November 17, 2005: Saudi Arabia is out shopping for new warplanes. Since Saudi Arabia has the money to buy the best stuff out there, warplane manufacturers are swarming to the scene. The only aircraft the Saudis wonât be able to get is the U.S. F-22. Too much top secret tech in that puppy. But thereâs plenty of other hot iron out there.
However, thereâs one problem the Saudis are not discussing; training and leadership. The Royal Saudi Air Force has long been something of a very expensive joke to the thousands of Western technicians and managers who keep it running. The Saudis buy the best, but have consistently fallen down when it comes to getting capable and motivated Saudis to run the air force. Pilots are selected more for political and family connections, and loyalty to the monarchy, than ability, as are many of the support staff. As a result, the pilots have never developed much skill, and the ground crews are backed up (replaced, for all practical purposes), by thousands of expatriates from the United States, Britain and other countries. These foreigners are generally former military, and make big bucks keeping the Saudi aircraft airworthy.
But the Saudi generals have not been willing to go the extra mile to recruit and train the most qualified Saudis to run the air force. The loyalty angle is important, especially in that part of the world. But they could at least screen for loyalty first, then ability, and leave family connections out. That, however, is not easy, as the Saudi royal family keeps it all together largely via good relationships with the more powerful clans and tribes in the kingdom. Giving up control over all those sexy air force jobs is asking a lot for a royal family that is locked in a death struggle with popular Islamic fanatics (who want to oust the royal family.) So the Saudis may get their hot new warplanes, but they will still have a third rate air force.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 09:18 ||
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#1
Regards maintenance, the standard "insh'allah" doesn't generate much confidence in the pilots, lol, so they have to get expats to do the work - or the pilots, who are, indeed, connected with mucho wasta, refuse to fly. The Magic Kingdom is one seriously screwed up place, lol.
#2
That is the reason most dictatorship/theocracy militaries suck. Loyalty to the state/monarchy/party comes before anything else and the result is piss poor performance from the military.
#6
As one who spent eight months in the Magic Kingdom back in 1992, I can tell you that the above article applies to nearly every aspect of the Saudi economy, i.e., without the ex-pats, the Soddies cannot make it beyond the tent.
#7
Have many of those ex-pats who fled after the housing complexes were attacked by Al Qaeda returned? Or have the Phillipino and Indian engineers been promoted?
#9
#2: That is the reason most dictatorship/theocracy militaries suck. Loyalty to the state/monarchy/party comes before anything else and the result is piss poor performance from the military.
Ummm, I don't recall any World War 2 stories about the germans being shitty fighters, or the Japanese.
That's one Dictatorship and one Monarchy against your theory.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/17/2005 14:25 Comments ||
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Redneck Jim:"Ummm, I don't recall any World War 2 stories about the germans being shitty fighters, or the Japanese."
He said:"...dictatorship/theocracy...".
It probably would have been less confusing for you had he said theocratic dictatorship.
The terrorists attract young Saudis, especially those below 20 years of age, and exploit their tender age to mislead them and trap them to become extremists. They hunt the youth who come from villages and rural areas. As they are ignorant of what is going on, they are easy to mould and mislead, according to a 30-year-old Saudi man, who spent three years with a terrorist group.
In an interview with the Arabic daily Okaz recently, the man, identified only by his initials S.O.O., said he was repentant and related his experiences. He said he accompanied the terrorists, met their leaders such as Sultan Bejad and Abdullah Abu Nayan Al Subaea who are on the most wanted list. Being close to them, he knew about their methods used in recruiting young men. He focused on the way they train their victims and how they send them to remote areas, deserts and Afghanistan to train them for suicide operations. The terrorists use some of the young recruits in their plots and others in collecting information about strategic places, and some others in collecting funds.
They always look for unemployed and idle youth who need money. When they tighten the noose around their necks they reveal to them their plans. They also intimidate the recruits that if they report them to the police they will put themselves in trouble. They obey them and lease houses in their name.
S.O.O. said that they engage the young in "futile boring discussions". "The basic aim of these long tedious discussions is to mislead them and distract their attention. They forbid what Islam does not forbid and what the Board of Senior Ulema, the highest religious authority in the country, permits. They don't miss any opportunity to belittle our scholars and leaders whom the entire world shows great respect," he told the daily. He said that in public they introduce themselves as preachers organising religious symposia and giving lectures to obtain permits to organise these camps. "But in reality these camps are a platform for disseminating their evil and deviant thoughts. In these camps they advocate and spread their deviant thoughts by giving edicts prohibiting matters, which Islam permits," he added.
Asked why he joined them, he said he was looking for religious knowledge and guidance, and sought their help by joining them in 1998. When he came closer to them he realised they were not who they said they were. He explained that the group usually does not directly disseminate their thoughts in the minds of the youth. They gradually do this until they influence their minds and brainwash them so as to fully control them. They achieve this in stages. In the first stage they try to lure them to their fold through lectures, which serve as a cover for misguiding the authorities. "When they advocate their deviant thoughts, they present it in a gilded plate. They exactly behave like drug peddlers who convince their victims of the advantages of using drugs, which of course are very destructive," S.O.O. said.
The second stage is that when the youngster falls in their trap and is convinced of accompanying them they start instilling in their minds the jihad thought through video cassettes. They also narrate to them imaginative stories about their heroic struggle there "which of course are pure lies". The third one is that when the youth are psychologically prepared, they send them to Afghanistan to receive training in Al Qaeda bases under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Before they leave for Afghanistan they are provided with money and a plan about how to reach there. They also provide them with books authored by Osama bin Laden, which derogate all Muslim scholars. The fifth and last stage is the return of the youth from Afghanistan "with blasphemous thoughts implanted in their minds".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/17/2005 00:15 ||
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#1
poor little boom sheep
have lost their feets
and don't know where to find them
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/17/2005 4:01 Comments ||
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"They always look for unemployed and idle youth who need money."
In the Soddy Magic Kingdom, it shouldn't be all too difficult to find many young men that fit the above description. However, do not forget that a considerable number of BOOMERS come from "good families" with more than adequate resources. And the worst are the college-educated, especially those that combine a technical trade/field/education with Wahhabi ideology and Leftist anti-Americanism derived from Euro- and American Left-wing sources.
#3
The "need money" component actually compounds the "need stimulus" (or however you wish to describe it) component. Remember, in SaoodiLand, these frustrated fools are not likely to be able to marry, even if well connected and the family has some wealth, until their late 20's, at least, and many not until in their 30s. If you're not connected, your family is out of favor, and you're not smart enough to push your way into the good job stream, you are well and truly screwed.
Sexually frustrated beyond our comprehension. And their friends who are fortunate enough to marry have a dog wife they can beat when the going gets tough. So, no sex, no wife to kick around, not even enough money to hang out at Starbucks (or, for a specific example, the al Tamimi Safeway parking lot on the Corniche in al Khobar) looking for a reach-around buddy. Now, if you were in their sandals, you'd be frustrated as hell, too...
Along comes Imam Jihadi who fills their heads with all sorts of fantasies, and you have some primed tools ready to hear that message. Dancing virgins in their little pointy heads... beats the hell out of the alternatives they're allowed to consider... and they don't have the stones to change anything cuz that's knocked out of 'em by the "religion" from Day One. Only the privileged have any hope. Everyone else is fighting for scraps and favor. When someone drops a "plan" in their laps, which promises their wildest dreams, it's pretty easy to recruit.
There is no more dysfunctional social system on the planet. The PakiWakis prolly approach or equal it, for pure insanity, but it can't be exceeded. The demographics that should be killing them, and it will eventually, are being used to kill us. The Wahhabis and the House of Saud, and the "society" this marriage from Hell has generated, are about as evil a combination as mankind has ever cooked up. Love to see it utterly wiped from the face of the Earth, myself.
#4
My, .com, how do you really feel? As I was reading that, I thought it sounded more like San Francisco or Seattle or Marin County than the majik kingdom, lol!
Posted by: BA ||
11/17/2005 11:18 Comments ||
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The Majik Kingdom will get its comeuppins, if not by our hands, then by the hands of these same young men.
THE Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead by British police was killed with a type of bullet banned in warfare under international law, a newspaper reported today.
That is correct, banned in "warfare", not banned for shooting perps
The firing of hollow-point ammunition into the head of Jean Charles de Menezes is believed to be the first use of the bullets by British police, London's The Daily Telegraph said, without naming its sources. The 27-year-old electrician was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder on an underground railway train at Stockwell station in south London on July 22. The shooting came the day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 blasts which killed 56 people, the bombers included, on three underground trains and a bus.
The newspaper said modern hollow point bullets are descendants of the expanding "dum dum" ammunition created by the British in an arsenal of the same name near Calcutta in India at the end of the 19th century and outlawed under the Hague Declaration of 1899. However, there is no legal ban on British police use of such ammunition, it said.
The bullets, which expand and splinter on impact, were available to officers taking part in Operation Kratos, the national police drive against suspected suicide bombers which has been described as a "shoot to kill" policy, it said. Their issue was sanctioned after research suggested that they were effective close-quarters ammunition for use against someone about to trigger a suicide bomb, it said.
It is believed the decision was influenced by the tactics used by air marshals on passenger jets - where such bullets are designed to splinter in the body and not burst the fuselage, it said. They have been assessed as posing less risk to people around the suicide bomber than conventional bullets but the effect on victims is devastating, it said.
Well, that's the whole point of shooting someone, isn't it?
Alex Pereira, a cousin of De Menezes who lives in Britain, reacted with outrage to the report that "dum dum" bullets had been used. "I am shocked and angry," he said.
"How can the police in the UK use bullets that the army is not allowed to use?
Because they arn't army, that's the whole point
"The police need to be open about what they are doing and if they act illegally they should be punished. If they break international law they should be punished."
They didn't, the law only covers military use.
Harriet Wistrich, a member of the family's legal team said: "If this allegation is true it is clearly a cause for concern and is yet another signal that this was an unlawful killing. "We hope these allegations will be fully investigated."
The Home Office confirmed last night that "chief officers may use whatever ammunition they consider appropriate to meet their operational needs". The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the shooting.
#1
Jeebus H. Christmas, what will these idiots get on about next?
The "banned" bullets are banned in WARTIME to ARMIES by the Geneva Convention.
THE POLICE ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE GENEVA CONVENTION!
Most police depts. in the US use "banned" ammunition because A) it stops the bad guy much better; B) it is much LESS dangerous to bystanders because it doesn't over penetrate.
The staties here in Mass use that "infamous" Black Talon ammo in their standard .40 caliber Sig Sauer SEMI-AUTOMATIC pistols.
Can we please start using "journalists" in place of lab rats and space robots?
#2
THE Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead by British police was killed with a type of bullet banned in warfare under international law, a newspaper reported today.
But its not a war, its an internal state police action. Shhhhshh. One day they want standards of peace time law enforcement, the next day they insist on war standards. Of course its all about defeating the enemy - the Good Guys[tm].
#6
depleted uranium white phosphorus hollow points
Tried some of these last deer season. Good penetration, great stopping power, works well in brush. The meat tasted a little funny though, but that isn't usually a problem in police work. At least not here in the States.
#8
Can someone explain the rationale behind banning this type of ammunition in warfare?
It makes a certain class of people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves.
It lets that same class of people pull tricks like this, which is the same exact lie being run about WP.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/17/2005 11:37 Comments ||
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Declaration (IV,3) concerning Expanding Bullets. The Hague, 29 July 1899.
The undersigned, Plenipotentiaries of the Powers represented at the International Peace Conference at The Hague, duly authorized to that effect by their Governments, inspired by the sentiments which found expression in the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 29 November (11 December) 1868, Declare as follows:
The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions.
The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them. It shall cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Powers, one of the belligerents is joined by a non-Contracting Power.
The present Declaration shall be ratified as soon as possible. The ratification shall be deposited at The Hague. A ' procès-verbal ' shall be drawn up on the receipt of each ratification, a copy of which, duly certified, shall be sent through the diplomatic channel to all the Contracting Powers.
The non-Signatory Powers may adhere to the present Declaration. For this purpose they must make their adhesion known to the Contracting Powers by means of a written notification addressed to the Netherlands Government, and by it communicated to all the other Contracting Powers. In the event of one of the High Contracting Parties denouncing the present Declaration, such denunciation shall not take effect until a year after the notification made in writing to the Netherlands Government, and forthwith communicated by it to all the other Contracting Powers. This denunciation shall only affect the notifying Power.
In faith of which the Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Declaration, and have affixed their seals thereto.
Done at The Hague, 29 July 1899, in a single copy, which shall be kept in the archives of the Netherlands Government, and copies of which, duly certified, shall be sent through the diplomatic channel to the Contracting Powers.
Since terrorist organization are by their nature a "non-Contracting Power", I would guess we are free to use expanding bullets. I mean, it's right there in the law.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 12:01 Comments ||
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depleted uranium white phosphorus hollow points
Great, now you can kill the game AND cook it at the same time.
I suspect the motivation wasn't so much the leathality of the ammunition but the inability to medically treat the wounded. Who knows...maybe they thought it would usher in The Great Pillow-Fights of the 21st Century?
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/17/2005 15:08 Comments ||
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Great, now you can kill the game AND cook it at the same time.
Plus, it glows in the dark, so you can track your game more readily at dusk.
I don't suppose these idiots realize you can go into any Wal-Mart in the US and pick up these eeeeeevil hollowpoints. I can just imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would cause.
Posted by: Dar ||
11/17/2005 15:21 Comments ||
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Shhssss. Don't tell them liberals about Wal-Mart. They will start banning camo and repellant.
From East Asia Intel, subscription.
China is continuing to offer weapons of mass destruction and missile-related technology to North Korea, raising military tensions in Northeast Asia, a U.S. congressional commission said in a recent report.
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby was quoted as saying that Chinese companies continued to supply key technologies to countries with strategic weapons and missile programs, especially North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. The Chicoms want to help these govts protect themselves against the Great Satanâ¢.
Although Chinese companies have been sanctioned for their role in the diffusion on WMD technology, the sanctions have had little or no effect because they are not extended to parent companies as well, he said in the 2005 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Two card monte. Rearrange the front companies. No-brainer.
"In fact, Beijing may be benefiting diplomatically from such transfers to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan," the report said, blasting Chinese leadership's lack of commitment to non-proliferation. The commission has been urging the Bush administration to take a harder line on China. It would be nice if we held the Chicoms accountable for their actions.
The commission also said North Korea's economy would collapse without Chinese assistance and called on the White House to pressure China to exert its crucial influence in resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff. It seems to me that the bottom line is that the continued existance of the NORK regime is in the Chicom's hands. The Chicoms keep their little mad NORK dog on a leash, but the fact is that they will keep their little mad NORK dog around to bug the neighbors.
For the past few years, China has been allocating 25 to 33 percent of its foreign assistance budget to North Korea, the report said. "Moreover, Chinese petroleum and coal are thought to be significant factors in bolstering the fragile North Korean economy," it said. The US and other nations ended the oil charity to Kimmie after his kicking out of the Nuke inspectors and took the seals off the installations. The Chicoms are filling the gap.
"The Commission recommends that Congress call on the administration to press China to use its substantial leverage with North Korea to secure its adherence to the agreed principles," the report said.
"Yet, China has failed to use its leverage effectively to obtain denuclearization by North Korea. The extent of Chinese cooperation in the six-party talks...is a critical test of the U.S.-China relationship." The Chicoms like prodding the US, Japan, SKOR, and others with their NORK stick. No consequences so far.
The commission proposes asking the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against the North if it failed to dismantle its nuclear programs. "China's response to, and vote on, such a resolution will reveal its sincerity in pressuring North Korea to resolve this matter," the report said. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, Sanctions. That will get the Chicoms quaking in their boots, just like the threat of sanctions is affecting Iran and the MMs.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/17/2005 15:46 ||
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Belgian movie hardman Jean-Claude Van Damme is being head-hunted to solve the world's terrorism problems, by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's son and potential successor.
Jong Il's 24-year-old heir Kim Jong Chol has reportedly been dismissed by his father as "too girlish" to rule the country, but is a leading contender as his elder brother is currently in self-imposed exile in Europe.
And North Koreans will be interested in Kim Jong Chol's defence and foreign policies - which he proposes should be lead by the 'Muscles From Brussels'.
Inspired by Van Damme's terrorist-busting performance in 1995 film 'Sudden Death', he says: "I'd not allow weapons or atom bombs any more. I'd destroy all terrorists with the Hollywood star Jean-Claude Van Damme."
North Korea has ordered non-governmental European aid groups to leave the country after the European Union submitted a U.N. resolution criticizing Pyongyang's human rights record, aid workers said Wednesday. The order covers at least 11 of the 12 foreign non-governmental organizations in the isolated North, which has struggled for a decade with severe food shortages. The groups affected are running health, sanitation, forestry and other programs. The NGOs have been asked to wind up their operations by Dec. 31, said Padraig O'Ruairc, the Pyongyang coordinator for Concern, an Irish humanitarian group. "They have several months to exit the country in the new year," he said.
Other groups ordered to leave include Britain's Save the Children, the French groups Handicap International and Premier Urgence and Sweden's PMU Interlife, according to aid workers. The order comes as the World Food Program also is scrambling to preserve its access to North Korea following a government request for the U.N. agency to wind up its food aid program this year and switch to economic development assistance.
North Korea issued the order last week after the EU submitted a U.N. resolution expressing "serious concern" about reports of torture by the Stalinist dictatorship and its restrictions on religion, travel and other activities. It calls on the North, one of the world's most secretive societies, to cooperate with U.N. human rights investigators. The EU resolution, which has 40 co-sponsors, expresses "serious concern" at the "continuing reports of systemic, widespread and grave violations of human rights" in North Korea, including torture, public executions, imposing the death penalty for political reasons and the extensive use of forced labor. The General Assembly's human rights committee is scheduled to vote on the resolution on Thursday, an EU spokesman said. If approved, it would then go to the 191-member world body for a vote.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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Guess STRATEGYPAGE.com was right - the Norkies demand to starve. Guess we also know whose side the Chicoms are on, as the Japanese SDF have reportedlt been having ever-intensifying encounters wid PLAAF aircraft for a while now. Fat Kimmie makes the threats ergo its the PLAAF thats a'buzzin Japan.
#4
I don't think you'll see a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings from China towards Japan for a LONG time yet. Direct memories of WWII atrocities may be dying off (literally) quickly now, but family and institutional memories are not. I suspect China wants Japan to stay thoroughly de-militarized.
The US has been in talks with Poland and other countries over the possibility of setting up a European base to intercept long-range missiles. The US is already working on a defence system designed to detect and shoot down missiles fired at North America. A US official said there had been talks with other countries about establishing such a base to protect Europe as well. Poland's prime minister said the government would consider whether the idea was good for Poland.
The unnamed Pentagon official, who spoke to news agencies on condition of anonymity, said the talks had been going on since 2002. "We have the most mature dialogue with Poland because they've expressed continuing interest in the subject," he said. "There are other countries that remain interested in the dialogue on the possible emplacement of interceptors in Europe." He told AFP that a site similar to the US base in Alaska would help protect the US and Europe from missiles fired from the Middle East or North Africa.
Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said he wanted to open up the public debate on whether Poland should host a US missile base. "This is an important issue for Poland, related to our security and to our co-operation with an important ally," he said. The US official said such a base would not have been conceivable before Poland joined Nato in 1999.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 08:45 ||
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The first anti-missile bases should be in Bulgaria or Romania, close to the launch point. And US anti-missile bases and troops out of Western Europe. Let them pay for their own defense.
Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2005 9:23 Comments ||
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"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done," Clinton told students at a forum at the American University of Dubai. "It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country."
Clinton's remarks came when he was taking questions about the U.S. invasion, which began in 2003. His response drew cheers and a standing ovation at the end of the hour-long session. Clinton said the United States had done some good things in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution and the holding of parliamentary elections.
"The mistake that they made is that when they kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure of Iraq. ... We never sent enough troops and didn't have enough troops to control or seal the borders," Clinton said. As the borders were unsealed, "the terrorists came in," he said. Clinton said it would have been better if the United States had left Iraq's "fundamental military and social and police structure intact." Where does one even begin? No doubt things would have been a lot more peaceful if we'd left the Baath torturers and hacks in power. We could have openly sipped mint tea with them in cafes on the boulevards of Baghdad and never worried about assasinations and car bombs. Some new strong man would have taken the place of Saddam (doubtless there were dozens of them clamoring for the job during the first few months after the invasion) and suppressed and bribed the other tribes and factions into some form of the status quo ante. As far as the "too few troops" charge, I am now convinced that the only way we could hav prevented the Sunni revolt was to come in Soviet style with lists of Salafist mullahs and Baathists to arrest and with our own cadres in the wake of the invading forces, ready to take control of the municipal governments and functions. We would have had to put 100,000's in camps and then do what? Congress and the NGOs would have soiled themselves.
I'll leave it to others to deal with Clinton's lack of loyalty and opportunism. I tire of these fools.
#5
Yeah, 1992 and '96 were huge mistakes, but what does BJ Clinton think of his greatest legacy, September 11, 2001?
Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2005 9:16 Comments ||
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Clinton's remarks came when he was taking questions about the U.S. invasion, which began in 2003.
This is nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking by someone who, when presented with the opportunity, couldn't muster up anything but a limp-wristed response to repeated direct challenges.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Joseph Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, called on Thursday for an inquiry by The Washington Post into the conduct of journalist Bob Woodward, who repeatedly criticized the leak investigation without disclosing his own involvement.
"It certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest. He was taking an advocacy position when he was a party to it," Wilson said.
You mean like your tea party in Niger?
Woodward testified under oath on Monday to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that a senior Bush administration official casually told him in mid-June 2003 about Plame's position at the CIA. The surprise testimony appeared to contradict Fitzgerald's assertion that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was the first government official to divulge information to reporters about Plame. The disclosure could prolong the leak investigation as Fitzgerald pursues new leads in the case, lawyers said.
Libby's defense team contended Woodward's story undercut Fitzgerald's case against Libby, who was indicted in late October on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the criminal probe, which was launched two years ago.
Wilson, a former ambassador turned White House critic, told Reuters that The Washington Post should reveal the name of Woodward's source, and conduct an inquiry to determine why he withheld the information for more than two years from his editors and the federal prosecutor.
Libby, who resigned from the White House after he was indicted, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have promised to mount a vigorous defense.
On Friday, Fitzgerald and news organizations will face off in court over Fitzgerald's efforts to keep documents in the Libby case secret.
Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press have asked Judge Reggie Walton to deny Fitzgerald's blanket protective order, which would bar public access to grand jury transcripts, witness statements and a wide range of other evidence in the case. Any leaks could result in civil and criminal fines, the order warns. Libby's attorneys said in court filings that the proposed protective order was "a legitimate effort by the government to maintain the secrecy of grand jury proceedings." Court officials said a hearing on the issue was scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 16:44 ||
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#1
Shut up Joe or I'll send Walter Pincus over to kick your ass.
Posted by: Bob Woodward ||
11/17/2005 17:23 Comments ||
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Joe should be allowed to call the shots.
As long as he's in jail for contempt.
Go ahead, Joe! Enjoy your 125 minutes of fame from jail!
(125 minutes WAS a typo, but he's had WAY more than 15 minutes!)
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/17/2005 21:20 Comments ||
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Washington D. C. is Zarq's most successful theater of operations
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Warning that other global threats "cannot be ignored," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, a leading adviser on defense issues, called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
"U.S. and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq," the senior lawmaker said. "It's time for a change in direction."
He said he believes all the forces could be redeployed over a six-month period.
Murtha, a former Marine Corps colonel and veteran of the Vietnam war, is the first senior lawmaker to call for an immediate withdrawal. Other critics of the war have asked President Bush to set up a timetable for withdrawal. (Watch Murtha's take on 'flawed policy wrapped in illusion' -- 8:11)
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, blasted Murtha for his comments.
"I am saddened by the comments made today by Rep. Murtha," Hastert said in a statement. "It is clear that as [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenant on armed services, Rep. Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut-and-run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans."
Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, described calls for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq "a mistake," arguing that leaving Iraq would make it appear that America cannot sustain prolonged military operations.
"I just wanted to remind our friends that now is the time for endurance," Hunter said. "Right now, in Iraq, we are changing the world. ... We're changing a very strategic part of the world in such a way that it will not be a threat to the United States and, in fact, will be an ally in the global war against terror."
Murtha's call for a withdrawal, however, could have a significant impact on the debate over the future of the Iraq war, as both Democrats and Republicans seek his advice on military and veterans' issues.
"A man of stature of John Murtha -- that's a pretty heavy hit, I don't mind telling you," said North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, sponsor of the House resolution that calls for a timetable for withdrawal. "He ... gives a lot of weight to this debate."
Jones said he thinks this will make "some Republicans think about their responsibility as relates to the war in Iraq" and that "this is a week that will help further the debate -- ignite the debate."
Another Democrat who voted for the war, Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, said he had heard of Murtha's comments and wouldn't endorse his call for immediate withdrawal.
But, Ford said, "It a powerful statement coming from arguably the most respected voice in the Congress," and it will be hard for the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney to dismiss these comments as easily as other Democratic criticisms on the war.
Murtha, who has served in the House for over three decades, is the senior Democrat and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee and voted in favor of the Iraq war. Now, he said, the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq are "uniting the enemy against us."
"Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty," he said. "Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates, but the war continues to intensify."
He said the redeployment will give Iraqis the incentive to take control of their country.
The statement comes amid increasingly heated debate over the Iraq war and the intelligence leading up to the March 2003 invasion. A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll also found the public increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war. The poll, released Monday, found that 60 percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting, while 38 percent said it was worthwhile.
Monday's poll found that 19 percent of Americans want to see the troops come home now and 33 percent said they wanted them home within a year. Only 38 percent said they should remain "as long as needed."
On Tuesday, the Senate also voted 79-19 for an amendment that called for progress reports on the Iraq war every 90 days. The amendment's purpose was "to clarify and recommend changes" to U.S. policy in Iraq. The vote was seen as a reflection of the increasing bipartisan dissatisfaction over the war's progress.
On Wednesday, Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed Democratic critics, calling allegations that the administration misled the country as "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." (Full story)
Murtha took issue with the administration's counter-criticism, specifically President Bush's Veterans Day speech in which he said it is "deeply irresponsible to rewrite how that war began."
"I resent the fact that on Veterans Day, they criticized Democrats for criticizing them," Murtha said. "This [the war] is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public knows it, and lashing out at critics doesn't help a bit. You've got to change the policy. That's what's going to help the American people. You need to change direction."
Murtha -- who recently visited Iraq's Anbar province -- said it is Congress' responsibility to speak out for the "sons and daughters" on the battlefield, and relayed several emotional stories from soldiers recovering at Bethesda's Walter Reed Medical Center.
"I tell you, these young folks are under intense activity over there, I mean much more intense than Vietnam," he said. "You never know when it's going to happen."
#2
I'm gonna check into the Dark Side thingy. It sure is a seductive little tart these days amongst the Alzheimers set. Maybe in another decade or three I'll become as addled as John.
Yo, Murtha, you need to change your Depends and lay off the Ensure Kool Aid. When I grow so old as to need diapers and pablum again, I'll off myself. Yes, John, you've hung around too long at the public trough, and now you've entered the Fog of War Boggle. Sorry to see it, but there it is. You're excused, sir, shuffle board is to your right and shuffling off mortal coils to your Left.
Cut and run. What an epitaph. This is hubris of the I believe my own PR sort.
#4
Murtha was elected to congress in 1974. You remember them, the Watergate class who voted to abandon the Vietnamese in 1975. Wonder how he voted on that.
#6
"Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty," he said. "Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates, but the war continues to intensify."
What planet is this asshole living on? We are winning this war and we are in the final stages of the military conflict. His assertion that the war is intensifying is an outright lie.
"I tell you, these young folks are under intense activity over there, I mean much more intense than Vietnam," he said. "You never know when it's going to happen."
Uh, riight. Going up against the "Lions of Islam" is faaaaar more intense than going up against hardcore, well trained and supplied NVA. What utter and complete bullshit. This Marine is a traitor. I hope that thousands of active and retired Marines flood his office telling him just that.
#7
Murtha wants to do for Iraqis what he did for South Vietnamese and Cambodians. I guess Murtha is in the farce phase of his life.
Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2005 19:41 Comments ||
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#8
remoteman: What planet is this asshole living on? We are winning this war and we are in the final stages of the military conflict. His assertion that the war is intensifying is an outright lie.
You are both right. We are winning and the war is intensifying. The final stages of WWII involved extremely high casualties for Allied Forces, as the remaining Axis Powers fought ferocious last ditch battles to prevent the homeland from being overrun. The closer we get to winning, the higher our casualties will be. The problem is that this rule also applies if we're not winning.
What Murtha is saying is that since there's no way of telling whether we're winning or not winning* in Iraq, let's just cut our losses today. What he left out is the fact that the blow to our credibility will encourage other adversaries to go to war with our allies because they believe Uncle Sam doesn't have the gumption to stick it out. Murtha talks about how other global threats cannot be ignored, but the fact is that withdrawal from Iraq may cause these threats to come to fruition. Withdrawal from Vietnam triggered the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua. A withdrawal from Iraq is a message to potential adversaries that we will back down after a mere 2000 military casualties even after 3000 people are slaughtered on American soil. What does this mean for our alliances all over the world? Murtha doesn't care about American interests. He just wants to emote, just like all the other liberals out there.
* Note that he's careful not to say that we're losing. He's saying that it's not worth the cost.
#9
ES, you are right regarding the intensification at the terminus of the conflict. I was considering that as I wrote it. But I was also looking at the fact that the war is encompassing a smaller and smaller footprint. It is more intense in that footprint, but less so across the entire country. You are spot on with your other comments. Murtha is a short-sighted fool.
#10
Murtha has become a political hack. While he may have good motivations in his heart, it is hard for me to believe the wacko wing of the Democrat party did not talk him into doing something he would not otherwise have done. His party abandoned him and he hasn't figured it out. Too bad he hangs with Reid and Pelosi.
#11
I won't attack Rep. Murtha personally. He's an ex-Marine, and I thank him for his service. I think he's wrong on this one. We have not done all we can, and it would certainly be seen by most of the world as a cut-and-run. We can't allow that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2005 20:21 Comments ||
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#12
Setting a timetable or having an immediate withdrawal would be a grave mistake. U.S. credibility would be zip in that part of the world for a long time to come. We cannot abandom the Iraqis.
#13
The Honorable John P. Murtha
House of Representatives
2423 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-3812
Re: Iraq
Dear Representative Murtha:
"Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty," he said. "Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest
associates, but the war continues to intensify."
Congressman, I think you have been misinformed, or perhaps are uninformed. I do not believe the war is intensifying.
I read Michael Yon's reports, and reports from Kuwait (KUNA), Arab News, and other sources. I believe we are very close to winning the war. As we were in Vietnam, Congressman.
My son fought in Iraq last fall and winter, with the Marines, and received a commendation. His Mother and I are very proud of him and will be glad to have him go back next year to win the war on terror. (Well, maybe not glad, but certainly proud!)
Over 2,000 military have sacrificed their lives for the war on terror. They were all volunteers, Congressman.
Over 3,000 were drafted by the enemy on September 11, 2001.
Please reconsider your position, Congressman. How did you feel in Vietnam when your Congress did not support you?
Respectfully, (Bobby)
C'mon Rantburgers! WRITE sumbody! Make a DIFFERENCE!
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/17/2005 21:42 Comments ||
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NY Times:
"It is time for a change in direction," said Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the leading Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee. "Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk."
Mr. Murtha, a conservative who voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing use of force in Iraq and who supported the Persian Gulf war in 1991, called for "the immediate redeployment of American forces."
"It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region," Mr. Murtha said during an emotional news conference on Capitol Hill. His remarks were quickly denounced by House Republicans as defeatist and wrongheaded.
-----
Representative Kay Granger of Texas, a Republican member of the Appropriation's defense subcommittee who appeared with Mr. Hunter, said a quick withdrawal from Iraq would break faith with America's troops. As for the Americans killed in Iraq, she said, a withdrawal would mean "their lives have been lost in vain." Earlier, Ms. Granger called Mr. Murtha's remarks "reprehensible and irresponsible," according to The Associated Press.
"It shows the Democratic Party has chosen a policy of retreat and defeatism which will only encourage the terrorists and threaten the stability of Iraq," she said, according to The A.P. Mr. Murtha's demeanor and personal history as well as his status on the Appropriations Committee may lend extra weight to his words. He generally shuns publicity and does not often speak on the House floor.
------
After serving in the Marines in the early 1950's, he re-enlisted in 1966, at the age of 34, and served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry, according to The Almanac of American Politics. When he won his House seat in a special election in February 1974 he became the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress.
From his backgroud, he sounds like an old-school Democrat, the kind I used to vote for before the weenies highjacked the party. Wonder why he's pushing for an "immediate" withdrawal, though - it seems like that would send a message of weakness to our enemies, plus dishonor the sacrifice of our fallen warriors.
#3
Vice President Dick Cheney jumped into the fray Wednesday by assailing Democrats who contend the Bush administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq, calling their criticism "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." Murtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, angrily shot back at Cheney: "I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."
I'll shut up since I've never been there, but a lot of you folks have. How do you respond to this guy?
#4
Former Chariman of the House Armed Services Committee. Col. USMC, ret. Elected to the House with the ignominious class of 1974 that abandoned the Vietnamese.
This is electoral politics, plain and simple. Alito will put SCOTUS squarely in the R column. If the donks doen't get one house of congress in 2006 or the White House in 2008, they are irrelevant for a generation.
Washington D. C. is Zarq's most successful theater of ops in the war for Iraq. And he may win.
#7
After serving in the Marines in the early 1950's, he re-enlisted in 1966, at the age of 34, and served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry,
mighty, mighty impressive. Almost too impressive. Did anyone check to see if this guy is for real, or just another John Kerry? BTW, did you know Kerry served in Vietnam?
Signaling a new, more aggressive line against the Bush administrationâs policy on Iraq, Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), the House Democratsâ most visible defense hawk, will join Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today to make public his previously private statements that the conflict is âunwinnable.â
I don't think the Democrats will do well by playing politics with national security this way.
#9
He re-enlisted at 34 to fight in Viet Nam and was highly decorated?
He sounds like Colonel Kurtz.
Posted by: SLO Jim ||
11/17/2005 17:35 Comments ||
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#10
Don't shut up tu3031. That's exactly the aim of those who trot out the chickenhawk accusations. If Murthas arguments had merit he wouldn't be trying to shame into silence those who disagree with him.
Posted by: Scott R ||
11/17/2005 18:53 Comments ||
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#11
If the civilians were required to shut up, teh constitution would require military service before election to higher office. Salute Murtha for his service then tell him to f*&k off for disrespecting and throwing away the sacrifices made by this generations' fighters. He's seen the way to get re-elected in the Donk party is to tear down America. He can kiss my civilian ass
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/17/2005 20:23 Comments ||
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tu: I'll shut up since I've never been there, but a lot of you folks have. How do you respond to this guy?
The brutal truth is this - your role as a civilian isn't to empathize with the troops or to let veterans of any stripe dictate to you what your views should be. It is to decide what you feel to be in your interests and the nation's interests, and vote that that way and communicate your views to your elected representatives. I am grateful to veterans for having served, but they have no special right to dictate to us what our views should be. If Murtha wants to do that, maybe he should run for the position of dictator-for-life instead of Congressman. I won't stand for veterans giving me backtalk any more than I will stand for former accountants or lawyers giving me backtalk.
#13
Think of the military as your bodyguard. Would you tolerate your bodyguard calling you a "chickenhawk"? My response would be - "just do your job, or find some other line of work".
A once-radical idea to build a 2,000-mile steel-and-wire fence on the U.S.-Mexican border is gaining momentum amid warnings that terrorists can easily sneak into the country.
In Congress, a powerful Republican lawmaker this week proposed building such a fence across the entire border and two dozen other lawmakers signed on. And via the Internet, a group called weneedafence.com has raised enough money to air TV ads warning that the border is open to terrorists.
Even at the Homeland Security Department, which opposes building a border-long fence, Secretary Michael Chertoff this fall waived environmental laws so that construction can continue on a 14-mile section of fence near San Diego that has helped border agents stem the flow of illegal migrants and drug runners.
âYou have to be able to enforce your borders,â says California Rep. Duncan Hunter, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He's proposing a fence from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas. âIt's no longer just an immigration issue. It's now a national security issue.â
Colin Hanna of weneedafence.com says âthere is incredible momentum on this issue,â fueled by the specter of another Sept. 11. His group aired TV ads in Washington, D.C., this fall and plans more next year.
Fencing the border, originally proposed in the debate over how to stop illegal immigration, is controversial. The Bush administration argues that a Berlin Wall-style barrier would be a huge waste of money â costing up to $8 billion.
Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar says it makes more sense to use a mix of additional agents, better surveillance and tougher enforcement of immigration laws â and fences.
But Hunter points to the experience in San Diego, where the number of illegal migrants arrested is one-sixth of what it was before the fence was built.
âPeople have made stupid editorial comments about the Great Wall of China,â he says, âbut the only thing that has worked is that fence.â
#2
Reframe the debate. Its about national security,and its for the good of Mexico and the millions there whose government has avoided political reform because immigration has provided a safety valve.
#5
I am not opposed to the wall concept, however, I feel that every villain opposed to any immigration controls will attempt to manipulate the wall idea to have just the opposite effect from what is intended.
First of all, they will try to argue an "all or nothing" approach to the problem. That is, either we have a wall the entire length, or no wall at all; and either we keep out all immigrants, or we keep out none. Both are duplicitous efforts to stop any controls from being put in place at all.
Second, they will try to finagle having the wall put where it is needed least, first. To make them put it out in the middle of the desert, nowhere near the major corridors. On top of that, then they will try to drive the price up to many times its currently estimated costs.
Third, they will throw in time-consuming obstacles, like demands for environmental impact statements for every square inch of the land the wall is to be erected on. In past, this could delay it by years; today, maybe by months. Still, driving up the costs.
Fourth, to turn it into a political football. The "moderates" on both sides would love such a thing. Picture John McCain and Hillary Clinton creating some monster like the McCain-Feingold bill, but about immigration. What a nightmare. The far left could also rant and rave against it, like they did against the Israeli wall. This would be done to try and get more of the hispanic vote, to portray the wall as "racist". Lots of businesses will also try to subvert the process, wanting the cheap illegal labor instead of more expensive green card legal labor.
Bottom line: this is going to be a heck of a fight, no holds barred, cage match. No matter what happens it will take years of bitterness and acrimony. If a democrat gets elected president, the price could climb well into the double-digits of billions of dollars.
#6
If the Congress provides the right to build a wall on the land a private company could build it using donations. I bet they'd get enough money in donations within a year to pay for the thing.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge found Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus in contempt Wednesday, saying the journalist must reveal his government sources for stories about the criminal investigation of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer said that "in order to avoid a repetition of the Judith Miller imbroglio," Pincus must contact his sources to inform them of the court's order in case they wish to release him from his pledge of confidentiality.
The ruling is the latest example of court-ordered pressure on journalists to reveal their confidential sources. Relying on anonymous sources, Pincus and reporters for other news organizations in 1999 identified Lee as the focus of a criminal investigation into the possible theft of nuclear secrets on behalf of China.
Never charged with espionage and eventually allowed to plead guilty to a single count of mishandling computer files, Lee is seeking the identity of the reporters' sources for his lawsuit against the departments of Energy and Justice. Lee says the government improperly disclosed personal information about him in violation of the Privacy Act. "The transcendent importance of a free press is that reporters can report the news and express opinions without fear of government oppression or interference," Collyer wrote. "The right to keep confidential an anonymous source is not 'transcendent' in the same sense; this is clear because the privilege is qualified even under the stirring language of the Constitution."
This month, a federal appeals court rejected four journalists' appeal of a judge's order directing them to testify about their confidential sources in the Lee case. The reporters are H. Josef Hebert of The Associated Press, James Risen of The New York Times, Robert Drogin of the Los Angeles Times and Pierre Thomas, formerly of CNN and now of ABC. "Mr. Pincus is no less important as a potential witness concerning government leaks than the journalists from other media outlets, and the court finds no basis to reach a different decision concerning him."
You reporters can thank Pinch and Judy at the NYT for wrecking any shred of reporter's privilege.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2005 11:15 ||
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Bob! Help me Bob!
Posted by: Walter Pincus ||
11/17/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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#2
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Posted by: Walter Pincus ||
11/17/2005 12:04 Comments ||
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#3
Sorry, Walt. I don't seemed to recollect knowing you.
Posted by: Bob Woodward ||
11/17/2005 12:06 Comments ||
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#4
"The transcendent importance of a free press is that reporters can report the news and express opinions without fear of government oppression or interference," Collyer wrote. "The right to keep confidential an anonymous source is not 'transcendent' in the same sense; this is clear because the privilege is qualified even under the stirring language of the Constitution."
Weirdest thing. I can't find ANY language in the Constitution -- stirring or otherwise -- that grants journalists any privileges at all.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/17/2005 12:08 Comments ||
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#6
Ultimately the Constitution is suppose the protect the life and liberty of the individual citizen. When the pursuit of profits by rich entertainment media corporations trash the rights of the individual to his fundamental protection of a fair trial and due process as specifically written in that Constitution, its time those who played hot and fast over those rights pay the piper. They appear to miss out on who really was the 'victim' here. And it ain't the reporters.
Are you sure you want to keep saying we were fooled by Ahmad Chalabi and the INC?
What do you have to believe in order to keep alive your conviction that the Bush administration conspired to launch a lie-based war? As with (I admit) the pro-war case, the ground of argument has a tendency to shift. I saw two examples in Washington last week. An exceptionally moth-eaten and shabby picket line outside Ahmad Chalabi's event on Wednesday featured a man with a placard alleging that Bush had prearranged the 9/11 attacks. I know a number of left and right anti-warriors who have flirted with this possibility but very few who truly believe it. (Even Gore Vidal, who did at one point insinuate the idea, has recently withdrawn it, if only on the grounds of the administration's incompetence.)
But then there is the really superb pedantry and literal-mindedness on which the remainder of the case depends. This achieved something close to an apotheosis on the front page of the Washington Post on Nov. 12, where Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus brought complete gravity to bear. Is it true, as the president claimed in his Veterans Day speech, that Congress saw the same intelligence sources before the war, and is it true that independent commissions have concluded that there was no willful misrepresentation? Top form was reached on the inside page:
But in trying to set the record straight, [Bush] asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.
A prize, then, for investigative courage, to Milbank and Pincus. They have identified the same problem, though this time upside down, as that which arose from the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, during the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1998. That legislationâwhich passed the Senate without a dissenting voteâdid expressly call for the removal of Saddam Hussein but did not actually mention the use of direct U.S. military force.
Let us suppose, then, that we can find a senator who voted for the 1998 act to remove Saddam Hussein yet did not anticipate that it might entail the use of force, and who later voted for the 2002 resolution and did not appreciate that the authorization of force would entail the removal of Saddam Hussein! Would this senator kindly stand up and take a bow? He or she embodies all the moral and intellectual force of the anti-war movement. And don't be bashful, ladies and gentlemen of the "shocked, shocked" faction, we already know who you are.
It was, of course, the sinuous and dastardly forces of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress who persuaded the entire Senate to take leave of its senses in 1998. I know at least one of its two or three staffers, who actually admits to having engaged in the plan. By the same alchemy and hypnotism, the INC was able to manipulate the combined intelligence services of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as the CIA, the DIA, and the NSA, who between them employ perhaps 1.4 million people, and who in the American case dispose of an intelligence budget of $44 billion, with only a handful of Iraqi defectors and an operating budget of $320,000 per month. That's what you have to believe.
A few little strokes of Occam's razor are enough to dispose of this whole accumulation of fantasy. Suppose that every single Iraqi defector or informant, funneled out of a closed and terrified society by the INC, had been a dedicated and conscious fabricator. How could they persuade a vast organization, equipped with satellite surveillance that can almost read a license plate from orbit, of a plain untruth? (Leave to one side the useful intelligence that was provided by the INC and that has been acknowledged.) Well, what was the likelihood that ambiguous moves made by Saddam's agents were also innocuous moves? After decades in which the Baathists had been caught cheating and concealing, what room was there for the presumption of innocence? Hans Blix, the see-no-evil expert who had managed to certify Iraq and North Korea as kosher in his time, has said in print that he fully expected a coalition intervention to uncover hidden weaponry.
And this, of course, it actually has done. We did not know and could not know, until after the invasion, of Saddam's plan to buy long-range missiles off the shelf from Pyongyang, or of the centrifuge components buried on the property of his chief scientist, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi. The Duelfer report disclosed large latent facilities that were only waiting for the collapse of sanctions to resume activity. Ah, but that's not what you said you were looking for. ⊠Could pedantry be pushed any further?
We can now certify Iraq as disarmed, even if the materials once declared by the Saddam regime and never accounted for have still not been found. Why does this certified disarmament upset people so much? Would they rather have given Saddam the benefit of the doubt? Much more infuriating about the current anti-Chalabi hysteria is this: He turns up in Washington with a large delegation of Iraqi democrats, including a female Shiite ex-Communist, several Sunni dignitaries from the "hot" provinces, and the legendary Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, who led a genuine insurgency among the Marsh Arabs for 18 years. And the American left mounts a gargoyle picket line outside and asks silly and insulting questions inside, about a question that has already been decided. What a travesty this is. Not only do the liberal Democrats apparently want their own congressional votes from 1998 and 2002 back. It sometimes seems that they are actually nostalgic for the same period, when Saddam Hussein was running Iraq, and there were no coalition soldiers to challenge his rule, and when therefore by definition there was peace, and thus things were more or less OK. Their current claim to have been fooled or deceived makes them out, on their own account, to be highly dumb and gullible. But as dumb and gullible as that?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2005 11:13 ||
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After spending some time with the Kurds after the Gulf War, Hitch became convinced that Saddam had to go and hasn't looked back.
#2
Chris Hitchens is a mensch. He is (I'm told) a crusty, opinionated fellow who doesn't suffer fools lightly. But you're absolutely right -- he saw Saddam for what he was, a genocidal Fascist, and has said so consistently all along.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/17/2005 13:17 Comments ||
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#3
Man wields a sharp pen. Glad he's on the side of the angels in this one.
Posted by: mac ||
11/17/2005 13:26 Comments ||
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#4
Hitch even mentions "Pinky" Pincus, who elsewhere today on RB has been found in contempt by a judge, in a sources revealment issue regarding Wen-Ho "Mr Coffee" Lee, and faces jail time. "Pinky" really gets around doesn't he LOL...
COLUMBUS, N.M. -- The Border Patrol says a monthlong mission with troops from Fort Lewis, Wash., doing round-the-clock reconnaissance along the border was a success in helping deter people coming into the country illegally from Mexico.
The presence of the soldiers helped turn back about 1,000 would-be border crossers and moved others away from the mission's patrol area between Columbus and Hachita, Rick Moody, agent in charge of the Border Patrol's Deming station, said Tuesday.
The mission began in mid-October and is ending this week. Hundreds of soldiers from the Army's 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment from Fort Lewis helped catch 1,922 people who crossed the border illegally and seized more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana, Moody said.
The soldiers, using Stryker vehicles equipped with long-range surveillance equipment, find people crossing the desert, then direct Border Patrol agents by radio to the location.
Soldiers are not involved in pursuits, apprehensions, detentions or arrests, said Lt. Col. Jeff Peterson, the squadron commander.
"Our sole purpose is to observe and report," Peterson said.
The military's surveillance equipment can spot people at a distance of more than 10 miles, much farther than the Border Patrol's cameras along the border near Columbus.
The military mission acted as a "force multiplier" for the Border Patrol, Moody said.
"It frees resources in the field to go out and make apprehensions," he said.
Moody said captures of immigrants are up 120 percent in the Deming sector compared to the corresponding period last year. Overall, apprehensions at the Deming station account for 46 percent of all immigrants caught in the agency's El Paso, Texas, sector, which includes West Texas and all of New Mexico.
Border Patrol agents in the Deming sector have captured 7,128 illegal immigrants since the start of the federal fiscal year Oct. 1, Moody said.
Ranchers who had Stryker units on their leased land gave the mission mixed reviews.
"The military troops are greatly appreciated, but from our observations, I did not see the (immigration) activity slow down one bit. The traffic going across our ranch has continued," said Joe Johnson, whose family operates a 100,000-acre ranch west of Columbus.
However, Murray Keeler, owner of the 25,600-acre Flying W Ranch west of Hachita, said immigrant traffic went down dramatically when the troops arrived. His wife, in appreciation, took chicken and dumplings one night and hamburgers another night to troops stationed near the ranch.
"I hate to see them leave," Keeler said. As do I. Seems like a decent place to train for desert survellence. pre-position hardware and rotate troops in monthly. A no-brainer.
#2
"The military troops are greatly appreciated, but from our observations, I did not see the (immigration) activity slow down one bit. The traffic going across our ranch has continued.
It's been ONE month--let them keep it up for a year. The word will get around and the traffic will decrease (sadly, it will most likely be diverted elsewhere where the military is not helping out, but it's a start).
Posted by: Dar ||
11/17/2005 13:06 Comments ||
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A Muslim former army commander was acquitted yesterday of war crimes charges relating to the massacres of Croat civilians in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Judges at the UN war crimes tribunal ordered the release of Bosnian Sefer Halilovic, 53, saying prosecutors failed to prove he had been in charge of troops who carried out the killings.
"We totally understand, Sefe old pal. Sometimes these things just happen."
#2
But a group of similar minded folk think Sharon is guilty because he was allied with the Christian leader in Lebanon that killed Palestinians. Oh it is hard to keep track of reality somedays.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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Unless the UNO Inspectors want to take the risk of being taken prisoner/hostage by the Radic prisoners, which the MSM will blame on Rummy and Dubya anyways.
#3
Screw them. They have to pay to get in, just like everybody else.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/17/2005 7:26 Comments ||
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#4
Ah, yes. A room each for the gentlemen from New York. I say, Kilroy, take them to the Hotel California suites. You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!
Former president Bill Clinton praised Saddam Hussein's lieutenants and their underlings on Tuesday, saying they were mostly "good" and "decent" people."
"When [the U.S.] kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure," Clinton told an audience at American University in Dubai. "Most of the people who were part of that structure were good, decent people who were making the best out of a very bad situation," he added.
While Clinton didn't name, names, Saddam's authority structure was dominated by his two murderous sons, Uday and Qusay, as well as notorious characters like Ali Hassan al-Majid, [aka Chemical Ali], Barzan al-Takriti, who ran the Iraq's brutal intelligence service, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who governed northern Iraq during chemical weapon attacks in the Kurds, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash [aka Mrs. Anthrax], who was a member of Saddam's Baathist National Command.
Clinton offered praise for Saddam's lieutenants during the same speech where he criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq as "a big mistake."
While that comment received wide coverage, only the United Arab Emirates Khaleej Times noted his description of Saddam's underlings as mostly good and decent.
More of Bill's drivel at the Khaleej Times link.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/17/2005 09:37 ||
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#4
Just keep talking Hillbilly. Any day now, I expect you to come out and say that Hitler wasn't really that bad, just misunderstood.
Why don't you praise OUR lieutenants for taking out that murderous thug? GWB at least has the guts to do something that you just couldn't bring yourself to do, even though regime change in Iraq was endorsed by you. Backstabbing slimeball.
Posted by: ET ||
11/17/2005 9:52 Comments ||
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#5
keep digging Bill. I feel certain that ol Cheney would be glad to ask his pals at Halliburton to loan you any equipment that you feel you need.
#17
True, .com -- Clinton's "response" to the attempted assassination of Bush 41 was to bomb the Iraqi intelligence HQ at night. He succeeded in killing the cleaning crew that had no doubt masterminded the whole operation.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/17/2005 12:06 Comments ||
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#18
Lol - I hate laughing about the cleaning crew getting it, but still, that's damned funny. They would've been good Ba'athists, however, so...
#19
This whole "compartmentalized" approach the left uses to assess a persons value is really pissing me off. A person is a sum of his actions and experiences. That is it. I suppose there might have been one person kept around as an aide to Saddam to provide a moral balance; however, I really doubt it. And, if there was, they brought him out of the prison long enough to hear him and then kicked him the nuts on his way back to his cell.
#20
Democrats have long tailored their speeches to the crowd they are speaking too. Now we have the internet and cable news and the contents of those speeches go world wide. I'm amazed the Democrats haven't adapted by now. I thought Bill was smarter than this.
November 17, 2005: After nearly two years of effort, Iraq has an effective Special Operations (commando) force. The ISOF (Iraqi Special Operations Forces) consist of one brigade and some 1,400 troops. The brigade has two combat battalions (the Counter-Terrorism Task Force and the Commando battalion) and two support battalions (the Special Operations Support Battalion and Special Operations Training unit). Much of the initial training took place in Jordan, using instructors from the Jordanian commandoes, as well as the U.S. Army Special Forces. The Iraqi commandoes were trained to U.S. standards, using American equipment and tactics. This was done to insure interoperability with American Special Operations troops, and American forces in general.
While there were many capable special operations troops in the old Iraqi army, these were almost all Sunni Arabs, and selected with an eye towards their loyalty to Saddam Hussein. These guys were also used for a lot of terrorism operations against the Iraqi people. Because of this, the current Iraqi commando force had to be recruited from scratch. Most of these men are Kurds or Shia Arabs. Screening was thorough, and as a result there have been few failures in training, and hardly any desertions or AWOLs (Absent With Out Leave, which was very common in the old Iraqi army, as well as the current one.)
ISOF has been heavily used this year, both in hunting down terrorists, and working with American troops to clear out anti-government forces that still control many towns in western (Sunni Arab) Iraq. But there are only two battalions, and it takes over six months of intense training to get new a recruit ready for the most basic operations. As the Iraqi army grows, and gets more experience, there are more proven men that can be recruited. But ISOF will never be a huge organization. Standards are very high, and the men who are already in the ISOF want to keep it that way.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 09:16 ||
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#1
It's actually amazing to me that the Iraqi forces are as good as they are currently. They have to overcome almost everything their society has pounded into them from birth, not least of which is to think for themselves - a key of the US style - something not encouraged in Islam. Add in that they must learn to trust each other to make a team, another notion utterly foreign to them, and that the flavor of Islam of the guy you're counting on doesn't matter - which is truly over the top. Once they get it, however, it seems they really do have guts and gumption. Some of the stories regards their new-found independence, or nearly so, from heavy US assistance / hand-holding have been very encouraging. Certainly we can all remember the first Fallujah Opn which was aborted due to political stupidity and sabotage of the fledgling Iraqi forces that were to "lead" in that abortion. Look how far they've come since.
Hands down, it's the most important thing happening in Iraq today, and the ankle-biters and BDS asstards haven't a clue what a remarkable transformation is occurring - or giving credit to the people doing the job of stripping away the stupidity and replacing it with hardcore training and confidence. Kudos to everyone involved. Keep up the great work. These soldiers will someday be seasoned enough to help their society politically, too - and most (insh'allah, lol) won't be the typical Arab, power hungry and corrupt.
#2
Rantburg and other blogging sites are probably the only places one would read such an article. The leftish MSM seems to be committed to a military defeat in Iraq. They would like to have the influence they had in Vietnam. This cannot be allowed to happen. If allowed to happen, we will pay for it for years to come. Our children's children's children will pay.
I wonder how many ready battalions the regular Iraqi military has? Anyone have an idea? I think down the road, if we stay the course, we are going to see a tremendous success in Iraq. The face of the mideast will be transformed. Ultimately stability will result.
November 17, 2005: Near the Syrian border, the town of Obeidi was the scene of a fierce battle. Terrorists were trapped there, and forced to fight. Over 80 were killed in several days of fighting. At least five unexploded car bombs were seized, and bomb workshops, safe houses and weapons supplies were found as well. Meanwhile, Sunni Arab politicians are demanding that U.S. and Iraqi troops cease their attacks in western Iraq, because of the civilian casualties, the success of the operations and, while Sunni Arabs don't want to discuss it, the many revelations that terrorists are indeed based in these Sunni Arab areas. The Sunni Arabs want the army out, and promise that they will take care of the terrorist problem. While there is some truth to this, past experience has shown that the Sunni Arabs will make the best deal for themselves, not for Iraq. In other words, they will very likely allow some terrorists to remain in their territory. The Islamic terrorists are on a mission from God, and not willing to make any deals that involve stopping their operations.
Sunni Arab politicians have a hard time spinning all this in a logical way. Their European allies dispense with logic altogether, and are running with a story that white phosphorus (for 80 years used in combat for generating smoke, light and fires) has suddenly become a banned chemical weapon, thus making the U.S. guilty of chemical warfare. The main spin here is that these "chemical weapons" are being used to oppress the Iraqi Sunni Arabs. The complicity of Sunni Arabs in supporting the terrorism in Iraq is played down, and the terrorists are portrayed as patriots trying to expel the foreigners from Iraq. It's all very surreal, but the Sunni Arabs love it. Worse yet, many believe it. Meanwhile, the majority of Iraqis grow impatient with the Sunni Arab minority, and hatred for this group, which was the majority of Saddam's support, grows.
American troops got a tip that over a hundred prisoners were being abused in a secret prison in a government building. The U.S. troops raided the building and found 173 malnourished and abused Sunni Arab prisoners. The government apologized and said that something would be done, but it's no secret that Shia Arab and Kurdish police, especially elite SWAT teams and police commandoes, have been acting as death squads against former members of Saddam's security forces. Most of these thugs are still out there, and many are working for the terrorists. Some Iraqi police feel they have license to do whatever it takes to find and punish (torture and kill) Saddam's henchmen. This exacts revenge for lost kin, and weakens the terrorist movement that continues to kill Shia Arabs (and to a much lesser extent, Kurds, which have established tight security in their areas). The government cannot justify or support these unofficial police tactics. Acting like Saddam against Saddam's killers puts you on the same level as Saddam. Even the most aggrieved of Saddam's victims recognize this. But the appeal of revenge is strong, and the death squads and torture chambers will be hard to eliminate.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 09:09 ||
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#1
the death squads and torture chambers will be hard to eliminate.
#2
i think they should let the kurds have their own country they seem too bve the only ones of the lot that seem too have any control or sense for that matter
#3
Are you sure this is the Sunnis? And not the Mainstream Media?
The complicity of Mainstream Media Sunni Arabs in supporting the terrorism in Iraq is played down, and the terrorists are portrayed as patriots trying to expel the foreigners from Iraq.
See...a true statement. It fits! Using 'Democratic Party' would fit too....
#5
The complicity of Sunni Arabs in supporting the terrorism in Iraq is played down, and the terrorists are portrayed as patriots trying to expel the foreigners from Iraq. It's all very surrealthe Sunni Arabs love it. Worse yet, many believe it.
Go ahead, believe the Beautiful Lie (TM) presented by to you by the MSM and Euros. It has served you well so far. lol!
#6
Iraq is slowly coming together as a nation, at least for the Kurds and Shia, in spite of the jihadi's best efforts. If the Sunnis don't buy into that they will be sooo screwed. Will a Sunni leader step forward, able to sell a new vision of the future to his people or will it be a succession of one Sunni Arafat after another? I know which way I'd bet. The Sunnis are well on their way to becoming the Palestinians of the New Millennium.
War should have no rules unless the other side is willing to play by the rules as'well otherwise why should they give up any advantage they get from disregarding the rules of war. War should be ugly should be hell and when fighting a enemy that has no rules nither should we I am just pissed it aint US and the Pres has no ability or balls to outright tell the enemy we are not a paper tiger we are the Barbarian scurdge AKA Big Satan and if you f*ck with US be preparred to be killed down and killed by all means and ways, all those around you better turn you in or we are going to get them too for being in the wrong place wrong time. WAR Fear is powerfull the more our enemies fear our Absolute no holds barred WAR the less we will need to use it. This rules of war and civilized war is taking US into a perpetual continous never ending series of little Wars that will never end why not try to the US. I want our enemies to fear our war so much that they will go out of thier way to avoid it at all cost.
#12
Lol. Thanks, but (borrowing the Wyatt Earp line from Tombstone), "I don't think I'll let you arrest me today, Behan CT3780." Mebbe another day, k? ;-)
#13
Alls I'm saying is that had some fuck raped tortured killed my family and gloated about it around the neighborhood for some 30 years, and I finally got a chance to get some payback,
Well, as I have mentioned before, I know a few crackheads in North Memphis that would be willing to get midieval on his ass for $20 cash. And thats $20 between two, not $20 each.
A blowtorch, a pair of needlenose pliars, a carton of cigarettes, two gallons of gas, a couple of coathangers, a 40 or two for the boys, some...well you get the picture.
I ain't saying what they are doing is right, with the death squads and all, but I understand a brother's motivation as it were.
#15
ARMYGUY, you're in the wrong, as is the idea that "they deserve it" as a matter of policy.
This is a problem because every incident of this is a fucking headache for the mission... which at last check came before "they deserve it" dogma... right?!
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
11/17/2005 18:08 Comments ||
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My latest via the Weekly Standard.
LAST WEEK'S BOMBINGS in Amman, apparently carried out by Iraqi suicide bombers loyal to Abu Musab Zarqawi, have led to a new round of discussions in both the Western and Arab press as to whether or not the Iraqi insurgency is branching out into other parts of the Middle East. While much of this debate has been useful, many analysts, in their eagerness to criticize the Iraq War, have obfuscated the actual context in which the bombings took place. It has been suggested that (1) Zarqawi was not aligned with al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq; and (2) This is the first time that Iraqi nationals have been involved in international terrorism or jihadist causes. These memes are popular among both analysts and the press. They are also demonstrably false.
Amidst the reporting on the Amman bombings, the Associated Press noted this anecdote with regard to the Radisson SAS hotel, one of the buildings targeted by the suicide bombers: "U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi and bin Laden operations chief Abu Zubaydah were chief organizers of a foiled plot to bomb the Radisson SAS. The attack was to take place during millennium celebrations, but Jordanian authorities stopped it in late 1999." If this is the case, then the bombing of the Radisson SAS and the two other Amman hotels last week should not be seen so much as an outgrowth of the Iraqi insurgency as much as a tell-tale al Qaeda modus operandi: continuing to target a given location until the attack is carried out successfully (recall the 1993 World Trade Center bombing).
Moreover, Zarqawi's close collaboration with senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah in the 1999 plot is another problem for intelligence analysts, counterterrorism officials, and diplomats have claimed for three years--despite the evidence to the contrary--that Zarqawi operated separately of or in opposition to bin Laden prior to the fall of 2004. Some have gone even further, claiming that it was the U.S. invasion of Iraq which brought the two terrorists together. Yet such a position defies logic given that the first public mention of Zarqawi was his original indictment in connection with the 1999 plot, where he is listed in Jordanian court records under his real name, Ahmad al-Khalialah (Ahmed al-Khalayleh), alongside senior al Qaeda leaders Zein Al Abiddeen Hassan (Zain al-Abd Din Hassan, the real name of Abu Zubaydah), Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar (Sheikh Abu Qatada, later described by Spanish authorities as bin Laden's ambassador in Europe), and Louay al-Sakkah (Louai Sakra), who was arrested over the summer in connection with a plot to attack Israeli cruise ships in Turkey. All of this information is available in the public record, but it has been substantially underreported.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/17/2005 02:25 ||
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#1
As I recall the Jordanians also have outlined a pretty good time line on Zarqs trips to prison, Afganistan and Iraq before 9/11. [his guru too]
thanks for the link about Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim.
The revisionist sould be forced to explain and prove why Saddam's apparat wouldn't know almost every bad actor and plot going on in the ME. His own son Odai, ran his father's Fedayeen..etc.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/17/2005 3:49 Comments ||
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#2
Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) could be termed the "Shadow Affliction" for its power to cloud men's minds.
#3
Every serious discussion of Zarqawi should mention that fact that he was in Jordanian custody at one time in the mid 90s and was released (almost certainly with American knowledge, probably with US permission and possibly at the request of the US.)I forget who was president then.
Before 8,500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers methodically swept through Tall Afar two months ago in the year's largest counterinsurgency offensive, commanders described the northern city as a logistics hub for fighters, including foreigners entering the country from Syria, 65 miles to the west. "They come across the border and use Tall Afar as a base to launch attacks across northern Iraq," Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which led the assault, said in a briefing the day before it began.
When the air and ground operation wound down in mid-September, nearly 200 insurgents had been killed and close to 1,000 detained, the military said at the time. But interrogations and other analyses carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June. In a recent interview, McMaster maintained that, before insurgents were driven from Tall Afar in September, foreigners were at least partly responsible for the "climate of fear" that pervaded the city -- a result of beheadings, suicide attacks and the abduction of young men to conscript them as fighters. "They trained indigenous terror cells and moved on somewhere else," he said.
The relative importance of the foreign component of Iraq's two-year-old insurgency, estimated at between 4 and 10 percent of all guerrillas, has been a matter of growing debate in military and intelligence circles, U.S. and Iraqi officials and American commanders said. Top U.S. military officials here have long emphasized the influence of groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent network led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab Zarqawi. But analysts say the focus on foreign elements is also an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the insurgency in the eyes of Iraqis, by portraying it as terrorism foisted on the country by outsiders. "Both Iraqis and coalition people often exaggerate the role of foreign infiltrators and downplay the role of Iraqi resentment in the insurgency," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who is writing a book about the Iraqi insurgency. "It makes the government's counterinsurgency efforts seem more legitimate, and it links what's going on in Iraq to the war on terrorism," he continued. "When people go out into battle, they often characterize enemies in the most negative way possible. Obviously there are all kinds of interacting political prejudices they can bring out by blaming outsiders."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/17/2005 00:11 ||
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Two court employees attacked Saddam Hussein and punched him several times after he cursed two Shiite Islam saints, state-run Iraqi television reported Wednesday. Iraqiya television, quoting people close to the investigative judges, did not say when the incident occurred. However, Saddam's lawyers said in July that their client was attacked during an interrogation session. The chief investigative judge of the special court dealing with Saddam denied the claims at the time.
Iraqi TV reported late Wednesday that the incident occurred after Saddam was being questioned about his efforts to suppress the 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq, which broke out after U.S.-led forces drove Iraq's army from Kuwait. The shrines of half brothers Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas in the Shiite holy city of Karbala were damaged by Saddam's forces as they crushed the uprising, killing tens of thousands of Shiites. "Saddam insulted Imam Hussein and his brother Imam Abbas provoking two of the court's clerks who were taking notes. They attacked the tyrant and punched him several times," the station said. It did not elaborate.
In July, Saddam's defense team issued a statement in Jordan saying that a man burst out from people who gathered in the court room and tried to hit Saddam as the ousted leader was leaving the courtroom at the end of a 45-minute hearing. "There was an exchange of blows between the man and the president," the statement said, also claiming that the judge overseeing the hearing did nothing to stop the assault.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
oh jeeze, the usual suspects will be doing the sameole samole again.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/17/2005 4:07 Comments ||
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#2
I am surprised that the court room isn't stormed and the whole gang (lawyers and all) are lyched.
#3
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi court officials denied Thursday that two court employees attacked Saddam Hussein and punched him several times after he cursed two Shiite Islam saints. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mousawi said "no one in the court attacked Saddam or punished him and we will never allow anyone in the court to harm any of the defendants, whether it is Saddam or someone else."
"I never heard that Saddam Hussein insulted Imam Hussein or Imam Abbas during the investigation," he added. Efforts to contact Saddam's attorneys were unsuccessful.
Posted by: Steve ||
11/17/2005 13:36 Comments ||
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#4
"Efforts to contact Saddam's attorneys were unsuccessful."
A top Interior Ministry official said Wednesday the 173 malnourished prisoners found by U.S. forces included all Iraqi sects, playing down allegations of a campaign by Shiite-led security forces to suppress Sunni Arabs ahead of next month's election. The Shiite-led government sought to dampen Sunni outrage over revelations Tuesday by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that the detainees, some showing signs of torture, were found last weekend by U.S. troops at an Interior Ministry lockup in the capital. Most were believed to be Sunni Arabs, the leading group in the insurgency. But the deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, said the detainees also included Shiites, Kurds and Turkomen. He gave no breakdown.
President Jalal Talabani said there was "no place for torture and persecution in the new Iraq" and that anyone involved "would be severely punished." And government spokesman Laith Kubba defended the Interior Ministry, saying all the detainees were legally arrested and most were referred to courts for prosecution. They were kept at the detention center in the Jadriyah district because of a lack of jail space, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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....with all the media coverage there is virtually "no place for torture and persecution in the new Iraq. Thats why are friends in the FSU are assisting us with the detention challenge, next question pls
I'd tend to believe them. First thing that popped to my mind was the Mehdi Army, Tater's boyz...
Why is Tater still breathing, again?
An Iraqi militia group suspected of links to a secret bunker where 173 malnourished prisoners were found this week denied any ties to the facility on Wednesday and said it was being blamed for political reasons. The underground bunker, near the Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad, was discovered by U.S. troops during a raid on Sunday night as they were searching for a 15-year-old boy. Inside they found 173 malnourished and in some cases badly beaten men and teenagers, some of whom showed signs of having been tortured, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said on Tuesday as he ordered an investigation into the chamber's discovery. "This bunker is run by the Interior Ministry, the Americans are there every day," said Hadi al-Amery, the head of the Badr Organisation, a militia group that is tightly allied to SCIRI, a powerful Shi'ite Muslim political party in the government. "Badr has nothing to do with this, why would Badr be involved in the first place?" he told Reuters. "If there was torture we ask for an investigation."
The Badr Organisation, formerly known as the Badr Brigade, was formed in exile in Iran during the 1980s as the armed wing of SCIRI, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which fought against Saddam Hussein's regime from exile. Since Saddam's overthrow, SCIRI has become a potent force in Iraqi politics -- the interior minister, Bayan Jabor, hails from SCIRI, one of two main Shi'ite parties in the government.
Many Iraqis, particularly members of the Sunni Arab minority, accuse Badr and other militias linked to the government of infiltrating the police and security services and targeting Sunnis suspected of links to the insurgency. The government and the militias have repeatedly denied the accusations, although in July this year the government did admit that some of its new security forces were resorting to the same sort of torture and abuses as were seen under Saddam.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I have no clue. One thing for sure we didn't have an inkling. Someone neds to find out why we didn't
A Sunni Arab coalition running in next month's general elections has declared that its priority in the new parliament will be to amend the country's new constitution and work on speeding withdrawal of foreign troops. Leaders of the Iraqi Consensus Front said they will work to end ethnic and sectarian quotas for country's Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities in politics, release all detainees from government prisons and review the laws instituted since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.
Although not all Sunni groups plan to take part in the elections, the participation of the front, which includes the Iraqi Islamic Party, the General Conference of the Iraqi People and the National Dialogue Front, is a major change for the sect that ruled Iraq since the domination of Islam on the country in the seventh century. "It is necessary to have a strong state that is capable of running the country's affairs in a good way that will end all the justifications that the occupiers use as an excuse" to stay, the statement said. They added that they will work to make the "occupation forces" put forth a timetable for their withdrawal.
The coalition called for the differentiation between the "national resistance" and "terrorism that slipped into the country during the absence of the state". The group appeared to be differentiating between nationalist fighters and al-Qaida in Iraq, which is allegedly led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The front also wants to amend articles in the constitution that "infringe on the country's sovereignty and its Arab identity". Sunnis have complained about a clause that says Iraq is a founding member of the Arab League, but does not say that it is part of the Arab Nation (the 22 Arab member states of the Arab League).
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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âI reminded him that this (Gaza deal) was the first agreement signed in five years and that now we should really close that gap and not only implement what has been signed but sign new agreements,â he said.
For the umpteenth time, how about living up to your previous agreements?
Malaysia has denied claims that a slain terrorist had received funds from Malaysian sympathizers while coordinating bombings in Indonesia that killed more than 200 people, news reports said Thursday.
Azahari bin Husin - a Malaysian alleged to have been an explosives expert for the al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jamaah Islamiyah, was shot by Indonesian police last week as he reached to detonate a suicide belt.
The Indonesian police have since launched a massive manhunt to capture his alleged accomplice Noordin Mohamad Top, a Malaysian.
A report in the Indonesia's "Media Indonesia" newspaper on Tuesday claimed that Azahari and Noordin received funds from sympathizers in Malaysia after the two fled to Indonesia in 2001, following a Malaysian crackdown against suspected Islamic militants.
Malaysia's Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar said his government had no evidence that Azahari and Noordin operated in Indonesia with money from Malaysia, the New Straits Times newspaper reported.
"These allegations are baseless," the paper quote Noh as saying. "The people who say this should provide evidence to our police. If they cannot do so, they should keep quiet because such allegations can tarnish Malaysia's image."
He said the allegations were also "detrimental to good relations between us and Indonesia."
Noh was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
The Indonesian news report cited Wawan H. Purwanto, whom it claimed was an Indonesian "intelligence observer," as saying that a Malaysian named "Suf" had used banks to transfer funds to Azahari and Noordin from Malaysian supporters.
Suf later used couriers to sent the funds, the report said, citing Purwanto.
It did not give any background on Purwanto, or say how much money was allegedly channeled to the Azahari and Noordin.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/17/2005 00:14 ||
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Malaysia has nothing to do with terrorist! They have none on their soil and their Muslim population has nothing to do with it. They all come from Thailand ;)
The brother of slain terrorist Azahari bin Husin confirmed on Wednesday that the corpse shown to him by police was that of his brother and apologized to his victims and their relatives. Azahari, a Malaysian citizen who had been on the run for three years, was shot dead last week by police during a raid on his hide-out in Batu, East Java. "We have known that ... my elder brother was involved in the bombings. Therefore, on behalf of the family, we apologize to all Indonesian people, especially Balinese, either those who were killed or not," said Azahari's younger brother Bani Yamin bin Husin. "We also apologize to the relatives of the bombing (victims) at the Australian Embassy, as well as the Marriott Hotel, where most of the victims were innocent Indonesian people," Bani was quoted by Associated Press as saying.
Earlier in the day, Bani and Azahari's brother-in-law viewed his corpse at a police hospital, where police said they asked the body be bathed and prayed over in accordance with Islamic tradition before it is repatriated to Malaysia on Thursday. They said nothing to reporters as they left the hospital after viewing the corpse. "Since the brother has identified the body, there's no need to conduct DNA tests," said National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko, who accompanied Bani when identifying Azahari's body.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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"where most of the victims were innocent Indonesian people"
"Therefore, on behalf of the family, we apologize to all Indonesian people, especially Balinese"
I guess that pretty much covers everybody. Havent missed anybody out have we?
Oh yeah I'd also like to thank God(Allan) and my Mom, for giving me the strength to believe in myself, Binny, Zarq, and especially my producer Riduan Isamuddin and all those guys who kept me sane while I was a struggling Jihadist in the Abu Sayyaf camp in Basilan , oh and of course to all of my infidel fans, without whom none of this would have been possible.
#2
Earlier in the day, Bani and Azahari's brother-in-law viewed his corpse at a police hospital, where police said they asked the body be wrapped in bacon bathed and prayed over in accordance with Islamic death fetish tradition before it is stuffed with sausagemeat and flambee'd repatriated to Malaysia on Thursday.
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security (Washington)
Publication Date: November 15, 2005
#1
The starting lines are great:
Not since the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s to confront the aggression of the dictatorships in Japan, Italy, and Germany have we seen the willful avoidance of reality which is now underway with regard to Iran.
Iran's volunteer Islamic militiamen are vowing to form a human chain along the length of the country's borders as a show of force against international pressure on Tehran's atomic programme. Iran faces referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince the world its nuclear fuel programme is intended for power stations rather than warheads. Mohammad Hejazi, head of the volunteer basij militia, swore he had enough people to girdle the country. "Nine million basij will form a human chain around Iran on Nov. 26 in support of the country's right to peaceful nuclear energy," he told state television on Wednesday. He said the chain would run to about 8,700 km (5,406 miles) and added President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would attend the ceremony. Hejazi gave no account of how Iran's rickety transport networks would move nine million people to Iran's often highly inaccessible borders. Iran's conservative leadership says as many as 11 million of its 68 million people are loyal basij militia members, but the numbers are impossible to verify.
#4
'Sounds like a damn fine time to attack - while they are all as spread out as is humanly possible in Iran.
"Hello, Mr. Enemy Nation - Listen, we want to come crush your country. Wewould appreciate it if you could disperse all you fighting age males to the ultimate possible level of dispersion - to mkae it as hard as humanly possible to supply them, or to concentrate their efforts. This would really help us clean your clock."
#9
Where is that 5,406 mile long line charge when you need one?
Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2005 8:36 Comments ||
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#10
when the music stops, those who don't have chairs, have to leave....
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/17/2005 9:01 Comments ||
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#11
We'd like to build a world of Islam,
And exterminate all the Jews.
With ignorance and warlike skills,
Attack all who oppose the true faith.
We'd like to teach the world to scream,
In perfect agony.
We'd throw a nuke at Tel Aviv,
To show our superiority.
(That's the voice in our head)
We'd like to see civilization destroyed,
(Let ignorance reign)
All standing hand in hand.
And hear the echo through the hills
We must rule over all mankind!
#16
Being an engineer, I went ahead and figured it out. That's only 3.2 feet (roughly) of shoulder room for each of these nutters basiji. Pretty tight quarters in my mind. Hope Israel's locked & loaded, lol! VERY easy targetting! Do they truly not realize we could hit them from above, or are they truly kept in the dark that well by the MM that they'd expect us to charge them with massive amounts of boots on the ground? speaking of your targets of opportunity.....
Posted by: BA ||
11/17/2005 11:24 Comments ||
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#17
So where the hell is a mal intented sparrow that targets dominoe lines when you need one?
#22
I fail to see how a human fence will stop bombers, but it does have the advantage of ensuring low population numbers at the targetting military installations.
Good idea. we should target them for that day in particular. Either that or set up psyops to bombard the human chain for awhile. Or wait until prayer time and step over the line of prostrate soldiers.
A top UN official has said the commission investigating Rafiq al-Hariri's murder had still not received an official response from Damascus about UN demands to interrogate Syrian officials at the panel's Lebanon base. A Syrian official said on Wednesday, however, that Damascus has proposed that the UN commission chief Detlev Mehlis interview Syrians at UN offices on the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights have been occupied by Israel since 1967. Mehlis, a German prosecutor, reportedly wants to interview six top Syrian security officials at its offices in Monteverde, east of Beirut, over the former Lebanese prime minister's killing in a February bomb blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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India is considering future infantry models, including Israelâs future model.
Israeli defense companies have been invited to bid in an Indian Army tender for the purchase of 50,000 rifles, âDefense Newsâ reports.
According to the weekly, the Indian Army is planning to upgrade the equipment of its infantry units. Indian military planners are currently considering future infantry models, including the infantry program of the US Army, an overall technological project for the future soldier; Israelâs future infantry program; and South Africaâs African soldier program.
The Indian Army is planning to equip its soldiers with an upgraded 5.56 mm assault rifle, sights and observation equipment installed on helmets, a radio and data communications system, and armor and survival equipment.
Within 3-4 months, the Indian Army plans to publish an international tender for the purchase of 50,000 rifles. Companies from Israel, Germany, South Africa, and the US will be eligible.
âDefense Newsâ says that all bids must include a program for transferring rifle technologies to India in order to make local production possible.
Rifles offered in the tender are likely to include electro-optical components, such as thermal sights, holographic sights, video cameras and still photographs, a digital compass, and a global positioning system (GPS). Other equipment is likely to include a digital map and a battlefield identification system. A fire control computer will coordinate all the elements, and make it possible to use electronically summoned air blast ammunition. Rifles will also be equipped with a grenade launcher.
The Indian Army is also planning to buy several thousand light helmets with equipment for distributing data from sensors and other digital information. Battle suits will include ballistic armor and atomic-biological-chemical (ABC) identification kits. The suits, made of infrared-absorbing camouflage materials capable of changing color to match the surroundings, will minimize physical pressure on the body.
Posted by: john ||
11/17/2005 10:59 ||
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#1
Meanwhile the Indian Defence Minister is in Russia..
"The work is currently underway on execution of military contracts worth 9 billion dollars, thus consolidating Russia as India's topmost partner in the military-technical cooperation," he said.
The Intellectual Property Rights Agreement:
Mukherjee and Ivanov have announced that the two sides have agreed to its text. The Russians have been insistent on the agreement to cover all future defence deals. The agreement will be signed during Manmohan Singhâs visit
Advanced Technical Vessel (ATV) and naval acquisitions: Mukherjee said the two sides have identified areas for production of certain equipment for the ATV, a euphemism for Indiaâs submarine programme, and the air defence ship. This is probably the first time that collaboration on the ATV has been acknowledged at this level
Fifth generation fighter aircraft: Mukherjee said the IAF has committed to actively engage itself with concrete offers from Sukhoi and RAC MiG Corporation. He said the Indian government has made it clear that it will participate in the programme and has conveyed its interest in taking a financial stake in it
Medium lift transport aircraft: The project is being taken up for the IAF to acquire aircraft capable of lifting payloads between its AN 32s and IL 76s in the sub-20-tonne category. India has given a draft proposal for a joint venture company. The project is estimated around Rs 7,000 crore
Brahmos Supersonic Cruise Missile: Ivanov announced during the meeting of the IGC on MTC (inter governmental commission on military technical cooperation) that Russia and India will jointly make an effort to market the missile to friendly third countries. The first country identified for such an export project is Chile which Mukherjee visited last month and which this month sent its army and naval chiefs to New Delhi.
The missile is touted to be more effective than the subsonic Tomahawk used by the US forces. The Russian side also announced that it was preparing to induct the Brahmos into its navy. Moscow also committed a fresh infusion of $ 25.2 million for the enhanced authorised capital of the joint venture project that draws its name from the Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers
GLONASS: Mukherjee announced that Russia has agreed to India using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) on a request from the Indian department of space. The two countries are to launch 16 more satellites in three years, an agreement that was touched upon during Putinâs visit to New Delhi in 2004
Further joint research and development efforts: Involving the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and several Russian science institutes. Some progress has been recorded in the efforts for the Kaveri engine. The engine is to be used in Indiaâs Light Combat Aircraft project. It is being tried in Russia and is now to enter into a flight bed test. In flight bed tests, the engine will be fired from another aircraft that already runs on at least two other engines.
Posted by: john ||
11/17/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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#2
all bids must include a program for transferring rifle technologies to India in order to make local production possible.
Is this likely to be acceptable to the named bidders?
#3
50,000 is probably just an initial order so if a manufacturer can set up a joint venture and sell hundreds of thousands of rifles to the Indian market alone and also export, it would be a lucrative market.
Consider what Lockeed Martin is considering for the Indian MRCA order...
"If Indiaâs requirements are beyond any existing fighters, we are prepared to make upgraded F-16s to Indiaâs specifications with complete transfer of technology,â Mike Kelly, senior executive of Lockheed Martin recently told mediapersons.
The deal projects supply of 18 aircraft in flyaway conditions and the remaining 108 assembled in India under technology transfer.
Analysts point out that the US administration has also allowed the sale of the entire array of weapons platform mounted on the aircraft, including beyond visual range air-to-air missiles and 100 km standoff ground target- engaging missiles.
Posted by: john ||
11/17/2005 14:19 Comments ||
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#4
Or this from Russian sources (babelfish translation)
(This is the engine that Russia refused permission for Chinese assembly. They are shipped in from Russia and mounted into the Chinese SU-30 MKK and SU-27 Flankers)
The Indian industry successfully masters the license production of engine for the Su-30MKI - genconstructor OF NPO "Saturn"
The first deputy of the director general OF NPO "Saturn" Victor chepkin considers that till 2008 the Indian specialists can completely master the license production of engine AL -31F, installed to the multifunctional destroyers Su-30MKI. "we communicated to India very deep license to the production of engine. As a result to 2008 they can make engines themselves. The Indian specialists, with whom I work, are lustrously people. They are capable of completely mastering the production of engines in themselves ", said V.Chepkin.
Posted by: john ||
11/17/2005 14:29 Comments ||
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At least five people, including two police, were killed in Sri Lanka despite a nationwide security alert on the eve of todayâs presidential elections, officials said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead two constables in separate incidents in the eastern province where police also found a land mine near a polling station, a police official said. âItâs possible the attacks and the land mine were aimed at disrupting the election,â the official told AFP. âBut weâve strengthened security with more policemen.â He said the bodies of two Tamil guerrillas were found elsewhere in the region while another man was found killed overnight in what appeared to be rebel internecine clashes.
Private surveys suggest the vote is a tight race between the present and former prime ministers of the island, racked by a decades-old ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. Heavily armed troops were backing 64,000 police deployed to guard more than 10,000 polling booths and 22 counting centers across the island, police said. âWe have also deployed a special motorcycle unit that will respond to emergencies in key areas,â police chief Chandra Fernando said. Thousands of public servants deployed to conduct the election were on the move yesterday, traveling to far-flung areas to set up polling booths for the 13.3 million voters. âEverything is in place now,â Elections Commissionerâs spokesman Rasika Peiris said. Peiris said international and local election monitors from two private organizations would be allowed access to polling stations. The European Union is deploying 72 foreign observers.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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"The European Union is deploying 72 foreign observers."
The Muslim Brotherhood has won 20% of the overall vote in the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections, according to initial official results released after a day of intense runoff balloting. The Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, is officially banned as a political party in Egypt but fielded candidates as independents. It won 30 seats, while the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 50, the semi-official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported on Wednesday, quoting judges in counting stations. However, the NDP's tally is likely to rise, because many of the 45 independents who won on Tuesday are former members of the party who stood alone after failing to win the party's nomination. Such independents usually rejoin the party at the end of the elections. Other opposition parties and groups scored eight seats, MENA reported.
The results of Tuesday's runoffs and last week's polling, the first round in the four-week elections, mean the Brotherhood has captured 34 seats in the People's Assembly, more than double the 15 it held in the outgoing assembly.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The terrorists attract young Saudis, especially those below 20 years of age, and exploit their tender age to mislead them and trap them to become extremists. They hunt the youth who come from villages and rural areas. As they are ignorant of what is going on, they are easy to mould and mislead, according to a 30-year-old Saudi man, who spent three years with a terrorist group.
North Korea has ordered non-governmental European aid groups to leave the country after the European Union submitted a U.N. resolution criticizing Pyongyang's human rights record, aid workers said Wednesday. The order covers at least 11 of the 12 foreign non-governmental organizations in the isolated North, which has struggled for a decade with severe food shortages. The groups affected are running health, sanitation, forestry and other programs. The NGOs have been asked to wind up their operations by Dec. 31, said Padraig O'Ruairc, the Pyongyang coordinator for Concern, an Irish humanitarian group. "They have several months to exit the country in the new year," he said.
A top Interior Ministry official said Wednesday the 173 malnourished prisoners found by U.S. forces included all Iraqi sects, playing down allegations of a campaign by Shiite-led security forces to suppress Sunni Arabs ahead of next month's election. The Shiite-led government sought to dampen Sunni outrage over revelations Tuesday by Prime Minister 
An Iraqi militia group suspected of links to a secret bunker where 173 malnourished prisoners were found this week denied any ties to the facility on Wednesday and said it was being blamed for political reasons. The underground bunker, near the Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad, was discovered by U.S. troops during a raid on Sunday night as they were searching for a 15-year-old boy. Inside they found 173 malnourished and in some cases badly beaten men and teenagers, some of whom showed signs of having been tortured, Prime Minister 
The brother of slain terrorist 
Iran's volunteer Islamic militiamen are vowing to form a human chain along the length of the country's borders as a show of force against international pressure on Tehran's atomic programme. Iran faces referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince the world its nuclear fuel programme is intended for power stations rather than warheads. Mohammad Hejazi, head of the volunteer basij militia, swore he had enough people to girdle the country. "Nine million basij will form a human chain around Iran on Nov. 26 in support of the country's right to peaceful nuclear energy," he told state television on Wednesday. He said the chain would run to about 8,700 km (5,406 miles) and added President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would attend the ceremony. Hejazi gave no account of how Iran's rickety transport networks would move nine million people to Iran's often highly inaccessible borders. Iran's conservative leadership says as many as 11 million of its 68 million people are loyal basij militia members, but the numbers are impossible to verify.
A top UN official has said the commission investigating 
At least five people, including two police, were killed in Sri Lanka despite a nationwide security alert on the eve of todayâs presidential elections, officials said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead two constables in separate incidents in the eastern province where police also found a land mine near a polling station, a police official said. âItâs possible the attacks and the land mine were aimed at disrupting the election,â the official told AFP. âBut weâve strengthened security with more policemen.â He said the bodies of two Tamil guerrillas were found elsewhere in the region while another man was found killed overnight in what appeared to be rebel internecine clashes.
The 
