanooni, an influential figure in the Northern Alliance that helped the US oust the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001, meeting with Jonathan Idema, leader of the counterterrorism group, and promising help. "Any cooperation, we are ready. We have a small security group," Qanooni says on the tape in broken English. Another video appears to show Qanooni's security forces coming along on a raid on the home of a suspect that Idema claims was plotting to kill the Afghan politician.
Idema claims his activities were sanctioned by the Pentagon, and says the Afghan government was also behind his efforts to track down terrorists. He and two other Americans -- Edward Caraballo and Brent Bennett -- were arrested on July 5 by Afghan intelligence agents. Authorities found about a dozen prisoners tied up at the site and say there is evidence of torture.
The trio face up to 20 years in jail if convicted. Four alleged Afghan accomplices are also on trial. A verdict had been expected yesterday, but the judge postponed the proceedings for a week to allow Bennett more time to get a lawyer. Idema is representing himself.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:27:10 AM ||
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Idema is representing himself.
Says everything we need to know about both him and his client.
Sudan rejected a wider role for African peacekeepers in putting down violence and disarming militiamen in the Darfur region, as Sudanese and rebel officials opened peace talks Monday under heavy international pressure to find a solution to the crisis. The African Union proposed ahead of the talks to send nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to Darfur. A Sudanese official rejected the African Union proposal, saying only his government was allowed to keep security in the sprawling Darfur region of western Sudan. "Nobody agreed about that (a peacekeeping force). There was an agreement about a force to protect observers," Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmad said. "The security role is the role of the government of Sudan and its security forces."
"And we're making Darfur secure for the Master Race!"
He said Sudan might consider an expanded African Union role later perhaps in 2008. "If there's a need, it will be discussed." His comments appeared to be a setback for the international community's hopes that the African Union could devise an African solution to the 18-month-old conflict that the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis and others say amounts to genocide.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday that his government was ready to help finance an enlarged African Union force for Darfur. "The government of Sudan may need more assistance from the AU, and it's our job to facilitate it," he told reporters while traveling to Sudan for talks. Straw met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on Monday night, saying he was pleased with the progress Sudan had made in ensuring humanitarian groups' access to Darfur. During his two-day visit, Straw was to meet with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir before visiting a relief camp in Darfur.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2004 12:25:56 AM ||
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Yeah, sorry, but we're running outta room. Got no place to put them all, you know. We'll get back to you after we kill a couple of thousand more people and free up some space. Should be a coupla weeks, at least.
Israel announced plans Monday for 500 new housing units in the West Bank, after an apparent U.S. policy shift that has infuriated the Palestinians. The Palestinians oppose all Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands where they hope to establish an independent state. The United States, which supports the Gaza pullout plan, has signaled recently that it will allow Israel to build inside existing West Bank settlements, while remaining opposed to construction in undeveloped areas. In the past, Washington has objected to all settlement construction. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli reinforced those signals Monday when he characterized the construction freeze as an ultimate goal, adding, "And we will continue to work with the government of Israel toward a settlement freeze, as is called for in the road map." The Palestinians have said that U.S. approval of the new construction would threaten prospects for peace, and they demanded a clarification from Washington.
I thought it was pretty clear.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia accused Israel of escalating tensions. "While it is talking about evacuating settlements in Gaza, it is expanding all settlements in the West Bank," Qureia said Monday. "This will not bring about stability nor will it bring peace."
Always amusing to listen to a Paleo talk about stability and peace.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2004 12:21:59 AM ||
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I'm generally pro-Israel in most matters but can someone explain to me why any sane Israeli would want to live in the West Bank.
Posted by: John in Tokyo ||
08/24/2004 1:35 Comments ||
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John, allow me to speculate that the settlers have something genetically in common with the folks that hit the Oregon trail. You would have thought that they would have been satisfied to buy a farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania if they wanted to reside in the middle of nowhere.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/24/2004 2:54 Comments ||
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#4
SHK, slight correction. Its paradise because the Jews live there. Otherwise the west bank is your your standard 3rd world sh*thole.
#5
Rationale probably goes along the line of: We Jews spent the last 2,000 years or so being pushed around and kicked out of every country in the world, not to mention killed whenever anybody felt like it. Now WE gonna make the rules.
#6
Israeli expansion and control of parts of the West Bank has more to do with water than anything else. There is a huge fresh water aquafir under the West Bank region that was tapped years ago by Israel. Wells in Gaza and north to Tel Aviv are becoming brackish due to inflow of sea water making access to the West Bank source more important than ever. If the Arabs took possesion of those wells it would be used against the Israeli's forever more.
Posted by: Don ||
08/24/2004 11:55 Comments ||
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#7
Speaking of water, Israel is constructing the biggest desalination plant of its kind (reverse osmosis) in the world. The Ashkelon plant at Eilat is quite a project. Read about it here. They are getting the cost of producing water down to competitive levels, too.
Meanwhile, compare this to the Paleos at Gaza who are hard at work, splitting up their dwindling graft pie, while their aquifer is going brackish, to be used only for boiling spagetti noodles. Since booming and martyrdom are their top priorities, the Paleos never look to the dull and boring things like infrastucture, water and sewer.
On the other hand, Israel is making the deserts bloom.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/24/2004 13:00 Comments ||
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#8
Jews want to be in Samaria and Judea because these are the traditional Jewish areas. For example, Jews had been in Hevron from the beginning of their history until 1929 when the paleostinians massacred most and drove the rest out.
There are many Jewish religious and historical sites on the west bank of the Jordan rriver.
#9
The problem with the explainations of why posted here is the fact that these are all new housing in otherwise existing settlements. It doesn't really help Israel hold the settlements any better but does create a political problem.
There must be some local Israeli explaination for this because I can't see one from here.
A Marine reservist went on trial Monday on charges he delivered a karate kick to the chest of an Iraqi prisoner who, a military coroner ruled, suffocated from a crushed windpipe. The assault case against Sgt. Gary Pittman is the first court-martial connected to the death of a prisoner in Iraq. The prisoner of war, Nagem Sadoon Hatab, had been rumored to be an official of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and part of the ambush of a U.S. Army convoy that left 11 soldiers dead and led to the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and five others. Within 48 hours of the Iraqi's June 2003 arrest, a guard found a lifeless Hatab lying naked and covered in his own waste in a yard at the Camp Whitehorse prison, a makeshift lockup outside Nasiriyah that has since been closed.
According to a fellow Marine who has been granted immunity, Pittman karate-kicked the handcuffed, hooded Hatab in the chest so hard that he flew three feet before hitting the floor. An autopsy concluded that Hatab, 52, had seven broken or cracked ribs and slowly suffocated from a crushed windpipe. Defense lawyers say Hatab died of natural causes, perhaps from an asthma attack.
Gonna be hard to argue against the autopsy. A fractured trachea is hard to miss.
Two self styled so-called Islamic extremist organisations have sent letters threatening to "blow up" the Jhalakati court building and offices of the DC and the SP by August 30 to retaliate the "killing" of Sarbahara leader Parimal Sikder by police. Sources in the administration said, Deputy Commissioner Md. Shawkat Nabi, Police Superin-tendent Md Mahfuzul Islam and District and Sessions Judge Md Asgar Ali received the separate letters sent in the name of Zihad-e-Janata on Thursday. In separate letters, another organisation named Muzahedin-e-Islam also threatened to kill Public Prosecutor advocate Haider Hussein, Assistant Public Prosecutor advocate Manzur Hussein and freedom fighter and poet Abdul Mannan Sikder, a teacher at Amua Shahid Raja Degree College in Jhalakati. The letters were sent on Tuesday last (August 17). In the letters, the two so-called extremist bodies expressed annoyance over the incidents before and after the Jhalakathi pourasabha election held on May 9 and the overall political situation and vowed to take "revenge", the sources said. The letter sent to Prof. Mannan advised him to write in favor of Islam only. "Otherwise, no body will be able to save you", it said.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/24/2004 12:07:10 AM ||
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Bangladesh seems to be catching up with Pakistan quite well
Religious fanatics clashed with police and attacked an Ahmadiyya Complex at Bakshibazar from a procession yesterday demanding declaration of the sect as non-Muslim in the run-up to their planned siege to the complex on August 27. Police used teargas and baton to disperse the bigots who vowed to go ahead with the siege on August 27 and termed the complex attack a warning to the Ahmadiyyas and the government. Three policemen suffered injuries in the clash and the leaders of Amra Dhakabasi, the organiser of the procession, claimed at least 70 of their activists and a couple dozen baby bunnies were injured, of whom 30 were admitted to different hospitals and clinics.
The rest were determined to be total nutcases and sent away.
About 400 fanatics brought out the procession from Chawkbazar Shahi Mosjid area after Juma prayers and marched towards the complex along the western side of Chawkbazar Circular Road before police barricaded them. The agitators threw stones and shoes to the police, triggering a few minutes of dhinga-mushti scuffle before taking to the eastern side of the Circular Road breaking the police barricade. Chanting the slogans 'the Ahmadiyyas are non-Muslim' they paraded through Nazimuddin Road, Hosni Dalan Road and Bakshibazar Lane. The fanatics then marched in three groups and one group reached in front of the Ahmadiyya Complex and attacked it with brickbats in true Islamicist style. Before bringing out the procession, the fanatics staged a rally near the Shahi Mosjid in Chawkbazar where the speakers warned the government that it would have to shoulder the responsibility if any untoward incident took place on August 27.
"It's your fault if we can't behave ourselves. It sez so right here in this book."
"Either acknowledge Hazrat Mohammad (SM) as the last prophet or declare yourselves non-Muslim. Then you will be allowed to live in the country peacefully and pay "protection" money as other minorities like the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. If you do so, we will postpone our programme," said Shamsul Haq, president of Amra Dhakabasi.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/24/2004 12:05:02 AM ||
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#1
brickbats?
Anybody have a clue what a brickbat is?
Doesn't sound like any Mason's tool I ever heard of.
At least the writer calls a spade a spade(bigot).
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor sold conflict diamonds to known al-Qaeda operatives that may have been used to finance the September 11 attacks on the United States, according to a confidential report from the UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone. "It is clear that al-Qaeda had been in west Africa since September 1998 and maintained a continuous presence in the area through 2002," said the document, produced by the office of prosecutor David Crane.
The document, gleaned from press reports, witnesses to sightings of al-Qaeda operatives in Liberia and interviews with a single, unnamed source, is the latest effort to link the global terror network to conflict diamonds mined during the civil war that ravaged the west African state for a decade. But more tellingly, according to Washington Post reporter Douglas Farah, who first revealed many of the links between Taylor and the terror group, it shows the flagrant intelligence shortfalls in truly understanding al-Qaeda's connections to Africa. "The United States has not perceived itself to have a strategic interest in sub-Saharan Africa on the terrorism front until very recently," Farah said in a 5 August interview with allAfrica.com. "The development not only in Liberia of a functioning criminal state is not a secret to anyone who has been to the region or who lives in the region. The whole scenario is part of the neglect by the outside world."
What it is not, said former US ambassador to Sierra Leone Joseph Melrose, is a smoking gun. "You can't say it hasn't happened, but you can't prove evidence in court because it is circumstantial evidence," he told AFP by telephone from Pennsylvania. "But there is a long tradition in the diamond sector (of shady dealings) and they have to acknowledge that some of these blood diamonds could be terror diamonds."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/24/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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#1
So many topics involved... I guess 2 seem to scream loudest to me, anyway...
1) How good it is that Taylor's not in the position to keep up being one of the premier assholes in Africa (ZimBob's day will come, prolly from the inside). Of course, his replacements prolly picked up where he left off.
2) CIA, The Gutting and Emasculation of. Letting people who have no guts or vision run it, such as Tenet, after it had been thoroughly gutted and castrated by Church & Friends and turned into a pet leak headline generator, made it just this side of useless in many depts. The Africa Desk was prolly occupied by Roscoe Seat Filler III Esq, formerly State Dept CoffeeBoy.
CIA, DIA, NIS, et al (or the new NIS plan being tossed around or whatever finally falls into place as a structure) is going to need some serious money, total protection from politicians, and ballsy leadership to recover, else we will continue to be blind-sided Out of Africa. The resource riches are there. It would be great if they were to benefit the people of Africa instead of the thugs and asshats... no matter how nattily they dress up.
Workers Party of Bangladesh (WPB) yesterday demanded of the government to take action against the Islamic fanatics. It expressed concern at the death threats issued to journalists, teachers, intellectuals and politicians by the fanatics. At a discussion at the party office, WPB leaders expressed deep concern over the activities of the fundamentalists against the daily Prothom Alo. They said the fundamentalists had burnt copies of the Prothom Alo and ransacked its billboards in the capital for publishing stories on the involvement of madrassa students in the activities of the Islamic zealots. The fundamentalist have also obstructed the sale of the daily at different districts and demanded the cancellation of its declaration, they said. The WPB leaders blamed Fazlul Haq Amini, leader of the Islamic Oikyajote, for encouraging the fundamentalists. They expressed concern at the attack on different Ahmadiya mosques.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/24/2004 12:02:13 AM ||
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HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - The highest-ranking Army reservist charged with abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said Monday he will plead guilty to some offenses because "what I did was a violation of law." Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, said in a written statement e-mailed to The Associated Press by his attorney: "I have accepted responsibility for my actions at Abu Ghraib prison. I will be pleading guilty to certain charges because I have concluded that what I did was a violation of law."
Okay, taking responsibility is good.
The three-paragraph statement did not specify the charges to which Frederick will plead guilty, and it wasn't clear whether he would still contest any of the allegations. He is charged with maltreating detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully committing an indecent act.
Frederick, who worked as a prison guard in Virginia, was the senior enlisted soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison between October and December, when the mistreatment allegedly occurred. Frederick is accused of having helped force a prisoner to stand on a box with wires placed on his hands, a scene displayed in one of the photos from the prison. Frederick's charge sheet says the prisoner was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box, although the wires were not connected to a power source.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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From the Silly, which immediately makes it suspect IMNSHO, but what the hell... Stressed soldiers to be treated with cannabis
Israeli soldiers suffering from combat stress after tours of duty in the Palestinian territories could soon be treated with cannabis to relieve their symptoms, the Ma'ariv daily reported. The mental health department of the Medical Corps is set to to begin tests in the next few days on volunteers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after reserve duty, the paper said. A scientist who will help conduct the experiment heads a research team, which discovered that cannabis helped mice that had suffered physical stress and even reduced the risk of stroke. Hundreds of Israelis have been treated for combat stress after performing their mandatory national service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment on the report from the Israeli military.
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.
