MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan were training for attacks against Russia and former Soviet Central Asia and that they periodically cross into Central Asian territory. Terrorists, "with the participation of former Taliban and participants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," were training in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan with the aim of "conducting terrorist attacks, including on the territory of the Russian Federation," Lavrov claimed at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
He said the militants had penetrated into the Fergana Valley, shared between the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and he proposed that Russia and NATO work with those countries' special services "to ensure that such activity is stopped."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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A small amount of enriched uranium — not enough to make a bomb — has gone missing from a nuclear power plant in central Japan, the Science Ministry said Friday. Officials have been unable to locate a neutron-detecting device containing 1.7 milligrams of enriched uranium at the No. 3 reactor at Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui state about 200 miles west of Tokyo, the ministry said in a statement. The amount missing is too small to make a bomb and not radioactive enough to pose a threat to humans, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 10:13 ||
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#1
"The amount missing is too small to make a bomb and not radioactive enough to pose a threat to humans... The device, used to measure the level of neutrons in the reactor, was reported missing Friday afternoon"
Good grief -- I fear the press will descend upon me if I misplace a smoke detector!
Posted by: Tom ||
06/25/2005 10:32 Comments ||
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hint to NK - all or some of the above may be true...
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2005 10:39 Comments ||
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Ah, but what about the risk of nano-nuclear devices?
LITERATURE filled with hatred of Christians, Jews and non-Muslims is being sold at a mosque near a Melbourne home raided by ASIO. Books sold at the store attached to the Brunswick mosque tell Muslims they should "hate and take as enemies" non-Muslims, reject Jews and Christians, and learn to hate in order to properly love Allah.
The texts say Muslims should learn military tactics and suggest that if a person speaks ill of Islam it is acceptable to kill them. They urge Muslims to strike back against "the barbaric onslaught from their enemies -- the Jews, Christians, atheists, secularists and others".
Pages are devoted to legitimising episodes of violence against Jews who insult Islam. "A Jewish woman used to abuse the Prophet and disparage him. A man strangled her till she died. The Apostle of Allah declared that no recompense was payable for her blood," one book recounts. A similar example is given of a man killing the mother of his two children because she "disparaged the Prophet"; he also was declared clear of any crime.
"When they (non-Muslims) meet you, they say, 'We believe', but when they are alone, out of frustration and rage, they bite off the tips of their fingers because of you," one says. "O you who believe! Do not take the Jews (Yahood) and Christians (Nasara) for friends (Awliyaa). They are Awliyaa to each other. And the one among you that turns to them is one of them."
Readers are instructed by the books not to feel compassion for non-Muslims, not to trust them, and not to speak well of them. One book says faithful Muslims should learn military tactics.
The group of books were bought from the bookstore of the Islamic Information and Support Centre of Australia, which is in the same building as the Brunswick mosque. One, The Ideological Attack, describes "the Jews" as striving to corrupt the beliefs, morals and manners of Muslims. "The Jews scheme and crave after possessing the Muslim lands, as well as the lands of others," it reads. "Supported by a demonic global plan as well as unlimited financial backing, this attack aims at domination and hegemony over the Islamic world; dividing it, attacking it culturally and morally and perverting the true image of the religion.
"Therefore it is amongst the priorities of the Islamic call (da'wah) to break this attack and to counter it with every legitimate means of da'wah possible."
One text says of devotion to Allah: "As regards hatred for His sake this is an essential prerequisite for loving Him."
I call the Bible saying this a little differently.
A book on "Muslims Living as Minorities" mentions Muslims fighting in Afghanistan and discusses "jihad", or holy war, as a collective and individual responsibility. Another quotes classic anti-Semitic conspiracy text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, stating Jews want to make Muslims "the ass of the chosen people".
#1
Another quotes classic anti-Semitic conspiracy text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, stating Jews want to make Muslims "the ass of the chosen people".
Now why would anyone want to that when they do such a bang-up job of it themselves
The Koran has been given away and sold in Mosques for centuries (it to is filled with Hatred of Jews and Christians and all of these examples apply to the Koran and other Islamic [un]holy scriptures).
A very moving Oriana Fallaci WSJ interview; got it through one of my ML, and since it is only available to registred suscribers, posted w/o link. Terminate if this violates any kind of rule.
Dear Oriana gets all my respect, as does Ayann Irsi Ali, truly the best men of today's Europe are women... and they indeed face a very aggressive PC atmosphere and are considered "radioactive", as it is written in the article.
Just as an example, a few time back Ali was interviewed in a french talk show; she was there litterally ambushed by an odious uber-decadent socialist politician who went on talking on how her book was all about "islam-the-religion-of-peace", counting on the fact Ali doesn't speak french and had to rely on slow tranlation.
Still, the muslim community was *not* pleased, and yesterday, the talk show host, a self-styled liberal homosexual jew, i.e. everything the muslims love, went on the main french muslim internet forum to apologize for having received the "contreversial" Ayan Irsi Ali and angered the pious, peace-loving followers of old Mo... Pure dhimmi mode...
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Thursday, June 23, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK--Oriana Fallaci faces jail. In her mid-70s, stricken with a cancer that, for the moment, permits only the consumption of liquids--so yes, we drank champagne in the course of a three-hour interview--one of the most renowned journalists of the modern era has been indicted by a judge in her native Italy under provisions of the Italian Penal Code which proscribe the "vilipendio," or "vilification," of "any religion admitted by the state."
In her case, the religion deemed vilified is Islam, and the vilification was perpetrated, apparently, in a book she wrote last year--and which has sold many more than a million copies all over Europe--called "The Force of Reason." Its astringent thesis is that the Old Continent is on the verge of becoming a dominion of Islam, and that the people of the West have surrendered themselves fecklessly to the "sons of Allah." So in a nutshell, Oriana Fallaci faces up to two years' imprisonment for her beliefs--which is one reason why she has chosen to stay put in New York. Let us give thanks for the First Amendment.
It is a shame, in so many ways, that "vilipend," the latinate word that is the pinpoint equivalent in English of the Italian offense in question, is scarcely ever used in the Anglo-American lexicon; for it captures beautifully the pomposity, as well as the anachronistic outlandishness, of the law in question. A "vilification," by contrast, sounds so sordid, so tabloid--hardly fitting for a grande dame.
"When I was given the news," Ms. Fallaci says of her recent indictment, "I laughed. Bitterly, of course, but I laughed. No amusement, no surprise, because the trial is nothing else but a demonstration that everything I've written is true." An activist judge in Bergamo, in northern Italy, took it upon himself to admit a complaint against Ms. Fallaci that even the local prosecutors would not touch. The complainant, one Adel Smith--who, despite his name, is Muslim, and an incendiary public provocateur to boot--has a history of anti-Fallaci crankiness, and is widely believed to be behind the publication of a pamphlet, "Islam Punishes Oriana Fallaci," which exhorts Muslims to "eliminate" her. (Ironically, Mr. Smith, too, faces the peculiar charge of vilipendio against religion--Roman Catholicism in his case--after he described the Catholic Church as "a criminal organization" on television. Two years ago, he made news in Italy by filing suit for the removal of crucifixes from the walls of all public-school classrooms, and also, allegedly, for flinging a crucifix out of the window of a hospital room where his mother was being treated. "My mother will not die in a room where there is a crucifix," he said, according to hospital officials.)Ms. Fallaci speaks in a passionate growl: "Europe is no longer Europe, it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense. Servility to the invaders has poisoned democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and for the concept itself of liberty." Such words--"invaders," "invasion," "colony," "Eurabia"--are deeply, immensely, Politically Incorrect; and one is tempted to believe that it is her tone, her vocabulary, and not necessarily her substance or basic message, that has attracted the ire of the judge in Bergamo (and has made her so radioactive in the eyes of Europe's cultural elites).
"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder," the historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, and these words could certainly be Ms. Fallaci's. She is in a black gloom about Europe and its future: "The increased presence of Muslims in Italy, and in Europe, is directly proportional to our loss of freedom." There is about her a touch of Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher and prophet of decline, as well as a flavor of Samuel Huntington and his clash of civilizations. But above all there is pessimism, pure and unashamed. When I ask her what "solution" there might be to prevent the European collapse of which she speaks, Ms. Fallaci flares up like a lit match. "How do you dare to ask me for a solution? It's like asking Seneca for a solution. You remember what he did?" She then says "Phwah, phwah," and gestures at slashing her wrists. "He committed suicide!" Seneca was accused of being involved in a plot to murder the emperor Nero.
Without a trial, he was ordered by Nero to kill himself. One senses that Ms. Fallaci sees in Islam the shadow of Nero. "What could Seneca do?" she asks, with a discernible shudder. "He knew it would end that way--with the fall of the Roman Empire. But he could do nothing."
The impending Fall of the West, as she sees it, now torments Ms. Fallaci. And as much as that Fall, what torments her is the blithe way in which the West is marching toward its precipice of choice. "Look at the school system of the West today. Students do not know history! They don't, for Christ's sake. They don't know who Churchill was! In Italy, they don't even know who Cavour was!"--a reference to Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the conservative father, with the radical Garibaldi, of Modern Italy. Ms. Fallaci, rarely reverent, pauses here to reflect on the man, and on the question of where all the conservatives have gone in Europe. "In the beginning, I was dismayed, and I asked, how is it possible that we do not have Cavour . . . just one Cavour, uno? He was a revolutionary, and yes, he was not of the left. Italy needs a Cavour--Europe needs a Cavour."
Ms. Fallaci describes herself, too, as "a revolutionary"--"because I do what conservatives in Europe don't do, which is that I don't accept to be treated like a delinquent." She professes to "cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics somehow."
Here she pauses to light a slim black cigarillo, and then to take a sip of champagne. Its chill makes her grimace, but fortified, she returns to vehement speech, more clearly evocative of Oswald Spengler than at any time in our interview. "You cannot survive if you do not know the past. We know why all the other civilizations have collapsed--from an excess of welfare, of richness, and from lack of morality, of spirituality." (She uses "welfare" here in the sense of well-being, so she is talking, really, of decadence.) "The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period." The force with which she utters the word "dead" here is startling. I reach for my flute of champagne, as if for a crutch.
"I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger." I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."
Ms. Fallaci, who made her name by interviewing numerous statesmen (and not a few tyrants), believes that ours is "an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century." Of George Bush, she will concede only that he has "vigor," and that he is "obstinate" (in her book a compliment) and "gutsy. . . . Nobody obliged him to do anything about Terri Schiavo, or to take a stand on stem cells. But he did."
But it is "Ratzinger" (as she insists on calling the pope) who is her soulmate. John Paul II--"Wojtyla"--was a "warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America," but she will not forgive him for his "weakness toward the Islamic world. Why, why was he so weak?"
The scant hopes that she has for the West she rests on his successor. As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself," from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: "The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."
"Ecco!" she says. A man after her own heart. "Ecco!" But I cannot be certain whether I see triumph in her eyes, or pain.
As for the vilipendio against Islam, she refuses to attend the trial in Bergamo, set for June 2006. "I don't even know if I will be around next year. My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty."
At this point she laughs. Bitterly, of course, but she laughs.
#1
big deal. Who can't see that Europe is in decline. This self promotion her brilliance in seeing a BGO does little to impress me.
The only thing good I can say about her is that perhaps she can appeal to those who love to wallow in doom in gloom and self-flaggelation, and perhaps she can reach out to the "intellectuals" of our time and give them something a bit more real to wallow in.
#2
Oriana Fallaci, the only Westerner who dare speak.
THANK YOU Oriana.
You fought the nazis from 1944 until the XXI Century.
And you have more balls than 110 per cent of men today !
By JOE MAHONEY and DOUGLAS FEIDEN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Gov. Pataki blasted America-bashing art like that featured by Drawing Center.
Gov. Pataki drew a line in the sand yesterday, declaring he will tolerate no America-bashing on the sacred soil of Ground Zero.
Hours after the Daily News disclosed that a museum set to rise on the site had displayed kooky and anti-American art, the governor said there can be no place where nearly 3,000 innocents died for an institution that attacks the United States and the heroes of 9/11.
His voice rising and his resolve steely as he compared the World Trade Center tract to the bloody beaches of Normandy and the black waters of Pearl Harbor, Pataki vowed:
"We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11."
He added, "The Daily News did a good service by pointing out some of these things. We do not want that at Ground Zero; I do not want that at Ground Zero and to the extent that I have the power, it's not going to happen."
At issue are two controversial cultural groups that were picked to occupy a major building at the heart of the site - and have enraged 9/11 family members who say their murdered loved ones are being disrespected.
The larger museum, the International Freedom Center, has sparked fears it will focus on acts of U.S. wrongdoing, like slavery and treatment of American Indians, while the Drawing Center, now based in SoHo, was exposed in The News as displaying graphic and vulgar art attacking America's war on terror.
"Sure, there can be debate," Pataki said when asked if his tough stance jeopardized free-speech rights. "But I don't want that debate to be occurring at Ground Zero."
Acting after a protest from family members - and word the Drawing Center had displayed art linking President Bush to Osama Bin Laden and portraying terror suspects as victims of American torture - the governor laid down the law to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.: "Contact the cultural institutions on the memorial site. . . and get from them an absolute guarantee that as they proceed, it will be with total respect for the sanctity of that site." This was followed by a simple, stark threat: "I'm hopeful they are able to do that, and if not, then they shouldn't be there."
Pataki twice repeated his threat, saying the Freedom and Drawing Centers must respect sacred ground - or else.
"Period. Otherwise they won't be there," he said.
Aides said the governor remained committed to a cultural component and was hopeful the museums would meet his demand to guarantee the sanctity of the site.
Tom Bernstein, the Freedom Center's chairman, pledged in a statement to preserve that sanctity. The center "must, and will, honor humanity's march toward freedom and highlight America's role as a beacon for freedom throughout the world."
The Drawing Center released a statement saying it would work with the state to resolve the "inevitable tensions" between "remembrance and cultural activity."
This fella is a real live commie, formerly with the British communist party. Edited for red meat, no pun intended
Only the enormous military-technological power of the US is well beyond challenge. It makes the US today the only power capable of effective military intervention at short notice in any part on the world, and it has twice demonstrated its capacity to win small wars with great rapidity. And yet, as the Iraq war shows, even this unparalleled capacity to destroy is not enough to impose effective control on a resistant country, and even less on the globe. Nevertheless, US dominance is real and the disintegration of the USSR has made it global. This genius doesn't want to address the fact that the US caused the collapse of the USSR. Doesn't fit in with this world view of his. An inconvenient fact, such as it is.
The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. The expansionism implicit in the name chosen for the 13 independent colonies on the east coast of the Atlantic (United States of America) was continental, not colonial. The later expansionism of "manifest destiny" was both hemispheric and aimed towards East Asia, as well as modelled on the global trading and maritime supremacy of the British Empire. One might even say that in its assertion of total US supremacy over the western hemisphere it was too ambitious to be confined to colonial administration over bits of it. One might even say that this theory is based on the premise that every man woman and child who settled out west had in their mind colonial expansion, not a piece of ground they can call their own. Wouldn't fit in this description.
The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists' certainty of being God's instrument on earth and with the American Revolution - which, like all major revolutions, developed world-missionary convictions, limited only by the wish to shield the the new society of potentially universal freedom from the corruptions of the unreconstructed old world. The most effective way of finessing this conflict between isolationism and globalism was to be systematically exploited in the 20th century and still serves Washington well in the 21st. Dja get that? Conservatives' ideas come from Puritans, folks who eventually represented a percentage of the population so small, that it beggers the imagination how in the world this guy came to the conclusion about their infleunce in the USA. Oh, I forgot: Thanksgiving Day
It was to discover an alien enemy outside who posed an immediate, mortal threat to the American way of life and the lives of its citizens. Dja get that? The British the Spanish, the Germans and the Japanese making war against the USA were just excuses to exercize "imperilistic hegemony."
The end of the USSR removed the obvious candidate, but by the early 90s another had been detected in a "clash" between the west and other cultures reluctant to accept it, notably Islam. Hence the enormous political potential of the al-Qaida outrages of September 11 was immediately recognised and exploited by the Washington world-dominators. Right. It is imperialism to attack an enemy.
They had devised and managed a policy of imperial hegemony over the greater part of the globe for two generations, and were perfectly ready to extend it to the entire globe. They were and are critical of the Pentagon planners and neo-conservative world supremacists ... Bwahahaha
... because these patently have had no concrete ideas at all, except imposing their supremacy single-handed by military force, incidentally jettisoning all the accumulated experience of US diplomacy and military planning. No doubt the debacle of Iraq will confirm them in their scepticism. No, Iraq will effectively put the left out of business.
Even those who do not share the views of the old generals and proconsuls of the US world empire (which were those of Democratic as well as Republican administrations) will agree that there can be no rational justification of current Washington policy in terms of the interests of America's imperial ambitions or, for that matter, the global interests of US capitalism Well now we know he read Fall of the Roman Empire. As for justification, how about 911? How about 12 years of breaking a truce by Saddam?
It may be that it makes sense only in terms of the calculations, electoral or otherwise, of American domestic policy. It may be a symptom of a more profound crisis within US society. It may be that it represents the - one hopes short-lived - colonisation of Washington power by a group of quasi-revolutionary doctrinaires. (At least one passionate ex-Marxist supporter of Bush has told me, only half in jest: "After all, this is the only chance of supporting world revolution that looks like coming my way.") Such questions cannot yet be answered. They haven't been asked.
It is reasonably certain that the project will fail. However, while it continues, it will go on making the world an intolerable place for those directly exposed to US armed occupation and an unsafer place for the rest of us Good. I hope the world is an intolerable place for terrorists and their supporters.
#1
Do people have to go to school to learn how to be this stupid? Or do they come by it naturally?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/25/2005 11:07 Comments ||
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Darn! For a while there I was enjoying the part where we were acknowledged as the sole world power with hegemonic interests through adaptive franchises based on democracy and capitalism. Seems like a good plan for everyone concerned! Then he goes and gets doctrinare and silly......
Posted by: Just About Enough! ||
06/25/2005 11:37 Comments ||
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This is Eric Hobsbawm, who is one of Britain's most respected historians for reasons I am unable to fathom. Recovering[?] lefty Brit Harry discusses the article, and concludes that Hobsbawm hasn't really studied neo-conservative thought, or else he wouldn't have gotten it all wrong.
This is far too charitable. I don't think Hobsbawm has the slightest interest in or intention of understanding Bush et al. He's simply reflexively opposed to American interests everywhere. As Harry points out, Hobsbawm seems to long for the good old days of the Cold War, when everyone knew their place in the great scheme of things, and (not incidentally) the Soviet Union was still a going concern and the Hobsbawms of the world had not sunken into utter irrelevance.
#7
A tiresome authoritarian lecture, assuming the truth of all previous totalitarian propaganda from the time of Goebbels and Stalin to Chomsky, Zinn, and Durbin.
Goebbels, you ask?
Why yes, just substitute "Jewish" for "American" and you have a perfect summary of the evil doctor's worldview.
#8
You can hear the rhythm, if not the melody, of such expressions as "world-destroying Jewish plutocrats"
Compare these statements:
"It is precisely because there exists no race which can be the master of the rest of mankind, that we Germans have taken the liberty to break the domination of Jewry and of its capital in Germany, of Jewry which believed itself to have inherited the Crown of secret world domination."
Goebbels 18 March 1941
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 10:15 ||
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so damn typical. Monies given for the people are in the hands of government to "creat policies" etc. Too bad, I'm not surprised though. We need to stop these governments from taking the money and give it to the people. The fake interest that they use really needs to be seen for the abuse of the system that it is. How sad, I'm sure we'll be seeing the people still stuggling, while the government types get rich on salaries paid to them while "trying to help". Utter Bull****.
Posted by: Jan ||
06/25/2005 14:22 Comments ||
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Governments of Muslim countries offered muted congratulations in response to Iran's presidential election, while the United States and Britain said the vote failed to give Iranians a true choice for their future. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative mayor of Tehran, beat his relatively moderate rival Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and was declared Iran's next president early Saturday. His triumph extends the conservatives' control in Iran and could lead to a return to social restrictions that were commonplace after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
In Indonesia, the leader of a hard-line Islamic group praised the outcome. "I'm glad and happy to know Iran's result," said Irfan Awwas, a leader of Majelis Mujahiddin Indonesia, a hard-line Islamic group. Its founder, Abu Bakar Bashir, is in jail for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. He said Iranians apparently think Rafsanjani is "more fit to manage international relations, especially with Western countries, but not to lead the country."
Pakistani Muslim scholar Komaruddin Hidayat attributed the hard-liner's victory to anger over U.S. foreign policy. "America has put Islam in a corner," Hidayat said. "America attacked Iraq based on false reasoning just as it did in Afghanistan. This has given conservatives the chance to gain power in some Islamic countries."
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered congratulations to Ahmadinejad, and offered to continue nuclear cooperation after Russia completes construction of a reactor in Iran's southern port city of Bushehr.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 09:41 ||
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I'm glad I don't work at Bushehr.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/25/2005 11:29 Comments ||
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IOW, the Mad Mullahs or Upper Elites legally can keep their expensive BMWS, Power, and Control, while the Masses have their Yugos or cheaper brands/Products, and are kept Regulated and Limited on pain of death, disappearance, andor bodily harm - and the difference between Hard Islam and Leftism-Communism is .................. .....................??? Sub-IOW, the "People" freely and willingly voted, nay DEMANDED, to kept legally enslaved!
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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"Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a hard-line conservative who has said Iran should embrace the principles of the 1979 Islamic Revolution -- was declared the winner of Iran's presidential election"
I suppose this is the best that could happen from a US perspective. It'll shut up a few of the whiners who keep saying we should negotiate with these loonies. At least for a little while.
Sadly, what's likely to happen is now a stream of reports from the EU and UN painting this guy as a 'closet moderate' who just needs time to establish himself before instituting the New Millenium.
And then the gavotte begins once more...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/25/2005 8:30 Comments ||
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#6
CNN lead on this was:
Victor wants 'modern Islamic' Iran
Can you spell 'oxymoron', CNN?
No? Then can you spell 'moron'?
Hard-line Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a clear lead in early results from Iranâs presidential election runoff against veteran cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, election officials said today. âAhmadinejad is well ahead and it seems he is the winner,â an Interior Ministry official said. A source close to the Guardian Council, which must approve the election results, said that with 3.6 million votes counted, Ahmadinejad had 61.0 percent of votes cast.
Iran has 47 million eligible voters and 29.3 million people voted in an inconclusive first round presidential vote on June 17. The countryâs first-ever runoff vote decided between sharply differing visions for the future of Iran and its relations with the West. But for many Iranians, it came down to a choice over what weighs more heavily on their minds: The fate of reform or Iranâs shattered economy. âThe real nuclear bomb that Iran has is its unemployed young people,â said Ali Pourassad, who voted for Ahmadinejad yesterday. âIf nothing is done to create jobs for our young people we will have an explosion on the streets,â Pourassad said as he left a polling station set up in the courtyard of a mosque in the middle-class south of Tehran.
Ahmadinejad, the 47-year-old mayor of Tehran and former Republican Guard commander, has presented himself as a champion of the poor in a country where unemployment is likely as high as 30 percent, while vowing to reclaim the values of the 1979 Revolution. That stance has sent liberals and business leaders rushing into the arms of his opponent, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an insider of Iranâs theocracy. After several extensions, polling stations were told at 11 p.m. to accept the last of the voters and start counting. Aides to both candidates said they were âoptimisticâ of winning.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush assured Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Friday âthereâs not going to be any timetableâ for withdrawal of American forces and vowed victory over insurgents attempting to prevent establishment of a democratic government. âThis is not the time to fall back,â al-Jaafari concurred at a joint news conference at the White House.
Too bad the Democrats can't figure that out.
Fielding questions hours after the latest attack on a US military convoy left an unknown number of American troops dead, Bush conceded it bothers Americans to see scenes of carnage on television. Speaking of the insurgents, he said, âThereâs no question thereâs an enemy that still wants to shake our will and get us to leave. ...They try to kill and they do kill innocent Iraqi people, women and children cause they know that the carnage that they reap will be on TV and they know that it bothers people to see death.
âIt does it bothers me. It bothers American citizens. It bothers Iraqis.â
Bush said he would stay the course in Iraq despite public opinion polls showing dwindling support for his policy. He indicated his awareness of his domestic critics when a reporter began asking a question about whether he was concerned about a âslumpâin his support.
âQuagmire?â the president suggested instead, employing a word that some Democrats in Congress have begun to use to describe the military presence in Iraq one year after the transfer of sovereignty.
Al-Jaafari, seemed to recognize the domestic pressure on the president. âYou have given us more than money, you have given us your sons...this is more precious than any other support we have received,â he said.
An Iraqi reporter asked the two men when reconstruction would begin in the war-torn country. Bush said he wasnât trying to âpass the buck,â but looked at al-Jaafari and said âtheyâre in charge,â meaning the Iraqis.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Timetables are what the Dems pushed in Vietnam resulting in over 2mil deaths in SE asia after we left, not that the blood on their hands would cause them to pause. Where American soldiers boot tread; Germany, Japan, S.Korea we see democracy. We see it evolving in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, back in Vietnam there is no democracy. And that is what the misnamed Democratic Party supports. They believe in ruling, dictating, controling and thus identify with the concept of Peoples Democratic Republics [which are neither democratic nor republics]. Heck, having continuously lost seats in the House and Senate, let alone the White House, they still believe they should rule here. At least they're consistant.
#2
I don't like any wars. I do believe that we have the finest soldiers, and I support them 100% while they have to be there.
I guess I try to see what differences there would be if we pulled out now verses in 5 or 10 years from now. I'd like to think that there would be peace, but these people have been fighting for years, I don't see any difference happening I'm sad to say. We just joined into their fighting, and no one has given me a convincing story otherwise.
Alot of them are so under-educated and religious zealots they don't understand that we are trying to help them. Their culture is so different from ours, while I like diversity, it's hard to be on the same playing field with people who have different rules and/or different codes to live by if you will. They will kill their own people if it benefits a few to be broadcast on TV, yes, how do you deal with people like this. Treat them humanely?
There is no such thing as an honest fight, yeah we "embarrass" them to get information to possibly save lives, but they cut off prisoners heads, what's up with this as to compare?
We need to strengthen our borders and improve our security here on our homefront. We have people here in America illegally that may have dirty bombs, and not much is being done about it. Screeners at airports aren't American born, speaking poor english and screening little old ladies checking their shoes.
Yes I would like to see our soldiers brought home, as quickly and as safely as possible.
And yes I'm a Democrat.
Posted by: Jan ||
06/25/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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#3
It's okay to be a Democrat Jan. Just don't drink the dregs.
#4
Yes I would like to see our soldiers brought home, as quickly and as safely as possible
timetables do not help, in fact, they deliberately hinder as Kennedy, Leahy, Levin et al desire. They don't care about the fate of US servicemen, Iraqis who support democracy, Kurds, or teh future of our bases in the ME. Iraq will provide permanent bases to use against our enemies, and to ensure oil flow. The Dems would throw all that away to regain power, and for that, they should be condemned. Where do you stand on that, Jan? I think somewhere different than your party...Join the dark side ...of freedom and democracy in the ME, even if it helps W?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2005 17:41 Comments ||
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#5
Jan,
We've been in Germany, South Korea and Japan nigh onto 60 years. Why will you give Iraq only 5 or 10? Do you hate Islam? Are you anti-Arab? how do you deal with people like this You seem like you are intolerant of diverse cultures.
W wants to do what it takes to bring the Midle East into the 21st century. No time li8mit, no schedule, just that goal. If you want to propose an alternative plan or schedule, please include what the alternative to having the Middle East in the 21st century is. I'm pretty sure it will be less attractive than this war.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/25/2005 17:55 Comments ||
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#6
"I don't like any wars."
Neither do any of the rest of us, I suspect. But we didn't choose this war, or start it: totalitarian Islamic fanatics began focusing on the United States over a quarter-century ago, and their attacks have been slowly gaining in ferocity until, on September 11, 2001 they finally went too far and we decided (at least, some of us decided) to do something about them and their vile ambitions.
They are at war with us; I don't know how to put it any differently: THEY ARE AT WAR WITH US. They don't want us to be "nice" to them. They don't want us to be "sensitive to their needs". They don't want us to "respect their religion". They don't want us to treat Palestinians as equals of the people of Israel.
They don't give a fat rat's ass about any of that: they want us to bow before their hateful deity, OR DIE. And they are convinced that that is EXACTLY what they can make us do, because in their experience we do not have the stomach for a long fight.
And you are proving them right.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/25/2005 18:21 Comments ||
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#7
I don't like any wars
no, you'd rather just allow slaughter, rape and genocide without being bothered to help.
#8
Yes I agree that having bases in Iraq will help us keep tabs on Iran. Yes I know we shouldn't have a pull out date for the war. And yes I wish there was a better solution.
Maybe it would help if we only allowed the military to be there to get the job done, rather than having the reporters and the engineers there rebuilding and reporting.
I do enjoy the fast feedback and perspectives from this forum, thanks.
I'd like to see the military calling the shots not having to deal with or react to the reports from the press.
Posted by: Jan ||
06/25/2005 20:59 Comments ||
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#9
Jan - you're thinking beyond the Dem rhetoric - there's hope for you, and I'll address you with respect for thinking beyond...every step is a plus
Frank
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2005 21:03 Comments ||
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ISTANBUL - The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI), a grouping of NGOs and intellectuals opposed to the war in Iraq, on Friday accused the United States of causing more deaths in Iraq than ousted president Saddam Hussein. âWith two wars and 13 years of criminal sanctions, the United States have been responsible for more deaths in Iraq than Saddam Hussein,â Larry Everest, a journalist, told hundreds of anti-war activists gathered in Istanbul.
Founded in 2003, the WTI is modelled on the 1960s Russell Tribunal, created by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell to denounce the war in Vietnam. It has held about 20 sessions so far in different locations around the world.
Great food, lovely weather, comely women, yup, being a protester is hard work ...
A symbolic verdict was to be handed down on Monday by the 14 âjurors of conscienceâ -- including the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for âThe God of Small Things.â
I can't imagine what they'll say ...
The tribunal has for the past two years been gathering what it says is evidence that the war launched in March 2003 to oust Saddam was illegal, and it has also been gathering evidence of exactions allegedly committed by coalition troops. Its verdict on Monday after its final session is expected to condemn both the United States and Britain.
On Fiday Arundhati Roy told the gathering here: ââThe evidence collated in this tribunal should ... be used by the International Criminal Court -- whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize -- to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now benefit from it.â She added that the tribunal was âan act of resistance,â âa defense mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history.â
She hasn't yet condemned what Saddam did to his people, has she.
Some 200 non-governmental organsiations -- including the environmentalist group Greenpeace, the anti-globalization ATTAC and Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- as well as a number of prominent intellectuals such as US linguist Noam Chomsky and Egyptian sociologist Samir Amin are involved in the WTI.
Makes me proud to stand against them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe like the character PEG BUNDY frm "MARRIED WITH CHILDREN" the anti-politics political, anti-PC PC US DemoLeft will promise to cook for whomever is the winner of the Global WOT - you know, RUSSIA-CHINA or Clintonian Commie-/Asian-controlled "Fascist" America, but then again bosomy Peggy doesn't cook or does dishes or clean!
#2
Can anyone tell me where I can find any of it's members. I think they all deserver a personal visit by persons who refuses to put up with their stupidity and treason.
#5
Its interesting in their hysteria that they even don't believe in what they are saying cause if the US was as 'evil' as they shout, then numerous 'accidents' would be befalling these lunatics. Strange how they seem so public when the environment they describe would mean they'd the in conversation with their ancestors.
#6
Not really Grom, more like Americans, Gawds own banker, farmer and truck driver. One luxury we have that you don't is that we can't laugh at our enemies, because they are small and need decent nourishment.
#7
Here's an idea - we can pull our troops out of the country, put Suddam back in charge, and apologize to everyone. Why don't you WTI members go ask the Iraqi's, in person, whether we should do that?
#8
Dear WTI members:
In view of the known Saddam-produced mass graves in Iraq and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, you may at best expect flight delays and visa problems in the near future. At worst, rendering to middle-eastern countries that will hang you by your feet and treat you shockingly. Have a nice day.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/25/2005 9:36 Comments ||
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#9
JosephMendiola, I don't know what any of that means but I just got a chubby.
Thanks for the gumball, Mickey!
Posted by: Scott R ||
06/25/2005 9:48 Comments ||
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#10
how about they hold the next meeting in Kirkuk?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2005 10:27 Comments ||
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#11
Here is a list of the WTI "Endorsers":
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=12
Anybody with an e-mail address can sign up.
Sampling:
Action Indict Bush-Blair / Japan
BushMustGo! / Ithaca, NY
Greenpeace
Indymedia Belgium
Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAF) / Yemen
Posted by: Tom ||
06/25/2005 10:45 Comments ||
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#12
The WTI website domain name is registered from Belgium. Why does that not surprise me?
Posted by: Tom ||
06/25/2005 10:50 Comments ||
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#13
President Saddam has been arrested and deposed..........................round up the usual suspects
#14
I find it interesting that the argument being shaped by grom is about the number of deaths casued by Americans. While it is factually accurate that in 2 wars we have killed a lot of Iraqis in uniform, fighting a declared military action with justification, grom avoids discussion of either the Iranian war, or the internal security service murders or untold numbers of Iraqi by their government.
So, the question is, is grom only reasoning about the deaths of Iraqi by the hands of infidels? Curious demonstration of selective memory/reasoning!
Posted by: Just About Enough! ||
06/25/2005 11:23 Comments ||
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#15
Reading the headline I thought "Ted Kennedy's at at again!"....
SAN'A - A Yemeni mediation effort aimed at ending a dispute over the relocation of the new Somali government ended in deadlock on Friday, Yemeni government sources said. âThe Yemeni mediation broke up as the Somali president and parliament speaker are sticking to their stances regarding the new home of the Somali government,â a website run by Yemenâs ruling GPC party said.
Just how bad does life have to suck before you start looking to Yemen for answers?
Quoting a source close to the talks, the website said the two Somali leaders would leave Yemen later on Friday for different destinations in Somalia.
The dispute emerged after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed insisted that the exiled Somalian government set up in Kenya last year should be relocated to the northern cities of Baidoa and Jowhar instead of the capital Mogadishu for security concerns. However, the parliamentâs speaker Sharif Hassan Adan maintains that the government should move directly to the Somalia capital.
Talks between the two men sponsored by the Yemen government began last Saturday. Ahmed, backed by Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Gedi, refuses to relocate to Mogadishu because of insecurity in the capital which was the epicentre of bloody fighting between rival factions for the past 14 years.
"Please don't kill me!"
Adan belongs to a powerful Somali faction that opposes Ahmedâs plans to relocate the government to Baidoa and Jowhar.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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LAHORE: Minister of State for Religious Affairs Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain was mobbed and beaten when he visited Jamia Binoria, a madrassa, in Karachi on Friday to attend funeral prayers for two slain Sunni Muslim scholars, police and witnesses said. The state minister was rescued by dozens of paramilitary troops and whisked away in an armoured personnel carrier from the Binoria seminary. He was bleeding from the nose and his face was swollen. When he arrived at the seminary in his official car he was seized by a section of the crowd estimated at around 15,000. He was manhandled and locked up in a room on the premises, witnesses said. The incident came a day after senior Sunni scholar Mufti Atiqur Rehman was gunned down in his vehicle while two of his companions were injured and one of them died in hospital on Friday. About 15,000 mourners who had gathered for the funeral prayers outside the seminary shouted slogans against the minister and provincial government.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
No problem let the Paki Airforce take target practice on this "seminary."
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.
LAHORE: Minister of State for Religious Affairs Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain was mobbed and beaten when he visited Jamia Binoria, a madrassa, in Karachi on Friday to attend funeral prayers for two slain Sunni Muslim scholars, police and witnesses said. The state minister was rescued by dozens of paramilitary troops and whisked away in an armoured personnel carrier from the Binoria seminary. He was bleeding from the nose and his face was swollen. When he arrived at the seminary in his official car he was seized by a section of the crowd estimated at around 15,000. He was manhandled and locked up in a room on the premises, witnesses said. The incident came a day after senior Sunni scholar Mufti Atiqur Rehman was gunned down in his vehicle while two of his companions were injured and one of them died in hospital on Friday. About 15,000 mourners who had gathered for the funeral prayers outside the seminary shouted slogans against the minister and provincial government.
