via jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch
Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal, newspapers said on Saturday.
A group of men, women and children were attending the service in the capital Riyadh when police raided the house, Al Jazirah newspaper said. It said authorities also found Christian tapes and books.
Another Saudi daily, Al Yaum, said the raid took place on Friday while a Pakistani preacher was delivering a sermon. It was not clear what measures might be taken against the group. ...
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2005 1:00:58 PM ||
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In order to help any Saudi Nationals feel at home here in the states I propose we outlaw Islam the same way they do other religions back home. I think this would allow us to become closer to our "freinds" and help us understand them.
#2
But how could we ever begin to understand our steadfast and tolerant allies without enjoying the benefits of a whole lot of oil to sell, 75% inbreeding, tailgate parties in the desert and thousands of royals?
April 25, 2005: The Saudi Arabian government has shut down, perhaps only temporarily, the French staffed naval training school at Jiddah. This may be continuing fallout from the grounding of the frigate Makka back in December, while she was under the command of a chuckleheaded Royal. Apparently the French instructors have been trying to instill some rigor into the training process, while the Saudis would prefer a more easygoing approach. The Saudis have always had problems with the men of the royal family in the armed forces. Many of the 5,000 or so male descendents of the founder of Saudi Arabia (who had over 40 sons by many wives), expect special treatment. This has often been a problem, because the government usually hired Western instructors to train the Saudi troops, and expects the trainees to be held to high standards. This often works with the commoners, but the princes have always been a problem. Most foreign trainers get with the program and adjust standards, while some just quit. However, a few try to perform a little attitude adjustment on the princes. This sometimes works, but usually it does not. Many of the princes live in a fantasy world, which does not include paying close attention to infidel instructors. This has led to a lot of wrecked military equipment, and some questionable leadership in units commanded by princes. The government prefers to tolerate this situation, rather than risk bad feelings in the family.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 9:01:18 AM ||
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The government prefers to tolerate this situation, rather than risk bad feelings in the family.
The RSN is a red-headed stepchild. The crews
are drawn from the coastal arabs. A couple of the patrol boats (essentially a launcher-less FFG in a smaller package), had COs that stayed out in 'town' and showed up only when it was time to get underway. From what I gathered, it was a situation the crews and CO both preferred, for different reasons.
#2
During Desert Storm, a Saudi F15 pilot got two Iraqis in the same engagement.
Notably, he was not a royal, but instead a Bedouin who'd managed to get himself into a cockpit by merit. Sounds like a destabilizing influence. Wonder if he's in charge of camel fodder supplies now.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/25/2005 11:56 Comments ||
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U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz to his Texas ranch today for talks expected to focus on the Middle East peace process and soaring oil prices. Before going to visit Bush, the crown prince will meet in Dallas, Texas late Sunday with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who will also take part in Monday's meeting.
Bush and Abdullah will also discuss Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip, Syria's role in Lebanon and a U.S.-Saudi economic agreement that would speed the kingdom's entry to the World Trade Organization. On the Middle East, the crown prince was expected to raise his initiative for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which the Arab League adopted at its summit in 2002 but which Israel has rejected. The blueprint, raised anew at last month's Arab summit in Algiers, calls for the creation of a Palestinian state and offers Israel peaceful relations with Arab countries if it withdraws from Arab land it has held since the 1967 war. But the White House has shown little interest in that plan, focusing most of its energies on seeking global support for Israel's decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip while keeping some West Bank settlements.
Another sensitive topic will be soaring gas prices in the United States, which experts blame in part for the sharp drop in Bush's approval ratings - to his lowest level in some polls since taking office in January 2001. Bush has promised to press Abdullah during Monday's meeting to do more to help ease global oil prices, which have soared well beyond $50 a barrel. But he has acknowledged there may be little the Saudis can do to quickly bring down prices. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi promised last week to increase production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day by 2009 from the current 11 million limit and, if necessary, eventually develop a capacity of 15 million barrels per day. The kingdom now pumps about 9.5 million barrels daily.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Lol! What else would we have to talk to the Saoodis about? Date imports? Camel jockey age limits?
#3
..and offers Israel peaceful relations with Arab countries if it withdraws from Arab land it has held since the 1967 war.
The A-rabs keep forgetting(?) the fact that all that land was captured after Israel was either attacked by its Arab neighbors, or being threatened with attack by same.
WASHINGTON, April 24 - The Bush administration, facing a series of recent provocations from North Korea, is debating a plan to seek a United Nations resolution empowering all nations to intercept shipments in or out of the country that may contain nuclear materials or components, say senior administration officials and diplomats who have been briefed on the proposal.
The resolution envisioned by a growing number of senior administration officials would amount to a quarantine of North Korea, though, so far at least, President Bush's aides are not using that word. It would enable the United States and other nations to intercept shipments in international waters off the Korean Peninsula and to force down aircraft for inspection.
But, said several American and Asian officials, the main purpose would be to give China political cover to police its border with North Korea, the country's lifeline for food and oil. That border is now largely open for shipments of arms, drugs and counterfeit currencies, North Korea's main source of hard currency.
One would think the Chinese already have the power, as a sovereign nation, to police their border, but maybe they've been taking a lesson from the US/Mexico ...
Two years of six-nation negotiations with North Korea have proved fruitless so far. It is uncertain, however, that China and South Korea would go along with any plan to step up pressure. To ward off a confrontation with the North, the two nations have opposed taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
In other words, the Chinese don't want the political cover, and Roh would just like to surrender now and get it over with ...
Until last week, the administration insisted it was committed to solving the North Korean crisis through six-nation negotiations. But the discovery this month that North Korea has shut down its main nuclear reactor - perhaps to harvest plutonium for more weapons - prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to raise publicly the possibility of seeking United Nations action, a route the Clinton administration took in 1994. "We are willing - when the time is right, when we believe that we have exhausted the possibilities of the framework we are in - to go to the Security Council," Ms. Rice said on Thursday on Fox News.
But the administration has never said publicly what it would seek from the United Nations. Though Ms. Rice made no mention of it, American intelligence agencies were also trying to decipher the meaning of renewed activity at a suspected North Korean nuclear test site. Activity at the site in October and again in January led to concerns that North Korea may be preparing for the first underground weapons test - which would end any ambiguity about whether it has the technology to build a warhead.
"They are either heading toward a full nuclear breakout, so that we are forced to deal with them as an established nuclear power, or they are putting on quite a show for our satellites," said one unnamed, of course, so who knows if he/she just isn't showing off senior administration official, who added that the quarantine option had not yet been formally presented to President Bush.
The White House has said little so far about North Korea's actions, following a strategy very different from the one it pursued two years ago with Iraq. Ms. Rice has repeatedly said that North Korea's pattern is to seek a public reaction from Washington, and she has made clear she does not intend to oblige.
Don't worry, the left-bloggers (such as Washington Monthly) think this is just as wrong, since everything Bush does is e-e-e-e-evil.
But some experts say the statements and actions North Korea have taken recently could mark a significant shift in strategy: It may now see a chance to build a modest nuclear arsenal while the United States and Asian nations debate how to react. The C.I.A. estimates that North Korea already has enough plutonium for six or eight nuclear weapons. "I'm afraid they are now more interested in getting away with it than getting a reaction out of the United States," South Korea's former foreign minister, Han Sung Joo, said in an interview last week.
Six or twenty, our response is going to be the same.
Since February, when it declared itself a nuclear power, North Korea's public statements have changed. It appears to be attempting to establish itself as a nuclear power that, like Pakistan, is now considered a permanent member of the nuclear club. North Korea's No. 2 official, Kim Yong Nam, said on Friday that America so threatens North Korea "it stands to reason" for it "to equip itself with a nuclear deterrent as a legitimate self-defensive means."
On Sunday, North Korea's army chief of staff, General Kim Yong Chun, opened a meeting of military officers with a warning that the country's nuclear program would speed ahead. North Korea often issues strident warnings, many of which Washington dismisses. But the combination of the statements and the satellite imagery have put the White House and Pentagon on edge.
Administration officials said that even if they go to the United Nations, the White House would not abandon the six-nation talks, which also include Japan, South Korea, Russia and China. They said a resolution could take several forms, including additional political and economic sanctions, all of which North Korea says it would regard as an act of war.
Time for the obligatory Sea of Fire and all ...
But the idea of a quarantine has attracted the most interest, especially among administration hawks who never liked the idea of negotiations with North Korea. The quarantine idea has been pressed by the Pentagon and members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff. If approved, several officials said, it would be loosely modeled on the one President John F. Kennedy ordered against Cuba four decades ago. But in North Korea's case, the operation would be far more complicated - both because of the weapons that the North may already possess, and because the entire effort will fail if China is not a full partner.
This, in the end, is more "engaged apathy".
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 10:21:52 AM ||
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....counterfeit currencies, North Korea's main source of hard currency.
LMAO!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2005 11:19 Comments ||
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I've got five bucks says going to the UN turns into a lesson about how Gawdawful the US is given by the pillars of morality that inhabit that sh*thole.
April 25, 2005: China, Iran and Cuba are taking a very serious interest in the security and military uses of ultralight aircraft. These are very light aircraft that typically carry one passenger. Ultralights are essentially single seat powered flying machines weighing about 250 pounds, or less. They rarely move faster than a hundred kilometers an hour, but can stay up for several hours and reach altitudes of 5,000 feet or more. China displayed a number of ultralights at the annual Zuhai Air Show, and has incorporated them into some military exercises. Cuba and Iran seem to be a little behind China, but still in advance of the rest of the world when it comes to using ultra lights for things like reconnaissance and surveillance. Both countries apparently being interested in their use for border and coastal security. All three countries seem to have also been conducting experiments in the use of ultralights as strike aircraft or for commando operations. This is a particular matter of concern given that terrorist groups like Hizbollah, already known to be operating UAVs, have been experimenting with them as well.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 8:55:54 AM ||
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IGDIR - Igdir Mayor Nurettin Aras has indicated that his office has started working on finding out the Turks that were forced to evacuate their homes and land in Yerevan during the First World War and the 1930s. ''Some of the Turks moved to Igdir. We are now closely working with local administrations in Igdir to find out the names and number of Turks who were forced to evacuate their homes in Yerevan,'' said Aras.
Aras added that the Armenians massacred hundreds of Turks. ''We will firstly find out which Turks were forced to flee Yerevan. Once we know the names of Turks forced to leave Yerevan, we will be filing legal action against the Armenians,'' told Aras.
What, no right of return?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 12:05:35 PM ||
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Aras added that the Armenians massacred hundreds of Turks.
By existing in such numbers that the Turks dropped dead of exhaustion during the rape and slaughter.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/25/2005 12:45 Comments ||
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Might not be such a bright idea to start keeping score there, Mister Mayor. Could come back to bite ya...
#3
Consider that if the Turks had stayed, in a decade they would have been in the Armenian SSR under Stalin. Best to be happy with the way things actually came out.
Apparently also in the Washington Post. But registration req'd, so here's the whole thing.
By RICHARD HOLBROOKE
Significant differences between the first and second Bush terms continue to emerge. After studied silence in her White House years, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is beginning to reveal her style and values, clearly with presidential approval. She seems to be a pragmatic conservative, oriented toward problem-solving, pursuing essentially non-ideological policies. She is careful (and politically smart) to keep faith, in all her statements, with neoconservative values, but she is also finding high-profile, low-cost ways, such as extensive travel, to improve America's shaky image and relationships around the world. Several recent events are worth attention:
⢠The dramatic policy reversal -- personally shaped by President Bush -- resulting in a decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a role for the International Criminal Court in Darfur. This was the first time in four years that the Bush administration had departed from its practice of opposing anything having to do with the ICC.
⢠Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick's well-orchestrated trip to Sudan, following the U.N. vote, to hammer the Khartoum government on Darfur. Mr. Zoellick became the first U.S. official to embrace the suggestion of several people, including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jon Corzine, that NATO could play a role in support of an African Union peacekeeping force. (Next: Appoint a high-level special envoy for Darfur and a separate, full-time ambassador accredited to the African Union.)
⢠The appointment of outgoing World Bank president James Wolfensohn to the new post of special coordinator for development of Gaza -- an inspired choice, given Mr. Wolfensohn's reputation in this field; also a rather bold one for an administration that has famously subjected its appointees to a political litmus test that the liberal Mr. Wolfensohn, a Bill Clinton appointee, could never have passed.
One notable policy change has gone virtually unnoticed -- the one concerning Kosovo, where, after four years of neglect and mistakes, the administration has made a major shift. Ever since the 78-day NATO bombing campaign freed the Kosovar Albanians from Slobodan Milosevic's oppressive grip in 1999, political control of Kosovo has been in the semi-competent hands of the United Nations, while NATO has maintained a fragile peace between the majority Albanian and minority Serb populations.
Under Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in 1999, the final status of Kosovo was supposed to be worked out through negotiations that would result in either independence, partition or a return by Kosovo to its former status as part of a country once known as Yugoslavia, now "Serbia and Montenegro." But instead of starting this process years ago, Washington and the European Union fashioned a delaying policy they called "standards before status," a phrase that disguised bureaucratic inaction inside diplomatic mumbo-jumbo. As a result, there have been no serious discussions on the future of Kosovo for the past four years, even as windows of opportunity closed and Albanian-Serb tensions rose. Finally, bloody rioting erupted last March, leaving eight Serbs and 11 Albanians dead, a thousand people injured and the region teetering on the brink of another war. Tensions have remained high ever since; just two days ago there was a bomb attack on the offices of an opposition party in Kosovo.
Last month, after warnings about the explosiveness of the situation from Philip Goldberg, America's senior diplomat there, Ms. Rice sent Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns to Europe for meetings with the nearly moribund Contact Group (the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Russia and Germany). Mr. Burns told them that the situation in Kosovo was inherently unstable and, unless there was an acceleration of efforts to determine its final status, violence would probably increase, with NATO forces, including U.S. troops, tied down indefinitely.
Under American pressure -- always the necessary ingredient in dealing with the sluggish, process-driven European Union -- a new Contact Group policy has begun to emerge. This summer a special U.N. representative will "determine" that Kosovo has met the necessary standards -- self-governance, refugees, returnees, freedom of movement, etc. -- and is therefore ready for status talks. (Of course, this should have been done years ago, but better late than never.) Then will come the really tough part: What should Kosovo's final status be? Separate nation, Serb province, partition?
Although no one is talking on the record in Washington or in Europe, I find it hard to see any ultimate outcome for Kosovo other than independence, perhaps on a staged basis over the next several years. But such an outcome requires strong guarantees for the endangered Serb minority that remains in Kosovo -- between 100,000 and 200,000 people. The protection of Kosovo's Serbs will require some sort of continued international security presence. In addition, the deeply divided Kosovar Albanians, whose last prime minister is now facing war crimes charges in The Hague, must achieve a much higher level of political maturity.
Ultimately, Belgrade will have to accept something politically difficult: giving up Serbian claims to Kosovo, which Serbs regard as their historic heartland. The Serbs will have to choose between trying to join the European Union and trying to regain Kosovo. If they seek their lost province, they will end up with neither. But, if it can opt for the future over the past, Serbia would have a bright future as an EU member, and the ancient dream of an economically integrated, peaceful Southeast Europe (including Greece and Bosnia) would be within reach. The EU, however, must make a real deal on Kosovo an integral part of the membership process for Serbia.
There are many complicated subplots here, involving Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, the U.N., the EU and NATO. But for now the important thing is that after ignoring the issue for four years, the Bush administration is doing something in the Balkans, where nothing happens without U.S. leadership. Given that instability in the Balkans -- and Kosovo is highly unstable now -- has historically spread into other parts of Europe, and that the region lies in the heart of the growing NATO sphere, this is the sort of problem that must be addressed before it grows again into a major crisis.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/25/2005 11:50:37 AM ||
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From last week's NY Post; no link 'cause it's now in the pay-for-it archive A federal judge is letting convicted terror lawyer Lynne Stewart jet across the country as part of her campaign to argue that she was unjustly prosecuted and to rally her supporters to raise funds for an appeal. Trial Judge John Koeltl approved Stewart's request to travel to the Left Coast, where she has arranged to speak at nine events in the San Francisco Bay area and participate in at least six radio and TV interviews, starting today.
A jury convicted Stewart Feb. 10 of fraud, providing material support to terrorism, and filing false statements while she represented blind Egyptian terror cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Her sentencing has been pushed back to September. Stewart faces up to 30 years in prison.
Initially, Koeltl restricted felon Stewart's travel to only New York state - but, concluding she is not a flight risk, he has since OK'd her requests to go to Florida, California and Boston. In his order, Koeltl did not object to Stewart speaking at events, and said the government could require her to contact authorities during her trips to confirm her whereabouts.
Stewart is scheduled to speak at nine engagements in the Bay area - including three rallies. The highlights include a Sunday gathering protesting the imprisonment of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Stewart's defense committee publicized her California "tour" on her Web site. She declined further comment. Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley's office, which prosecuted Stewart, also declined comment. But Stewart's critics blasted Koeltl's decision permitting a convicted terrorism-enabler to travel extensively before her sentencing. "During World War II, we didn't allow Hitler or supporters of Hitler to speak on our campuses," said state Conservative Party leader Mike Long. But the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center of California, which is sponsoring an event for Stewart, said "those who face terrorism-related charges will now be entitled only to a legal defense rooted in fear."
This article starring:
Conservative Party leader Mike Long
Judge John Koeltl
LYNNE STEWART
al-Qaeda
Mumia Abu-Jamal
OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN
al-Qaeda
U.S. Attorney David Kelley
Posted by: growler ||
04/25/2005 11:00:12 AM ||
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Another lying piece of shite subjecting us to modified 60's activist b.s. AFTER conviction. Now she's going for martyr status by tapping into the popular front for moral midgetry and eternal survival of earth shattering "journalist"/cop killers. I for one cannot wait for the day when they all shut up and die off.
#8
Caracas is my choice too. She and Chavez will get along famously, and the living is better than in Havana. Remember, for all their pining for Fidel's perfect socialism, no leftie really WANTS to live under it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 13:03 Comments ||
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Well, if she does bolt, I hope the Hon. John Koeltl gets hung by his balls.
#10
The best part of the Stewart spiel is that her website has pdf's of the tape transcripts with which she was hung! The "oh I was only representing him as his attorney" bs looks real pitiful when you read the transcripts. She's a big (pun intended) people activist yet can't take the fact that a jury of peers found she was a nasty, lying, supporter of terrorism. The irony and humor in it all seems lost upon her ilk. Poor fat blowhard, she deserves the worst and, "god willing", it will come to her.
#11
Excuse me but I just got on this planet. Why do convicted criminals get to travel anywhere except to the local Federal Prison? I think we should line up her, Mumia, Hassan AkBar, and Moussaoui against the nearest wall. None of them is worth even a dollar to keep on this planet another day and offer nothing in return. But the bright spot in this is if the LLL stumbles over each other to embrace her as a martyr it will get good play in 2006. imagine a Democrat running for Congress or Senate who is on record in support of her? I hope Howard Dean speaks with her at the SF rally for Mumia (icing on the cake).
This was not a nice lady. Suffered from a severe lack of judgement and made it to 28, until she was murdered by the very folks she advocated for: Islamic psychoes.
I tend to agree now with Robert Crawford. Her death was more a friendly fire incident.
May she burn in hell.
Remember the Americans burnt to a crisp and hung from a bridge in the Fallujah uprising? Code Pink donated over $650,000 to those Fallujah terrorists (Code Pinkos call them "refugees.")
Back on U.S. soil, Code Pink harasses badly wounded American soldiers, protesting them outside the Walter Reed medical facility in Washington, DC. Code Pinkos disrupted last week's Congressional confirmation hearings on UN Ambassador nominee John Bolton, shouting and unfurling banners against him. They are also shadowing military recruiters to foil recruiting efforts.
The upside: there won't be enough soldiers to protect Code Pinkos' rights and freedoms.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/25/2005 8:05:07 AM ||
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Can't wait for the London play. "Guys and Exploding Dolls".
EFL: John Bolton tried to fire a colleague after they clashed over US policy on infant formula in developing nations, according to a new allegation against President Bush's nominee for United Nations ambassador. Lynne Finney, who worked under Mr Bolton in the early 1980s, wrote to the Senate foreign relations committee on Friday, saying Mr Bolton mistreated her when they worked at the US Agency for International Development. Her accusation is one of three new salvos in a battle over Mr Bolton's nomination. On Sunday - the day after Ms Finney's letter was distributed to reporters by the Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer - Republican Senator Arlen Specter told CNN Mr Bolton's prospects of winning Senate confirmation as ambassador to the UN were "too close to call".
In her letter, Ms Finney said she was a lawyer-adviser working on policies when Mr Bolton called her into his office in late 1982 or early 1983. She wrote that he asked her to persuade delegates from other countries to vote with the US to weaken World Health Organisation restrictions on marketing of formula in the developing world. She said she refused because improper use of the formula can be deadly. Mr Bolton then "shouted that Nestle [one of the biggest producers of formula] was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan". "He yelled that if I didn't obey him, he would fire me," she wrote. "I said I could not live with myself if even one baby died because of something I did ... He screamed that I was fired."
Lynne is an award-winning author, educator, life coach, motivational speaker, lawyer and retired psychotherapist who specializes in helping people live more fulfilling lives. She was born into the madhouse of Hollywood's fantasy factory. Her mother was an artist and her father an award-winning screenwriter and novelist. She and her parents were portrayed in magazines as "the perfect family", but behind this facade was a nightmare world of violence and sexual abuse that lasted from the time Lynne was born until she was eight years old. Lynne had four near-death experiences that profoundly impacted her life. Pervasive feelings of being bad and worthless because she of the abuse drove Lynne to overachieve to prove she had some value. She says overachieving and perfectionism are also dysfunctional effects of abuse, although less recognized than withdrawing or underachieving.
Lynne spent many years clearing out limiting beliefs and self-defeating patterns from the past and learning forgiveness, compassion, connection with our inner power,and Self-realization. She discovered a life-changing truth: that everyone and everything in our lives is a gift designed to bring us to enlightenment. One of her main messages is that no matter what has been done to you or what you have done, you can heal. There are no exceptions. In fact, you are already pure, healed, and whole - a divine spirit. You are atoms and molecules, tiny particles spinning around, more space than matter, strings of energy. How can energy be sick or injured? Go inside and realize who you are. All the answers you need are inside.
Lynne has created many realities for herself as diplomat, United Nations policy advisor to the Agency for International Development, and a professor at law schools in Washington, D.C., California and Utah. Her work as an attorney-investigator for the House of Representatives Special Subcommittee on Investigations, the Subcommittee portrayed in the movie Quiz Show, led to her appointment as Chief Counsel to a U.S. Senator. After winning a landmark case against a federal banking agency, Lynne was appointed by President Carter's administration as the first woman director of that agency. She received an award for outstanding performance and was honored in a White House ceremony for establishing programs to assist women and minority-owned financial institutions. President Carter also appointed Lynne to the Steering Committee of a White House Task Force on Women where she helped women from Alaska to Hawaii establish business networks. She founded the first network for women business executives in Washington, D.C., and the first network for female United Nations delegates in Geneva, Switzerland, where she was a U.S. Delegate.
Welcome!
These pages, updated sporadically, are dedicated to each one of you. My mission is to help people overcome limiting beliefs, realize who we really are, tap into our inner power, live with passion, and discover the amazing power of our minds - and see the miracles all around us.
Since September 11, many people have experienced fear and uncertainty. However, we have also been seeing powerful positive changes and transformation coming out of these tragic events. Many heroes have emerged and we are becoming kinder to each other, taking care of each other, and realizing that we are all connected. We are becoming One.
These events are a jump start into a new reality and new ways of dealing with challenges. This is a time of rapid evolution and intense transformation for us all. New discoveries in quantum physics, psychology, and spirituality are revealing ways to create wonderful new realities. It's estimated that more than 14 million people have already become enlightened or Self-realized. Some are visible but most lead ordinary lives. Each time someone reaches Self-realization, it affects the collective Mind. Things are heating up. Like popcorn, we are all popping faster and are reaching enlightenment at a rapid rate. At times, it may be challenging to keep your faith and to realize that God/Love/Truth/Beauty/ Universe/Light/ Spirit/Energy/your true Self are in control and all is well. Go inside in silence and know that it is true. All the answers you need are inside you.
You are spirit, energy, light, consciousness, a divine creation, powerful beyond imagining, perfect, and part of all that is. I can only offer insights from my journey to help you remember what you already know. All answers and healing come from the infinite power of your own mind. My intention is to help you overcome limiting beliefs and discover who you really are - and have fun along the way.
The most powerful technique I found for awakening to my true Self is the Self-inquiry technique I learned from Tibetan monks and Master Nome in Santa Cruz, California, a disciple of one of India's most revered saints, Sri Ramana Maharshi. This Self-inquiry technique is part of my new CD, Connecting with the Universe - Meditations for enlightenment and Self-realization - and the entire CD track describing this technique and how to use it are recorded on the "New CD & New Book" page of this web site. It is my gift to you. This technique changed my life. To listen, just click on the flashing butterflies and then scroll down to the Listening Room. My newspaper interview with Tibetan monks provides more information about the Self-inquiry technique and is on the "Articles" page of this site.
In this new millennium, we entered an era of human evolution where we can reinvent ourselves and create new realities. We all have the ability to clear out our limiting beliefs and behaviors and tap into the infinite power of Consciousness. I've spent many years learning how to do this for myself and would like to pass on what I've discovered to you. I hope my work is helpful. But the truth is that you are already enlightened. Self-realization is not something we earn or "get." It's who we are - our true nature. You only have to realize it.
You are all in my prayers. I wish you joy, peace, love, and many miracles in this time of ascension.
Love and blessings,
Lynne
Any questions?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 10:37:14 AM ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 14:47 Comments ||
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Penultimate Moonbat.
Boxer is grasping with the aid of the Soros funded "Secret Party" who is behind this Borking. Follow the money. It will lead back to Hillary, Soros and the "Secret Party."
#5
According to Democrat dogma, anyone who has ever yelled at anyone is not qualified for any political or civil service office (unless they're a Democrat - YEEEEEAARRGGGHHH!!!!)
IN THE POLITICIZED DEBATE over the former Iraqi regime's relationship with al Qaeda, no politician has been a more vocal naysayer than Senator Carl Levin. For almost two years the Democratic senator from Michigan has attempted to discredit the notion that the two could have worked together in any way. In so doing he has been willing to advance almost any argument, even if it is at odds with his earlier lines of reasoning.
His modus operandi has been to quote a Bush administration official (usually out of context) and then juxtapose these comments with other evidence (usually mischaracterized) derived from the intelligence community. At the heart of Levin's crusade to discredit Bush administration policymakers has been the charge that those officials "cherry-picked" intelligence--citing only intelligence that supported their views and discarding the rest. But nowhere is there a better example of cherry-picking than Levin's own press release from Friday, April 15. Headlined "Levin Releases Newly Declassified Intelligence Documents on Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship: Documents show Administration claims were exaggerated, " the release fails to deliver the goods. In all, the newly released documents total eight (mostly redacted) pages. Meaning that out of a total catalogue of--according to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer--"roughly 19,000 documents, probably totaling 50,000 to 60,000 pages" Senator Levin managed to declassify only a handful of excerpts from three summary documents.
Levin attempts to use these excerpts to question President Bush's veracity and to challenge his October 7, 2002 remark that "Iraq has trained al Qaeda
members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." Levin argues that this assessment ran counter to the prevailing wisdom of the U.S. intelligence community and, therefore, was an "exaggeration." In reality, however, the president's assessment was in line with what the U.S. intelligence community was arguing and the newly declassified excerpts do not show otherwise. For example, George Tenet, then director of Central Intelligence--a man with access to far more intelligence reporting than that contained in Levin's excerpts--offered nearly the same assessment as Bush on the same day in a letter to Senator Graham. "We have credible reporting that al Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities," Tenet wrote, "the reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
Tenet offered the Senate Intelligence Committee this more expansive account on February 11, 2003:
Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qa'ida. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qa'ida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources.
That is, the head of the intelligence community was offering the same assessment as the president even five months after the fact. The excerpts released by Levin do not appear to directly address the evidence cited by Tenet. In fact, the only picture the excerpts paint is of an intelligence community trying to interpret (with mixed results) a wealth of reporting on a relationship that supposedly did not exist. In his press release Senator Levin chooses to emphasize only the uncertainties, leaving the reader without any realistic sense of scope or context. Reviewing the full passages released for public consumption gives a very different impression of the data contained in these reports. For example, in the passages reproduced below the words and phrases cited in the Levin press release are highlighted in bold:
From "Iraq and al-Qa'ida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship" (June 21, 2002):
In the past several years, Iraq reportedly has provided specialized training to al-Qa'ida in explosives and assistance to the group's chemical and biological weapons programs, although the level and extent of this assistance is not clear.
Our knowledge of Iraqi links to al-Qa'ida still contains many critical gaps because of limited reporting [redacted] and the questionable reliability of many of our sources. [redacted]
From the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (October 2, 2002):
As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training and support are second-hand or from sources of varying reliability. The most conspicuous pattern in the reporting is of al-Qa'ida's enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq. [redacted] suggest the involvement of Iraq or Iraqi nationals in al-Qa'ida CBW efforts. We cannot determine, however, how may of these Iraqi nationals were directed by Baghdad or how many of the reported plans for CBW training or support were actually realized.
From CTC Iraqi Support for Terrorism (CTC 2003-1000/HS) (January 29, 2003):
Iraq-al-Qa'ida Training
After contacts, the [redacted] reporting touches most frequently on the topic of Iraq training of al-Qa'ida. Details on training range from good reports [redacted] varying reliability, often the result of long and opaque reporting chains or discussions of future intentions rather than evidence of completed training. The general pattern that emerges is of al-Qa'ida's enduring interest in acquiring CBW expertise from Iraq.
Most of the reports do not make clear whether training initiatives offered by Iraqis or discussed by the two sides remained in the planning stages or were actually implemented. The Levin press release also cites two passages from Iraqi Support for Terrorism which categorize some of the reporting as "hearsay" and some other reports as "simple declarative accusations of Iraqi-al-Qa'ida complicity with no substantiating detail or other information that might help us corroborate them." But these two passages appear on a page in which the entire remaining contents are redacted and there is no sense given of how much (or little) of the reporting falls into these two categories.
What do the sentences not cited by Levin in his press release tell you? Do they reveal that there was "no connection" as critics have maintained? Hardly. That there were vagaries surrounding much of the reporting is beyond dispute and is to be expected in any intelligence analysis. This is especially true in this instance since we know that, based on several government investigations of intelligence failures, the U.S. intelligence community failed to penetrate the upper echelons of either Saddam's regime or al Qaeda. Indeed, these uncertainties coupled with a pre-Gulf War paradigm for understanding Saddam Hussein's relationship with various Islamist groups led "some analysts," as noted in the excerpts, to "contend that mistrust and conflicting ideologies and goals tempered these contacts and severely limited the opportunities for cooperation." "Some analysts" reached this conclusion despite the possibility that the two parties forged "a nonaggression agreement or made limited offers of cooperation, training, or safehaven (ultimately uncorroborated or withdrawn) in an effort to manipulate, penetrate, or otherwise keep tabs on al-Qa'ida or selected operatives." Other analysts would not interpret the data in such a way.
THEREIN LAYS THE PROBLEM. Why would al Qaeda have an "enduring interest" in acquiring CBRN expertise from Iraq if their ideological differences were irreconcilable? What are the "good reports" of training? What are the "long and opaque reporting chains or discussions of future intentions"? What evidence suggests "Iraq or Iraqi nationals" were involved "in al-Qa'ida CBW efforts"? Excerpts not parsed in the Levin press release lead to the same questions as well as additional ones.
It is also worth noting that others, outside of the Bush administration, have analyzed the evidence and come to a conclusion that is radically different from the one Senator Levin prefers. For example, the first bin Laden-hunter-turned-Iraq-war-critic, Michael Scheuer, was able to cite multiple pieces of evidence on Iraq's CBRN cooperation with al Qaeda in 2002. Before his own flip-flop on the issue he was able to conclude, "We know for certain that bin Laden was seeking CBRN weapons . . . and that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN weapon acquisition and development."
Richard Clarke, another Bush administration critic who would routinely claim that there was no real relationship, was once able to look at the evidence of Iraqi chemical experts involved in Sudan's "military-industrial complex" and conclude that is was "probably a direct result of the Iraq-al Qa'ida agreement." Indeed, Clarke and the rest of the Clinton administration repeatedly connected the dots in 1998 and 1999 as did numerous other observers.
IN ADDITION to his specious arguments concerning one assessment by President Bush, Levin returns to one of his favorite arguments in his latest press release: that Vice President Cheney exaggerated the evidence concerning Muhammad Atta's alleged meeting with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. The implication is that the administration misled the American people about the possibility of Iraqi complicity in the September 11 attacks. (Note: I have been and remain skeptical of this particular piece of evidence for various reasons.) In advancing this argument the Levin press release cites three appearances by Cheney. Levin's argument concerning the first of these has already been thoroughly debunked and his selective use and interpretation of the second and third citations follow his familiar pattern.
For example, the second citation, which refers to Cheney's September 8, 2002 appearance on Tim Russert's Meet the Press, is--once again--taken completely out of context. The portions of the exchange parsed out in the Levin press release are in bold:
RUSSERT: One year ago when you were on MEET THE PRESS just five days after September 11, I asked you a specific question about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Let's watch:
(Videotape, September 16, 2001):
RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?
CHENEY: No.
(End videotape)
RUSSERT: Has anything changed, in your mind?
CHENEY: Well, I want to be very careful about how I say this. I'm not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can't say that. On the other hand, since we did that interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years. We've seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center. The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn't he there, again, it's the intelligence business.
RUSSERT: What does the CIA say about that and the president?
CHENEY: It's credible. But, you know, I think a way to put it would be it's unconfirmed at this point. We've got . . .
Thus, the vice president offered a far more balanced picture of the intelligence concerning Muhammad Atta's alleged meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer than Levin would have us believe. Indeed, the third citation provided by Levin (to a Cheney assessment on January 9, 2004) is actually a demonstrably true statement. All Cheney did was summarize what the Czech government had told the U.S. government about the alleged meeting. It may very well be the case that the meeting never took place. However, that is not what the excerpts concerning the meeting provided by Levin say. The excerpts read,
Reporting is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta's alleged trip to Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer, and we have not verified his travels.
. . . some information asserts that Atta met with . . . al-Ani, but the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility.
Many in the intelligence community cast doubt on the evidence suggesting that such a meeting took place. But Sen. Levin routinely exaggerates the Bush administration's positions and proclaims certainty where there is none. Levin is again practicing the very same politicization he claims to warn against.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2005 12:21:03 AM ||
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Levin is again practicing the very same politicization he claims to warn against.
From the It's Good To Know department. WSJ's Opinionjournal.com -- free but requires registration. Here complete.
Government scientists are developing ways to stop the next terror attack.
Here in the California sunshine, on as perfect a day as spring has to offer, one's thoughts don't turn naturally to anthrax attacks, dirty bombs and other Armageddon scenarios. Yet thinking about how to combat such threats provides full-time employment for many of the scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A day of briefings adds up to a tutorial in Doomsday 101.
Lawrence Livermore Lab opened in 1952 with the mission of designing nuclear weapons. Today its principal responsibility is to certify the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile--a job the lab must do without the benefit of testing, which the U.S. suspended in 1992. Instead, the lab relies on the world's fastest computer, capable of 135 trillion operations a second. It soon will have the benefit of the world's biggest laser, which, when it comes on line in a few years, will be 60 times as powerful as the current holder of that title.
With occasional exceptions, the lab doesn't identify its weapons designers. But it's only too happy to make biologists, chemists and physicists from its Homeland Security Organization available on the record to the press. Theirs is an underreported story about how some of the nation's best scientific minds have been enlisted in the war on terror.
The lab's deputy director for operations, Wayne Shotts, tells how, in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks, his e-mail box was flooded with suggestions from co-workers on how to fight terrorists. The Homeland Security Organization was founded in 2002 to interact with the soon-to-be-created Department of Homeland Security. "We concentrate on WMD," says deputy director Don Prosnitz. And "we try to drive our program based on threats. . . . We can use the science better than the bad guys."
Exhibit A is a biodetector that the lab recently licensed to GE Infrastructure Security, a unit of General Electric, which expects to put it on the market next year with a price tag of about $200,000. Its put-you-to-sleep name--the Autonomous Pathogen Detection System--belies its sophisticated capabilities. Using air samples, APDS tests for 95 separate agents, including anthrax and plague. (The full list is classified.)
APDS is considerably more advanced than the biodetection system currently deployed in 30 cities under the federal BioWatch program. The earlier model uses filters that must be picked up and hand-carried to a lab for analysis. APDS, which requires servicing just once a week, continuously collects and analyzes air samples and sends a report back to a central monitoring station every 60 minutes. This reduces the time for detecting a bioagent release to an hour or less--time that could mean the difference between life or death for people in a contaminated area.
APDS, which is about the size of a refrigerator you'd see in a college dorm room, has been field-tested in the New York subways, the Washington Metro, and at San Francisco and Albuquerque airports. The underlying technology has gone through a million tests without a single false-positive reading--a degree of reliability that is extremely valuable in real-world situations. As Howard Hall, a nuclear chemist whose office is developing radiation detectors, puts it: A detector "doesn't do any good if a cop comes to the conclusion that every alarm is false."
Mr. Hall is working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in field-testing sensors that will spot nuclear devices, dirty bombs and conventional explosives carried by suicide bombers. "We're pushing technology into the field and seeing how it works," he says. One of the lessons learned is that mobile detectors are more useful than fixed installations. "It may have been obvious to the law-enforcement community but it wasn't obvious to the tech community." If a detector is installed in a roadside box, a terrorist doesn't have to be a genius to know he should take a different road.
Christine Hartmann Siantar, who also works in the area of nuclear and radiation countermeasures, talks about other projects in progress. A "nuclear carwash" would screen every cargo container entering the U.S. for nuclear materials. That likely will be field-tested in 2007 by the Customs Service. Also in development is a personal screening test for radiation exposure akin to a home pregnancy test. In the event of an attack, the aim is to ease the burden on health facilities by encouraging unexposed citizens to stay home.
Another area of Lab research is "pathomics" or the study of the molecular basis of infectious disease. The objective is to devise a simple blood test that can tell whether someone has been exposed to a disease-causing pathogen before he has begun to develop symptoms. Faster detection, followed by rapid treatment, could save the lives of those exposed to anthrax or other bioagents. This is especially important when considered in light of last month's Robb-Silverman report, which warns that most of the traditional intelligence-collection tools are "of little or no use in tackling biological weapons."
Many of the lab's homeland security projects have real-world partners. The head of the chemical and biological national security program, J. Patrick Fitch, says all but two of his 60-plus projects have partners--in business, law enforcement, health care. Cooperation ramped up after 9/11, he says, when "our sponsors' attitudes changed from 'What can you do in 10 years?' to 'What can you do in three hours?'" Others point out that the lab's objective of getting its products into use as quickly as possible isn't aided by ponderous federal procurement policies that can make companies wary of doing business with the feds.
On Sept. 12, 2001, the Secretary of Energy sent a plane to Lawrence Livermore to pick up a hand-held device invented at the lab that could detect minute motions such as heartbeats through many feet of concrete rubble. It was put to work in the rescue effort at the site of the World Trade Center. The lab's role in the war on terror had begun.
#1
What's amusing about this is that recently, a local TV station ran a story on how LLNL is supposedly vulnerable to a terror attack. Somehow, I doubt that the lab is as exposed as some people think it is, and potential terrorists will figure that out pretty quick, possibly paying with their lives in the process.
#3
I sure hope so, B-A-R. The worry I have is that LLL had state-of-the-art defenses for a Cold War scenario, in which the enemy (i.e. USSR) was somewhat rational. Spetznaz may have been willing to accept a high risk, heavy casualty count, but would they have been willing to accept a 100% guaranteed suicide mission?
It's a lot harder to protect against someone who doesn't care about living. The idea that people would deliberately kill themselves to attack us was just not in our planning before 9/11.
Maybe they've thought of this, and have superb defenses against just this kind of attack. Obviously, I don't want them to say anything. I'm just afraid of a "No, I thought you were planning for that contingency" scenario.
April 25, 2005: The war on terror is a war with Islamic radicals. And those radicals tend to hang out in mosques. Since September 11, 2001, American counter-terrorism officials have paid more attention to what goes on in American mosques. American and European police have been rather shocked at what they found when they inquired into what is said in many mosques. Three years after 911, there is still talk, in mosques, of supporting terrorism. The speeches are sometimes masked, but often are pretty blunt. Moreover, it's not easy getting into these sessions, as the most pro-terrorist speeches are not given at regular prayer sessions, but at special religious study meetings. But federal agents have witnessed some of this, and received many reports from members of mosques as well. To make matters more complicated, not all mosques tolerate this sort of thing. But especially in mosques where most of the congregation are recent migrants, the majority opinion is supportive of Islamic terrorism. In some cases this leads to violent disputes between pro and anti terror members. With few exceptions, the mosque leadership realizes that pro-terrorist attitudes could lead to problems, both legal and in terms of bad PR. So efforts are made by more level headed congregants to keep the pro-terrorism groups out, or at least hidden. It's also understood that pro-terrorism attitudes are one thing, but actually planning or supporting terrorism will get you arrested. The pro-terrorists know that many of their fellow worshipers would call the FBI if they detected any actual terrorist activity. But meanwhile, the pro-terrorists survive, and even take actions that, while not illegal, certainly are terrifying. One of the more common activities, largely in reaction to the greater scrutiny Middle-Eastern men get at airports, is to act suspiciously once on the airplane. This has led to a few news reports of passengers, and flight crew, being terrified to the point where they call for police help before landing. But what is being encountered here are young men pretending to be what they are often suspected of by airport security screeners. A form of ironic revenge. Technically, this is illegal, but no one has been able to make a case yet. But if some of this nonsense causes a passenger to have a heart attack, or instigates some violence on board, a heretofore ignored area of the war on terror will get more attention.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 8:58:43 AM ||
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The situation can be devolved into three groups. The first group are those Moslems who immigrated prior to 9-11, mostly to escape tyranny and for economic reasons. They tend to moderation. The second group are their clerics, who unlike their congregations, are Wahabbi-trained and frequently far more radical. The third group are the recent arrivals, who just want to "use" the new land to get away with what they could not back home. They are already radicals when they arrive, and have no intention of integrating in their new land, and have nothing but contempt for the "foreigners". They find alligence with the radical clerics, yet also enjoy the freedom to be radical, picking and choosing the most libertine elements of both Islam and western civilization. As already demonstated in Britain, they are prison-bait, running amok in vicious pursuit of chaos and violence.
#4
Mosques don't have pews and aisles
No problemo. You need a little elbow room for a good stompin'. Hate to slip and fall on one o' them little rugs, tho.
The call came a little over a month ago, on my cellular phone -- which is not listed. It went like this:
"Hello Annie, this is [name withheld, and name withheld, and name withheld and name withheld]. We're from the Department of Homeland Security."
"Yes."
"We'd like to set up a time to talk with you."
"Okay, now is good."
"Actually, we'd prefer to come to your house. How is March 15?"
"Not so great. That's three days before I'm due to have a babyâŠ"
They came anyway. To my house in Los Angeles. By plane from Chicago.
Look Who's Coming for Coffee
The four federal agents showed up exactly on time, in a rented green mini-van, carrying briefcases and wearing suits (it was 75 degrees). They came to discuss the events of Northwest flight 327, the now notorious Detroit-to-Los Angeles plane trip I took last June. My husband led them to our house through the garden and, from where I sat in my kitchen, I could hear their comments: nice garden, pretty plants, too bad palm trees don't grow in Chicago. So, I thought, federal agents are people too.
In truth, I was excited that I hadn't gone into labor before the meeting. I was, after all, meeting with the big boys (actually three men and one woman). In the nine months that I've been working on this series, my access to the government has been through mid-level bureaucrats and agency mouthpieces. So here I was, suddenly meeting with agents who have real access to the truth -- and at their request.
On the telephone, the agents explained to me that the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, has been investigating flight 327 and flying DHS agents around the country to talk to various parties -- the flight attendants, pilots, federal air marshals and the passengers. They had saved me for last.
Here's what I find fascinating: while one arm of the government (the Federal Air Marshal Service) has vehemently maintained all along that "nothing happened on flight 327," the other, more muscular arm (the Department of Homeland Security) has been conducting a rather large investigation about it. Based on my 4 œ hour meeting with the agents, I can tell you that not only have they been investigating what did happen during the flight, but they've also been investigating who botched the subsequent investigation as well as how it got botched.
So what do you say to four federal agents at your kitchen table on a bright Tuesday morning? The first thing I clarified for the agents was that, prior to my experience on flight 327, I had never heard of a "probe" or a "dry run." For the record, I explained, I had never heard of the James Woods incident either. [In case you're not aware, the actor James Woods flew on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles one month prior to 9/11. Alarmed by the behavior of a group of four Middle Eastern men, Woods summoned the pilot and told him that he was "concerned the men were going to hijack the plane." A report was filed with the FAA on Woods' behalf but, tragically, no one followed up with Woods or the men. A few days after 9/11, several federal agents showed up in Woods' kitchen. Woods can't talk about what was said -- he believes his testimony will be used in the trial of the supposed 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui-- but, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Woods revealed that his flight "was a rehearsal [for 9/11] with four men."]
Standing in my kitchen, one of the agents said, "What I can tell you is this: Mohammed Atta was one of the passengers on that flight with James Woods." (Apparently, this information has never been made public.) With that, the agent pulled out his chair, opened his notebook and started in with his questions for me (at which point the other three agents opened up their notepads almost simultaneously).
During my meeting with the agents, what was not said was often as revealing as what was said. Naturally, the agents "were not at liberty" to tell me anything about the 13 Syrian men aboard flight 327, but they asked a lot of questions regarding my "intuition" about the situation: Intuition told me something was not right. Intuition is why I began noting the men's actions from the get-go. And it was exactly these details in which the agents seemed most interested. One of the agents commented on the fact that I took a lot of hits in the press -- that I was called a racist and a bigot simply for sticking with my gut instinct. To me, the agents' story that Mohammed Atta had been on James Woods' flight was a wink and a nod to the fact that it's fine to trust your intuition. If you're wrong, you can always stand corrected.
The Devil Is in the Details
Each agent carried a thick document (30-40 pages) filled with questions. All four took copious notes. After about three hours, they excused themselves, saying they were going to pow-wow privately in the garden for a little while. When the agents returned, they continued with what seemed to be the same line of questioning.
They continued to ask my husband and me question after question but, in the course of the morning, here are some additional details I gathered -- things that I didn't otherwise know:
* The Northwest Airlines flight attendants interviewed for the investigation would only speak to federal agents with lawyers from the airline present. (One agent remarked to me, "Northwest Airlines wishes flight 327 never happened.")
* There were 27 airports between Detroit and Los Angeles where the pilot could have landed flight 327 yet didn't.
* Because the men were from Syria -- which the State Department lists as a terrorist-sponsoring nation -- each man was interviewed individually by Customs and Border Patrol when he entered the country. Once in the United States, they traveled back and forth across the country several times using one-way tickets, for which they paid cash.
* Two months prior to the flight, the FBI issued a warning that, based on credible information, terrorist organizations might try to hide their members behind P visas -- cultural or sports visas -- to gain entry into the United States.
* The Syrians entered the United States on P-3 cultural visas, which they overstayed; the visas had expired by the time they boarded flight 327.
* While being interviewed at Los Angeles Airport (LAX), none of the federal law enforcement agencies involved noticed that the men's visas were expired.
* At LAX, the FBI interviewed only the two "leaders" of the group; 11 of the Syrians on flight 327 were never asked a single question by law enforcement.
* The Syrians were allowed to leave even before the FBI interviewed me and my husband.
* The Federal Air Marshal (FAM) supervisor at LAX took statements from my husband and me on the back of an envelope, later borrowing a notepad from another FAM.
* Another passenger from flight 327 indicated to the agents that he did not see any musical instruments in the baggage claim area, including the oversized baggage area.
So What Really Happened on Flight 327?
The agents who sat with me all morning going over the events of flight 327 seemed sincerely committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on that flight. It seemed obvious that they believe something happened. Was it a probe? A dry run? A training exercise or an intelligence gathering mission? My sense is that the jury's still out on a hard and fast answer. But flight 327 was far from a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians and a case of bad behavior.
Since 9/11 the Justice Department has been widely criticized for one particular tactic it uses in fighting the War on Terror: it detains suspicious persons for long periods of time and puts them under heavy questioning before they are ever even charged with a crime. Flight 327 seems to have had an extreme case of just the opposite. There were 13 men on a domestic flight acting in such a way that many passengers felt their lives might be in danger. And yet not one of the individuals responsible for that threatening behavior was detained. Only two were put under light questioning, let alone medium or heavy questioning. Two individuals from a terrorist-sponsoring nation were allowed to speak on behalf of the other 11 men. In this War on Terror, whatever happened to a middle ground? Can a democratic nation fight a War on Terror and at the same time bend over backward so as not to offend a few visitors' rights?
Perhaps these answers -- or at least some of them -- are forthcoming. According to the agents, once the investigation wraps up, the Office of the Inspector General will generate two reports on flight 327: one for DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff (Tom Ridge's replacement), which will be classified, and one for public consumption, which you and I will be able to read (this DHS report is different than the document Congress is working on). Whether the version we get will be a mere press-conference account or an actual glimpse into what went wrong during and after flight 327 is anyone's guess.
As they stood to leave, one of the agents shook my hand and said, "Thank you for writing those articles." The most senior agent asked if he could touch my very pregnant belly. Then he said, "As a fellow American I can say you did your duty." A third agent borrowed a line from my original article: "If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 13 terrorists learn to play instruments?"
Anyone who's read my Terror in the Skies Series knows that I have not been writing with an eye toward approval from any government agency. But I really appreciated the agents' tip of the hat.
That is a result their focus on CRIME not on INTEL and counter-terror.
The domestic intel and counter-terror needs to be removed from the FBI and given to a different agency. DHS might be the way to do it. Put the FAM there too. And make the Coastguard available for thier use (port security).
Get the FBI out of the business - they dont care about it, are nto set up for it, and have the wrong temperament for it - and they are jsut as resistant to change and failure prone as the CIA, if nto more so. Imagine what woudl have happned had the FBI done what a good intel agency would do with the info from James woods. Followed up on Mohammed Atta, gathering intel, instead of looking for a crime and finding none... YET.
The FBI is still dropping the ball, as shown by this incident.
#3
I'm surprised that there hasn't been an incident of a suspicously acting/looking plane passenger being beaten to death by panicked fellow passengers. It may happen yet.
Ohfergawdsake! Just shoot him and get it over with! It's been three years!
A French lawyer advising the family of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States over the September 11 attacks, says they hope to persuade him to retract his guilty plea. Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six counts charging him with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, use weapons of mass destruction, murder U.S. employees and destroy property. Four charges carry the death penalty. "We do not support Zacarias Moussaoui's decision to plead guilty, as he did in the United States last week in the first phase of his trial," French lawyer Francois Roux told Reuters. Roux is recognized by U.S. authorities as a representative of Moussaoui's mother, and helped her negotiate regular contact with her son during his imprisonment. He went to the United States to advise Moussaoui at the start of the affair, but is unable to act as a lawyer there.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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"Yer honah my client is neither a rabid animal nor a diseased potted plant ... we're gonna plead just plain stupid!" Phuk his Mother, her lame french "lawyer" and all their followers.
#2
"Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury. Why would Zacarias Moussaui, a wookie, be living in France with a bunch of frogs? It doesn't make sense! If it doesn't make sense, you must aquit."
In eight years as U.N. secretary general, Kofi Annan has come as close to superstardom as a diplomat can get -- lauded on the cover of Time, sharing the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the organization he leads and becoming known as the "secular pope" for his advocacy for peace and the poor.
AB, couldja bring a couple cases of insulin from the back room? I think it's next to the Stegmaier quarts. I think we're gonna need it in a paragraph or two...
But now an internal inquiry and no fewer than six congressional panels are examining evidence of influence-peddling in the Iraq oil-for-food program. A series of financial and sexual misconduct scandals have implicated some of Annan's closest advisers. Conservative Republicans have called for Annan's resignation and threatened to withhold U.S. funding. And the United States has disputed his claim that a report by the U.N. oil-for-food inquiry had exonerated him.
Guess it depends on your interpretation of the word "exonerate," huh?
"The honeymoon has ended rather brutally," said Shashi Tharoor, a senior U.N. official who has served with Annan for more than a decade.
Ten years of fine lunching, fine wines, and young and supple babes... Very young and very supple...
Tharoor and other Annan supporters say the secretary general's legacy will ultimately eclipse the current controversy.
I'd vice that versa...
But others -- not only in Congress, but also in the United Nations -- say the record raises fundamental questions about his judgment and integrity.
... and about the Emperor's choice in wardrobes...
At the moment, Annan's situation is reminiscent of a Greek tragedy:
What? He's taking it up the kazou?
The same qualities that powered his rise -- a passion for compromise, a desire to please the most powerful U.N. states and an intense loyalty to an inner circle of bureaucrats -- can also be seen as contributing to his decline.
... and imminent fall.
Some members of his inner circle have abused their authority, and his efforts to patch up relations with the United States have undermined his standing with other U.N. members.
That's only fair. His efforts to please the dictators and potentates undermined his standing with the U.S.
He has sought to regain his balance in recent weeks, prodding the Security Council to act more decisively on war crimes in Sudan and launching initiatives to restructure or restore accountability to a number of U.N. agencies. But even his power to change the institution has come into question. "My feeling is that Kofi has shrunk in stature somewhat in the last year," said Stephen C. Schlesinger, director of the New School's World Policy Institute and a former U.N. adviser, who still considers him the world's "moral authority."
Stephen doesn't set the bar very high. Either that, or he's been at the bar for too long...
Even as Annan's new chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown of Britain, has taken steps to restore confidence in the United Nations, Schlesinger said, some of these steps have "given the impression that Kofi is kind of losing control."
There's more at the link, some of it high comedy...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Link ||
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#1
"Kofi's Record Comes Under Fire"
Ya think? Guess that WSJ subscription finally kicked in, huh?
Fucking WaPo. Go ahead - go down in pretentious flames. Burn you bitches, burn.
#2
What? He's taking it up the kazou? Nothing like as funny as your comment, but I think the author means, we all know its going to end badly, but we have to sit through a couple of more acts before he gets put to the sword.
#5
Ya know what we in the US should do? We should issue the UN an ultimatum that sez, "If Kofi does not resign in 72 hours, we will send John Bolton to be US Ambassador to the UN." That'll get 'em.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2005 11:28 Comments ||
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As a kid, in addition to discovering that electric fences are nearly invisible when you're running full speed through a pasture, I had to learn the hard way what makes a telephone ring.
#13
"He has a definite connection Capsu78"
If I'm not mistaken, Fred has used 'jagoff' also. I haven't lived in PA for decades but I still read jagoffs when I see UN.
Caught in an escalating cycle of violence in its south, Thailand's government is giving peace a chance.
A bipartisan commission seeking ways to ease tensions held its first public hearings this weekend in Pattani, one of three Muslim-dominated provinces wracked by almost-daily bombings, assassinations, and arson attacks. Thai officials blame the violence on local militants linked to a long-running separatist insurgency against Bangkok's rule. But some analysts suspect Middle East money or regional terrorists behind the insurgency's increasingly sophisticated and lethal tactics.
In the latest attack, two Thai policeman died after a bomb exploded Sunday near the Thai-Malaysian border. The incident came hours after Thailand's Queen Sirikit made an emotional appeal for unity in solving a conflict that has claimed more than 600 lives since January 2004.
Criticized for an overly militaristic response to the insurgency, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is now opening the door to a softer approach. Last month he offered to work with the opposition in parliament and proposed a partial drawdown of troops stationed in the area. Mr. Thaksin tapped former prime minister Anand Panyarachun to head a National Reconciliation Commission whose 49 members range across Thailand's political, religious, and social spectrum.
Mr. Anand, a respected elder statesmen, said the commission would spend several months exploring the roots of the conflict and make nonbinding recommendations to the government. "The work of the panel is not to provide instant solutions," he told reporters. "We are looking for sustained peace."
Political analysts and security experts say that the panel's aims are laudable but run the risk of being overtaken by events.
On April 2, in the first major attack outside the three southernmost provinces, two people died and 60 were injured in a string of simultaneous bombings at an international airport, a French-owned supermarket, and a hotel. The boldness of this and other attacks signal a growing terrorist threat to Thailand, and that worries its allies, including the US.
US officials describe the insurgency as a domestic problem that Thailand can solve. "We see no indication that international or regional terrorist groups ⊠are active in or creating the problem in the south," US Ambassador Ralph Boyce told foreign correspondents here last week.
But security experts who monitor the conflict disagree. They say Thai militants are aided by regional terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical Islamic group with ties to Al Qaeda. And Middle East extremist websites have recently featured Muslim deaths in Thailand as a recruiting and fundraising tool.
"What is foreign involvement? We define it as a small numbers of people coming in and giving specialized training and indoctrination," says Paul Quaglia, an ex-CIA station chief who heads PSA Asia, a consultancy in Bangkok. "The bombs are getting bigger and better. The targeting is more sophisticated."
Thailand's southernmost provinces, where the majority of its estimated 2.5 million Muslims live, have long bristled under Bangkok's often neglectful rule. A decades-old separatist rebellion fizzled out in the 1980s, only to revive since 2001 under a younger leadership.
Amid the mounting tensions, some observers praised the peace panel as a step away from the brink. The Thai Rath newspaper called it "probably the best independent commission that we have ever had." Muslim leaders in the south offered cautious approval and called for an investigation of past human rights abuses.
But Anand said the panel will not probe the government over last October's violence at Tak Bai where over 80 Muslim men died, most of them of suffocation while in army custody, after security forces crushed a protest. The incident sparked international condemnation and evinced a partial apology from Thaksin. Critics say without a full reckoning for such abuses, any reconciliation is unlikely. "Every time we have an incident, the prime minister and other officials come to the south and ask people for their input. But then nothing happens," says Peerayot Rohimmula, an opposition party lawmaker in Pattani.
Analysts say this commission could be the last chance for a peaceful solution. "The Muslim separatists are trying to escalate the conflict with more arson and bombings, but Thaksin needs to stick with this more nuanced approach. If he overreacts, he's just playing into their hands," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a visiting fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/25/2005 12:29:13 AM ||
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#1
I suppose one way to identify them is to sit down face to face... and then quietly follow them home...
#2
Criticized for an overly militaristic response to the insurgency, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is now opening the door to a softer approach.
Maybe he'll teach them how to make their "cycles of violence" out of Origami?
Seems a little far-fetched à la Debka, but targeting infrastructures with an EMP bomb does make sense either as an act of all-out war (such bombs were developped by nuclear powers IIRC) or as a terror strike (though going for the kill in a traditionnal way would be more of an option given the capacity). I guess military hardware is pretty well hardened and would remain operationnal, so in such an extreme case the long arm of the USA would still be able to reach back at Iran... Possibly with a nuke??? Would the World(Tm) accept such a retaliation for a "non lethal" attack? This strategy would be rather suicidal, but with the MM who knows?
Otherwise, interesting article.
Tests missiles for electromagnetic pulse weapon that could destroy America's technical infrastructure
WASHINGTON -- Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry experts.
The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests to determine if its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, can be detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight.
Scientists, including President Reagan's top science adviser, William R. Graham, say there is no other explanation for such tests than preparation for the deployment of electromagnetic pulse weapons — even one of which could knock out America's critical electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the continental U.S. back to the 19th century with a recovery time of months or years.
Iran will have that capability — at least theoretically — as soon as it has one nuclear bomb ready to arm such a missile. North Korea, a strategic ally of Iran, already boasts such capability.
The stunning report was first published over the weekend in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WND's founder.
Just last month, Congress heard testimony about the use of such weapons and the threat they pose from rogue regimes.
Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. Even primitive Scud missiles could be used for this purpose. And top U.S. intelligence officials reminded members of Congress that there is a glut of these missiles on the world market. They are currently being bought and sold for about $100,000 apiece.
"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead 'on target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere," wrote Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., in the Washington Post a week ago. "No need for the risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters — al-Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels — and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."
The Iranian missile tests were more sophisticated and capable of detonation at higher elevations — making them more dangerous.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country — knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
While Iran still insists officially in talks currently underway with the European Union that it is only developing nuclear power for peaceful civilian purposes, the mid-flight detonation missile tests persuade U.S. military planners and intelligence agencies that Tehran can only be planning such an attack, which depends on the availability of at least one nuclear warhead.
Some analysts believe the stage of Iranian missile developments suggests Iranian scientists will move toward the production of weapons-grade nuclear material shortly as soon as its nuclear reactor in Busher is operative.
Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.
"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."
Earlier this week, Iran's top nuclear official said Europe must heed an Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment or risk a collapse of the talks.
The warning by Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, came as diplomats from Britain, France and Germany began talks with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, ahead of a more senior-level meeting in London set for April 29. Enrichment produces fuel for nuclear reactors, which can also be used in the explosive core of nuclear bombs.
"The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations or not," Rowhani said, referring to the Iranian proposal put forward last month that would allow some uranium enrichment. "If yes, fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot continue," he said.
Some analysts believe Iran is using the negotiations merely to buy time for further development of the nuclear program.
The U.S. plans, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow the EU talks to continue before deciding this summer to push for United Nations sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Kyl, held a hearing on the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies — terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
The purpose of an EMP attack, unlike a nuclear attack on land, is not to kill people, but "to kill electrons," as Graham explained. He serves as chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack and was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to the president during the Reagan administration.
Graham told WorldNetDaily he could think of no other reason for Iran to be experimenting with mid-air detonation of missiles than for the planning of an EMP-style attack.
"EMP offers a bigger bang for the buck," he said. He also suggested such an attack makes a U.S. nuclear response against a suspected enemy less likely than the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city.
A 2004 report by the commission found "several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapons-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication."
"EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report said. "EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
The major impact of EMP weapons is on electronics, "so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures," explained the report.
"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress.
The commission report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that 'shocked' — upset, damaged and destroyed — electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe than the direct effects."
The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.
"What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter — they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety," explains the commission report. "Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter."
Graham describes the potential "cascading effect" of an EMP attack. If electrical power is knocked out and circuit boards fried, telecommunications are disrupted, energy deliveries are impeded, the financial system breaks down, food, water and gasoline become scarce.
As Kyl put it: "Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order."
"American society has grown so dependent on computer and other electrical systems that we have created our own Achilles' heel of vulnerability, ironically much greater than those of other, less developed nations," the senator wrote. "When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment."
The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and — compared with the threat — relatively inexpensive.
"But it will take leadership by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other federal agencies, along with support from Congress, all of which have yet to materialize," wrote Kyl, so far the only elected official blowing the whistle this alarming development.
Kyl concluded in his report: "The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of 'imagination.' No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we've been warned, and we'd better be prepared to respond."
#1
I call bullshit. My bet is that EMP effects are sufficiently localized that effective use would require multiple detonations at many places over the continental US. One shot probably won't be sufficient. Even with luck the area truly disabled would be rather small in relation to the overall US. Our military has sufficient assets overseas, and out of range, to kick just about anyone's ass, if we are attacked like this. Any ballistic missle fired at the US would invite an overwhelming Nuclear response, possibly before it even lands. If you fire only one or two from a ship, we'll find the source country and make them pay.
What is much more likely than this scenario is an EMP weapon fired using conventional explosives (research has been done on these). Such a bomb could be smuggled into the country or even built here in small quantities. It would be much more deniable than a missle.
Posted by: DO ||
04/25/2005 17:29 Comments ||
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#2
Why should it be less likely to get a nuclear response?
What sort of whimp is this guy?
A nuke is a nuke is a nuke.
Even if it is an EMP nuke.
#3
The biggest bomb ever detonated - tested by the Russians - was a 60 megaton bomb, or about 3,000 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, which is what the Iranians are likely to build. That bomb's EMP blew out electronics for hundreds of miles around. Some puny Hiroshima-sized (20 kiloton) Iranian bomb isn't going to do much to the continental US. Again, Uncle Sam's infrastructure isn't going to be destroyed by something that even a mullah could think up.
#4
Heh this is old news using a new angle. Back in the cold war it was determined that a 50 megaton nuke detonated at approximately 250-300 km dead smack center above the US would cripple the entire civilian infrastructure of the US. Slight problem there was the fact that in a nuclear exchange the civilian infrastructure was gonna be vaped anyway for the most part. China sometimes trots this line out currently via articles and essays written by its own military guys to show how vulnerable the US (never mind that I dont believe that China has a 50 megaton nuke either).
Anything under a 100 kilotons is gonna do much more damage via airburst than the EMP effects.
#5
"...the USA would still be able to reach back at Iran... Possibly with a nuke???"
"Possibly"???? More like "definitely", with several dozen of them at least. If Iran does this, there won't be any more Iran. Period.
"Would the World(Tm) accept such a retaliation for a "non lethal" attack?"
Who's going to give a flying fat rat's ass whether they "accept" it??? Not me, I'll tell you; and any US President who gives even a millimicrofuck what ANYBODY else thinks, other than the American people, after such an attack would be impeached, tried, and abruptly removed from office.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/25/2005 18:17 Comments ||
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#6
Just one SSBN and Iran (and their 5 closest friends) would be vapor.
#7
This business of Al Qaeda being able to fire a scud missile from a freighter is BS.
Sea launch of a ballistic missle is difficult and would be impossible for a terrorist organization.
Let us suppose they could overcome the technical challenges. How would they test? A ballistic missile is not something one can launch in secret.
Posted by: john ||
04/25/2005 18:32 Comments ||
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#8
Ok, an EMP bomb is unlikely, but theorically, would really the USA incinerate hundred of thousands of civilians (assuming a "city-busting" massive response) in response for such an attack? Wouldn't the response rather be, I don't know, tactical nukes on a few military targets (if existing) for the message and a military campaign w/o any of the OIF niceties (cautious rules of engagement, aversion to civilian deaths, that sort of things) for the meat of the riposte?
Frankly, I can't picture the USA outright nuking a country of (mostly) innocent and sometimes pro-american iranians, short of a real nuclear detonation in downtown NYC.
The same thing goes for a dirty bomb. What would be the textbook response?
As for the reactions of the "international community", I agree it does not matter in the end, and rightly so. Just one remark : if I understand correctly, the US army will respond to an unconventionnal attack on the battlefield with an unconventionnal response, which means given the choices available a tactical nuke. Sadly, whatever the cause, any response of that kind will be seen as an us abomination, something that would talked about for decades, not to mention the us left's take on this. The USA don't exist in a vaccum, and your status depend also on perception. Whatever the cause of a potential nuclear response, even a "small" battlefield one, the blame would be on you.
#9
I'm not sure how this would stop our own naval based retaliation. I'm not sure the Iranians will have a missile capable of hitting North America in the next decade.
I'm sure a smuggled EMP is far more likely and would do far less damage. I'm sure the Mullahs won't be around long enough to see this idiocy pan out.
#10
"Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earthâs atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth," said the report. "EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that âshockedâ â upset,
#13
Ok, all you bomb experts: get ready to jump all over this.
Do we really need to respond to the kind of nuclear attack Iran could launch with nukes of our own? How about some (ok, a lot!) carefully targetted MOABs and missiles, etc to totally remove all their aggressive and defensive capacity, and those who give and receive the orders? Say, all barracks, military depots and bases, the Parliament building, the homes of the Mullahs, all suspected storage, launch and research facilities for all weapons programs, offices of all terrorist groups, etc. I imagine it would look/sound much like the bombing runs CNN televised during Gulf War I, and would leave the few remaining Mullahs very few toys to play with. Not to mention a gentle reminder of the havoc the U.S. can produce just using her conventional weapons... and good practice for the Swabbies responsible for loading up the missiles, and the programmers who set the GPS coordinates. And then we can refuse to negotiate anything less than total surrender and throwing open all their facilities to American -- NOT IAEA -- inspectors.
#14
The primary goal of the anti-WMD efforts is to prevent them, especially nukes, from being used by ANYBODY, because once they are used, all the rules of war will change forever. The 1945 use was experimental, long ago, and as the culmination of a great war, so it can be set aside as an isolated event. The next use will not - it will set precedent, and subsequent uses will follow quickly.
If Iran nukes the US, even with an EMP weapon, the precedent will be set, and India, Pakistan, former Soviet states etc. will follow as they see fit.
Assuming an Iranian nuke leads ONLY to economic damage, & not massive civilian casualties, I would not expect a nuclear retaliation by the US. But I sure wouldn't want to be trying to get a good night's sleep anywhere in Iran. I WOULD expect MASSIVE and sustained conventional retaliation, without any advance warning or negotiation. And 'conventional' retaliation by the US will be more devastating than even maximum nuclear war by almost anyone else.
#16
On the other hand how do you expect someone like 'President' John Kerry or Hillary Clinton to respond to an attack like this?
I say it would be more along the line of a stern word and reliance on the United Nations for a 'peaceful settlement' and all sorts of efforts to 'understand' them....
#17
Anon: Ok, an EMP bomb is unlikely, but theorically, would really the USA incinerate hundred of thousands of civilians (assuming a "city-busting" massive response) in response for such an attack?
TW: Do we really need to respond to the kind of nuclear attack Iran could launch with nukes of our own?
Okay, let's build that scenario. The Mad Mullahs decide that the time is right to detonate a nuke (let's make it 2 or 3 Hiroshima size nukes) to generate an EMP over the U.S. Let's say the effected area isn't the whole US, as the Mullahs hope, but a little more than the localized effect postulated by Zheng. It's nasty, and we have a fair bit of our country nailed by an EMP.
And let's say, thanks to our world-wide intel and military assets, that we figure out real quick that it was the Mullahs, to > 95% probability. And let's say that while our civilian electronic nets are fairly hosed as above, the military comm and war-fighting equipment is 95% ready to go.
So Anon and TW, here's what President White would do: he'd make a broadcast to the Iranian people, getting that broadcast in however he could (satellite, etc), lay out the evidence, etc., etc., and give the Iranian people a choice: seize and execute the Mad Mullahs right friggin' now, or we the U.S. will be forced to believe that they're in agreement with the Mullahs. And that menas the obliteration of Iran.
I'd give them a couple of days to (perhaps) a couple of weeks -- that won't hurt our response any, it will allow us to assess further just what happened and how badly we're hurt and what we have to do. It would give me (President White, remember) time make sure that our most key allies, the Brits, Aussies, and ... ah, hell, just those two, are with us. And it would allow me to make sure that no one else (e.g., the Chinese) put the Mullahs up to this.
Now this would be eyeball-to-eyeball, real serious shit, but it's my belief that in this scenario, the Iranian people would string up the mullahs. And then we'd go in, occupy the place for a while and clean out the rats.
And I'd much rather do that than incinerate 20 million people.
Glenmore says that we'd respond conventionally. Yes, that's an option, but not a good one. Much of the rest of the world, including the nuclear powers, would see this as American whimping out. We can't EVER allow that perception to take hold after a nuclear attack. While our conventional retaliation would indeed be overwhelming, it would give the LLL and the world loonies time to oppose whatever we did. Nuts to that.
That's just me, of course, and while I'd like to think that I'm the salt of reason, if someone, anyone, uses a nuke against us, even as "just" an EMP, it's massive nuclear retaliation time, UNLESS the people rise up in that other country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 19:24 Comments ||
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#18
Do we really need to respond to the kind of nuclear attack Iran could launch with nukes of our own?
#20
I think Dr. White nails it pretty well: we simply cannot not respond massively to a nuclear attack-- EMP or otherwise-- because doing so will embolden a host of ambitious enemies.
His proposal amounts to issuing a non-negotiable demand for immediate, complete, and unconditional surrender-- with mullahs swinging from lamp posts to demonstrate sincerity-- or face annihilation.
I approve.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/25/2005 19:39 Comments ||
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#21
Do we really need to respond to the kind of nuclear attack Iran could launch with nukes of our own?
Not only would we do so, we would have no choice but to do so. Glenmore is precisely correct: the next use of nuclear weapons is a threshold that must never again be crossed. But if that rubicon is crossed the only possible response is overwhelming and in kind. Failure to respond in kind and overwhelmingly would open the door to a decades-long geopolitical nightmare with the worst of humanity seeing the unleashing of WMDs as the surest road to the achievement of their goals (we've witnessed this mentality forming for decades now, it only remains for it to come to full fruition). IMHO it's doubtful that any conventional response could be sufficiently overwhelming as to head off such a scenario and in any event failure to respond in kind and overwhelmingly when weâre clearly capable of doing so will be taken as a sign of certain weakness ⦠just the sort of interpretation that brought us 9/11.
On another note: I disagree about the relative difficulty of sea-launched SCUDs. Any idiot could load a mobile SCUD launcher onto a cargo ship and get a shot off as the ship neared shore with a relatively high probability of the SCUD landing on land if the seas were calm and the weather clear. They might need to re-engineer the guidance systems to use GPS or another self-correcting mechanism but thatâs undergraduate engineering lab stuff, not at all difficult. This reminds me vaguely of the difference between American and Russian space launch capabilities. At Vandenberg thereâs a weather balloon ever 10k feet to IIRC 100k and if the wind is even slightly out of kilter or if the weather isnât nearly perfect, the launch is scrubbed. Some friends of mine were at Baiknour when the Russians launched some satellites for a former employer and they described a Proton being launched, âIn a driving rain, minimum 50 MPH winds at ground level and with a violent electrical storm overhead.â The launch went fine. We Americans tend to overestimate the difficulty of some engineering problems and in turn our own lead/abilities in certain fields. Often the low-tech solution merely increases the risk of failure by a moderate (often minimal) amount. We ignore such low-tech moderate failure approaches at our peril.
#22
President White's behaviour would invite further attacks from other villains hoping to hide their tracks. Each such attack would cost the US economy several trillion dollars. The only reasonable response to a nuke attack on the US is immediate, automatic retaliation and the complete destruction of the evil's homeland.
Not just bombing them back to the Stone Age, but frying their land and threatening with similar treatment any country that protests. If Iran attacks the US, the immediate objectives must be the annihilation of Iran, and the toppling of tyrants in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt. Once the nuke genie is out of the bottle, there is no negotiation or process possible.
If the mullahs and islamofascists were to understand that, they'd never attack the US with nukes or other non-conventional weapons. But if they could hope for a President White (or Kerry or Clinton) they'd always be trying to attack.
#23
If I were a nuclear-tipped, nutjob mullah, I would be thinking about EMPing The Zionist Entity(tm). Sure, nuking the US might give me wet dreams, but the response would not leave much time for gloating. Whack Israel completely enough to prevent response and maybe you could get away with only a UN sanction or two.
#24
The whole notion of delivering huge weapons with the likes of freighter-mounted scud missles is silly -- like launching a grenade with a BB gun. Iran has neither the large weapons for major EMP damage nor the boat and missile technology to deliver them. At least not now.
Iran's mid-flight detonations probably reflect the fact that they do not have sufficient re-entry expertise to protect their warheads. It is not a trivial task to prevent warhead inoperability from partial burn-up during re-entry. Every kilogram devoted to burn-up protection is one less kilogram for warhead.
As for an EMP weapon, the electromagnetic field strength diminishes very rapidly with distance in a vacuum, and even faster in the atmosphere where there is absorption. One warhead is not going to cripple the U.S. Maybe the NYC region or the Washington, D.C. region, but not the U.S. The weapons aren't big enough and the "national" electrical grid is not the row of dominoes this author thinks it is.
When I was a kid, and I'm talking 40 years ago, there was an article in the Reader's Digest about the possibility of the Red Chinese sneaking a nuke into a U.S. port, detonating it, and thus provoking a fight-to-the-death between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. You want to worry about something? Worry about that. The Chinese could do us serious harm and let Iran and North Korea take the blame.
Posted by: Tom ||
04/25/2005 20:27 Comments ||
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#25
It is a common misconception that less developed societies are less vulnerable to attacks on their infrastructure than developed societies. Government control has far fewer points of vulnerability and these could be taken out with precision guided munitions in a few days to a few weeks.
My scenario is the Serbian bombing campaign with any limits removed. The condition for stopping is the handover of all responsible persons starting at the top and including anyone connected to the operation. Trial, execution and imprisonment of those responsible will be as effective as nuclear retaliation without the 'fallout'.
#27
A single device of the kind Iran can probably develop is highly unlikely to do significant EMP damage to the United States and it would not affect our nuclear capability at all. US nuclear forces are hardened against the kind of EMP that would have resulted from an all-out Soviet attack during the Cold War, thousands of big warheads.
We have some very good empirical data on EMP effects from Operation Starfish Prime, a nuclear test in near-Earth space (250 miles) over the Johnston Island range in 1962.
This was almost the optimum altitude for EMP effects and the test did indeed cause some electrical disruption 800 miles away in Hawaii; blown fuses, tripped breakers, brief interruption of broadcasting, that kind of thing. It was noticeable but certainly not catastrophic.
The most relevant fact is that Starfish Prime was a thermonuclear device ("H-bomb") with a yield of 1.4 megatons, almost certainly dozens of times more powerful than anything the Iranians could devise early in their program. Yet it did not cause anything like catastrophic damage even over an area less than half as large as the contiguous United States.
Major damage over a radius of 1200 miles, the size of the US, would require a much, much more powerful device than Starfish Prime (ca 50 megatons), or a large number (100+) of smaller devices.
Continent wide EMP damage is within the realm of possibility but the mullahs can't do it.
The risk is greater to Israel, but a single device would probably not do it.
As with any radiant energy effect, the intensity of the effect is roughly proportional to the energy (yield) and to the square root of the distance. This means that the same effect is achieved over a radius that is proportional to the square root of the yield.
A 20 kiloton device, about what the mullahs are likely to have, would produce the same effect as Starfish Prime over a radius of 92 miles (1400/20=70, 2rt^70=8.366, 800/8.366=92). This is about what would be needed to blanket Israel, but even then the effect would be far from catastrophic without a considerably larger device.
Israeli nuclear forces would also be hardened against EMP as a matter of course, and the same is probably true of many of their conventional forces and civil emergency assets.
As for retaliation, the US can detonate as many medium yield (ca 300 kilotons) warheads above Iran as it would take to fry every telephone line, cellphone, radio station, computer, generator, machine tool, powerline, and vehicle ignition in the country. We could literally send them back to the Stone Age. Israel probably has the same potential but it would take a much larger proportion of their nuclear stockpile to do it.
#28
And how, phil_b, would you be assured that all the the guilty are apprehended in time to prevent their escape or further attack? Have you learned nothing from Iraq?
Posted by: Tom ||
04/25/2005 20:48 Comments ||
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Just after 9-11, I suggested using EMP bursts above Kabul and a couple of other places to knock out the flimsy Taliban communication system and to keep bin Laden from using his cellphones and the internet to coordinate his terrorist network. This could have been done as soon as our operatives were in place with hardened equipment to maintain communications for the Northern Alliance.
I was immediately attacked on all fronts, mainly on the grounds of the deafening world-wide outcry that would have resulted. To me, this would have been at least as great an advantage as the destruction of the enemy's C3. Nobody would have been killed (at least not directly), but the America-hating elements of the global media cult would have been shocked and demoralized at the failure of their decades-long propaganda campaign against American nuclear weapons.
Even more importantly, they and their Islamofascist allies would have understood in no uncertain terms that we were serious.
#30
" can be detonated by a remote-control device while still in high-altitude flight."
EMP effects from high altitude nuclear explosions aside, this sounds more like a command detonation/self destruct function. There are several conventional guidance systems with the required accuracy for a predetermined high altitude detonation over a continent.
No. The Iranians are worried about an errant missile nuking the wrong target. (probably Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv or something)
Posted by: Dave ||
04/25/2005 21:01 Comments ||
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#31
The Biblical verse contained in the book of preemption reads, "Do to the Mullahs before they get the drop on you(all)."
Posted by: Dennis Kucinich ||
04/25/2005 21:47 Comments ||
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#32
Unfortunately, we would have no choice but to kill millions. If we wait for anything, even a demand for unconditional surrender, that opens the door of uncertainty. Maybe in the end, the MMs would be in a war crimes trial and hung. Fine. But others would think "if we had gotten the Chinese to back us up right away, and bribed enough people in the media, maybe..."
It has to be automatic. They need to know that any WMD attack on the US, of any kind, will result in an unlimited countervalue attack.
Will the people support it? They supported Hamburg, even though Germany fought a "honorable" war against the US (I'm not talking about eastern Europe, just the US). Pearl Harbor was an attack on a military base (albeit a sneak attack in peacetime) and we had no problem burning down Japanese cities one by one until they surrendered. A sneak attack on civilians is a superb way to get Jacksonian America out for your blood. While there are arguments about strategy (Iraq vs. more on Afghanistan, Syria vs. Iran vs. Saudi), no person who isn't on the other side says we should call off the war against jihad.
#33
A different kind of counter-value attack is needed, one that would take the ummah out of the modern world in the literal sense. We could launch our own EMP attack, against every urban center in the Muslim world as well as against select collaborationist targets outside the ummah. Again, this would literally send them back to the Stone Age. A complete quarantine of the affected areas, to continue for a period of not less than 100 years, would keep them there.
#34
Wretchard's "Three Conjectures" would immediately come into play. Unfortunately, Iran would only be the beginning. http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/
2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html
#35
First of all, the problems of the 60's is not the problem of today. Equipment is far more versatile than it was 40 years ago. Remember, most things operated using vacuum tubes back then! While transistors and computer chips are vulnerable, even minimal shielding and good grounding will prevent most EMP damage. What do you think a lightning strike is? Also, an EMP strike would do NOTHING to fiber-optic cables and connectors. The entire electronics world has changed, and EMP awareness has been a major consideration in equipment design and manufacture since at least the early 1970's. Whether or not civilian equipment is robust enough to withstand a reasonable EMP pulse is not something I'm familiar with - if anyone else is, please add your two cents' worth here.
Retaliation must be swift and at the same time, "reasonable". We should hit the Iranian nuclear processing sites, their reactors, and any armament manufacturing sites, with a 'reasonable facsimile' of the attack on the US - increased by some force multiplier that will say "we see your attack and raise you xxx." We are not dealing with rational, sane people here. We are dealing with religious fanatics who believe their death in battle will result in cosmic reward. We have to make sure the punishment for such an attack is sufficiently painful the rest of the nation (and any neighbors anywhere in the world) will think twice, three times, ten times before even considering mounting an additional attack.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/25/2005 23:27 Comments ||
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#36
What OP said: essential that the response be immediate and proportionate, though of course also displaying our technical and military superiority so as to underscore the utter futility of continuing the escalation. The goal would not be to destroy Iran but to eliminate any likelihood of another Iranian strike.
#37
The pain administered should be maximal for the regime's leaders and minimal for the regime's subjects. In other words, target the mullahs themselves and their families, relations, their personal assets, all the rudiments of their power. Humiliate the regime, not the Iranian nation. Remember, Iranian nationalism has deep popular roots and this extremely young nation will rally behind any regime that can get a nuclear capability. The ultimate goal is to divide the Iranian people from the mullahs, even if the proximate goal is to show the futility of any regime's targeting the US.
Syria, accused by the United States of being a sponsor of terrorism, has formally acceded to a UN treaty designed to cut off funding for terrorist activities, UN officials said yesterday. Syria's instruments of ratification were submitted at a UN crime conference in Bangkok, where the financing of terrorism, increasingly through money laundering and organized crime, has been a key issue. "It is an important decision, not only in the context of Syria," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters. "We are promoting vigorously the ratification and accession by all countries to all 12 conventions and protocols against terrorism. These steps are crucial," he said.
Syria raises to 136 the number of parties to the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, one of 12 anti-terrorism conventions covering such areas as bombings, hostage takings and hijackings. Under the treaty, states must "make the provision of such funding a criminal offence under their domestic laws, and to confiscate assets allocated for terrorist purposes". Governments also have to cooperate with one another in investigations and extraditions, and freeze or seize funds "known to be allocated for terrorist purposes".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 9:37:28 AM ||
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Yes, and weren't they on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, too?
BEIRUT - UN experts charged with verifying the Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon will hold talks on Tuesday in Damascus before travelling on to Lebanon to complete its mission on the ground, a diplomatic source said. "The team due to verify the Syrian withdrawal is expected to travel Tuesday to Damascus to meet with the Syrian army command and obtain the necessary reports, maps and documents," the source told AFP. "The team will then travel on to Lebanon," said the source, without specifying when the experts would arrive in Beirut.
Another UN team will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday to prepare the banquet ground for a UN commission due to probe the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February.
Syria nearly completed its withdrawal late Sunday, bar a token force due to attend a farewell ceremony on Tuesday. UN Resolution 1559, which was adopted in September, calls for the pullout of all foreign forces from Lebanon, the end of foreign interference in its internal affairs and the disarming of militias. UN chief Kofi Annan was due to deliver his report on the implementation of the resolution to Security Council members no later than April 26.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 9:19:03 AM ||
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Powerful Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announced on Monday that he was standing again for president in the June 17 election, official media said. "The issue of the presidency is my current preoccupation and although I would like somebody else to take this responsibility, I think I should take this bitter medicine," he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
Bitter medicine? Me doth thinkest that he protesteth too much.
Rafsanjani, seen as a pragmatic terrorist conservative, is currently the head of the Expediency Council — Iran's top political arbitration body. The charaltan charismatic politician served as president from 1989 to 1997. He has for months been openly mulling a bid to take back Iran's number two job, and has been widely seen as a front-runner for the presidency.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2005 9:15:53 AM ||
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I thought Captain Kangaroo died a few years ago??
The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon said Palestinians living in 12 refugee camps refuse to hand over their arms to the authorities. Sultan Abul Einein made the comment Monday following a Sunday meeting with Farouk Kaddoumi, chief of the Fatah faction and head of the PLO's political department, at the Rashidiyeh refugee camp in south Lebanon. Kaddoumi is visiting Lebanon to discuss with local PLO officials the disarming of Palestinians as stipulated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559.
Abul Einein told UPI, "The Palestinian people refuse to surrender their personal arms until they return to their homeland, in line with U.N. Resolution 194." Kaddoumi said heavy arms were handed over to Lebanese authorities in 1991, and the refugees' remaining light arms are for self-defense and for organizing security inside the camps. "We say there are no big arms in the Palestinian camps, and now it is Lebanon's turn to implement agreements by granting the refugees their civil rights," Kaddoumi said. "The Lebanese authorities should also issue a general pardon for all Palestinians who were tried and sentenced wrongly," he added, in reference to Abul Einein, who was sentenced to death by absentia for involvement in terrorism.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 8:39:35 AM ||
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Funny that under the un refugee plan they are not allowed to have ANY weapons. So this guy not only admits they are armed, but they are not going to surrender their weapons? The demands he is making on the Lebonese is comical and will probably hasten their trip home to the Gaza strip.
Incoming Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa ordered Surete Generale Director General Jamil Sayyed be officially reprimanded for commenting publicly on calls for his resignation without prior approval from his superiors. According to one local Arabic newspaper, Sabaa said he would take additional "disciplinary measures" against Sayyed for overstepping the minister's authority. In a news conference last Thursday, Sayyed put himself "at the disposal" of Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati for the duration of the international investigation into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, when, according to Sabaa, he should have reported to the interior minister first. At the time, Sayyed told reporters he was circumventing Sabaa due to the fact the minister once served as an "officer under my command."
Sabaa retired from the Surete Generale in 1999 in protest of Sayyed's appointment as head of the department, despite the fact the latter was of a lower rank. But, Sabaa did accept an apology Saturday from Brigadier General Ali Hajj, the head of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces. Hajj also held a news conference last week, likewise placing himself at Mikati's disposal. Following his weekend meeting with Sabaa, Hajj said: "I came to place myself at the disposal of my direct superior, in line with traditions." Regarding Hajj's visit, Sabaa said: "I have accepted his apology."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the resistance group would kidnap Israeli troops to swap for Lebanese citizens detained in Israel if current negotiations over their release failed. During a ceremony on Friday to commemorate Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel, Nasrallah said: "If we fail on the issue of negotiations, which must be concluded soon one way or another, then we have a commitment to act, and only one option left before us, the one that has returned our dear brothers in the past."
In January 224, Hizbullah and Israel carried out a German-negotiated swap in which hundreds of Lebanese and Arab prisoners were exchanged for a kidnapped Israeli spy and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. Hizbullah kidnapped the soldiers on the Lebanese border with Israel in 2000 to use as collateral with which to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese detainees in its jails. A second stage of talks is expected to focus on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, who was downed during a bombing raid over Lebanon in 1986, as well as that of the longest-standing Lebanese detainee in Israeli prisons, Samir Qantar, who has been held for 27 years. Qantar is serving a 542-year prison sentence for killing four Israelis in 1979.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Miscalculations often have historic consequences. Should Nasrallah and his thug army Hizbullah / Hezbullah / WTFCares push hard enough / bellow loud enough, the Israelis just may relieve Lebanon of this parasite. Go ahead, Nas baby, get in their faces and pretend you can take the field against them. Make it loud. Lotsa braggadocio and bellicose threats, plz. That's it. Keep it up. Yeah. Go for it.
#2
Wouldn't ya just love an accurate statistic on the percentage of "resistance group" activities that don't involve the sale or elimination of human beings? Do Islamists ever employ a different "business" model?
Jailed former Christian warlord Samir Geagea will soon be free, a move that would help finalize post-civil war reconciliation, according to his wife on Sunday. "The 'doctor' will soon be released from his jail," said Strida Geagea, drawing loud applause from hundreds of worshippers and politicians after a crowded Mass in Bkirki. Last week, dozens of lawmakers - including Sunni and Druze members of the anti-Syrian opposition - presented an amendment to a post-war amnesty law to secure Samir Geagea's release. The head of the Lebanese Forces is the only civil war militia leader to have been prosecuted and jailed.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned Sunday Lebanon was susceptible to another civil war and said instability in Syria could lead to chaos in Lebanon.
It's almost like he can see the future...
During a meeting with visiting leading Lebanese opposition member Walid Jumblatt, Khatami said Lebanon was "vulnerable" and risked the return of civil war, the ISNA news agency reported. "The possibility exists of an aggravation of divisions which could transform into a civil war," Khatami was quoted as telling Jumblatt, a leading figure in the campaign to end Syria's military and political dominance of the country. Jumblatt traveled to Iran in a surprise visit Saturday. Iran is a key backer of the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah and Syria's closest ally in the region. Tehran has been vigorously opposing international pressure on Damascus and the pressure to disarm Hizbullah in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Note, Black Hats:
civil war - n : a war between factions in the same country
It's not a civil war if you or your Syrian proxies are one of the factions involved. That is something else, entirely.
It's funny, the MM's seem to have no clue, whatsoever, that they are reaching far, far, beyond their grasp on every front. Infatuated with themselves, they are, yes.
#2
And that lack to see beyond themselves will be their downfall. It will take one hell of a cluebat to get the message across, though. The MMs are on a roll, and so far they have kept the internal opposition neutralized...so far.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2005 11:33 Comments ||
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EFL A reputed Afghan drug lord who authorities say operated with the protection of the Taliban has been captured and faces charges that he tried to smuggle more than $50 million worth of heroin (about 1,100 pounds) into the United States, authorities said.
Haji Bashir Noorzai (age 44), who is on the U.S. list of most-wanted drug kingpins, was ordered held without bail at his initial court appearance in Manhattan. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The full circumstances of Noorzai's capture were not made public. Prosecutor Boyd Johnson told a judge that Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested the defendant Saturday in New York, but he did not elaborate.
U.S. Attorney David Kelley said that between 1990 and 2004, the defendant and his organization "provided demolitions, weapons and manpower to the Taliban. ...In exchange, the Taliban allowed Noorzai's business to flourish." The Taliban protected Noorzai's opium crops, heroin laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and drug transportation routes out of the country.
Gen. Zaher Akbar, head of a U.S.-funded Afghan police unit charged with destroying Afghan opium crops, said Afghan authorities "appreciate the arrest of drug smugglers anywhere in the world, so long as there is proof against them and they are not just released the next day."
LOS ANGELES, April 25 (UPI) -- The rise in the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is creating a grass-roots backlash to reduce their benefits.
Buoyed by the success of last year's Proposition 200 in Arizona, which mandates a proof of legal residence before being allowed welfare services, and the Minuteman program, which the Border Patrol says cut illegal border crossings by 50 percent, U.S. citizens are moving against illegal immigration.
"The reason for this movement is that people have lost hope that the government is going to do its job," Kathy McKee, who was behind Proposition 200, told The Los Angeles Times. "The people in Washington are listening to their contributors who are businesses and businesses, almost without fail, want illegal immigration." McKee, who has changed her organization from Protect Arizona Now to Protect America Now, contends businesses use immigrant labor to keep wages low.
Federal agencies estimate there are between 8 million and 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The Times reported several states, including Colorado, Virginia and Washington -- are considering initiatives similar to Arizona's while activists in Georgia and Alabama are working to make politicians aware of their concerns.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 1:02:16 PM ||
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In Washington State, the Republicans (minority) wanted to require positive ID to vote.. but 'compromised' to having any sort of id. Including 'utility bills' and the like....
I could probably get 5 - 10 different utility names.....
#2
In the Washington world of limitless greed and self-serving political positions versus rule of law, greed and self-serving are winning out. I am a Randian capitalist, but not a suicidal one, or one who likes to see his neighbor's and friends wages bottom out because of illegal immigration. Dems and Pubs-don't underestimate the coming voter backlash against your lack of ethics. Don't overestimate your demographic margin on this in this decade, either. If you slide and let lawbreaking occur in immigration, watch third party candidates erase your comfort margins in future elections and teach you the meaning of regret. There will be a price to pay for this limitless greed and moral hypocrisy. Try to find your character again, Bush administration, and do the right thing-get proactive on this border control. If everything else you do on terror is right but you leave this weak link, how will you feel the following morning. Like a winner?
The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.
The group's existence was revealed during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month. Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, disclosed the existence of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare, or JFCCNW.
In simple terms and sans any military jargon, the unit could best be described as the world's most formidable hacker posse.
Ever.
The JFCCNW is charged with defending all Department of Defense networks. The unit is also responsible for the highly classified, evolving mission of Computer Network Attack, or as some military personnel refer to it, CNA.
But aside from that, little else is known. One expert on cyber warfare said considering the unit is a "joint command," it is most likely made up of personnel from the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI, the four military branches, a smattering of civilians and even military representatives from allied nations.
"They are a difficult nut to crack," said Dan Verton, a former U.S. Marine intelligence officer. "They're very reluctant to talk about operations." Verton is author of the book Black Ice, which investigates the threats cyber terrorism and vandalism could have on military and financial networks.
Black I.C.E.? (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics)
Missionaries should come forward to provide education to the people, said Mian Imran Masood, Punjab education minister, at Saint Anthony School's annual prize distribution ceremony on Sunday. As Gomer Pyle said, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise." But I'm sure the bebearded and beturbanned with put a stop to anything that isn't rote memorization (in Arabic) of the Koran.
Masood said that missionaries should establish schools, colleges and universities. He acknowledged the services of the Catholic Education Board, said the official handout on Sunday. Lawrence J Saldanha, arch bishop, and Group Capitan (r) Cecil Chaudhry, school principal, were also present at the ceremony. Later, the minister gave prizes to students of the school.
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2005 12:20:41 PM ||
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Aren't those the same kind of schools that periodically are raided, bombed, students and teachers beaten, kidnapped and shot... because they aren't even Muslim, let alone the right kind of Muslim? It sounds to me like Minister Masood wants the Catholics to pay for building the infrastructure and providing the teaching materials, so that he can take it from them afterward in the classic, Mohammed-approved manner.
This feels to me like a shot across the bow of the mainstream media -- television brigade -- (do not tell me I am mixing my branches of the armed forces, I'm a civilian and don't have to know such things!) a long overdue front in the War on Terror. Commentary from page A14 of the dead tree version of the Wall Street Journal. Registration req'd, so given here uncut.
On April 11, Jeffrey Ake, an American, was taken hostage in Iraq. Video of him in captivity was shown on Al-Jazeera on April 13. A short time later six American networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC -- aired the same video, a vivid example of the ongoing relationship between terrorists, Al-Jazeera and the networks. Last week, Al-Jazeera showed video of a helicopter being shot, bursting into flames and trailing smoke as it fell to the ground. It also aired video of the lone survivor being forced to walk on a broken leg and then being shot by the terrorists, one of whom said, "We are applying God's law."
As the war continues, more hostages will be taken and acts of murderous violence committed -- leading to more videos for Al-Jazeera and the networks. Isn't it time to scrutinize the relationship among Al-Jazeera, American networks and the terrorists? I think so.
What role should the U.S. government be playing? Arresting policeman? Putting them up against the wall and shooting them? Just some thoughts... I may be a bit overenthusiastic here.
Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and al Qaeda have a partner in Al-Jazeera and, by extension, most networks in the U.S. This partnership is a powerful tool for the terrorists in the war in Iraq. Figures show that 77% of Iraqis cite TV as their main source of information; 15% cite newspapers. Current estimates are that close to 100% of Iraqis have access to satellite TV, 18% to cell phones, and 8% to the Internet. Compared to nearly 0% when Saddam was in power, right? The battle for Iraqi hearts and minds is being fought over satellite TV. It is a battle today that we are losing badly.
The collaboration between the terrorists and Al-Jazeera is stronger than ever. While the precise terms of that relationship are virtually unknown, we do know this: Al-Jazeera and the terrorists have a working arrangement that extends beyond a modus vivendi. When the terrorists want to broadcast something that helps their cause, they have immediate and reliable access to Al-Jazeera. This relationship -- in a time of war -- raises some important questions:
⢠What does Al-Jazeera promise the terrorist organizations in order to get consistent access to their video?
⢠Does it pay for material?
⢠Is it promised safety and protection if it continues to air unedited tapes? (No Al-Jazeera employee has been killed or taken hostage by the terrorists. When I ran the Iraqi Television Network, seven employees were killed by terrorists.)
⢠Does Al-Jazeera promise the terrorists that it won't reveal their whereabouts and techniques as a quid pro quo for doing business? Is this bargain in the guise of journalism a defensible practice?
While I was in Iraq in 2004, Al-Jazeera was expelled from the country by the Iraqi Governing Council for violating international law. Numerous times they had advance knowledge of military actions against coalition forces. Instead of reporting to the authorities that it had been tipped off, Al-Jazeera would pre-position a crew at the event site and wait for the attack, record it and rush it on air. This happened time after time, to the point where Al-Jazeera was expelled from Iraq. The airing of the Ake video, however, demonstrates that it can still operate on behalf of the terrorists even from outside the country.
Al-Jazeera continues to broadcast because it reportedly receives $100 million a year from the government of Qatar. Without this subsidy it would be off the air, off the Internet and out of business. So, does Qatar's funding of Al-Jazeera constitute state sponsorship of terrorism? Yes, I do believe so.
As long as Al-Jazeera continues to practice in cahoots with terrorists while we are at war, should the U.S. government maintain normal relations with Qatar? As long as Al-Jazeera continues to aid and abet the enemy, as long as we are fighting a war on the ground and in the airwaves, why are we not fighting back against Al-Jazeera and Qatar, the nation that makes possible the network's existence? Should the U.S. not adopt a hard-line position about doing business with Qatar as long as Al-Jazeera is doing business with terrorists?
In addition to being subsidized by Qatar, Al-Jazeera has very strong partners in the U.S. -- ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Video aired by Al-Jazeera ends up on these networks, sometimes within minutes. The terrorists are aware of this access and use it -- as in the Ake case -- to further their aims. They want to reach the American audience and influence public opinion.
The arrangement between the U.S. networks and Al-Jazeera raises questions of journalistic ethics. Indeed. Answers them, too.
Do the U.S. networks know the terms of the relationship that Al-Jazeera has with the terrorists? Do they want to know? There has been no in-depth reporting about Al-Jazeera in the U.S. and virtually no scrutiny of Qatar and its relationship with the network. Why not? Is it that the American networks don't want to give up their tainted video? And since they all get the same material and all air it at the same time, do they feel a certain safety being in bed together? The cable networks have become addicted to the latest B-roll video. If that video was obtained by means that violated their own standards and practices, would they air it? Would they even know?
What if one of the networks had taken a stand and refused to air the Ake video on the grounds that it was aiding and abetting the enemy, and that from this point forward it would not be a tool of terrorist propaganda? The terrorists know that the airing of such video creates pressure on the government to negotiate a release. It also sends a signal to Americans about the perils of being an American working in Iraq. If the Ake video had never aired in the U.S., the position of the hostage-takers would have been severely impaired. Had it never aired, terrorists would have had no incentive to continue making the tapes.
Is it fanciful to think that network news executives would have the fortitude not to air any video shot by terrorists? They already stop short of airing everything, so why not refuse to touch the stuff altogether? At the very least, is it not reasonable to raise questions about the sources and methods used to obtain this material? The war in Iraq will likely drag on for some time. More lives will be lost and more hostages will be taken and more videos will be made. Now we should engage the terrorists on the airwaves as we do on the ground. Mr. DORRANCE SMITH, currently a media consultant in Washington, spent nine months in Iraq as a senior media adviser to Ambassador Paul Bremer.
EFL: Boeing Co. subsidiary McDonnell Douglas Corp. received an $18.5 million contract modification to exercise Lot 1 Option for Small Diameter Bomb Increment I (Fixed/Stationary Target) Low Rate initial Production for munitions, carriage, and associated trainers and technical support.
The Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) is considered one of the most significant programs on the books because it will dramatically increase the strike capability of every combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory. This 250 pound guided weapon has the same penetration capabilities as a 2000lb BLU-109 thanks to its length to diameter ratio, smart fuse and nose shape, demonstrating penetration of more than 6 feet of reinforced concrete with only 50 pounds of explosive. The fixed/stationary target versions is INS/GPS guided like the JDAM, giving the winged bombs a range of up to 60 km and an accuracy rating of just 5-8m CEP. The size and accuracy of SDBs allows aircraft to carry more munitions to more targets and strike them more effectively with less collateral damage. Because of its capabilities, the system is an important element of the U.S. Air Force's Global Strike Task Force.
Follow-on SDB integration may occur with the F-16 (Block 30/40/50), F-117, A-10, B-52, B-1, and B-2, as well as the forthcoming F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The B-2 is set to carry between 64 and 216 SDBs on one mission. In the case of the F-22, it will permit the destruction of up to eight targets on a single mission. The SDB is also a potential weapons load for the MQ-9 Predator B and X-45 UCAV drones, as well as standoff carrier vehicles such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, JSOW and JASSM missiles, and even Conventional ICBMs.
For this LRIP contract, Boeing said it would produce 201 SDBs and 35 weapons carriages, which will be mounted on Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles in 2006. This work will be complete September 2006.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 8:26:28 AM ||
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#1
I guess I should be disappointed that Boeing got it, rather than we. OTOP, it's more important that we have the ability to reach out and touch someone than I get a bigger bonus.
#5
Bomb-a-rama, that strikes me as a win-win. Why would it be a double-edged sword?
Posted by: Jonathan ||
04/25/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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#6
Why would it be a double-edged sword?
Because he thinks you can never have too much collateral damage. Don't worry, Bomb-a-rama, as Al Capone would say, "Somedays youse needs a icepick, and somedays youse need to go upside their head with a baseball bat."
Posted by: Steve ||
04/25/2005 16:01 Comments ||
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#9
Because he thinks you can never have too much collateral damage.
Sometimes an oppoenent in war needs to be made to feel beaten and humiliated, and that means an extra helping of bomb damage, to the target AND nearby structures. It all depends on the situation.
#10
TW:
Only if you want just a couple, and are willing to not have the production start. Going into LRIP is the hardest and most time-consuming part of developing a new weapon, at least for RMS. I don't imagine M-D or Boeing to be any different. All these neat tweaks that you can do with prototypes or Engineering Development Models, aren't allowed when you are doing Production Transition Units and getting ready to crank them out like sausages.
For the last product I worked on (can't say what it was), the initial trip through the factory took weeks, with the final step taking 10 days. With the multiple sets we had, that gave us an effective rate of 2/week. It took us two years to get that to a reasonable rate of 3/day.
So, yes, we could build a few of them under transition conditions (PTEs -- at a cost of $70/hr -- actually doing assembly and check-out/calibration) if we had some immediate need like Iran, but that would effectively delay mass production day-for-day.
Police were investigating Sunday whether the killing of the ruling party's representative in charge of monitoring voter registration was politically motivated after his body was found on his farm in the violent run-up to Zanzibar's general elections. The partially decomposed body of Chande Rashid Saleh was discovered Saturday, regional police chief George Kizuguto said. He had been missing for four days. "There were machete wounds on the face, mouth and cheek of the dead man... We concluded that he died an unnatural death. He was killed," Kizuguto said.
Brilliant, inspector! How do you do it?
Police are investigating several suspects in the killing that could possibly be politically motivated, Kizuguto said. Zanzibar, which united with the mainland to form the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964, elects its own president and legislature. General elections are set for Oct. 30 in the semiautonomous archipelago. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or Revolutionary Party, is expected to face a stiff challenge in the vote in predominantly Muslim Zanzibar. The party labels opposition supporters Muslim secessionists, while opposition leader Seif Shariff Hamad's Civic United Front says the ruling party represents only the interests of the mainland, which is largely Christian and animist.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Hizbul Mujahiddin chief Syed Salahuddin's offer to talk peace with New Delhi is seen as a move by the Pakistan administration to undermine the role of Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had displeased the Musharraf regime by ridiculing its peace moves on Kashmir. Prior to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's visit to Delhi, the four major militant outfits which had jointly threatened passengers of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service also included the Hizbul Mujahiddin (HM) headed by Salahuiddin apart from Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, as soon as Musharraf's visit to Delhi was finalised, some of these outfits like the HM began changing their tune.
HM is the only militant outfit which has a base in J&K, since most of its members hail from the Valley, unlike the LeT which comprises largely foreign mercenaries. Geelani's pro-Pakistan politics had endeared him to the authorities there for several decades. However, after 9/11, the hardline politics pursued by Geelani no more suited the Pakistan administration. They tried to make him see reason but his intransigent attitude compelled them to look for a militant face with a moderate approach. And they found it in Hizbul Mujahiddin chief Salahuddin.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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And isn't Sal just stylin' !! Give him a drool cup and he'd look like he just got off the short bus...
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf is sure that Osama Bin Laden is not only alive, but is residing in the Pak-Afghan tribal area. "Osama is alive and I am cent percent sure that he is hiding in Pak-Afghan tribal belt", Online News quoted him as saying during an interview with CNN, which is due to be telecast on Saturday. The impassable mountain ranges, where he thinks Osama is, would make it very tough to locate him due to the rugged nature of the terrain and the poor communication infrastructure existing therein. "Government is developing this infrastructure to hunt down Osama and cleanse the area from remnants or Al-Qaeda", he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 ||
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In an interview to the CNN, President General Pervez Musharraf has said that there is a scope to divide Kashmir into seven parts. "The parts of Kashmir held by Pakistan and India separately can be divided geographically into seven parts," The News quoted him as saying in Jakarta on the sidelines of the 50th Afro-Asian summit. "Either any specific portion of the Kashmir or its entire area could be declared a non-military zone. The status could be changed afterwards," he added. He further said that whatever the portion be for this purpose, it must be made with consensus between India and Pakistan and he hoped the masses of both countries could accept it. "Deployment of heavy troops on both sides of Line of Control (LoC) is creating problem for the people," he said.
Friday's statement assumes significance in the light of an earlier statement made by him on October 25, 2004, when he told select journalists at an Iftar dinner that India and Pakistan should consider the option of identifying some "regions" of Kashmir on both sides of Line of Control, demilitarise them and grant them the status of independence or joint control or under UN mandate. The statement created a controversy and there was a response from India that there would no redrawing of the boundaries. After his talks in New Delhi, President Musharraf stated that there are three main elements as far as the Kashmir issue is concerned -- India's position that there would be no redrawing of the boundaries, Pakistan's position that the LoC cannot be a permanent border and third that the softening of the borders will help, but is not a final solution.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Omnia...divienda, Fred, albeit I bet that you used the medieval latin variant. ;-)
#2
Nice - how about dividing Pak into 7 wards parts
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/25/2005 8:05 Comments ||
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#3
The Solomonic Solution. Pity there isn't anyone on the Indian Side to say, I love Kashmir too much to let it be divided, so let Pakistan have the whole thing.
#4
Demilitarizing the border sure would make it easier for Pakistanisterrorists militants to cross and blow up women and children. How about Pakistan withdrawing from the parts of Kashmir they invaded.
Posted by: ed ||
04/25/2005 10:29 Comments ||
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#5
Gee. How about dividing Jerusalam into (infinite) parts?
#9
Mojo, yea, but... that is perfect passive conjugation (description of what is in place [what is done over with]) while Fred is talking what is about to take place (gerund future passive participle [what will inevitably happen]).
Gallia is, as whole, divided into three parts.
Whole Kashmir(ia) will be divided into 7 parts.
(the second has the same gramatical quality as in "Carthago delenda est")
That does sometimes happen when you get too greedy...
Prime minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari will present a list of ministers to parliament Monday, taking Iraq a step closer to a government three months after elections, lawmakers said. The list will not include anyone from caretaker prime minister Iyad Allawi's party after the Shi'ite alliance that won the January election rejected his demands for at least four ministries in the new government. "It is more than 75 percent likely that a list of cabinet names will be presented to the National Assembly tomorrow," Hussain al-Shahristani, a senior member of the Shi'ite alliance, told Reuters Sunday. "We will meet to sign off on the names tomorrow morning, and then the National Assembly will meet later to vote on the list. However, I cannot say how long it will take the assembly to approve the cabinet."
Under Iraq's interim constitution, the 275-seat assembly must approve the prime minister and his cabinet by a simple majority. Judging by the recent performance of the parliament, that could take some time. Members of Allawi's party had been expected to take as many as four ministries up until late Saturday, when the Shi'ite alliance decided it could not accommodate his demands and moved to form a government with the Kurds and Sunnis. "Allawi will take no part, his party will have no ministries," an official involved in the negotiations said earlier, saying the decision had come after 10 hours of talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Palestinian negotiators said Sunday they want Israel to throw open the gates to the Gaza Strip after its planned withdrawal from the fenced-in territory this summer, and suggested international monitors could control borders to allay Israel's security concerns.
They can count the boomers swarming into Israel...
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said that ahead of his planned trip to the U.S. in May, he might meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The U.S. administration has urged Israelis and Palestinians to do more to coordinate the Gaza pullout, first envisioned by Israel as a unilateral move. Abbas traveled from the West Bank to Gaza on Sunday, a day after appointing three new security chiefs, as part of his internal reform program. The new chiefs are veterans, but with the appointments, Abbas has streamlined the unwieldy security apparatus, cutting the number of branches to three.
Which is at least two more than they actually need, but a more reasonable number than 23...
Israel's plan of "unilateral disengagement" from Gaza and four West Bank settlements says border arrangements will remain in place for security reasons. Israel currently controls all crossings in and out of Gaza - the Rafah terminal linking Gaza and Egypt, as well as the Karni, Kissufim and Erez crossings into Israel. During more than four years of fighting, Israel has imposed stringent travel restrictions on Gazans, who can only leave with special permits.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Palestinian negotiators said Sunday they want Israel to..
Always, always it's "the Paleos want..". They want this, they want that. How about doing what the Israelis want for once, like disarming all the homegrown Paleo terror outfits? A side benefit is that doing so makes for better citizens (in the Paleos' case). Is that too much to ask?
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.
U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Saudi Crown 
A federal judge is letting convicted terror lawyer 
In eight years as U.N. secretary general, 
Syria, accused by the United States of being a sponsor of terrorism, has formally acceded to a UN treaty designed to cut off funding for terrorist activities, UN officials said yesterday. Syria's instruments of ratification were submitted at a UN crime conference in Bangkok, where the financing of terrorism, increasingly through money laundering and organized crime, has been a key issue. "It is an important decision, not only in the context of Syria," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters. "We are promoting vigorously the ratification and accession by all countries to all 12 conventions and protocols against terrorism. These steps are crucial," he said.
Powerful Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announced on Monday that he was standing again for president in the June 17 election, official media said. "The issue of the presidency is my current preoccupation and although I would like somebody else to take this responsibility, I think I should take this bitter medicine," he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
The head of the 
Incoming Interior Minister 
Iranian President 
Police were investigating Sunday whether the killing of the ruling party's representative in charge of monitoring voter registration was politically motivated after his body was found on his farm in the violent run-up to Zanzibar's general elections. The partially decomposed body of 
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf is sure that Osama Bin Laden is not only alive, but is residing in the Pak-Afghan tribal area. "Osama is alive and I am cent percent sure that he is hiding in Pak-Afghan tribal belt", Online News quoted him as saying during an interview with CNN, which is due to be telecast on Saturday. The impassable mountain ranges, where he thinks Osama is, would make it very tough to locate him due to the rugged nature of the terrain and the poor communication infrastructure existing therein. "Government is developing this infrastructure to hunt down Osama and cleanse the area from remnants or Al-Qaeda", he added.
In an interview to the CNN, President General Pervez Musharraf has said that there is a scope to divide Kashmir into seven parts. "The parts of Kashmir held by Pakistan and India separately can be divided geographically into seven parts," The News quoted him as saying in Jakarta on the sidelines of the 50th Afro-Asian summit. "Either any specific portion of the Kashmir or its entire area could be declared a non-military zone. The status could be changed afterwards," he added. He further said that whatever the portion be for this purpose, it must be made with consensus between India and Pakistan and he hoped the masses of both countries could accept it. "Deployment of heavy troops on both sides of Line of Control (LoC) is creating problem for the people," he said. 
Prime minister-designate 
Palestinian negotiators said Sunday they want Israel to throw open the gates to the Gaza Strip after its planned withdrawal from the fenced-in territory this summer, and suggested international monitors could control borders to allay Israel's security concerns.
