Pakistans reported capture of the former Taliban defence minister boosts its anti-terror credentials and delivers a setback to the insurgent movement, but is unlikely to curb another wave of militant violence this year, said analysts on Friday.
Intelligence officials say Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, one of the two top deputies of Taliban supreme leader Mulla Omar, was arrested in Quetta on Monday, the highest-ranking Afghan militant to be captured since the fall of the hardline regime in 2001. The arrest yet to be formally announced by the Pakistani government came on the same day US Vice President Dick Cheney made a swift visit to Islamabad to express concern over Al Qaeda regrouping along the border and a feared Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan.
There is no truth in the report. I have told you, I have talked to him. He is in Afghanistan.
Some doubt remained over whether Akhund was indeed arrested. With neither NATO nor Pakistan officially confirming his capture, the Taliban media machine dismissed it as a rumour. A militant spokesman claimed to have spoken with Akhund over the telephone on Friday. There is no truth in the report. I have told you, I have talked to him. He is in Afghanistan, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AP by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. In December, the Taliban issued a similar initial denial of the killing of another top Omar lieutenant, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who was later confirmed to have died in a NATO airstrike.
This article starring:
MULLAH AKHTAR MOHAMAD OSMANI
Taliban
MULLAH OBAIDULLAH AKHUND
Taliban
QARI YUSUF AHMEDI
Taliban
Vice President Dick Cheney
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
"spoken with Akhund over the telephone on Friday."
Or at least spoke with someone who called using the speed dialer on Akhund's cell phone.
#1
Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle claims that the insurgents always target the civilian population in Mogadishu in order to create a perception of instability for foreign consumption (Shabelle Media Network, February 7). The insurgents actually do not target civilian areas so much as display ineptitude in finding the proper range with their mortars, leading to widespread destruction of civilian areas and large losses of life compared to the relatively few casualties they inflict on the government compounds.
Insha'allah!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 8:42 Comments ||
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#2
The all-singing-all-dancing Powerful Islamic Courts can't figure out windage? I'm stunned.
#3
Frank, The insurgents actually do not target civilian areas so much as display ineptitude in finding the proper range with their mortars, leading to widespread destruction of civilian areas and large losses of life
fresh Intel: The Powerful Islamic Court's Army were so famished last week they ate the aiming stakes and chased them down with straight shots of azimuth.
But somehow I doubt the Aethiops will be quite so prone to vapors when the muslims decide slaughtering their own is a viable war-making practice. We could put together a "We Are The World" shipment of popcorn to the Ethiopian army and see of that helps.
Moroccan King Mohammed VI has pardoned nearly 9,000 prisoners to celebrate the birth of his baby girl. The king also reduced the sentences of 24,218 other prisoners after Princess Lalla Salma gave birth to Lalla Khadija, the couple's second child, on Wednesday.
IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met King Abdullah overnight after arriving in Saudi Arabia for talks expected to focus on the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, the crisis in Lebanon and Tehran's nuclear row with the West.
The king hosted a dinner for the Iranian leader, whom he greeted earlier at an airbase in Riyadh in a red-carpet but brief ceremony which underlined the working nature of the visit.
Talks were expected to start after the banquet. Mr Ahmadinejad previously saw the king at an Islamic summit in Mecca in December 2005, and was due to spend only a few hours in Saudi Arabia.
Before leaving Tehran, Mr Ahmadinejad said he would discuss how Iran and the kingdom could work together to reduce tensions in the Middle East.
"We will discuss with King Abdullah the joint work that we have to carry out in the Islamic world and the region," he said.
"Iran and Saudi Arabia are two significant countries whose relations in recent years have been expanding and developing, and we are interested in expanding our stable ties," he said.
Relations between the two regional heavyweights have been strained over non-Arab Iran's growing influence in Iraq and its perceived backing of Shiite militias battling the once-ruling Sunni minority there.
The Iranian president, whose country has been accused by the United States of meddling in the region, also said Iran was ready to do all it could to reduce political tensions in Lebanon.
"If Lebanon requests the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist its national unity and independence then we are ready to help," he said.
Lebanon has severely tested ties between predominantly Shiite Iran and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, a key US ally which provides substantial financial aid to Beirut and which has close links with the Western-backed government of Sunni Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
The anti-Syrian Lebanese administration has been crippled by an opposition ministerial walkout and an open-ended protest spearheaded by the Iranian-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah, raising fears of Sunni-Shiite clashes.
Lebanon's parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri arrived in Riyadh earlier on Saturday. A source close to Hariri said he would have contacts with Saudi officials on issues connected to Lebanon and the region.
Iran is also accused by the United States, Riyadh's top Western ally, of arming Shiite militants attacking US forces in Iraq - a charge that Tehran vehemently denies.
"We should allow the Iraqis to implement their decisions and enforce security themselves," Mr Ahmadinejad said overnight.
In December, King Abdullah likened the situation in the Arab world to "a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode," and Riyadh and Tehran recently began working together to reduce tensions in Lebanon.
The two oil powerhouses have sought to contain differences over Iraq, which at one point saw Saudi Arabia accusing the United States of effectively handing the country to Iran and triggered reports - swiftly denied by Riyadh - of possible Saudi intervention on behalf of Sunnis.
Saudi commentators see Mr Ahmadinejad's visit as a sign that the two countries are pooling efforts to ease regional crises at a time when Tehran is under heavy Western pressure over its nuclear ambitions and Riyadh is keen to avert a US-Iran military showdown which could destabilise the entire Gulf region.peThe visit "might yield a joint initiative" to break the deadlock in Lebanon and lead to "an understanding that will ease the conflict in Iraq," analyst Anwar Eshki said.
Newspaper Al-Riyadh said a "half success" of the Saudi-Iranian summit would be "better than the continuation of crises" in regional trouble spots.
"Mr President," said the Saudi Gazette, "your visit in this darkest hour yet for our region offers hope" of achieving Muslim unity. "As we people of the desert know, it's always darkest before dawn."
Mr Ahmadinejad's moderate predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, visited Saudi Arabia in 1999 and 2002, repairing relations which had nosedived after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
#1
I read through the article and 270+ comments. "The Oil Drum" apparently draws a lot of Chimpy McHalliburton haters who are absolutely salivating at "The End of Suburbia." These people are, IMO, LLL nuts who are just waiting for the MOTHERSHIP to come and rescue them.
If KSA is actually peaking out, there would be a lot of advantages to that. Less money for terrorists comes immediately to mind. In the U.S., we've been stymied in doing what we should have done years ago, go to nuclear, because of what I consider to be bogus environmental fears. High oil prices would probably produce a consensus that would override those fears. We, as a nation, might also remember that there quite possibly are some extraordinary amounts of oil to be found off of our other two coasts, a resource we haven't even looked at because of enviro idiocy and NIMBY obstructionism.
Long story short, if SA is actually peaking out, the sky isn't falling like most of those commenters over there are hoping for. We'll adjust and go to different types of energy for some of our needs and look in other places for oil.
Posted by: mac ||
03/03/2007 5:16 Comments ||
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#2
What mac said. The notion that the world is running out energy is absurd. All that is needed is sufficient incentive to move to other sources.
Although, Saudi lack of transparency may well cause serious short and medium term disruptions, i.e. the problem is lack of transparency and not lack of oil.
#3
We'll adjust all right, even if we have to go the full Amish. If world oil production peaks & then declines, the impact on the US economy will be severe unless adequate measures are taken. Yes, a lot of whackos are interested in Peak Oil and its implications, but this does not discredit the issue. The current world economy depends on adequate supplies of cheap oil, a change in that will hurt everyone, the US (and its sprawling gasoline-dependent suburbs) especially. Putting a great effort into building nuclear power plants would be one of those adequate measures. Doubling the size of our strategic petroleum reserve would be another. A 50% "war tax" tariff on imported petroleum would be another. Increasing the capacity of the US rail system to haul a great deal more freight than it now does (rather than in diesel-powered semi trucks) would be another. A half-hearted measure would be drilling for more offshore oil. I'll believe such a bountiful supply exists when I can buy some at my corner gas station, and not until then. Sure, do it, but I doubt much will be found. All the incentive in the world is not going to produce a year's supply of $30 / barrel oil for the USA.
#4
Increasing the capacity of the US rail system to haul a great deal more freight than it now does (rather than in diesel-powered semi trucks) would be another.
I totally agree Anguper, trains are the answer. Trains are effecient, pollute very little, and can be very reliable. As most already know, trains serve Europe and Japan quite well, but one must follow the money. Unfortunately there is far too much money made on truck tags, permits, taxes and fees of all sorts... not to mention lucrative road building contracts. Federal and state taxes on petroleum production and sales is a revenue source the gov't can hardly afford to reduce or lose.
#5
In the West, the rails are running at capacity. We would need to add more tracks. Attempts to do so have been blocked by the ESA. So, the greenies are preventing our use of greener transportation.
#6
Iraqi oil production is somewhere near pre-invasion levels, and set to increase in the near future, I believe. Exxon just pulled out of a tar-sands project in Venezuela, according to an article here yesterday, which means the project leaders and their knowledge are available for application to Canadian oil sands -- and if I understand correctly there is more oil in Canadian sands (I'm not sure how that works, but the many oil patch Rantburgers will be able to explain, I suspect) than in current Middle Eastern sources combined. Current Middle Eastern oil fields may be running low of the cheap, easily extracted stuff, but there is plenty available... it's just going to be at a higher price point.
#7
Exxon hasn't pulled out yet , but if Oogo carries out his threat to nationalize foreign-owned petroleum reserves and infrastructure in V, then there may be consequences.
#8
Estimates I've read say that the easiest 50% of world oil has already been sucked out, the other half can be extracted only at a rapidly accelerating price. OTOH, the US government is counting on increasing oil supplies for the next 40-50 years (I wish that were correct, but I don't think it is.) Last week the legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens had this to say: "If I'm right, we're already at the peak. The price will have to go up." also "The world has been looked at. There's still oil to be found, but not in the quantities we've seen in the past. The big fields have been found and the smaller fields, well, there's not enough of them to replenish the base." also "I think there are less reserves around the world than are being reported. There are no audited reserves in the Mideast. It makes me suspicious."
Steve Forbes was at the same conference and did say with the right incentives in places such as Mexico more oil could be brought to market and prices could drop. It is as if by squeezing a turnip hard enough, you can get oil out it.
#9
Sauooodis are purporting to be ramping up output to put revenue pressure on the MM's. We should be putting presure on the Donks to open up ANWR, and when they don't, hammer them in '08
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 9:07 Comments ||
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#10
What is being overlooked is the idea that anything people do a lot of they get better at. If we started building nuke plants on the scale that the French did, with a standard design, the initial costs would be high but the downstream costs would be much lower. As for the gasoline-dependent suburbs, we can now make hybrids that will do the job, just not as efficiently as gasoline cars. Start pumping out several million a year of those and put a lot more emphasis into battery technology and we'll undoubtedly make them more efficient. We might very well find a way to improve the battery technology as well. Make the country run more on electricity and less on gas and resources like tidal and geothermal become much more viable; this is because the steady electrical power they generate would be used 24/7 rather than just at peak loads (electric cars plugged in overnight). We CAN do this stuff, we should probably already have been doing some of it, and there is no one in the world better prepared to meet the challenge of a high oil price environment. Make it clear to Americans that high oil prices are here permanently (due to scarcity and not government fiat) and that investing in alternatives is smart economics; do that and the change will happen a heck of a lot faster than most people expect.
Posted by: mac ||
03/03/2007 9:14 Comments ||
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#11
I lurk a lot at the Oil Drum a lot, I mean a lot of kooks who survived the Year 2K crisis are hunkered down there still wanting to use their 12 acre plot and survival shack.
That said except for the kook/exploiter Stuart S. the editors are purdy level headed and it's a good place for oil news. Beware that there's a huge fear of the Federal Reserve, the Greenland Icecap Rapid Meltdown, The Collapse of the Dollar, F.I.A.T. money, A.B.A.R.T.H. money and the imminent return of Ambrose Bierce.
#12
OMG, Ship! Not the IMMINENT RETURN OF AMBROSE BIERCE! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! (runs screaming off into the night). /moonbat channeling off
I wonder sometimes who it is that buys all the crap you see on infomercials. I suspect it's a lot of people who regularly post on The Oil Drum.
Posted by: mac ||
03/03/2007 9:35 Comments ||
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#13
You got it Mac. Same people who made best-sellers of:
The Depression of 1984
The Collapse of 1989
The Coming Era of Low Gravity
2K, More Than a Number and a Letter
F.I.A.T. More Than A Car, Less Than Gold
Glaciers On The Move?
Chickens Can Kill You
Hybrid Corn Can Kill You
I Crossed The Street, An Act of One Mans Courage
#14
Besoeker, just exactly do you get the goods(Whatever they are) to and from the train terminal, Trains are great for moving bulk cargos, such as raw ore to shipping ports, or to steel foundries, but lousy for hauling the weekly groceries home from walmart, small scale transportation is a must, and I DON'T mean Bicycles.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 11:48 Comments ||
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#15
Trains use one fourth the energy per ton mile than rubber on the road. They are good for the long haul. The trick is to get quick, efficient intermodal transfer to trucks for the short haul to market.
On the subject of nuclear power, we need standard design reactors in secure places that use plutonium as a fuel. We have more plutonium as fissile material for weapons that we need, so we might as well use that resource somehow. In my limited nuclear physics background.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/03/2007 12:43 Comments ||
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#16
R.J.
That's a good point. Not only that, but trains are not well suited for hauling anything even remotely fragile. Which is just about anything in in a home. Air ride semi trailers are the standard for anything electronic, appliances or glass etc. etc. Most trains are better suited for hauling lumber, coal etc.
However, I see no reason why trains could not be built to handle this freight. It would seem to me to make more sense for one train to haul a load of Japanese electronics to a few points on the east coast than for dozens of semi trucks. Trucks can take it from there. That's basically the model for delivery of new cars if I understand correctly.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
03/03/2007 12:49 Comments ||
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#17
Please, Please do not compare rail traffic in the United States to Europe or Japan. It just doesn't fit. Europe is 10 times more populated, with cities much closer together, than the United States, especially the western part. Driving from LA to New York is the equivalent of driving from Madrid to Moscow. We frequently ship perishables from California to New York and Maine. There is nothing like that in Europe.
Most of the trains in the western US are coal trains. At least twelve of them pass through Colorado Springs every day except Sunday. Each is at least 100 cars long. Nuke power plants would be great, and I'd like to see a hundred or more built in the United States - fast breeder reactors that create the fuel for more nuke power. Maybe we could even switch our rail system to electric, removing even another small dependence on oil. Whatever we do, it's going to take time, it's going to take money, and it's going to take an awful lot of persuasion to keep the "environmentalists" from blocking it at every move with lawsuits and other nuisance measures to "keep the greedy from destroying everything".
BTW, there IS enough oil. There's plenty of oil, and new methods of getting oil from old fields are being developed every day. One thing most non-oil people don't realize is that oil is extracted from ROCK. Those oil "reservoirs" aren't pools of pure oil, it's oil in porous rock. Oil "migrates" - moves through rock - toward the highest point in the reservoir. Several abandoned fields in the midwest have been re-tapped, and are now again producing. Oil moves SLOWLY, however, and it can take 25 years for enough oil to move back into a reservoir to make it worth going back to. There are a few petroleum scientists who believe that oil is continuously being "created", and that we'll never run completely out - it'll just get harder and harder to extract it.
Also, oil production requires constant care and attention to reservoirs. Pull the oil out too fast, and you can destroy a reservoir. There are also many other ways to muck up oil extraction. I think the Iranians are making a shambles of their oilfields, looking for immediate gain at the expense of long-term production. I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudis were doing the same thing, against the advice of their "infidel" minnions.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/03/2007 13:25 Comments ||
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#18
"Saudi Oil declines 8% in 2006"
#17 OP: "I think the Iranians are making a shambles of their oilfields, looking for immediate gain at the expense of long-term production. I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudis were doing the same thing, against the advice of their "infidel" minnions."
Awwwwwwww - ain't that just too bad.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2007 14:08 Comments ||
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#19
Look out now; ya got me goin'!
Equivalent resistance per ton
(No grades, no curves, no wind, no waves)
Truck @ 40 mph 80 pounds per ton
Barge @ 20 mph 80 pounds per ton
Train @ 40 mph 10 pounds per ton
Train @ 65 mph 20 pounds per ton
(Resistance must be overcome by energy; i.e., fuel.)
and -
Savings to Consumer Goods
In Austin, Texas, in 1999
A freight car of lumber cost $2,200 from Washington or Oregon to a rail siding.
Home Depot (for example) had to rail-haul it to San Antonio and truck it to Austin (on three trucks, on I-35) at $600 per truckload.
Who do you think pays for the extra cost?
Not to mention that -
American freight railroads are the envy of the world both efficient and profitable.
Railroads help keep transportation costs down from lumber and automobiles and electricity to orange juice.
Our passenger railroads are well behind the rest of the world, due to our love affair with the automobile.
Rail transit is helping keep our cities livable the D.C. area has third-worst traffic in 2003, instead of the worst!
Transit saves the average D.C. driver 27 hours of congestion each year, a 28% reduction!
However, as Jackal noted above, railroads are maxed out in many places, not only the west, and the NIMBYs (including the Mayo Clinic blocking a new coal-haul railroad thru their town) make new construction more costly and/or impossible.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/03/2007 14:39 Comments ||
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#20
No, Cars on the East Coast come straight from Japan (For Example)to East Coast Ports Savannah and Jacksonville come to mind, I once went to Toyota Automatic Transmission school, it was located by the Jacksonville pier, we could look out the window and see the steady stream of new cars and trucks being driven off the ship.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 14:42 Comments ||
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#21
Thanks for the correction Jim. I knew cars came here (MN.) on a train, but I made the ignorant assumption that they all came in from the west coast.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
03/03/2007 16:43 Comments ||
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#22
Thought I would just pop my head above the tree-line here, and mention the silicon-in-petrol here in the U.K. The affected area seems to be Nationwide, with promises of pump price increases tomorrow to cover supermarket losses, which will be claimed back by them, after businesses have been crippled and bitten the dust.
Appears, lately, the silicon, (they didn't test for it, because it wasn't s'posed to be there), well, it came from the ship/vessel before landing onto these hallowed shores, so this be a trial run on the UK.
They probing our reliance.
Many sensible comments, comes down to:
Go electric, oil is for lubrication.
#23
#22 rhodesia - Hadn't heard anything about that, but it doesn't sound good. Got a link or date of a story? Does the silicon act as a contaminant, the way water does?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2007 17:48 Comments ||
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#24
One more thing (and forgive me if this has already been brought up), but if the US economy tanks because of oil resources - the whole world economy tanks because of oil resources.
The US is much better prepared to survive a tanking of our economy than the rest of the world is. I'm prepared to bet that people would be eating each other in Europe within a year.
In addition, accoding to oil explorations, this country has enough oil off its coastlines to join OPEC. The reason we do not is we'd much rather have leftists and environmentalists have their "unobstructed ocean views" than pump a few billion gallons of oil every year, be self-sufficient in the oil market, and start developing nuclear power so as to supply our real power needs.
If we are not to continue to be our own worst enemies, we need to stop being patsies (and allowing stupid shit like China drilling 90 miles off our coastline into oil resources that are rightly ours) and start walking the walk and talking the talk.
#25
Barbara, Big scene here, messes with the burnt fuel, clogs up the sensor and gives wrong readings to the EMU, (Engine Management Unit, ie, Computer), stalls/shuts down the engine), all supply lines/tankers needing cleaned out, local garages can't supply new sensors and local garages have nowhere to store contaminated fuel. This was one easy way to do sabotage, if that was what it was.
#27
Ship, neither the Great Depression nor the fall of Rome were predicted but they happened anyway.
Trucks are routinely used for hauling bulk cargo when (in the old days) trains would have been used. A friend drives semis over the eastern 1/2 of the US and routinely hauls 30 tons of frozen french fries from the processor to the warehouses of major grocery chains. This stuff could just as well have been hauled by train, except that the rail system is max'ed out, and (most likely) the tracks to the processor have been torn up and the right of way converted to a hike-and-bike trail. A month ago he took a 2,000 lb cargo 1000 miles in a truck that could have hauled 70,000 lb instead. That is both small scale transportation inappropriately used and a real waste of fuel.
-- Trains, besides having a huge ton-mile efficiency advantage, can also utilize more energy sources than coal & oil, they can run on electricity (think nukes) or be powered by anything else that burns hot enough to make steam.
-- If trains can haul people around, they can certainly haul other, less fragile cargo.
-- The reason why the US rail system lacks capacity is its supercession by auto & truck travel supported by fuel taxes and the road system. The reasons it won't be upgraded are legion: NIMBYism, zoning laws, the tort system and vested interests such as the highway and truck lobby. It will take time and resources to build up the rail system again, much easier to do at $3/gal than at $6. Some steps are being taken: in NM realistic and achievable plans have been announced to lay down a new passenger rail tracks in the median of I-25 from Albuquerque to near Santa Fe. Part of this new line is already in operation from just N of Albuquerque to Belen in the south. This creative use of existing resources needs to be going on all over the country.
--- "if the US economy tanks because of oil resources - the whole world economy tanks because of oil resources." -- that's a major concern of the Peak Oil theory, and makes the lefties' slogan "it's all about the oil" true and ludicrous at the same time.
--- "accoding to oil explorations, this country has enough oil off its coastlines to join OPEC" -- No way, see T. Boone Pickens in an earlier post. OPEC is doomed in any case.
-- "be self-sufficient in the oil market" - only if the USA vastly decreases its consumption/importation The petroleum scientists who believe that oil is continuously being "created" are the cargo cult of the oil industry. The matter is not "enough oil" or "running out of oil" but how much is available at a certain cost to the world. We all saw what happened to the domestic auto industry in 2006 with $3/gal gas for several months. Let your imagination work on what might happen if gas never again falls below $6/gal or if it's rationed after the Mad Mullahs get frisky and sink a supertanker in the Straits of Hormuz.
#28
Thnx, #25 Rhodesia. The story also explains somewhat your comment about "supermarket losses"; sounds like a lot of supermarkets in the UK have gas pumps, too. That's not unheard of here in the states, but it's fairly rare, at least in the middle East Coast. Kroger is the only grocery I know that has some, and not in all their stores. It may be more prevelant in other parts of the country, but I don't think so. (Though some of the gas chains like to pretend they're markets and restaurants.)
Yeesh, that looks like a mess. Dunno about in the UK, but here it would be lawsuit city. I wonder if they'll be able to find the source of the silicon?
Hope you didn't get hit.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2007 19:39 Comments ||
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#29
Trains are only the most energy efficient means of transporting people when running at overmax capacity like in the London or Tokyo rush hour. Otherwise buses are more energy efficient and private cars despite what you hear are not too far behind.
There are no significant energy savings in building passenger rail systems.
#31
FOTSGreg: The US is much better prepared to survive a tanking of our economy than the rest of the world is. I'm prepared to bet that people would be eating each other in Europe within a year.
OK, let's not get melodramatic here. For a good long while (i.e., most of history), people used to walk or ride horses to their final destinations. They weren't eating each other then. The automobile has only been in existence around a hundred years. Our predecessors somehow got by without it. We'll get by even if we have to make do with motorcycles or mini-cars, as in Europe (or worse, bicycles), due to $10 a gallon gas.
#32
Actually, that's what they're doing in China right now. Most people can't afford cars, so they use bicycles or motorcycles. The ones who can afford cars buy mini cars*. And they're not dining on each other. Even though Chinese will eat practically anything.
* The really wealthy ones - by Chinese standards - will buy Beemers or Mercedes Benz's. But that's probably in the top 1% of Chinese incomes, since the price of a Beemer will buy you a 1200 sq foot 3 BR apartment in a nice part of town in most Chinese cities.
#33
#30 - those wells filling up again only matter if they deliver enough oil to make a difference to the world economy, and that ain't happening. The oil business is about delivering a sufficient quantity at a price consumers can tolerate or adapt to. Otherwise, whether or not old oil wells are filling up again is academic.
#35
A month ago he took a 2,000 lb cargo 1000 miles in a truck that could have hauled 70,000 lb instead.
Ha! Truck Driver friend of mine told me a story about hauling a load of new, empty, 16 oz beer cans from Sugarland, TX to Golden CO. Weight was 5000 lbs. Cargo, what cargo? There are definitely inefficiencies in our freight systems. But there are powerful forces aligned to see that it stays that way.
A Yemeni ruling party official has accused Libya and Iranian religious institutions of backing Shi'ite Muslim rebels who are battling government forces in the north of the Sunni-dominated country. At least 105 soldiers and 90 rebels have died this year in sporadic but fierce clashes, according to government officials who say the rebels, led by Shi'ite leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, want to install religious rule.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in January that some countries were supplying Houthi's group with weapons and financial support, but did not name them. Tareq al-Shami, head of media for Saleh's General People's Congress, said Iranian security officials had also told Yemen that Iranian religious institutions were supporting the rebels, but they added the groups were not backed by Tehran. "There are Iranian religious institutions which are providing support," Shami said on the party's Web site on Thursday.
In March 2006, Yemen freed more than 600 Shi'ite rebels as part of an amnesty to end two years of clashes that have killed several hundred soldiers and rebels. But, "the Houthis have used a period of truce with the state to buy heavy weapons using foreign support money," Shami said.
He also said frequent visit by parliamentarian Yahya al-Houthi, a brother of Abdul-Malik, to Libya and "Libyan talk of mediation between the Houthis and the state represent evidence of Libyan backing to the rebels". Yahya is wanted in Yemen for instigating strife and involvement in what the government describes as terrorist activities. He has been stripped of his immunity at the government's request but is now in Germany, officials said. Yemen had asked Libya to extradite Yahya when he was in the north African Arab state, also dominated by Sunni Muslims.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered the army last month to crack down on the rebels. Shami said they were trying to replicate Iraq's sectarian strife in Yemen and he renewed a call for them to abandon violence, hand over militia leaders and form a peaceful party.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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First Iranian plane coming from Tehran heading to Caracas has left Damascus International Airport today announcing opening of the new air line Tehran-Damascus-Caracas.
Minister of Transport Ya'rob Badr underlined importance of such a line to embody prospects of the current cooperation among Syria, Iran and Venezuela and to activate rapprochement among the peoples of these states. "This line would enhance communication of expatriates of the Syrian and Lebanese origins in Venezuela with their motherlands and deepen the existing friendship ties between Syria and Venezuela as it would accelerate implementation of what had earlier been agreed upon during the historic visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Syria." Bader told SANA reporter. "Running this weekly trip will ensure the visit of a numerous of businessmen, industrialists and investors from both countries that will positively reflect on various economic and social domains." The Minister added.
He hoped that circumstances will soon allow the Syrian Arab Airlines to run its planes to Caracas alternatively with the Iranian flight and with the flights that the Venezuelan Airlines intents to run them on this line soon. For her part, Venezuelan Ambassador in Damascus Dr. Deyaa al-Andari stressed that launching this line translates the three countries' true wish to deepen the joint cooperation relations among them, hailing importance of such a step on political, economic and social levels in this stage. The Venezuelan ambassador is named Daya'a al-Andari???
She renewed Venezuela's desire to expand prospects of the standing cooperation with Syria and Iran.
The Chechen parliament has approved Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechen president in a near unanimous vote at a Friday meeting, Russian news agencies reported. Out of all the 40 members of the lower house in the regional parliament -- the People's Assembly of Chechnya, 39 voted for Kadyrov, and one ballot paper was damaged. Deputies to the upper house of parliament, the Council of the Republic, cast 17 votes for Kadyrov, and one ballot paper was found invalid, the Itar-Tass news agency said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated Kadyrov for Chechen president late Thursday and submitted the nomination to the Chechen parliament for approval. Kadyrov, 30, head of the Chechen government, was appointed acting Chechen president February 15, following the voluntary resignation of President Alu Alkhanov, who was later appointed as Russia's Deputy Justice Minister. "The decision on Kadyrov's candidature was made after long consultations with the Chechen public. President Putin supported Kadyrov's candidature on Thursday. This is the right decision," said Dmitri Kozak, official representative of the President in the Southern Federal District.
"There is no alternative to Kadyrov. This is not only my personal opinion, but also that of the overwhelming majority of the Chechen population. His services to Chechnya in the restoration of the economy and the social sphere and in the establishment of peace and stability to the republic, are really great," Chairman of the People's Assembly Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov was quoted as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile radar in the Caucasus affect Russia's national security, former commander of the Russian Air Force Anatoly Kornukov said Friday. "I cannot say what kind of radar it will be -- surveillance or sector radar. More likely, it will be surveillance radar. In any case, southern regions of Russia will be within their range, and this cannot but concern our military," Kornukov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. "More likely Americans will place the radar in Georgia or in Azerbaijan, as these countries can become potential targets for Iranian missiles," Kornukov said.
Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Henry Obering said in Brussels Thursday that Washington wanted to base an anti-missile radar in the Caucasus. But he declined to specify which country would host the radar. The United States said the planned defenses would not be aimed at Russia but were intended to defend against missile attacks from countries such as Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I think the hollering the Russians are doing on this is the genuine proof of how far gone their military is. Their efforts to defeat the original, 25-years-ago Star Wars technology broke the Soviet Union, and in Russia's present condition to try again would do far worse than break it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/03/2007 10:37 Comments ||
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#2
The US could turn around and say
'yeh an, what ya gonna do bout it?!'
well what are they going to do about it?
Nothing, and they should be grateful that there is a superpower defending the world, for all the economic aid the US gives Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined on Friday to speculate on the prospects of the incoming normalization talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). "You recognize that this is the beginning of the implementation of the agreement of a couple of weeks ago," Rice said when she was asked what she expects to get out of the normalization talks.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has played down the prospect for immediate breakthroughs during the talks. "Don't look at it as a meeting that is going to produce immediate results. Nobody is going to come out the front door and wave a piece of paper with some agreement on it," McCormack said.
The move follows a landmark agreement in the six-party talks in Beijing on Feb. 13 in which the United States and the DPRK agreed to start talks on establishing normal relations after decades of hostility. DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan has arrived in the United States to attend the talks due on March 5-6 in New York.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
SPACEWAR > IRAN, NK WILL NOT DISARM UNLESS COMPENSATED. INSIGHT MAG > CHINA ON THE MARCH, threatening to engulf Taiwan.
Australian Special Air Service (SAS) troops, expert in infiltrating enemy-held territory, have reportedly landed in East Timor.
Four Australian Defence Force aircraft landed in Dili carrying about 100 soldiers, deployed following a national security committee meeting in Canberra, Fairfax newspapers report today.
The arrival of the additional troops, who will back 800 Australian and 120 New Zealand troops, came as Australia lifted its security alert to five, the highest level, for hundreds of Australians in East Timor.
Australian and United Nations security officials in Dili fear the breakout of widespread violence, possibly even civil war, if Australian soldiers kill or injure rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.
The fugitive East Timor rebel leader, who is surrounded in his hideout by Australian-led troops, yesterday refused to negotiate with a senior government official by telephone, demanding face-to-face talks.
He has refused to surrender and vowed to fight to his death as the standoff developed this week, before saying talks were the best way forward.
Maj Reinado is holed up with his followers in Same, 50 km south of the capital, Dili.
He reportedly has said that East Timor's attorney-general had called, but said he wanted direct talks with the official.
"I didn't want to speak with a postman; I wanted to speak with the Prosecutor-General," Maj Reinado is quoted by Fairfax as saying. "They are all trying to manipulate me."
The commander of Australian troops in East Timor, Mal Rerden, declined to comment yesterday about additional SAS troops in Dili.
Brigadier-General Rerden repeated his earlier demand for Maj Reinado to hand over his weapons and present himself to East Timor's judicial system, Fairfax reports.
#1
Sounds like Reinado needs a little .50 Cal assistance in "opening up to new ideas." I suspect the SAS can supply that with no problem.
Posted by: mac ||
03/03/2007 9:38 Comments ||
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#2
if your "hideout" is surrounded, I suspect you can no longer call it that, hmmmmm?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 10:43 Comments ||
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#3
Infil is okay as long as they also exfil with some of the leaders and put them under the Aussie version of waterboarding where they use the inside of a crocodile's mouth......
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
03/03/2007 13:20 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD, March 2 -- In the photos, the 18 men were blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. They appeared Friday on the Web site of a Sunni insurgent group that said it had kidnapped the men to avenge the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by members of Iraq's Shiite-dominated police force. The Islamic State of Iraq said on its site that it had demanded Thursday that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hand over the accused policemen and free all female prisoners within 24 hours.
On Friday, officials found the bodies of 14 policemen in Diyala province east of Baghdad. All had been shot in the head. "The government did not give any importance to their blood," the Islamic State of Iraq said. A government official said he doubted the dead were the men in the photos.
More than two weeks into a new Baghdad security plan, Sunni insurgents are asserting responsibility for an increasing number of violent attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces and civilian targets, while Shiite militias are lowering their profile.
In recent months, al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni groups have begun to use more sophisticated tactics, downing U.S. helicopters and staging large attacks that have claimed the lives of hundreds of Iraqi civilians.
Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army, the largest and most violent Shiite militia, headed by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has faded from neighborhoods it once visibly controlled. Sadr, whose forces have fiercely battled U.S. troops, appears to be cooperating with the security plan, although a statement attributed to him and released Sunday warned that the plan "will not be good if it is controlled and ruled by our enemies, the occupiers."
Mahdi Army militiamen "have certainly reduced their activities in the past couple of weeks," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a U.S. military spokesman. "What is their long-term intention? It is absolutely too early to tell."
The total number of attacks has fallen since mid-February, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. But the resurgence of Sunni militants may represent a change in the dynamics of violence in the capital.
After the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and the killing of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, Shiite militias were blamed for many of the atrocities. U.S. officials viewed them as a bigger threat than Sunni insurgents. Dismantling the power of the Shiite militias became a primary goal of the current security plan.
Sunni insurgents say they have downed at least six U.S. helicopters since Jan. 20. Since the Feb. 14 launch of the security plan, the largest attacks, purportedly by al-Qaeda in Iraq or other Sunni insurgents, have targeted Shiite-controlled areas or U.S. troops. More at link
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/03/2007 12:48 ||
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According to a new book by ABC News reporters: In October 2001, the fires were still burning at Ground Zero when New York City was faced with the threat of a nuclear bomb planted inside the city, a threat so dire that no city official, including the mayor, was informed of it by the secret team assigned to prevent the device from going off.
Some details of the still-classified incident have crept out over time, but until now it never has been reported that a handful of senior New York City Police Department bomb technicians, including at least one grandfather, had volunteered to disarm the device.
They did so knowing they would likely die trying because even if the bomb did not go off, radiation poisoning could kill them.
"We figured someone might say no," now-retired Inspector Charlie Wells told ABC News reporter Richard Esposito, according to "Bomb Squad: A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit," a new book by Esposito and ABC News Nightline producer Ted Gerstein. "I mean, you couldn't really order a guy," Wells added.
But no one took a step back.
Bomb Squad Lieutenant Jerry Sheehan, Detective First Grade Kevin Barry, Detective First Grade Joe Putkowski and Detective First Grade Dennis Mulchahy all volunteered, according to the book's authors. None will speak of the incident.
At the time they volunteered, the CIA had a source with what appeared to be firsthand information that al Qaeda had procured or had made a nuclear device, and that device either was already in place or on its way to New York or the Capitol.
The incident was one of two nuclear scares the nation faced that month. The first was quickly made public and discounted as a rumor. This second threat -- to New York and Washington, D.C. -- was kept so secret that in New York City only one police inspector and one police lieutenant were informed by federal officials of the details of the plot, according to the officials involved in the plan to disarm the device.
"The bottom line was 99.9 percent of the federal team wasn't going to make it here," Wells recalled. "At best, that team would be several hours away, and hey, if they had to choose between Washington and New York..." His voice trailed off.
#1
Even though the rumored nuke appears to be unfounded, it's good to see people were willing to step up. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was alot of uncertainty, yet these guys volunteered. Good on them
#2
That's the kind of thing that just terrifies our enemies, foreign and domestic; the idea that we might actually take the gloves off and fight them with all we've got. They don't want any part of facing a united nation that has men like these guys defending it.
Posted by: mac ||
03/03/2007 9:00 Comments ||
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#5
This must have been a threat from a 'radiological' bomb, i.e. a quantity of highly radioactive material dispersed by a conventional explosive.
Real fission/fusion bombs aren't particulary radioactive; that would not be a danger to the technician. Also, a real nuke would be quite difficult to defeat - just 'cut the red wire' isn't going to do it.
'Radiological' bombs should not be called 'nuclear' bombs.
#10
Cutting it in half with one of those gasoline powered Diamond blade cement saws sounds like a very workable solution, there'd be radioactive dust all around, but no "Boom"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 11:56 Comments ||
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#11
When it comes to bomb disposal, I am a huge fan of liquid nitrogen. There are darn few explosives, detonators and timers that can handle being plunged to over -300 degrees Fahrenheit and still work.
#12
Moose - that sounds ingenious. Is that a common practice? Just curious
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 12:21 Comments ||
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#13
I know next to nothing about nukes, but wouldn't it be fairly easy to just peel off or pull the wires on the lens system? Its basically made of something like plastic explosive right? Assuming that you can get to the nuke. I don't know what kind of case those things are in.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
03/03/2007 12:21 Comments ||
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#14
If you're really interested in the disposal of nuclear devices, find a copy of the Heinlein short story "The Long Watch". The story may be dated, but the ease of rendering them unable to detonate -- and the fate of the person doing that -- is the same.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/03/2007 12:26 Comments ||
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#15
I wonder if any Bill Mahers' or David Lettermans' out there in the Big Apple would have volunteered to save their city, their mansions, their way of life?
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
03/03/2007 13:15 Comments ||
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#16
I just recently watched that movie with Nicole Kidman and George Clooney with the nuke in NYC. Peacemaker I think was the name of the movie.
Yes God bless these guys. Reminds me of Michael Monsoor.
Another thread had me feeling pretty negative, thanks for restoring my faith, listing the strong caliber of Americans will.
Posted by: Jan ||
03/03/2007 13:43 Comments ||
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#15 Jack - Now, you don't really wonder that, do you?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2007 14:17 Comments ||
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Even cutting into U235 or P239 isn't tremendously hazardous. They aren't very radioactive, and a good dust mask and a coverall should be adequate. Besides, you should be able to disable the nuke without cutting into fissile material.
#19
"We figured someone might say no," now-retired Inspector Charlie Wells told ABC News reporter Richard Esposito, . . . . "I mean, you couldn't really order a guy," Wells added.
But no one took a step back.
Bomb Squad Lieutenant Jerry Sheehan, Detective First Grade Kevin Barry, Detective First Grade Joe Putkowski and Detective First Grade Dennis Mulchahy all volunteered
Gentlemen, thank you.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/03/2007 14:39 Comments ||
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#20
Frank G: I Googled several mentions of it, even that there is a bomb disposal robot with a cryogenic attachment.
Though as a rule, EOD personnel are very taciturn, they are also very pragmatic in how they do things.
If the suspected device is small, they try to blow it in place. Larger devices with fragmentation they try to put in a "wicker basket". No idea about mostly incendiary devices, maybe submerge in water, maybe freeze. But if there is a lot of electronics, they will often try to freeze it.
It just seems to me that you can't go wrong with freezing with nitrogen. If it doesn't outright stop the reaction, it will seriously slow it down, and being an inert gas it also inhibits sparks.
The United States is the only country in the world that can restrain Iran and North Korea, and it should do what is necessary no matter what the world thinks, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Thursday. "If we can't persuade them [other countries], that's just too damn bad," Bolton said, drawing a standing ovation.
Bolton said the U.S. should work to convince other nations of the importance of securing the world against dangerous states. But at the same time, America cannot allow itself to be immobilized if others fail to appreciate contemporary challenges, Bolton told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.
At a time when the Iranians have been "thumbing their noses" at the Europeans over the nuclear issue, the U.S. must keep the military option on the table, Bolton said. "I do take President Bush to be a man of his word, and when he says it is unacceptable for Iran to have nukes, what he means is that it is unacceptable," Bolton said.
He also expressed a desire to see the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang "eliminated" and the Korean peninsula united in freedom.
At a time when the Bush administration's policies are under siege, he said, conservatives must be mindful of attempts underway to "dispirit" them ahead of the 2008 election cycle, Bolton said.
#1
The United States is the only country in the world that can restrain Iran and North Korea, and it should do what is necessary no matter what the world thinks
Too bad where're too few men like this in public life.
#2
The United States is the only country in the world that can restrain Iran and North Korea, and it should do what is necessary no matter what the world thinks
He is 100% correct in his Jacksonianism as the end of that sentence but incorrect about his assessment of the rest of the world in the first bit. If they only had the will, there are a number of countries that could restrain Iran and North Korea. But of course we know once great democracies have no stomach for a fight.
#5
Russia made the mess in NK, and the US has been there, half done it, got 54,000 deaths... Could the US not get Russia to do it, seems Russia just swept NK under the carpet. Chinas looking powerful maybe it could sort out it's Ally, jees the US don't wanna do all the work!
Read the article about Norway rape increases (yesterday I think) and it mentioned in the comments how Europe has been made into feminism capital. Remember the armies of WW1, GB had an army of 700,000+ men, today with a much bigger population we only have 120,000 men. The British public would be up in arms about conscription. So, the US will have to tread very carefully not to upset its public greatly, cos it could kill democracy. I believe the democracies will have to walk a fine line to make this all pan out
Maybe it was his desire to stand and stretch in the airplane. Maybe it was the gruesome images of torture he watched on his laptop that caught attention.
Something about Iyad Abuhajjaj's behavior on a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Tampa on Wednesday afternoon concerned airline officials enough to call police. Police have not accused Abuhajjaj, 36, of any wrongdoing on the plane, but a search of his name revealed an Okaloosa County warrant for his arrest. On Thursday, the Palestinian health care worker and actor who lives in California was held without bail in the Hillsborough County jail. Deputies say Abuhajjaj met a Florida woman online in 2002, threatened her and used her AOL account without permission.
In a jail interview, he told a reporter he suspected he was singled out on the plane because of his thick accent, dark hair and olive skin. "I felt like it was because of my ethnic background," he said. "The accent, that's probably it. It could be my look, my accent, I can't say for sure." Or maybe it could be:
He said he needed a break from his job with a mental health organization. In the plane, he flipped open his laptop to watch scenes from a movie he's filming with Stanford University students. Called The Strange Case of Salman abd al Haqq, the film deals with the arrest and interrogation of terrorism suspects. Abuhajjaj plays an Egyptian secret service officer, said Jeff Orolowski, the film's co-director and a Stanford senior. Some scenes show violent and bloody torture of prisoners, Orolowski said. Characters speak in English and Arabic.
Abuhajjaj wondered if passengers or crew members saw the footage. "Maybe somebody saw the scenes and thought it was real," he said. Then, he got up to use the restroom and started to stretch. A flight attendant asked him to sit down, while another passenger continued to stand up, he said. Frustrated, Abuhajjaj asked the flight attendants for names of their supervisors. When he got off the plane, he was detained by airport police, who questioned him. A police report says only that he was "a suspicious person," and that "Southwest personnel advised that the passenger's behavior changed during the flight."
When a computer search showed the warrant, Abuhajjaj was taken to jail on charges stemming from accusations made against him in 2002 by a woman in Fort Walton Beach. Kimberly M. Mathis, a 29-year-old teacher at Rocky Bayou Christian School, accused him of threatening to kill her and misusing her family's Internet account. Mathis could not be reached for comment, but her father, Ron Mathis, said he distrusted Abuhajjaj because he is a Palestinian. "I won't go into the arena of judging anybody, but he himself I took as a threat to my daughter, my family and any American, living, breathing person," Mathis said.
#2
Ron Mathis, said he distrusted Abuhajjaj because he is a Palestinian. "I won't go into the arena of judging anybody, but he himself I took as a threat to my daughter, my family and any American, living, breathing person," Mathis said.
#3
Welcome Abu to Disney's Detainees of the Caribbean.
Posted by: ed ||
03/03/2007 6:52 Comments ||
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#4
from Emily's link: Translator Abuhajjaj said that many times he was forced to dress like a woman to get through checkpoints to attend school.
so he's another cross-dressing Paleo. Do we need him here? Dress him up in something slinky and Israeli-blue by Armani and send him back. Interesting to hear the status of his visa with this criminal complaint against him....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 8:30 Comments ||
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#5
from Sea's link
"Bessiso said U.S. media only gives America half the news, and makes Americans comfortable with Israeli policy, despite its tendency to take much and give less.
Yeah, cause everybody knows that Pallies have given more in the peace process than the Israelis have. Like, they've given...hey wait...what HAVE the Pallies given? Oh yeah, martyrs. But that's really "Indian giving", isn't it, cause they take back in heaven what they've given on earth. Plus they're really taking more than giving when they are suicide martyrs, cause so often they take away the lives of many other of God's creations in their martyrdom operations. So what is it they've given again?
A 21-member peace committee from the Mehsud tribe met senior commanders of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan on Friday to discuss the four points the government wanted to take up with a Taliban leader, Senator Saleh Shah said.
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal senator from South Waziristan said the peace committee returned from the meeting with Maulana Noor Syed, Mufti Noor Wali and Maulana Azmatullah since Baitullah Mehsud himself did not turn up. The committee members discussed the presence of foreign nationals in the area, the damages to state property, the maintenance of order and cross-border movement, Senator Shah told Daily Times.
A senior government official said the government had asked that these issues be addressed by Baitullah. Asked why Baitullah did not meet the peace committee members, Senator Shah said he was busy and could not reach the meeting point. Baitullahs senior commanders told the peace committee that the government should pin point where they suspected foreign nationals were living. We do not host foreigners, they said. We should not be blamed for cross-border insurgency by others because the same tribes people live on both sides of the border, the commanders said when accused of violating the September 5 peace accord with militants in North Waziristan.
The meeting was the second such meeting between government representatives and pro-Taliban commanders in the past 30 days .
Senator Shah said the committee members would meet senior administration officials of South Waziristan before calling on the NWFP governor, Ali Jan Aurakzai, who warned Baitullah Mehsud against attacks on state installations, sheltering foreign terrorists and crossing the border into Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday he will reshuffle his Cabinet within two weeks and pursue criminal charges against political figures linked to extremists as a sign of his government's resolve to restore stability during the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad. Al-Maliki has been under pressure from the U.S. to bring order into his factious government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds since it took office last May. Rumors of Cabinet changes have surfaced before, only to disappear because of pressure from coalition members seeking to keep power.
U.S. officials had been urging al-Maliki to cut his ties to al-Sadr and form a new alliance of mainstream Shiites, moderate Sunnis and Kurds. Al-Maliki had been stalling, presumably at the urging of the powerful Shiite clerical hierarchy that wants to maintain Shiite unity. But pressure for change has mounted since President Bush ordered 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq in January.
Five senior Iraqis - two of them generals and three from Shiite and Sunni parties - have told the AP that up to 100 prominent figures could face legal proceedings. The five spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the subject to the media. All five had direct knowledge of the case review.
After the changes are announced, al-Maliki said he would undertake a "change in the ministerial structure," presumably consolidating and streamlining the 39-member Cabinet. The prime minister did not say how many Cabinet members would be replaced. But some officials said about nine would lose their jobs, including all six Cabinet members loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an al-Maliki ally. Al-Sadr also controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats, and his support for al-Maliki has been responsible for the government's reluctance to crack down on the cleric's Mahdi Army militia, blamed for much of the Shiite-Sunni slaughter of the past year.
U.S. officials have said privately that a number of prominent Iraqis were believed to have ties to armed groups. Additionally, U.S. military officials have expressed concern over alleged Iranian weapons shipments and financial support to Shiite parties allied with al-Maliki.
One Shiite parliament member, Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, is believed to have fled to Iran after U.S. authorities learned that he was convicted by a Kuwaiti court in absentia and sentenced to death in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait. Mohammed fled Kuwait for Iran before he could be arrested and returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. U.S. officials have alleged he was a conduit for Iranian weapons and supplies smuggled to Shiite militias.
#1
When GWBush said Maliki was the right man, I thought he was being polite. It looks like Maliki may be tougher and smarter than anyone thought and may pull this thing out.
MUNTHERIA BORDER CROSSING, Iraq - Mud roads crisscross green hills between palm groves. Snowcapped mountains rise in the distance across the Iranian border. Donkeys stroll along footpaths, carrying the region's harvest land mines.
Risking their lives, Iraqi shepherds are increasingly venturing into these deadly fields to dig up mines planted during the
Iran-Iraq war two decades ago, according to U.S. soldiers, who say insurgents then use the mines to fashion roadside bombs that kill American troops.
With Iraq's economy still struggling, shepherds need the money. And the insurgents are looking for more sources of weapons and explosives as the war enters its fifth year. "They're going out there and farming them," said Capt. Jesse Stewart of Seattle, Wash., who runs a training school for Iraqi border guards at this border station 90 miles northeast of Baghdad. "Shepherds are digging them up and selling them on the black market."
Old Iran-Iraq war era land mines were used in about 15 percent of the roadside bombs that exploded or were detected in northern Iraq during January, according to Navy Lt. Sarah Wilson, an explosives officer based in Tikrit. Many of them were believed to have come from this border area.
The vast majority of harvested mines reach their insurgent buyers undetected. In November, U.S. troops confiscated 53 anti-tank mines and a rocket strapped to the backs of six donkeys found wandering on a footpath outside Khanaqin, about five miles from Iran. The mines were older Soviet and Italian models of the same type Saddam Hussein's army used along this border during the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. military said.
And there's plenty more where that came from.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines estimates that Saddam ordered between 12 and 16 million mines planted along the border with Iran during the war. A U.N. project cleared less than 10,000 mines between 1998 and 2002 before work was halted.
Attention has been focused on the porous, 900-mile border because U.S. military officials allege that Iranian weapons, including advanced roadside bombs, are being smuggled to Shiite extremists here. Iran has denied the allegation, but U.S. officials insist they have compelling evidence that components for "explosively formed projectiles" were manufactured in Iran. American officials say the EPFs account for a relatively small percentage of the roadside bombs used in Iraq but have still killed more than 170 U.S. and coalition soldiers since mid-2004.
Despite the recent spotlight on Iran, U.S. officials say the majority of weapons used by Sunni and Shiite extremists have been in this country for years and were looted from Iraqi military arsenals after the fall of Saddam in April 2003. About 30 percent of the insurgent weapons found here in Diyala province date back to the Iran-Iraq war, said Maj. Suzanne MacDonald, an intelligence officer with the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Brigade.
They include not only mines planted along the Iranian border but also weapons caches buried by the Iraqi military decades ago in a labyrinth of clay dunes and stone outcroppings, said MacDonald, 38, from Georgetown, Texas.
"Terrorists go and collect those weapons land mines and mortars that are left from the Iran-Iraq war," said Gen. Nazim Shareef Muhamed, a former Kurdish guerrilla fighter who heads the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement in Khanaqin.
It is easier for locals, who have farmed this difficult terrain for generations, to find the buried weaponry, said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq.
They "don't need night vision technology" to locate it, Mixon said. The Iraqis then presumably remove the detonators before transporting the mines for sale to insurgents. Those recycled weapons have been used against U.S. and Iraqi forces across a wide area of eastern Iraq.
"In Balad Ruz, we got hit by 18 anti-tank mines that I'm 100 percent sure came from right here," Stewart said, referring to a town about 60 miles to the south.
The Red Cross said in 2001 that an average of 30 Iraqis per month were injured by land mines and unexploded ordnance in this region. But surveys have been impossible since then and many injuries are believed to go unreported. An Iraqi border guard lost his leg last year in an explosion from a land mine here.
U.S. officers believe economics is responsible for an increase in the harvesting of old mines and weapons although they did not know how much an anti-tank or anti-personnel mine can fetch on the black market. And with Iraq's economy faltering and unemployment in some areas as high as 60 percent, Iraqis who have no direct role in the insurgency are turning to small-scale arms deals for their livelihood.
"If you're working either for the bad guys or just to feed your family, you've just found a couple dollars that might take care of your family for the week if you sell it," said Wilson, the Navy lieutenant in Tikrit.
Human Rights Watch estimates than nearly 150,000 Iraqi families or about 900,000 people live in communities near mine fields. The area is mostly Kurdish but has substantial numbers of Arabs. "Most folks here don't think there will be success in the Iraqi government," MacDonald said. "The less optimism they have for the future, the more they think of themselves and their clan or hometown."
Anti-tank mines are the safest to collect because they are not as sensitive as anti-personnel mines and are less likely to explode during harvesting, said Wilson, from Moon Township, Pa.
And, she added, "They're the easiest thing for the enemy to use against us, because they're already manufactured. It's simple: Drop and go."
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/03/2007 15:52 ||
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#1
with Iraq's economy faltering and unemployment in some areas as high as 60 percent, Iraqis who have no direct role in the insurgency are turning to small-scale arms deals for their livelihood
I call BS - there's no doubt that the economy has strengthened and broadened in the last years since the war. Typical spin in an otherwise good article
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 16:11 Comments ||
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - It costs just over $2 a day to feed a donkey, and 20 times that to fill a gas tank. With more and more young entrepreneurs in cash-strapped Gaza doing the math, donkey carts are everywhere. They carry old tires, fresh strawberries, giggling children and the occasional missile parts for militants. Gaza Delivery Service hauls ass for you!
Hassan al-Rifi, 20, couldn't afford college. So after high school, he bought a donkey cart for $700 and is now selling vegetables near Gaza City. "It doesn't make much money, but it keeps your head above water," he said. "This way, I can pay for make-up for my goat."
Nabil, 22, has sold vegetables on a donkey cart since he was 11. Increasing poverty means people are buying less, and new guys like al-Rifi are driving down prices, Nabil complained.
"I haven't sold anything today," said Nabil, who asked not to give his last name not much prestige comes with his job. "I have to reduce my price, even if I don't make a profit."
There are about 5,000 donkeys in Gaza and about 25 more are brought in each month from Israel, according to an official involved in licensing carts. The animals sell for $140 to $700 each. The good-looking ones get the big bucks.
Khader Hijeh, a farmer in his 80s, said he's seen an increase in donkey cart salesmen. Gathering grass for his ragged-looking donkey in a field south of Gaza City, he said most newcomers to the business could not get permits to work in Israel.
Al-Rifi hopes for another job. "A donkey can live for 24 years, but I hope I won't stay on it for that long," he said.
A woman's worth is in her dowry, money bridegrooms lavish on their fiancee's family before the wedding. Faced with the tough economic times, more and more men are delaying marriage, according to the women who run Gaza's bridal shops.
The average marrying age for a man in Gaza was 24 in 2005, the last time statistics were published. Now, said 27-year-old Rima Ayish, a saleswoman at a Gaza City bridal shop, some men are pushing 30 before marrying because they can't afford a dowry. Life sucks when you live in the paleolithic age.
Muslim men are expected to hand over the money to the bride's family as a sign of extortion esteem, from $2,100 to $4,200 a terrorist policeman's annual salary. Most Gazans scrape by on less than $2 a day.
Ayish said women and their families, who close marriage deals consider it a humiliation to accept less than the social norm. "A bride's worth is her dowry," she said, as she sewed the buttons on a puffy, embroidered wedding dress.
Working women demand the most: $4,200 is the starting price because they will contribute to the family income. Marrying cousins a common practice costs less because "relatives don't demand much," Ayish said. Those women are lucky if their family gets $2,100. Working woman=good investment!
It's still beyond the means of Abed Abu Yehia, who's 28 and unemployed. So far, five women and their families spurned him because he couldn't afford a dowry.
"I've sworn not to marry," he sighed.
When women in the Jebaliya refugee camp, a fiercely backward Islamic stronghold, want to look pretty, they point to sultry Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe even if she is known for her exposed cleavage, while they wear the neck-to-toe robes of devout Muslim woman. "Make me look sexy under this thick all-covering wool, please"
"The girls ask for makeup like Haifa," said Ubayda Abu Zeid, who runs a beauty salon in a Jebaliya alleyway, referring to the singer's trademark smoky eyes and full pout. "Even if it will make her look ugly." They want to look HOT so they can get a worthy paleo hubby, like someone with 4 donkey carts. A paleo Donald Trump!
Most Gazans have never visited Lebanon, but scantily dressed Lebanese entertainers, beamed over satellite television, are Arab beauty standard-bearers. They are imitated everywhere from Gaza's plush salons, to tiny hairdressing shops in refugee camps. Gaza has plush salons?
Hairdresser Suzanna Ashi, at Sandra's Salon in Gaza City, said Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram is another beauty idol. Ajram openly acknowledged she underwent plastic surgery leading many other Lebanese entertainers to confess they'd also been under the knife.
But striving to imitate women who owe their looks to surgeons has also prompted some here to suffer anxiety. "The men point at the TV and say, 'That's a woman,'" Ashi said. "Women complain about it all the time. Their husbands want them to look like women who aren't real." Farking mohammedean men. So sexually frustrated. Cover up! Look hot! Cover up! Look hot!
In Gaza, where unemployment is rampant, there's one profession that always has an opening: spokesmen for militant groups. "Due to the untimely deaths of our last 3 spokesman, we need a new one".
Because they are Israeli targets, they often wear ski masks when meeting the media, muffling their voices. Not because they are about to go on a ski trip?
The spokesmen all have noms de guerre starting with "Abu," Arabic for father. There's Abu Obeida, Abu Qussay, Abu Mujahid, Abu Abir and many others. So this is where the whole "Who is your Daddy" thing began.
They quickly master the art of text messaging the group's news. But when they hold news conferences, the venue is most likely a sidewalk to ensure a quick getaway. Listening for the chop-chop-chop of Israeli Apaches.
Gunmen flank the spokesman, trying to look tough. He may be wanted by Israel, but the tableau seems mainly arranged for the cameras. Ya mean it is staged?? Who knew?
If a militant group has enough money, it appoints both a military and a political spokesman. I bet there is less 'turnover' for the political spokesperson.
It was thus a turning point last week for a small, but violent and high-profile group, the Popular Resistance Committees, which has blown up Israeli tanks and was involved in the capture of an Israeli soldier last summer. "We made it big time!"
The spokesman, Abu Mujahid, barely out of his teens, announced at a sidewalk news conference that the group had a new spokesman, Abu Sharif, to speak on military matters. "Me! ME!! LOOK AT ME!"
Abu Sharif wore a ski mask, but was clearly inexperienced with the mask. His hands shook as he haltingly read from a crumpled paper. He didn't look at the cameras and left without giving out his cell phone number. Did he leave on a donkey cart?
#1
Not Snark, we did away with horses in large part because of the Horseshit in the streets causing a huge health problem, especialy when it rained and all that raw manure washed across lawns, Livestock in the streets (In great number) equals plague. tetnus, etc the automobile was simply the right idea at the right time, one reason electric streetcars were also widely popular, previous streetcars were horsedrawn.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 20:05 Comments ||
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#2
The good-looking ones get the big bucks.
Oh please! not like you'll see her face!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 22:28 Comments ||
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Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa call in Cairo Friday for holding an international peace conference on the Palestine issue, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.
Moussa voiced the call in a meeting with European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who arrived in Cairo Thursday for a two-day visit to Egypt, ending a four-leg tour that also took her to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.
During the talks, the AL chief highlighted the importance of holding an international peace conference on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab lands, MENA said.
This must be done in accordance with a pre-set timetable, Moussa was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, AL spokesman Alaa Roshdi noted after the Moussa- Waldner meeting that the European commissioner briefed the AL chief on the outcome of her talks in the region.
The two sides discussed Palestinian developments, following the Mecca agreement on formation of a national unity government between the two rival mainstream movements of Hamas and Fatah, Roshdi said, adding that Moussa pressed for lifting the unjust siege imposed on the Palestinian people once a national unity government was formed.
The talks also focused the files of Iraq, Darfur and Somalia as well as the Middle East nuclear dossier.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
why do I always feel dread when the arabs want a "peace conference" with Israel?
#2
Moussa voiced the call in a meeting with European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who arrived in Cairo Thursday for a two-day visit to Egypt, ending a four-leg tour that also took her to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories
sounds like a Bukkake video in the making
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 10:09 Comments ||
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Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) decided to participate in the Palestinian national unity government, Source at the Front announced Thursday. "This decision is taken in the framework of joining all Palestinian factions and forces gathered efforts to lift the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and in order to solid the Palestinian position and form a resisting stance to face the foreign pressures," the Source added in a statement.
Has PFLP-GC done anything in the past 20 years outside of Lebanon? It's a Syrian puppet organization, headed by Ahmed Jibril, a former Syrian officer.
This article starring:
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command
When looking at the multitude of insurgent problems in the Philippines, one tends to overlook the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which signed a peace agreement with the Philippine government in 1996 establishing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for five provinces. MNLF founder Nur Misuari led the ARMM from 1996-2001, but became frustrated with Manila's non-implementation of key parts of the agreement and with its interference in MNLF politics. In response, he staged an uprising in November 2001. While some supporters picked up arms in Sulu province, the MNLF leadership was able to prevent a widespread revolt. Misuari fled to Malaysia where he was detained. Arrested in the Philippines, he was never put on trial and today he remains under house arrest. The MNLF is woefully divided between the Isnaji, Islamic Command Council, Executive Council of 15 and the pro-Misuari factions. September 2, 2006 saw the 10th anniversary of the accord, and yet the MNLF continue to have many legitimate grievances. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) failed to implement entire sections of the agreement, starved the region of promised financial resources and wantonly interfered in its politics. There has been no true autonomy, making emotions in Mindanao and Sulu very raw.
The MNLF lobbied the government to attend a tripartite meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in February. The meeting, which was to be attended by the MNLF, GRP and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Would you call that an unbiased organization?
was supposed to be an opportunity for the MNLF in an international setting to categorically list all of the government's breaches of the agreement in an attempt to recommit the GRP to the peace effort. Translation: Come meet with two islamic organization where we will tell you everything you are doing wrong....
The GRP announced that it would not attend and has tried to buy time by calling on the MNLF to wait until the GRP concludes a separate peace agreement with the rival Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). If completed, the GRP-MILF accord will lead to the dissolutions of the 1996 agreement and the ARMM government and the drafting of a new organic charter in an inclusive process that will include the MILF, MNLF, civil society and traditional elites (The Jakarta Post, February 23). from 1996 - 2006? Sounds like the 10-year limitation on any islamic peace agreement is past....
The MNLF was upset over the agreement and saw the unwillingness of the government to go to Jeddah as another sign of its treachery.
In February, Under Secretary of the Presidential Advisor for the Peace Process General Ramon Santos and Brigadier General Ben Dolorfino (himself a Muslim convert) were not allowed to leave an MNLF camp for two days. Held Captive....
MNLF commander Ustadz Habier Malik refused to let the two leave until the GRP agreed to attend the tripartite talks (Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 6). Some P450,000 (US$10,000) was paid to secure their release. for ransom. Proving the MNLF is a peaceful government organization dedicated to peace...
MNLF armed camps have been emerging in the past year on Jolo Island, and the training of new members has continued. On top of that, some MNLF sub commanders have been providing sanctuary and support for members of the Abu Sayyaf Group, to whom they are bound by kinship and clan ties. In a region awash with small arms, there is palpable concern that the MNLF may quit the peace process entirely. Indeed, they feel morally justified in doing so. Of course muslims always feel justified to do anything for some trumpted up 'offense'....
While bracing for cease-fire violations, few within the Philippine military believe that the MNLF could sustain an insurrection over a long period of time.
Both the GRP and MILF were taken aback as they assumed that the MNLF would give its full support to the agreement, which in its current draft form gives more to the Moro, including the legal right to secede in 2030. The MNLF, while stating that they "supported the peace process of their Muslim brothers," made clear that the agreement could not come at the expense of, nor supersede, the 1996 "Final Peace Agreement." The MNLF's genuine unwillingness to work with the MILF is based on the false perception that they are still the vanguard revolutionary force of the Moro people. The MILF, for their part, see the MNLF as corrupt sell-outs. MNLF members have told this analyst that they doubted that the two organizations could ever really share power. It need not be zero-sum as the two organizations have a fairly clear demarcation in terms of ethnicity and territory.
The head of the GRP's peace panel, Jesus Dureza, said that the hostage incident has "eroded" the government's confidence in the MNLF. Gee... I can't imagine why. They are acting like any other Islamic Terrorist organization....
While the government has agreed to attend the tripartite meeting in May, it is expected to yield little and has shifted the onus to the MNLF, which is unable to determine factional representation and whether Nur Misuari should lead the delegation
#1
Another example of a peace process that's only about the process rather than the peace. The Pinoys have been killing and capturing a number of JI and Abu Sayyaf members lately, disrupting their home bases and making them scurry like rats. MNLF can now seethe, pout, and play bad cop. I imagine they may offer a phony hudna any day now...
#2
but became frustrated with Manila's non-implementation of key parts of the agreement and with its interference in MNLF politics. In response, he staged an uprising in November 2001
Revisionist bullshit! Nur was voted out of power by the Pinoy muzzies of the ARMM and he refused to give power to Parouk Hussain, who won the election. His loyalists took women and kids hostage after they faild to win the gun battles. They said they would let the christian women and kids starve and a christian woman named Joy crossed the lines and fed the hostages, paid for out of pocket BTW. Nur and his idiots were given safe passage for the release of the hostages. He was later captured and arrested.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/03/2007 7:38 Comments ||
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The United States, four European powers and China have agreed on the framework for a new UN resolution toughening sanctions on Iran, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Friday. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are fully in agreement on the framework of a new resolution, said Douste-Blazy.
The breakthrough came during a telephone conference call held Thursday between political directors from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. Washington reported progress during the two-hour talks, with US officials saying that another conference call was scheduled for Saturday and that work on the draft text could begin next week. The foreign minister said that the new resolution would be drafted under the terms of article 41 of the UN charter which authorises the Security Council to take all necessary measures, except military ones, to enforce its resolutions. The political directors also discussed the broad outlines of the contents of the new resolution, said the minister.
The UN Security Council slapped sanctions on Iran in December, including a ban on the sale of nuclear-related materials to the Islamic Republic and a freeze on financial assets of Iranians involved in illicit atomic research. The push for the new resolution came after a report from the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, last week which said that Iran had not halted, but in fact was expanding, its uranium enrichment programme. The United States and some other western powers believe Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. Iran however has denied seeking nuclear weapons, and asserts it has a right to a peaceful nuclear programme.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
Obviously a "Topping Out" Ceremony, All the steelworkers and their families are there.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 10:04 Comments ||
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#3
RJ - correct - note the Topping-Out tree - traditional for steel workers
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 10:48 Comments ||
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#4
Sdaly, this UN "framework" will not produce anything as stable or sensible as a barn. And even if it did, all the doors to the horse's stalls will be welded in the open position.
#6
You think Mohawks wear loincloths and strip haircuts at work? like hell they do, one red-hot rivet slightly astray and the denims and hard hats go on immediately.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/03/2007 12:07 Comments ||
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#7
Looks more like an Amish barn-raising to me, and far more productive than anything the UN can do, about anything. Iran must own Russia a LOT, for them to "agree" to anything the US and Western Europe come up with. I don't know what China's reasons are.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/03/2007 13:57 Comments ||
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#8
Sorry OP - this can't be an Amish barn raising. No Amish would allow themselves to be photographed and they look like they are posing to me. Graven images you know. . . .
As an aside, no tree is attached to the top of an Amish structure like other timberframers/steelworkers do.
A Minneapolis police lieutenant faces an internal investigation into recent comments that fellow officers say implied that U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison is a terrorist.
The comments allegedly were made during a required police ethics training class this week by Lt. Bob Kroll, according to Mayor R.T. Rybak. In a highly unusual move, Chief Tim Dolan sent an e-mail to all employees saying the comments were unacceptable and unflattering to the department. Dolan also issued a public apology to Ellison, a Democrat from Minneapolis and the first Muslim elected to Congress.
Kroll, an officer with Minneapolis for 18 years and vice president of the Police Federation, denied Thursday that he called Ellison a terrorist or that he even mentioned him by name during the class. Kroll will remain on duty during the internal investigation.
He said he'd be "a little smarter than that" -- than to make such comments with his boss and the deputy chief of professional standards in the room.
Rybak said the comments are "shockingly ignorant" if it's true Kroll made them.
On Thursday, Ellison said: "The alleged comments don't reflect the diversity of our city, or the warm embracing attitudes of those who live in the Fifth District. I'm grateful to Mayor Rybak and Chief Dolan for setting the right tone. The alleged comments don't reflect the Minneapolis Police Department, who I respect as well."
A political target
Since Ellison became a candidate for Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District last year, his religion has made him a target of accusations from political opponents. After Ellison was elected in November, a national talk show host asked him if he was working with "our enemies."
The exact comments that Kroll made while participating in the class were not spelled out by Dolan or Rybak. But two officers present at Tuesday's ethics training class, who spoke on condition that they not be named, said Kroll made a remark about "being at war with Islamic terrorists" and that "one was elected to Congress." When an officer angered by the comment asked if he was calling Ellison a terrorist, Kroll said, "He's Islamic and we are at war with the Islamic," the two officers said.
In his e-mail, Dolan also wrote that Kroll questioned the ethics of any city that would hire a city coordinator convicted of a misdemeanor crime. Kroll said he made a statement about Rybak's appointments but never mentioned a specific position. City Coordinator Steven Bosacker, who had a misdemeanor conviction of indecent conduct in 2000, declined to comment.
Said Kroll: "I think the chief has been given an inaccurate account. When the investigation is over, I'll be cleared of any wrongdoing."
Rybak said he was pleased that Dolan denounced the comments and demanded that the Police Federation "step up" and do the same.
"The Federation can't be silent at a critical time, because these ignorant comments do not reflect the values of this city," Rybak said.
Sgt. John Delmonico, president of the Police Federation, said the allegations are serious and it would be unacceptable for anyone, let alone a federation board member, to say them. He called Dolan's department-wide e-mail unprecedented, because the matter is under investigation.
In the e-mail, Dolan said it was appropriate that classmates challenged Kroll's comments. "As a department, we must keep ourselves accountable while adhering to high standards of respect in matters of diversity," he wrote. "The comment not only offends a U.S. representative duly elected by the citizens of Minnesota, but more importantly, it offends our own officers of Muslim faith."
In February, Kroll finished serving a 20-day suspension for his involvement in an off-duty fight. He said the suspension is being appealed.
Alleged incident last year
Council Member Ralph Remington said Thursday that he was not surprised to hear about Kroll's alleged comments.
"I am surprised, though, that he said it in such an open venue with so many people present, if this is true," he said.
Last year, Remington publicly accused Kroll and three other police union officials of intimidating him during a meeting at an Uptown restaurant. During the discussion about council oversight of police, Remington said the mood quickly turned intense and the officers' manner was "aggressive and meant to intimidate." The officers have denied the claim.
Ron Edwards, co-chair of the Police Community Relations Council, said the recently promoted lieutenant "has been out of control for a long time ... and he's been rewarded with promotions time and time again."
He concluded that "I seriously think he won't be punished."
Warner Bros. is developing a feature on the lives of Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the married couple drawn into a D.C. firestorm.
"The biggest element of the movie to us is the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government, and were then betrayed by that government."
Plame's status as a CIA agent was revealed by White House officials allegedly out to discredit her husband after he wrote a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece saying that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The film is a co-production between Weed Road's Akiva Goldsman and Jerry and Janet Zucker of Zucker Productions. Jerry and Janet Zucker, who got to know Plame and Wilson because all four are involved in stem cell politics, said that the fate of the book won't determine the fate of the film. "Almost everything that we need for the movie is available from print outlets, and obviously we haven't read the book yet because it hasn't been approved by the CIA," Jerry Zucker said. "Valerie has been incredibly careful with what she tells us, it's almost like she is still working for the CIA. The biggest element of the movie to us is the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government, and were then betrayed by that government." Gack.
#1
The biggest element of the movie to us is the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government, and were then betrayed by that government.
#2
The biggest element of the movie to us is the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government, and were then betrayed by that government.
#3
It sounds like they are going to spend money showing that if a CIA agent tries to push the Whitehouse around, the Whitehouse can push back. Maybe Cindy Sheehan, Joe Wilson, and Valerie Plame can go on the sob sister tour together.
#4
the movie is still predicated on teh storyline taht teh WH outed Plame - it was Armistead - no friend of the WH. They know it, we know it, yt the facts get in the way of "truthiness". Hope it costs a fortune to make and gets the widespread revenue take that Al Franken's docu-biopic got
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/03/2007 9:21 Comments ||
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#5
Thought this was a joke at first. Forgot about Hollywoodless's victim mentality towards Bush haters.
Personally I'm hoping for a movie about Cindy Sheehan. No matter how they did it the result would be a comedy.
#8
I see Hollyweird is still pushing the idea that if you tell a lie often enough, enough people will believe it to make it "true". What a piece of crap! Valerie was not in a "protected" position, her name was in the CIA directory (a public document), and she wasn't "outed". The entire Fitzgerald witch-hunt was a waste of government resources, and Fitzgerald should be sued to the hilt for wasting OUR money. As for Joe Wilson, he suffers from an extreme case of BDS, and it caught up with him. The pair are a POS, and the sooner they disappear from sight the better off we'll ALL be. I hope whoever is backing this loses a LARGE fortune. I suspect this whole idea is being banktrolled by George Soros.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/03/2007 13:38 Comments ||
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#9
I can hear the theme music now . . .
Plame!
My husband is Joe Wilson
I'm a super secret spy
Hi!
I'm gonna pose for some pictures
People will see me and cry:
"Plame!
I seen your picture in Esquire!"
Light up the sky like a flame
Plame!
I sent my husband to Niger
Baby remember my name
Plame!
Posted by: Mike ||
03/03/2007 16:23 Comments ||
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#10
I think it's already in production. Somebody posted some early dailies to the Internet, and you can see one here.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/03/2007 16:26 Comments ||
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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.
Pakistans reported capture of the former Taliban defence minister boosts its anti-terror credentials and delivers a setback to the insurgent movement, but is unlikely to curb another wave of militant violence this year, said analysts on Friday. 
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined on Friday to speculate on the prospects of the incoming normalization talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). "You recognize that this is the beginning of the implementation of the agreement of a couple of weeks ago," Rice said when she was asked what she expects to get out of the normalization talks. 
A 21-member peace committee from the Mehsud tribe met senior commanders of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan on Friday to discuss the four points the government wanted to take up with a Taliban leader, Senator Saleh Shah said.
Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa call in Cairo Friday for holding an international peace conference on the Palestine issue, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported. 
The United States, four European powers and China have agreed on the framework for a new UN resolution toughening sanctions on Iran, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Friday. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are fully in agreement on the framework of a new resolution, said Douste-Blazy.
Warner Bros. is developing a feature on the lives of Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the married couple drawn into a D.C. firestorm. 
