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A special anniversary
From the Corner:
While Americans whine about paper cuts and stubbed toes, it’s worth noting that today marks the 61st anniversary of the sinking of the USAT Dorchester, a troop transport ship attacked by a German U-boat as its convoy sailed to Greenland from Newfoundland. Some 672 men died that night, making it one of the worst U.S. maritime disasters ever. Amidst the horror that night, some humane and utterly selfless things happened. Such as the actions of the Escanaba and the Comanche, two US Coast Guard cutters whose captains defied regulations (requiring pursuit attacking submarines) and instead rescued nearly 230 men from the freezing Atlantic. And more noteworthy, of course, were the actions of the four Army chaplains sailing on the Dorchester -- Protestant ministers George L. Fox and Clark V. Poling, Catholic priest John P. Washington, and rabbi Alexander D. Goode -- who calmed the men as the ship sank, tended to the wounded, and handed out lifejackets. When all were gone, the chaplains gave theirs to four frightened men, and then, their fate certain, died preaching courage to the floating men. RIP.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends(John 15:13)."
Posted by: Christopher Johnson || 02/03/2004 7:58:23 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Amen.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/03/2004 20:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Thankz Christopher - truly an act unknown to Islam in its most abhorrent state
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2004 20:53 Comments || Top||

#3  I believe there was even a commemorative stamp issued by the US Post Office in regards to the 4 chaplains--who preached love and acceptance instead of the right wing crap Pat Robertson does
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 22:42 Comments || Top||


It's February 3rd...
It's February 3rd and we're not all dead. Guess al-Qaeda's just blowing a bit of smoke. We're still waiting for Binny's vid, where he's going to declare victory...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Plus it's my parents' anniversary! 37 great years and still going strong. In your face, turbans!
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/03/2004 0:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Hmmmmm.... you know, Hell looks a lot like Seattle.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 0:11 Comments || Top||

#3  It is Feb 3rd. Yes it's raining outside. I think Jimmi would just play on.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Monday nite and there's no football- yep, pretty sure this is hell. At least until after the All-star break.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/03/2004 0:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Flying home in a DH-3 Twin Otter on a moonlit night. Chugach mountains in moonlight. Just got home. Life is sweet. Any Jihadi interrupting such a beautiful evening ought to get a JDAM up his ass for disturbing the peace.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 1:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe they attacked the wrong country?
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 1:12 Comments || Top||

#7  Which calendar were they using? Muslim? Gregorian? Mayan?
Posted by: Rafael || 02/03/2004 1:59 Comments || Top||

#8  They are busy picking up the pieces from Haj.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/03/2004 7:33 Comments || Top||

#9  I am sure Binny was confused...not being too enlightened on American traditions,,,and it being Ground Hog's Day, he thought it was a celebration in his honor which surely would be capped off by some colossal calamity carried out in his name. Fat chance sheep dipper.
Posted by: TerrorHunter4Ever || 02/03/2004 8:10 Comments || Top||

#10  Don't claim victory just yet -- this Ricin/Senate thing popped up on Feb. 2 and we don't know the extent of it yet.
Posted by: Tom || 02/03/2004 8:48 Comments || Top||

#11  We didn't get nuked but we damn near had an eye poked out at half time. And, as we all know, it's only fun until someone loses an eye.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 9:04 Comments || Top||

#12  Then it's a sport, because there's a way of keeping score.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/03/2004 9:50 Comments || Top||

#13  Chuck, Are you saying that Benny unleashed Janets right Boob? Oh the horrors!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 9:54 Comments || Top||

#14  I'm sure the CIA sweeped the strip clubs in Texas and captured a bunch of Al Queda getting their last minute lap dances, then arranged a last minute boob counter-attack. Bin Laden hates boobies!
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/03/2004 10:15 Comments || Top||

#15  CrazyFool -- Jermaine is and Michael may be members of the Nation of Islam, so Janet's boob may have been a pointed islamic attack.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/03/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#16  Remember: when you bare your fake boob, you ride with bin Laden.
Posted by: BH || 02/03/2004 11:19 Comments || Top||

#17  Maybe they're making do with Ricin.
Posted by: Hiryu || 02/03/2004 12:21 Comments || Top||

#18  LOL,didn't think of that Tibor.Wonder if Farrakhan is having a stroke(hopa,hope).
Posted by: Raptor || 02/03/2004 13:56 Comments || Top||

#19  Wait, I thought they pushed it back to sometime in the next few weeks.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 14:15 Comments || Top||

#20  Maybe they did A.U2. But as recall I these threats have been made to occur during Ramadan, then over Christmas/New Years, then within 35 days of Dec 31 (2/2/) Now it's when? St. Paddy's day? Maybe we need to go back and look if AQ ever mentioned a year.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 14:56 Comments || Top||

#21  Maybe we need to go back and look if AQ ever mentioned a year.

Hell I think we need to check to see if they noted an astronomical Era.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:03 Comments || Top||

#22  Shipman, Thats it! They meant Feb 2nd in the 7th century! (i.e. their time).
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 15:49 Comments || Top||

#23  Folks, the date I've read on numerous jihadi sites is the 4th - tomorrow. Adjust for timezones and it's tonight. The end of the Hajj. Let's see what, besides sending letters via the US Mail, they manage to accomplish.

Just one more big hit, and it only takes one cell of morons to succeed, and we'll find out just how thick or thin the layer of lethargy in the US is. Kerry & Friends are depending upon it being deep. I believe (hope) they are dead wrong... I just wish we didn't have to have another hit to get off our collective ass and go Neanderthal.

They have made the situation clear, but many of our fellow Merkins are clueless, still. Someday the press will be held to account for why they did not shout the AlQ cookbook for killing us from the rooftops - with the same eagerness and thorough overkill that they've pandered the story of Janet Jackson's titty. Jeez, as if everyone hasn't already seen it.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 16:32 Comments || Top||

#24  They didn't announce 9/11 so I don't see why they would announce their next big event. They're just doing what they do best, terrorizing.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/03/2004 17:26 Comments || Top||

#25  TH4Ever has a point. On groundhog day in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan, if bin Laden emerges from his cave and sees his shadow, does that mean we only have six more weeks of jihad? That might explain Hilferty's recent comment re: being sure to capture him.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/03/2004 18:49 Comments || Top||

#26  Not at all Tibor--the Bush Administration just has to keep the terror alerts at a high level and do a few "scary flight cancellations" to make the sheeple vote Republican---no doubt in my mind that Dubya is going to win this year
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 22:51 Comments || Top||

#27  MNN, but you'd rather Kerry right, he is a war HERO. Married well also me thinks. Hey, Not Not, is Kerry a Kennedy demo or an independent demo. Is he for free stuff for the working class or is he a social libertarian, a man that wants good for the masses. Gender, racial, sexual orientation,..Just what is you point, manifesto.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/04/2004 0:39 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
’CHiPs’ inspires runaway car stop
It took some quick thinking, and maybe an old TV show, for two Denver cops to stop a runaway car. Twenty-year-old Angel Eck was driving her 1997 Pontiac Sunfire westbound on I-70 Friday night when the brakes failed and the accelerator stuck, sending her hurtling uncontrolled down the freeway. "It had a mind of its own," Eck told The Associated Press Sunday. The car "kept accelerating, and my foot wasn’t even down on the gas." Eck turned on her hazard lights and dodged other vehicles, including tractor-trailers and a van full of children, at speeds of up to 100 mph. Nothing she tried slowed the car down.

"I probably went off the road three times trying to get around traffic," Eck told TheDenverChannel. She tried calling the police, but her cell phone couldn’t get a signal. After 45 frantic minutes, she reached a friend, who called 911. Police cleared the freeway as Eck sped westwards. Meanwhile, officers Gary Ayers and Troy Bisgard decided to try something radical. They got their cruiser right in front of Eck’s car, then slowed down slightly so that she bumped them. It took miles, but both vehicles finally came to a peaceful stop.

Officer Kim Lovato said Ayers and Bisgard joked that they’d gotten their idea from an old episode of "CHiPs," the 1977-1983 television show about two motorcycle-riding California Highway Patrol officers. "Whenever they had a runaway car on ’CHiPs,’ this is exactly what Ponch and Jon would do," Lovato told TheDenverChannel. "One is brunette and one is blonde just like Ponch and Jon, and they did what they needed to do and it turned out just perfect."
Over 45 minutes of runaway driving with no brakes, and she never thought to put it in neutral? What are the chances of the accelerator sticking *and* the brakes failing at the same time? Either this woman has never heard of car maintenance, or somebody’s got an angry ex.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 11:42:30 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  After 45 frantic minutes, she reached a friend

there were NO cops around for 60-75 miles? hmmm....


after 45 minutes, she couldn't think to turn the ignition off?
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/03/2004 11:59 Comments || Top||

#2  How in the hell would "Ponch" and "John" stop a runaway car with their motorcycles?

Guess I missed that episode.
Posted by: Daniel King || 02/03/2004 12:01 Comments || Top||

#3  I wouldn't recommend turning the ignition off because that would disable the power steering, but she certainly could have put it in neutral or downshifted. I can't believe she had the wits to keep trying to call for help on her cell all this time but couldn't think of that! I bet she hasn't changed her oil in 30,000 miles if she's that mechanically clueless.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#4  You have to change the oil?

(kidding)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Same thing happened to the GOOD Ol Boys RV. Turns out someone put glue beneath the accelerator.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/03/2004 12:25 Comments || Top||

#6  Yeah - she went from Limon to Denver. They had her on the news out here. She said the clutch wouldn't respond and the ignition didn't turn off. Supposedly, nothing was responsive on the car. Seems wierd to me. Is there a big life insurance policy on her someone is holding? Then again, it is a Pontiac.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/03/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Sounds like her tires at least were in tip top shape.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#8  No clutch, no brakes, no accelerator, and the cell phone wouldn't work? Either up sh*t creek without a paddle, or pure BS. I vote BS.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 15:28 Comments || Top||

#9  New CNN show: "Renegade Automobiles: Why do they hate us?"
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 15:31 Comments || Top||

#10  I just checked recalls and service bulletins on her year and model car. Of the 301 service bulletins, about ten relate to brakes, one on clutch bleeding procedures, but none concern the accelerator. Must be a hydraulic clutch also in need of service. No recalls on either problem, but she's lucky that the Lower Pinion Bearing didn't decide to separate at that time. It was a recall item for Jan 03. Our Granddaughter drives a sunbird. Gonna have to look into that.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 15:58 Comments || Top||

#11  Surely it was the Dukes of Hazard and not Ponch & John that pulled that trick. The Dukes were always better drivers in my book, what with the dirt 'n' all in Hazard County. None of that sissy California concrete.
Posted by: Zpaz || 02/03/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||

#12  Surely it was the Dukes of Hazard and not Ponch & John that pulled that trick

I'm acutely depressed just acknowledging I have an opinion on the above subject.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 19:24 Comments || Top||

#13  Ed Becerra here, from Colorado.

Local news reported that her transmission failed in such a way that she couldn't shift, not even to neutral. And - oh, joy, our brilliant car designers here - the Pontiac she was driving apparently CANNOT have the ignition turned off unless the transmission is in park or neutral.

That's straight from the cops, Chuck.. apparently whoever did the onboard programming for the car (and I admit I'm over-generalizing here) programmed in an assumption that if a part of the car asked for one thing, and the driver asked for another, the onboard brains would simply assume the driver was in error. So to speak.

Therefore, the fuel pump, brakes, et al, were listening to the CPU, and the CPU was paying attention to the transmission, not the driver's intentions.

Local Pontiac dealers are making frantic statements to the effect that this is one of those "Once in a century" events, and that we should all just go home and forget it ever happened.

Oh, yes, and we should buy more Pontiacs. Lots and LOTS of Pontiacs.

Yeah. Right. Hey, Mr. car dealer.. I gotta tire iron and I KNOW how to use it. Now, just back away slowly, buddy....

Ed.
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 02/03/2004 21:18 Comments || Top||

#14  I never would have thought to shift to neutral either. If the commentators above are men--warn your women.

I'm not sure I would have thought of turning it off either.
Posted by: Sue Bob || 02/03/2004 23:50 Comments || Top||

#15  Ed--Damn--thanks for the scoop! Guess there really wasn't much she could do, except perhaps downshift. Sounds like Pontiac has created their own little version of the Nanny State in each of their cars.
Posted by: Dar || 02/04/2004 9:53 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghan Leader Replaces Regional Officials
President Hamid Karzai has replaced a pair of governors and a group of police commanders in a drive to strengthen the central government’s influence in Afghanistan’s lawless provinces. Karzai appointed Mohammad Yusuf as governor of western Farah province, and Azizullah Afzali as governor of Baghdis, state television announced Tuesday. New police chiefs were named in five northern and central provinces. The appointments come less than two weeks after Karzai issued a decree pledging to oust tyrannical officials, beef up the police and deliver services such as banking and telephones even to the most far-flung districts. The project is a challenge to militia commanders who still hold sway in much of the country. It coincides with plans by the U.S. military deliver millions in aid and bolster local government in the troubled south and east. Karzai already installed new governors last month in Zabul and Paktika, two southeastern provinces on the Pakistani border torn by violence and where Kabul’s influence is faint.
Takes time, looks like he’s going province by province installing his people.
State TV also announced the appointment of a veteran official as chief of training for the country’s desertion-plagued national army. Gul Nabi Ahmadzai held influential government positions during the 1992-96 civil war and the Taliban regime that followed.
Hummm, guess he’s been rehabilitated.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 9:20:13 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It is good for Afghanistan in the long run to get strong centralized control of security, and enforce it in the nether regions. In fact, its success is essential not only to the Afghan people but as a good example to other countries and their citizenry (Hello Pakistan, Indonesia, France Columbia, etc).

So far, so good. But (“everybody I know has a big but…”) the USA must be involved in Afghanistan for a long time to make sure Karzai doesn't turn out to be yet another megalomaniac opportunist, playing the game now, only to feed on his population when focus fades, as we have seen so often in the Middle Least.
Posted by: Hyper || 02/03/2004 17:45 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Princess Fahda bint Saud ibn Abd Al-Aziz: Conspiracy Theories and Other Writings
The following is a collection of writings by Saudi Princess Fahda bint Saud ibn Abd Al-Aziz. According to the Saudi press, the princess is ’the daughter of King Saud and the historian of her father‘s reign.’

Princess Fahda often warns about conspiracies by ’neo-conservatives‘ to control the world and by Israel to attack Saudi Arabia. She explains that her father, King Saud, set forth a plan of how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and all Muslims today should deal with the ‘cancerous Zionist threat,‘ and how to fight against U.S. propaganda campaigns. The princess is also reported to be the chairwoman of Saudi charities. The following are excerpts of articles by Princess Fahda:
* The Neo-Conservative Conspiracy to Control the World
* A New American-Jewish $95 Million Research Center Established to Attack Saudi Arabia
* Outside Forces are Trying to Control Saudi Arabia
* ‘As My Father King Saud Said, ‘The Zionist Threat is Like Cancer ‘‘
* ‘Arabs will Not Accept an Israeli State Amidst Them‘
* The Saudi Army was Trained to Repulse Israel
* Saudi Representative at U.N. Calls for General Assembly to Help Jews Resettle in Europe
* Saudis Support PLO Charter to Liberate Palestine
a real Drama Queen, I’m so glad to be an American, where I don’t have to be force fed this royal issshh
Posted by: CobraCommander || 02/03/2004 2:24:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  oops..wrong website...try this one
Posted by: CobraCommander || 02/03/2004 2:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Princess Fahda is the product of serious inbreeding. Prolly has big ears and bad teeth to go with her smooth-as-a-cue-ball brain, encephalization quotient (EQ) approx .40... I'd say she's qualified to be an LLL Donk.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:53 Comments || Top||

#3  The princess did have the good sense to be born into the family to whom Allah gave all the oil under the Saudi peninsula as the family's private wealth.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 8:36 Comments || Top||

#4  the princess is ‘ ’the daughter of King Saud and the historian of her father‘s reign

Princess Irulan Corrino without the BG training:
"There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors." - from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 8:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Mike Sylwester, Marie Antoinette had similar good sense.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/03/2004 10:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Another custodian of the Religion of Peace and Wahhabi-Saud tribe member heard from. My aren't we especially blessed today?
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 10:48 Comments || Top||

#7  Saudi Princess: "Damn, not again!"

King Saud: "Fahda, you must let out the clutch slower and give the gas a little faster."

Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 12:27 Comments || Top||

#8  According to the Saudi press, the princess is ’the daughter of King Saud and the historian of her father‘s reign.’
"My father was a spectaculary dim man whose interests included extreme indolence & molesting young boys. His most outstanding achievement was to unite our family as never before, everyone thought he was a waste of space & that things would be much better with Prince Faysal running things."
If half the stuff I've heard about King Saud are true then he'd have been hard pressed to 'set forth a plan for wiping his own arse', so I think planning opposition to the 'Zionist Entity' was probably a bit beyond him.

Posted by: Dave || 02/03/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#9 
* My Father: The Most Prolifigate Stud in the History of the Planet
* The History of Saudi Cuisine: The Religion of Chickpeas
* On a Mission from Allah: How Saudi Men Fucked Away Billions of Dollars on Prostitutes Worldwide
* Cheaper by the Twelve Hundred: A Study of Saudi Sibling Relations
* Reigning Cats and Dogs: A History of the Domestication of Pets in Saudi Arabia
* "What's Up, Wahabbi?": A Lexicon of Informal Saudi Greetings
* The Happy Wahabbi Hubby: In Praise of Polygamy
* Getting to Know Your Stepmothers: The Art of Easy Acquaintanceship
* Daughter Discipline: Avoiding Honor Killings in Your Family
* An International Challenge: Saudi Girls Demand Freedom and Equality for Girls in France

Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 19:57 Comments || Top||

#10  * Sharing Sharia with Shania: A Country-Western Star Considers Islam
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 20:27 Comments || Top||

#11  * Terrorists, what terrorists? Intermediate/higher level denial & obfuscation.
* Mismanage your economy the Saudi way!
* 15% is the going rate... A beginners guide to Saudi defence procurement.
* Copernicus was talking shite. A new look a the geo-centric universe (Ibn Baz actually published something along these lines.)
Posted by: Dave || 02/03/2004 20:57 Comments || Top||

#12  Of course this c*nt can spit in our faces because her daddy has had a long time deal with the Bush family
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 22:55 Comments || Top||

#13  her daddy has had a long time deal with the Bush family
That's an interesting statement NMM, tell us more about how the Bush family made a long time deal with the man who was king of Saudi Arabia from 1953 to 1964. Details please.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 23:18 Comments || Top||

#14  MNN, still throwing stones!
Posted by: Lucky || 02/04/2004 0:13 Comments || Top||


Islamic scholar warns Muslims against colonialists’ propaganda
Sheikh Adil Yousuf, a noted Islamic scholar from the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, while delivering the sermon at the Eid prayers held the Arabi Club premises on Sunday, cautioned Muslims against attempts of the “colonialists” to spoil their culture, especially by attacking the dignity of women.
That means applying pressure to let them drive cars, not wear gunny sacks, own and dispose of property, not to have to marry close relatives...
The prayers were organised by the club in association with the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and the Indian Islamic Association. The sermon in Arabic was followed by a Malayalam translation meant for the large Keralite audience. The speaker pointed that the current western trend of promoting nudity was against their own sociological viewpoints. Sociology books say that civilization started with man learning to dress himself and cover nudity. The history of human culture has witnessed tremendous changes in dressing patterns. "By exposing themselves, the westerners are now returning to the primitive culture. Ironically they are introducing it as a sign of progress and branding people of other cultures who stick to their traditions as uncultured. Muslims should not fall prey to their propaganda," he said.
Sounds like he's against titties and comely thighs and well-rounded posteriors. A blood pressure problem, perhaps? Being left alone to make one's own decisions could possibly include running around nekkid, but doesn't have to. Being able to run around nekkid doesn't rule out wearing more modest dress on other occasions. Being forced to wear a gunny sack doesn't allow the option of wearing lighter garb on other occasions. I think that concept's too subtle for the Arab mind to grasp.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Must have seen the half-time show at the Super Bowl.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2004 0:02 Comments || Top||

#2  I missed the half time show. One of the guest thought AC/DC at high decibles was the way to go. Man! I thought AC/DC was old school moronic. But kept my big mouth shut. Don't mess with a 50 yr old rocker.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Clothing was for warmth and protection - not his indoctrinated-from-birth Victorian Islamic notions of "decency" or "shame." Those ideas must be taught - they do not occur naturally. F**kin Duh.

It's always amazing to me how most people can't seem to gain sufficient perspective on their opinions to be able to identify those which were imposed (socialization) and those which grew out of experience and common sense. The man / woman who doesn't identify and discard the indoctrinated beliefs that fail to stand independent and rational scrutiny is a fool.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Silly me,and here I thought humans started wearing hides and furs as protection aginst weather.Guess I should start taking night classes at the local Madhouse(excuse me Madrassa)
Posted by: Raptor || 02/03/2004 7:13 Comments || Top||

#5 
Sociology books say that civilization started with man learning to dress himself and cover nudity.

Civilization reached its highpoint among Moslem women in Afgahnistan during the Taleban area. Since then, the planet's population has been backsliding to primitivism, to the chagrin of Allah.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 16:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Sociology books say that civilization started with man learning to dress himself
'es right of course... started to dress proper right here about 1679, not cheap, but'll last. Don't understand the fuss... put away yer 'toga and dress 'ya prper.
Posted by: ThreadNeedle || 02/03/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Translation as provided by the short cynic : "Keep those wymyn covered in sacks and release more comely goats into our streets!"
Posted by: Val || 02/03/2004 20:12 Comments || Top||

#8  I dunno. I been thinkin' of going back to traditional Western dress. Anybody know where I can get a nice periwig?
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2004 20:52 Comments || Top||

#9  Uh--why don't we all be honest--left and right?
This shit needs to be exterminated by one means or another! Either we drag these people kicking and screaming into the 21st century---or they gotta go
!
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 22:59 Comments || Top||


Saudi Arabia Urges All-Out War on Terror
Saudi Arabia yesterday called for a global fight against terrorism led by the United Nations and said no country should provide shelter to terrorists. “Terrorists should never be allowed to practice their subversive activities from any territory,” Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd said.
Notice the kicker there? "Led by the United Nations." Into oblivion...
In their joint message to an estimated two million pilgrims assembled in Makkah and other holy sites in the Kingdom, King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, reiterated Saudi Arabia’s total opposition to terrorism and reaffirmed its efforts to promote world peace. “The Kingdom’s stance against terrorism is fundamental. It earlier urged the international community to confront the menace of terrorism, and has supported all peace-loving countries in their efforts to uproot terrorism. It calls on all peace-loving countries to adopt a comprehensive program within the framework of international legitimacy for combating terrorism so as to enhance the pillars of security and stability,” the message said. “Fighting terrorism demands global cooperation to deny terrorist elements and groups any shelter.”
It also requires killing them wherever they're found, whether they're Muslims or Irishmen...
Referring to the recent terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, the Saudi leaders said: “These events are abnormal, and do not reflect a general orientation. Moreover, they can never be viewed as a common phenomenon.” They said the terror attacks were the result of wrong ideas which run counter to the teachings and principles of Islam.
Killing them works a lot better than chatting with them...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All nations, working in harmony, singing songs of peace, dignity, inclusion, diversity, harmony, oh muse sing! Shout the glory to something, whatever, as long as it's pretty.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Koom-buy-friggin'-ya!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 1:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Same old pointless blather - ignored by absolutely everyone. Islam is always blameless - as is SaoodiLand. Yadda, yadda, phreakin' yadda. This must be about full employment goals in the Saudi Foreign Ministry - every kid coming home from college is hired and promptly given this assignment: write an apologist's response to terrorism in SaoodiLand / Islam.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:08 Comments || Top||

#4  "Terrorists should never be allowed to practice their subversive activities from any territory,” with the provision that the following are not terrorists:
- anyone killing a Jew anywhere near Israel
- anyone killing a Hindu, ever
- anyone killing a Buhddist, ever
- anyone killing an American in one of the 1,335 authorized holy wars
- ...
Posted by: mhw || 02/03/2004 8:04 Comments || Top||

#5  laughable. I can just see the Security Council debating just what is and is not terrorism.

Is a bus bombing by a paleo terrorism? nope.

Is IDF incursion into the west bank to root out Hamas terrorism? yep.

. . . and so on.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/03/2004 8:35 Comments || Top||

#6  The three pillars of the House of Saud are custodianship of Islam, wealth from crude oil, and an uncommonly close alliance with the US. Albeit, the latter pillar has become quite shaky since 9/11/01. I see this denunciation of terrorism by Fadh and Abdullah as an attempt to shore up the US pillar. But how sincere is it? Judging from previous Rantburg observations here--not very.

When two principal members of the Wahhabi-Saud family speak of holding forgiveness and not tolerating hatred and malice while funding palestian sucide/murder attacks they can't be too earnest in their call for anti-terrorism.

When Fahd says he hopes that Iraq will regain its stability, security and prosperity. while Saudi terrorists are in Iraq working counter to that aim, he can't be too serious either.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 9:36 Comments || Top||

#7  I'd like to buy the world a Coke Mecca Cola...
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Hey Dar, you took the words right out of my mouth! A great commercial it was! (Yuk Yuk)
Posted by: Bodyguard || 02/03/2004 10:03 Comments || Top||

#9  The Western press has hardly scratched the surface of the growing schism within the House of Saud, and between the House of Saud and its antagonists that exist in northern and eastern Saudi Arabia. The House has about five years left... and counting.
Posted by: Tancred || 02/03/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Say one thing in English, another in Arabic. Lather, rinse, repeat...
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2004 12:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Unfortunately, because of the Wahabbism 'contract' with the house of the Saud about 300 years back, things are not going to be easy. No Terrorism = No Wahhabism = No House of Saud
Posted by: Faisal || 02/03/2004 18:17 Comments || Top||

#12  Faisal, you say that as if its a bad thing.
Posted by: Val || 02/03/2004 20:14 Comments || Top||

#13  When two principal members of the Wahhabi-Saud family speak of holding forgiveness and not tolerating hatred and malice while funding palestian sucide/murder attacks they can't be too earnest in their call for anti-terrorism.

Ah, GK, terrorism is such a flexible word....
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2004 21:06 Comments || Top||

#14  hey gasse katze--what American family and political party has had their lips attached to the Saudi orifices for the last 20 years? That would be the BUSH/Halliburton family
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 23:03 Comments || Top||

#15  sorry Gasse meant Repooplican party--but they are inseperable from their corporate masters
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 23:04 Comments || Top||

#16  NMM, Saudi money goes all around. New Jags!. So your point is?

MNN."Well Lucky, Bush lied and people died." Come on and say it out loud!
Posted by: Lucky || 02/04/2004 0:25 Comments || Top||


Britain
Tougher anti-terror laws provoke protests
Plans to toughen Britain’s anti-terror laws provoked condemnation from rights campaigners Monday, as passengers faced a second day of disruption after transatlantic flights were cancelled in a security clampdown. Home Secretary David Blunkett was branded a “shameless authoritarian” by a fellow member of the ruling Labour Party over his scheme to make it easier to convict terrorist suspects. Criminal courts currently must be satisfied “beyond reasonable doubt” that a suspect is guilty before convicting, but under Blunkett’s proposed changes prosecutors could merely have to show a person is guilty “on the balance of probabilities”. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government hopes to see the tougher law adopted before the next general election, which must be held by 2006. Blunkett has said he favours the possibility of terrorism trials being held partly in secret, with certain elements not being communicated to the defence, so as to protect British intelligence sources. He envisages setting up a group of anti-terrorist judges who alone would be entitled to examine information considered sensitive to national defence and which would not be made public.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, a Labour peer who sits in the House of Lords, compared Blunkett to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. Blunkett “really is a shameless authoritarian,” Kennedy told BBC radio. Kennedy suggested it was untimely to propose convicting suspects on the basis of intelligence material at a time when Britain’s intelligence services face criticism over the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
I guess she doesn't really believe that Britain's at war. Even without any aircraft being flown into British landmarks, there's still that declaration of war by the Bad Guys. Perhaps she should read it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Kennedy told BBC radio"

Is it the name, or are the lefties still not convinced that comparing western leaders to shitty 3th world dictators is, to put it mildly not a winning strategy?
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/03/2004 8:56 Comments || Top||

#2  "I guess she doesn't really believe that Britain's at war."

Whether at war or not, I don't see any excuse on having people condemned on the "balance of probabilities" rather than "beyond reasonable doubt".

And Britain has been at war with terrorists in the past, aka the IRA. I don't see why Islamic Terrorists are so much more dangerous than Irish ones that you need to overthrow the whole basis of your legal system.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/03/2004 11:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Aris, the Summer Olympics are coming to Athens soon, aren't they? And they're a lot bigger than the Winter Olympics, might be kind of harder to protect. Let's hope your country doesn't see up close and personal the difference between the Irish and Islamic terrorists.

Of course, there were those 3 Irish who were caught in Colombia. And I thought the IRA is starting to work w/other organizations?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 14:24 Comments || Top||

#4  In wasn't the IRA that took down the Towers,Aris.
It's not the Provos slaughtering people all over the world,Aris.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/03/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Aris pointed out a couple of days ago that often when something good happens in his neighborhood things are bound to go downhill. Sort of a reverse it's always darkest right before before the storm hits and the lights go out and the baby dies.
So Aris how do you feel about the Olympics?;>
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Anonymous2U> Yes, let us hope. And let us hope also that my country doesn't ever go back to secret trials and removing the presumption of innocence from defendants, because we've had some bitter experience of *that* as well, and if I have to choose between terrorists and dictators, I'll take the terrorists, thank you very much.

Atleast the Islamic terrorists wouldn't be pretending to be acting for my benefit.

Shipman> Oh, I feel quite worried indeed. But frankly it's not the *judicial process* that's worrying me, not enough anyway that I'd feel we should reform it and turn prosecutors and judges into effective dictators who will be able to conduct secret trials, condemning people using information that they'll be claiming to have but we wouldn't be able to actually know about.

Raptor> No, it wasn't the IRA that took down the Twin Towers. And it wasn't terrorists of any sort that took down Greek democracy. So frankly I'll be just as protective of democratic institution and civil liberties, thank you, and I WON'T bend over for authoritarianism just because I have terrorism in my face.

I hope that UK doesn't bend over either.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/03/2004 15:31 Comments || Top||

#7  turn prosecutors and judges into effective dictators who will be able to conduct secret trials, condemning people using information that they'll be claiming to have but we wouldn't be able to actually know about.
An unhappy experience Aris?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#8  Am too young for such unhappy experiences in Greece, thankfully. But that doesn't mean I can't learn from history.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/03/2004 20:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Damn--Shipman sounds like the apologist for our speaking in tongues, religious nut Attorney General a/k/a Ashcroft who lost an election to a dead man and has devoted his career to wiping his ass on the Bill of Rights
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 23:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Well, Aris, the downside for possible terrorism trials is that the perps might go boom.

And who you going to call to find the masterminds?

Funny thing, tho, is I've never really seen a trial in the US where the defendant is in a cage.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 23:28 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Australia Doesn’t Plan Weapons Inquiry
Australia has no need for a special inquiry into its intelligence on Iraq because it is sure Saddam Hussein had illicit weapons, Defense Minister Robert Hill said Tuesday. Australia received its intelligence from Britain and the United States, whose leaders both plan to name special panels to investigate the intelligence they used for going to war in Iraq. But Hill said he had confidence in the intelligence Australia received and there was no doubt Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. ``There were weapons. That is not in dispute,’’ Hill told reporters in Sydney. ``The issue is what happened to those weapons.’’
There’s a good question.
Hill said Australia had already conducted a parliamentary inquiry to which Australian intelligence agencies had given evidence, and it was ``difficult to see what benefit would flow from yet another Australian inquiry.’’ The earlier inquiry has not completed its report and will not present its findings until March. Some opposition lawmakers have raised the possibility of another inquiry depending on the outcome of the U.S. probe.
Being the opposition and all.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2004 12:38:54 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Some opposition lawmakers have raised the possibility of another inquiry depending on the outcome of the U.S. probe.

So if they don't like the answer, they launch the inquiry. Just like jury shopping!
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2004 12:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Australia, which got all its information from former citizen Rupert Murdoch (who was granted US citizenship and special perks as to media ownership by Newt Gingrich)decided to swallow the Bush/Blair lies and just say "whatever"--and go back to the beaches
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 23:14 Comments || Top||


Europe
Istanbul bombings suspect charged
A suspect in the deadly bombings in the Turkish city of Istanbul last November has been charged. The Anatolia news agency reports that the Istanbul state security court on Monday charged the man, identified as Baki Yigit, for "membership to an illegal organization", an offence which carries a prison term of up to five years. The suspect, who was remanded in custody, told prosecutors that he met with al-Qaida leader Usama bin Laden during a seven-month stay in Afghanistan prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Anatolia quoted unnamed sources as saying. But he said that he parted ways with al-Qaida after returning to Turkey because of disagreements, and denied any role in the Istanbul bombings, which claimed 62 lives, including the four suicide bombers.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said last week the suspect was a leading member of an al-Qaida grouping in Turkey, which is held responsible for the two sets of car bomb attacks on November 15 and 20. The Istanbul police said in a written statement earlier Monday that a senior suspect was detained in the city last Thursday as part of their probe into the attacks. During his interrogation, the suspect said "he has met with the leader of an international terrorist organization and the head of its military wing in a foreign country and received orders for attacks in our country," the statement said, without mentioning names. The suspect also confessed to receiving money from the organization to finance plans for the recruitment of militants and their training in military camps, the statement said. The operation which led to the capture of the suspect resulted also in the seizure of a laptop, dozens of CDs and diskettes as well as nine computer hard discs, it added. Another 45 people, among them the alleged leader of Al-Qaida cells in Turkey, have so far been charged in connection with the bombings, which hit two synagogues, the British consulate and the HSBC bank. Turkish authorities said in December they had dismantled the group behind the attacks and that police were hunting for half a dozen other suspects who were thought to have fled abroad.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Fifth Column
Rall Watch: Yet To Be Liberated
Here’s Ted Rall’s latest rant against America’s thrust in Iraq and Afghanistan:
If we really want to win the war on terrorism, we’ve got to stop sitting around the Sunni triangle picking rose petals off our Kevlar jackets. If we’re serious about liberation as a tool of terror prevention, we’ve got to invade every dictatorship, topple every autocracy and occupy every patch of soil where evil tyrants oppress their people, especially in the Muslim world.
He goes on to list a number of places that could use American-style liberation --- starting with the rest of the middle East, all the way to Eastern Europe --- liberally peppering his piece with little stories about the brutal regimes and general lack of human rights in those places. He offers no solution to these problems.

And more importantly, he misses the central point. A year ago, Rall would have had to include stories of common people being brutalized in Iraq and Afghanistan if he were to write such a piece. A year ago, Rall would have had to include Iraq and Afghanistan in his to-be-liberated list.
(More Rall Watch: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Enjoy!)
Posted by: Vivek || 02/03/2004 8:55:29 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  we’ve got to invade every dictatorship, topple every autocracy and occupy every patch of soil where evil tyrants oppress their people, especially in the Muslim world.

Why do I find myself agreeing with Rall?
Posted by: john || 02/03/2004 9:14 Comments || Top||

#2  I sense Rall meant this in the "we can't do it all, so don't do any of it" way.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 9:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Is it OK with Ted if we help the Iraqis in their effort to stop killing each other before we move on an invade about 67 other countries simultaneously? I guess Ted doesn't understand th concept of working towards a goal with patience. Once you leave childhood without basic skills, its very hard to become a rationale adult down the road. Mony others swear that they learned everthing they ever needed to know in Kindergarten. Obviously, Ted played hookie quite a bit as a youngster.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/03/2004 9:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey, Ted! Can you say, "priority"? I knew you could!
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 9:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Anything less than complete success is total failure, eh Ted?
Posted by: mojo || 02/03/2004 10:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Try this Ted, go to Al Anbar Province and tell the first soldier you see to "stop picking rose petals from his/her jacket." When that young man or woman, who has been living day in and day out under attack or threat of attack, gets through kicking your sorry ass around the block, then we can all have a good laugh.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Ted sounds an awful lot like Kerry and Dean. We either have to topple every tin-horn dictator at once or we are doing it wrong. I would like to present another stategery (yes Bush said it) that may be in the works here. If you eliminate some of the bad guys, the rest will fall in line. Don’t believe it? Ask Mr. Khadafi or Mr. Bashir. Both have been VERY cooperative since we plucked Sammy from that spider hole. North Korea has all of a sudden had second thoughts about turning South East Asia into a Nuclear standoff. When we (god help us) elect a Ted Rall to the office of President then he can demonstrate his enlightened strategy, but until then I am comfortable following George W. Bush.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/03/2004 11:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Is anyone else irritated by Rall's use of the collective 'we' and 'our', like he's a member of the 4th ID? Complete asshole barely begins to describe this 'man'.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2004 12:13 Comments || Top||

#9  A true idiotarian. In WWII, he would have ranted against taking Okinawa because we hadn't captured Truk.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/03/2004 19:31 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe
Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has told investigators that he helped North Korea design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium with the knowledge of senior military commanders, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, according to a friend of Khan’s and a senior Pakistani investigator. Khan also has told investigators that Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the Pakistani army chief of staff from 1988 to 1991, was aware of assistance Khan was providing to Iran’s nuclear program and that two other army chiefs, in addition to Musharraf, knew and approved of his efforts on behalf of North Korea, the same individuals said Monday.

Khan’s assertions of high-level army involvement came in the course of a two-month probe into allegations that he and other Pakistani nuclear scientists made millions of dollars from the sale of equipment and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea. They contradict repeated contentions by Musharraf and other senior officials that Khan and at least one other scientist, Mohammed Farooq, acted out of greed and in violation of long-standing government policy that bars the export of nuclear weapons technology to any foreign country. In conversations with investigators, Khan urged them to question the former army commanders and Musharraf, asserting that "no debriefing is complete unless you bring every one of them here and debrief us together," according to the friend, who has met with the accused scientist twice during the past two months. On the basis of Khan’s claims, Beg and another former army chief of staff, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, who occupied the post from 1996 to 1998, have been questioned by investigators in recent days, but both have denied any knowledge of the transactions, according to a senior Pakistani military officer. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations but asserted that "General Pervez Musharraf neither authorized such transfers nor was involved in any way with such deeds, even before he was president."

Khan told two generals who jointly questioned him last month that three army chiefs of staff, including Musharraf, had known of his dealings with North Korea, according to the friend of the scientist. U.S. officials have long suspected that Pakistan supplied uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in exchange for help with its ballistic missile program, and that Khan acted as the principal agent of the arrangement. A retired Pakistani army corps commander said Monday that the barter arrangement dates to December 1994, when then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto traveled to North Korea at the request of Gen. Abdul Waheed, the army chief of staff at the time. A few months later, Khan led a delegation of scientists and military officers to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to the retired general and a senior active duty officer. Musharraf was serving at the time as Waheed’s director general for military operations. In January 1996, Waheed was replaced as chief of staff by Karamat, who secretly visited North Korea in December 1997. Four months after the trip, in April 1998, Karamat presided over the successful test-firing of a medium-range missile the Pakistanis called a Ghauri. According to U.S. intelligence officials and a former Pakistani nuclear scientist, the Ghauri was simply a renamed North Korean-supplied Nodong missile. Pakistani officials maintain publicly that the Ghauri missile is indigenous to Pakistan.
... despite the fact that it smells like rotted cabbage.
The senior investigator said Khan claimed that Karamat was privy to the details of the barter arrangement through which Pakistan received the missile, and that Khan had insisted that Karamat’s role also be examined. Khan also has asserted that Musharraf had to have been aware of the agreement with North Korea because Musharraf took over responsibility for the Ghauri missile program when he became army chief of staff in October 1998. According to Kidwai’s account to journalists, senior military commanders did not get wind of Khan’s nuclear dealings with North Korea until 2000, when the ISI conducted a raid on an aircraft that the laboratory had chartered for a planned flight to North Korea. Although a search of the aircraft turned up no evidence, authorities were sufficiently concerned that they warned Khan against pursuing any clandestine trade with North Korea, Kidwai told the journalists.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/03/2004 1:49:04 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This was a long time coming. Qadeer Khan (the head of the nuclear program) was simply being made a scapegoat.

Is it reasonable to expect that Khan was peddling these nukes for "personal profit" without the knowledge and protection of the higher-ups in the government, and more importantly, the army (which has more power)?
Posted by: Vivek || 02/03/2004 8:17 Comments || Top||

#2  From Hindustan Times: Pakistan's disgraced supreme nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's daughter has fled abroad with sensitive information that could compromise Pakistan's top brass, according to unconfirmed reports reaching here. The speculation followed reports that in his written confession Khan has absolved army officers. A source said that Khan could have given a clean chit to army officers only under some kind of a compromise or under duress. His daughter could have left the country with papers that would insure that her father is not made a complete fall guy and scapegoat by the regime. A source had earlier said hat he had a son-in-law who ran a business dealing with purchase and sale of N-components in Dubai.

if true, she has his life insurance with her.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 10:35 Comments || Top||


More on Khan confession
Requires registration for full article
The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has signed a detailed confession admitting that during the last 15 years he provided Iran, North Korea and Libya with the designs and technology to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons, according to a senior Pakistani official and three Pakistani journalists who attended a special government briefing here on Sunday night. In a two-and-a-half-hour presentation to 20 Pakistani journalists, a senior government official gave an exhaustive and startling account of how Dr. Khan, a national hero, spread secret technology to three countries that have been striving to produce their own nuclear arsenals. Two of them, Iran and North Korea, were among those designated by President Bush as part of an "axis of evil." If the Pakistani government account is correct, Dr. Khan’s admission amounts to one of the most complex and successful efforts to evade international controls to stop nuclear proliferation.
It’s also just a coincidence that all of the countries involved are allies of China, and China provided significant assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear program. Move along, nothing to see here.
The account provided by Pakistan on Sunday night came after years in which the government strongly denied that it or scientists at the Khan Research Laboratories had given crucial technology to other nations. Dr. Khan said he shared the technology because he thought the emergence of more nuclear states would ease Western attention on Pakistan, the senior official told journalists. He also said he thought it would help the Muslim cause.
And his bank account.
The Bush administration offered no public comment on the Pakistani announcement on Sunday. But in recent weeks, administration officials have said that they forced the government of President Pervez Musharraf to confront the evidence, after Iran and Libya made disclosures that showed their reliance on Pakistani-supplied technology. "This is the break we have been waiting for," a senior American official said. But the account provided by Pakistani officials carefully avoided pinning any blame on General Musharraf, the army or the Pakistani intelligence service, despite the fact that some of the material — especially what was sent to North Korea — appeared to have been transported on government cargo planes. Pakistani and American officials have said senior Pakistani Army officials would have known if nuclear hardware had been shipped out of a tightly guarded nuclear facility. The senior official told journalists that all nuclear transfers ceased after General Musharraf established a new National Command Authority to oversee the country’s nuclear arsenal in early 2002. But according to American accounts, the nuclear transfers to Libya continued through last fall.
Those pesky rogues again
The senior Pakistani official said Dr. Khan transferred nuclear weapons-related designs, drawings and components to Iran between 1989 and 1991, according to the three journalists. He transferred nuclear technology to North Korea and Libya between 1991 and 1997, they said, though American officials believe that the transfers to Libya continued until just four months ago. Dr. Khan also transferred additional technology to North Korea until 2000, the Pakistanis said. That is particularly significant because North Korea has denied, as recently as last month, that it has a secret uranium enrichment project under way, in addition to the plutonium project at Yongbyon that the C.I.A. believes has already produced several weapons. Details from Dr. Khan’s confession, if made available from the United States, could have a major effect on the negotiations to disarm North Korea, American officials said.
All these dirt poor dictatorships, with nothing better to spend billions of dollars on than nuclear weapons that will alllow them to continue looting their own countries in safety.
According to the Pakistani account, centrifuges came from a factory in Malaysia that had been built by a Sri Lankan identified as "Tahir," who was one of several middlemen Dr. Khan used to spread the technology. The Pakistani official said, and American officials confirmed, that Tahir was in government custody in Malaysia. Centrifuge components made in Malaysia were intercepted en route to Libya in October, American officials said. The other middlemen were three Germans identified by the senior official only by their last names — "Brummer," "Heinz," and "Liech" — the journalists said. A Dutch citizen identified by Pakistani officials as "Hanks" was also described as a middleman, though American intelligence officials believe that Hank is his first name. The man is believed to have some connection to Urenco, the European conglomerate where Dr. Khan once worked.
Am I the only one suprised that no ex-Soviet scientists have turned up anywhere in all this?
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/03/2004 1:25:54 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From the WaPo article linked here:
Khan also said he supplied Iran and Libya with surplus, outmoded equipment from the laboratory that he knew would not provide either country with any near-term capability to enrich uranium.

"Dr. Khan is basically contesting the merit of the nuclear proliferation charges," the investigator said. "Throughout his debriefing, Dr. Khan kept challenging the perception that material found from the Libyan or Iranian programs would allow them to enrich uranium."
I smell baloney...
Posted by: someone || 02/03/2004 3:17 Comments || Top||

#2  "Am I the only one suprised that no ex-Soviet scientists have turned up anywhere in all this?"
Nope. When the chemical and bio weapons that eventually come to light are backtracked, then I will fully expect to find some Sovs in those evidence chains. The fact that none have been implicated in the Khan nuke capers is surprising to me, too. Of course they are working dilligently in Iran at the moment...

So, um, where did Khan get his training? He sure as hell didn't "discover" the manufacturing process on his own. I haven't Googled Khan to the end to find out (yes, lazy - but lousy dialup connection is huge impediment, too) all of his details. Anybody got the scoop on where he picked up his training?
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Note for #2 .com

A Q Khan stole the designs for the centrifuges from the Netherlands arm of the URENCO enrichment consortium (during a badly controlled period of employment by that organisation). The Pakistani centrifuges are refinements and adaptations of late 1970s early 1980s era URENCO technology.

The fact that he was able to take what he had and actually build working centrifuges is actually sort of impressive.
Posted by: Russell || 02/03/2004 4:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Russell - Thanks! That's a good starting point for me to follow-up on. This man is, potentially, a major actor in history...

Not to quibble with you about Khan's "achievements" but as a programmer I'll say that it is at least 10x easier to incrementally improve upon a system than to create it from scratch. The nuke cook-book sequence for the trip from yellowcake to big boom is damned long and involved, not to mention the many steps that require extraordinary precision! He "acquired" much more than centrifuge designs - somewhere. But credit where due: he's a diabolical asshole.

In fact, Khan may eventually be judged, when the history books are written about this era (assuming PCism doesn't dumb it down to tripe and mankind survives it), one of the most dastardly and evil men ever born. Time will tell what damage he has done to civilization, but his asshole quotient exceeds his intelligence quotient by an astounding margin. He is OBL's peer in the category of human excrement. No matter who is the top turd, he's definitely one of the logs in that pile.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 16:22 Comments || Top||

#5  This man is, potentially, a major actor in history...

This sucker could turn out to be a nasty catalyst, a sort radioactive Tyfoid Mary, or a better yet a rat carrying a nuclear plague.

Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:31 Comments || Top||


Pakistan Weighs Trial of Qadeer Khan After Confession
Pakistan’s government was weighing yesterday the possibility of putting the father of the country’s atomic bomb on trial after the scientist confessed selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
I'd guess that's not something that's going to happen...
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan made this confession in a 12-page statement to the authorities after weeks of “debriefing” Government investigations into the affair also established that the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea took place under the direct orders of Khan. The investigation report which was presented to the National Command Authority two days ago, have also identified other scientists involved in the transfer of nuclear technology which is prohibited under Pakistani law. Two senior military officials briefed a number of Pakistani journalists late Sunday about Khan’s confession. They told journalists that Khan admitted to selling outdated “drawings and machinery” to the three countries to earn money for Pakistan. However, Khan claimed the transfers to Libya and Iran were also motivated by wanting to help other Muslim countries become nuclear powers, said two journalists who attended the briefing.
"It was a religious thing, y'see..."
The government official said the two-month probe into the proliferation allegations had reached its conclusion, but said it was up to the NCA to decide whether to put Khan and six other suspects in the case on trial. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who heads the authority, is due to make an address to the nation about the progress of the investigation after Eid Al-Adha which ends Thursday in Pakistan. The government’s investigation report has also identified a number of Germans and two Sri Lankans who acted as go-between. The government official said that “questions have been put” to two former army chiefs, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and Gen. Jehangir Karamat, to check information provided by Khan and other suspects during the “debriefings”.
That's why I don't think anything serious is going to happen to Abdul Qadeer...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  General Karamat works with the Brookings Institution.
A lot of the top Generals and ISI men are part of the same old old boys network as the Saudis.
I think the friendship between the Pakistani/Saudi and US establishments forged in the Cold war is one of the greatest liabilities of the war on terrorism. It seems a great many people in State, CIA and those from both sides of politics still have a cold war mindset, which prevents them from seeing the true threat posed to them by their buddies. That's why we see the constant excuse of 'rogues' that do all the bad things, while Musharaf and Crown Prince Abdullah are really good guys in a difficult situation.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/03/2004 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Surely the "rogues" stuff is for Local Consumption Only... Especially in this case. Would blaming Musharraf now be the best way to clear up the mess?
Posted by: someone || 02/03/2004 3:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Only in private conversations between leaders
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/03/2004 4:05 Comments || Top||

#4  With Khan having published this statement and the mention yesterday of his sending out a CD with copies of documents (through his daughter) makes it kind of late to arrange a traffic accident.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 8:28 Comments || Top||


Geelani to launch political party
Hardline Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Geelani said yesterday he would launch his own political party and appealed to all those who want “an end to Indian occupation” of the strife-racked region to join. The 73-year-old pro-Pakistan firebrand, who spent 14 years in prison for his opposition to India’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir, made the announcement while addressing worshippers celebrating Eid Al-Adha. “I have decided to form a new party,” Geelani said in the town of Sopore in the north of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been racked by a deadly separatist revolt since 1989. He called on “all those who want an end to Indian occupation” in Kashmir to join, although he did not say when he would launch the party.
"I'm 73 years old. Sometimes I forget things. Do you collect the donations and then launch the party? Or do you launch the party and then collect the donations?
Last September, Geelani became leader of a breakaway faction of the region’s main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, after hardliners expressed no confidence in its moderate chairman, Maulana Abbas Ansari. Both factions say they are the real Hurriyat, but Geelani has no party of his own.
So even though he's the real Hurriyat, he's not much of a Hurriyat.
Four of the seven executive parties of Hurriyat have supported Ansari, while three have maintained their distance from both factions.
So he's got no party and he's got no support, but he's still the real Hurriyat?
Geelani’s announcement came after moderate separatists held landmark talks in New Delhi last month on ending the revolt in the region held in part by nuclear rivals India and Pakistan and claimed in full by both.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
7-Pound Cyanide Salt Block Found in Iraq
The potentially lethal compound was located in what was believed to be the safe house of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a poisons specialist described by some U.S. intelligence officials as having been a key link between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terror network.
The fact that we're hitting his safe houses is even more significant than the poison...
Cyanides salts are extremely toxic. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, exposure to even a small amount through contact or inhalation can cause immediate death. Zarqawi, believed to have been operating in Iraq before March’s invasion, was still being sought by coalition forces. It was not clear if anyone had been apprehended in connection with last month’s find.
Hmmm...
Early last year, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell detailed Zarqawi’s significance in an appearance before the U.N. Security Council. "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants," Powell said. Zarqawi was described as a poisons expert with strong ties to the former Iraqi regime and the terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam. A Palestinian born in Jordan who fought in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan in 2000 to oversee terrorist training camps, Powell told the Security Council. "One of his specialties at the camp was poisons," Powell said. "When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosives training center." Zarqawi is believed to have begun establishing terror cells in and around Baghdad prior to the start of the war last March, and is thought by U.S. officials to still be in the country. U.S. officials, who said they were getting new intelligence in the hunt for Zarqawi, also believe he had been attempting to produce large quantities of the toxin ricin in northern Iraq.
Posted by: TS || 02/03/2004 9:26:16 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not that Zarqawi's hunt for ricin has any connection to ricin letters in the US. Oh, no, no, no.

I wonder if the reports about fears of a bioweapon on a plane are garbled versions of us figuring out that al'Qaeda's moving ricin into the US on planes?

Oh, and I figured out why they'd switch to ricin from anthrax: anthrax can be defended against by irradiating the mail. That doesn't do a thing to ricin.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 21:46 Comments || Top||

#2  "AW, shucks, boys 'at dere cyanide's fer ma gold mine", he claimed.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 22:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Hmmm, yeah, maybe we got Zarqawi, and that is why the suicide bombings of kurds,(since ansar al-islam operates out of northern Iraq, kurds found him and told us where he was?) and also maybe he ordered to release the toxins if caught and that is why they were worried about the bio/chem plane plot?
If they did get him and then we got ricin in DC, well, there should be no question as to who did it.
Posted by: TS || 02/03/2004 23:11 Comments || Top||

#4  ya know, we got that guy Hassan Ghul(big al-qaida capture) last month coming into northern Iraq, and then afterwards we said we think Zarqawi was behind the UN bombing, the mosque in Najaf, etc....so obviously Ghul was giving up information.
Seems we may have gotten Zarqawi as they seem to be seeking the famous 'dire revenge'.
Chem attack warnings, chem attack in DC, huge suicide bombing on the kurds...sounds like revenge attacks to me.
Of course it could be revenge for the
capture of Ghul,done by Zarqawi.
In any matter seems like ol' Zarqawis time has come.
Posted by: TS || 02/03/2004 23:56 Comments || Top||


Suicide Boomers in Iraq Follow Paleo Model
From Middle East Newsline...
Al Qaida and related insurgency groups have adopted Palestinian tactics in strikes against U.S. and allied targets. Iraqi security sources said Sunni insurgents and Al Qaida operatives have been advised by Palestinian insurgents from the ruling Fatah movement and Hamas on methods to launch suicide operations against the U.S. and allied military presence in Iraq. The sources said the methods include the choice of targets, use of explosive belts and the infiltration of operatives.
Another reason to wipe Fatah and Hamas off the map. Things will be better for everyone else with a desire to live a fulfilling, peaceful, and meaningful life.
The Palestinian model was said to have been employed in the twin suicide strikes against Kurdish targets in Irbil on Sunday. At least 65 people were killed and another 250 were injured in the bombings of Kurdish political parties in the northern Iraqi city.
We have to bring the war to the terrorists, like we did with Al Q.
"The use of suicide bombers is new to Iraq but common in Palestine," a security source said. "In Iraq, attacks meant to result in massive casualties were usually done by car bombs."
Get them at the source. A defensive action will keep costing us casualties.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 6:05:41 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is about as surprising as the sun setting in the west; Saddam had cultivated Palestinian terrorist groups, and had lots of their retirees living in Baghdad.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 19:22 Comments || Top||

#2  I made this observation a few days ago on Rantburg, but as RC says, its obvious and I'm sure other people have reached the same conclusion. I wonder what the Kurds and Iraqis think.
Posted by: mhw || 02/03/2004 20:07 Comments || Top||

#3  I realized that the connection was obvious when I posted it. The point of the article posting is that we need to make a cordinated effort to root out and destroy terrorist organizations, be they Hamas, Fatah, Al-Aqsa, or Hizb'allah. The idea of "let Israel deal with Hamas," for example eventually creates problems for us all. Terrorists that are put on the defensive would never think of having a conference in Tehran. They need to stay divided or dead by keeping them on the defensive.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 20:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Rantissi, Yassin, Arafat, Nasrallah, and Erekat: dead - nothing will send a better message against the Islamo-Paleo death cult
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2004 20:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank G, you forgot to include Sharon...the Jewi-Israeli Dictator
Posted by: Rob Ramage || 02/03/2004 22:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Who can be tossed out of office by an election - some dictator.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 23:33 Comments || Top||


Coalition to Pay $1 Million to Iraqi Informant
Coalition authorities have approved payment of $1 million to an Iraqi informant who gave them information leading to the arrest last month of a major figure in the anti-U.S. insurgency, a spokesman said Tuesday. Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad was arrested Jan. 11, one day after coalition officials received a tip about his whereabouts, coalition spokesman Dan Senor told reporters. "Today we can announce that less than a month following receipt of that tip, we’ve approved a payment of $1 million to the Iraqi informant," Senor said. He did not name the informant.
Good idea not to name names.
Al-Muhammad, a former Baath Party official and militia commander, was No. 54 on the U.S. military’s list of most wanted figures from Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, U.S. military officials said al-Muhammad was a major figure in the insurgency in Anbar province, which includes the flashpoint cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. Last year, U.S. officers in Anbar described al-Muhammad as the most wanted fugitive in the province.
Here’s hoping that the informant gets to live to enjoy his fortune.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 1:50:43 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And, we have a WINNER!
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||


Stryker slat armor proves effective
Hat tip: Murdoc Online. Edited for brevity.
A change made to the Stryker infantry vehicle has proven itself in combat. The Stryker, an eight-wheeled infantry transporter, is an armored vehicle designed to stop 124.5 mm rounds. Critics said the main threat in Iraq is rocket-propelled grenades, and that the vehicle would not provide protection from them.
Um...don’t they mean "14.5mm"?
Army officials outfitted the Strykers with what the soldiers call a "cage." The slat armor put on the vehicles in Kuwait does look like a cage. It encircles the vehicle and gives added protection to the body of the Stryker. It is slats placed about 18 inches away from the main body. The theory was that an RPG would hit the slat and "defuse" between the slat and the main armor, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the brigade commander.

The theory was exactly right, he said. "A bit earlier this morning there was an RPG attack against a Stryker vehicle in the eastern part of Mosul," he said to reporters traveling with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "It was the second attack against a Stryker, but the first to strike the slat armor. "It did exactly was it was intended to do," he continued. "When the round impacted on the slat armor, it detonated the warhead. The round defused in that space." There were no casualties of any kind, he said, and there was "very, very minor damage to the vehicle." The crew continued its patrol. The patrol was conducting neighborhood engagement, interacting with local citizens.

"We’re not surprised the slat armor worked the way it was intended to, and we continue to have great confidence in the Stryker vehicle," Ham said. All of the 300-plus Strykers in the brigade have this cage.
Not the first time an RPG has hit a Stryker, but the first time the slat armor came into play.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 10:49:52 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'd hope that a few RPG rounds (among other things) hit Strykers during testing...
Posted by: snellenr || 02/03/2004 11:00 Comments || Top||

#2  One particular article about the first Grozny battle mentionned some interesting tidbits about the "tanks hunters-killers" chechen teams that made a mess of russian armored columns; one of their tricks was to beat reactive armor (meant to protect against shaped charges warhead) by having a first wave of shooters hit a given area with rpg, and then following with a second one aimed at the exposed spot. My general feeling is that iraqi insurgents are not as efficient as their chechen counterparts (and that US troops are better trained than russian ones), but I wonder if they may turn to that kind of stunts vs slat armor?
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 16:33 Comments || Top||

#3  "....iraqi insurgents are not as efficient as their chechen counterparts...."

But they're learning tactics from them and others. U.S. Army intelligence officer said Iraqi rebels have been communicating with such outsiders through e-mail, telephone and personal visits.
See Moscow Times article 1/13/04.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 18:16 Comments || Top||

#4  um...reactive armor plates have a one time use (per tile/block). Slat armor I dunno how many times it can be exposed to RPG fire as most RPG's arent designed to do more than contact damage and there is quite a bit of space between the slats. The other thing to note is what the Russians did that got them into that situation in the first place.

Ya got urban fighting, mechanized vehicles whose turrets could not traverse the gun to high enough of an angle or a very low angle in order to get those ambushers, and you got multiple RPG's coming in from MANY different angles at virtually the same time.
Posted by: Val || 02/03/2004 19:45 Comments || Top||


Number 36 on board
A Singapore Armed Forces C-130 transport plane left on Tuesday morning for Iraq with 31 SAF personnel on board. Their mission is to help in the multinational reconstruction effort in Iraq. Over the next two months in the Middle East, they will carry out airlift, transportation and supply missions.
And, did anyone else notice in the recent post about police training in Jordan that Jordan, Sweden, Finland and Austria are helping with the training even though they are not part of the 36 member coalition.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 9:35:38 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I had missed that,Chuck, but here's link to a Jordanian Times article that tells of the first group of 466 Iraqi police officers graduating in Jordan.
It includes this statement, The ceremony was attended by police instructors from the US, Canada, Britain, Sweden. Austria, Finland, the Philippines and New Zealand.

Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 10:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeah, but it's still unilateral because the French aren't there.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 02/03/2004 21:13 Comments || Top||


CJTF7 and CPA Update 2-2-2004
Snippets
  • The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in Baghdad is currently trained to the company level. Now, what that means is companies are about 190 men strong and we’ve trained, as you’ll see on a subsequent slide, about 4,000 of them in 190-man increments. The next step will be to form battalions, which are four companies of that size; and then eventually, one brigade-size unit inside of the city of Baghdad.
  • There were -- the Iraqi police and some of the fixed-site protective services found two men today and placing a roadside bomb, took them into custody. The initial indications are that one is an Iranian and one is an Afghani (sic). And we, of course, have to develop that through interrogation and try to determine what that means. But yeah, there were two men apprehended today near the al-Doura refinery and placing a roadside bomb.
  • We have now about 7,500, almost 8,000 -- we just graduated a class of police from the academy -- we have almost 8,000 police. We’ll have 10,000 by May, and 19,000 by February ’05. We had zero ICDC; now we have about 4,000. We’ll have 6,000 here within the next few months. There were no fixed-site protective service functions; there are now 5,700 of them; 700 or so work directly for me, 5,000 for the ministries. [ed. inside the city of Baghdad]
  • A couple of days ago, we found a Jordanian with an RPG.
  • Between the time we got here and the time, let’s say, of Saddam Hussein’s capture, we had a very good picture of about eight cells. But as you remember in previous press conferences, I admitted that there was this cloud that I couldn’t penetrate. Over top of that, I had a sense that there was an organization to it, but I just couldn’t penetrate it. And then the capture of Saddam Hussein allowed us to penetrate into that and determine some of the leadership, especially the financial backbone of it. We also discovered that instead of eight, it was 14 cells. This isn’t new news, by the way. And we began attacking the leadership. And of the 14 cells, we have certainly disrupted eight of them, and in this most recent operation, continued that effort.
  • [ed. ICDC training] But about 60 percent of them, by the way, are from -- are come to us having served in the military before, so they don’t come to us untrained. In some cases it’s refresher training. In other cases, it’s adopting methods that are more conducive to democratic societies. But we take them through a one-week academy course, which you’re all welcome to visit by the way -- we have two of them, one on each side of the river -- and that’s kind of a basic training and refresher training. And then we actually take them and we form a partnership with a particular unit in one of my formations, and they go through training in we call it cordon and search: the act of picking a target inside of an urban environment, cordoning it off, moving into it, penetrating it, attacking the target, bringing it out, traffic control points, route reconaissance to make sure that the route is clear and safe.
  • Until three days ago, we had captured a total of 19 foreigners in the city of Baghdad, out of several thousand individuals that we captured. So it -- I would not have characterized that particular number as a significant part of the fight. We very clearly still are fighting, as the principal enemy, the former regime and its structures.

    Now I just mentioned in the last 72 hours we’ve picked up three foreigners. And then you add that to the earlier question about the particular nature of the VBIED at the front gate here and the attack up in Erbil, and I think it causes us to try figure out exactly what is occurring here.

  • Q James Hyde (sp) of the Times. What’s the status of the foreign fighters that you pick up and detain? And are they processed in any different way to the former regime loyalists that you have in detention?

    GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, I hope you don’t mind a one-word answer to that one. The answer’s yes. Are they processed differently? Yes. Why? Because we want to know why they’re here.

Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 8:59:48 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


ICDC, TF “ALL AMERICAN” CREATE SAFE ENVIRONMENT
The 82nd Airborne and its subordinate units continued missions over the last day to bring peace and prosperity to the residents of the Al Anbar province. During the last 24 hours TF "All American" conducted 248 patrols (including 10 joint patrols) and two offensive operations. Iraqi Civil Defense Corps forces also conducted 16 independent patrols. TF “All American” discovered and disarmed five improvised explosive devices and captured four enemy personnel. At the Trebil border crossing, 60 personnel and 30 vehicles were denied entry because they lacked passports. Last night in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s area of operations, soldiers conducted a raid on two houses near Hit. The operation resulted in the capture of four enemy personnel. Troops discovered 100 155mm artillery rounds, 30 107mm rockets, 500 anti-tank mines, 500 anti-personnel mines and 10 50lb. bags of black powder.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 8:44:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


ARROWHEAD BRIGADE DETAINS SUSPECTS
Soldiers from 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) under the operational control of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) detained personnel suspected of anti-Coalition activities and recovered weapons and other explosives in northern Iraq Sunday. Soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment conducted a cordon-and-knock operation in Mosul and detained four personnel associated with anti-Coalition activities, including one target suspected of involvement in planning attacks on Coalition forces. Members of the Coalition for Iraqi Unity, a concerned group of citizens in northwestern Iraq, came to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment tactical operations center in Tallafar and turned in 13 rocket-propelled grenade rounds, seven boosters, 36 hand grenades, an AK-47 rifle, a submachine gun, 1 RPG launcher, 10 82 mm mortar rounds and 74 .30 cal rounds. Soldiers from 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment secured two mines, 10 kilograms of TNT and an electronic activation device along a thoroughfare south of Mosul. Members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps removed the improvised explosive device.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 8:42:46 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Danish NGO Cuts and Runs Closes Iraq Mine Clearing Program
A Danish relief organization said Monday it was closing its mine clearing program in Iraq after a remote-controlled bomb hit a car belonging to the Copenhagen-based group, slightly injuring three people. "So far the biggest threats against our work has been attacks by Baathists robbers and feyadeen thefts," said Lennart Skov-Hansen, a spokesman for Dan Churchaid, the non-governmental organization.
Didn’t even blame the right people.
Saturday’s blast, apparently from a homemade device, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, sent shrapnel through the vehicle. "Even a lot of military and police haven’t been able to protect us," he said.
Nobody’s perfect.
The 14 people working for the mine clearance program, including Swedish, Dutch, British, Canadian and Danish personnel, have been sent home, Churchaid said in a statement. Dan Churchaid has about 50 people in Basra. They clear unexploded ordinance from around hospitals and schools and help repair water and electricity lines. Skov-Hansen said Dan Churchaid did not close its water and sewer repair operation in southern Iraq, which is primarily run by Iraqis. Denmark has 410 troops in Basra and nearby Qurnah, 250 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Who will now pick up the unfinished work.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2004 12:22:03 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Senators: Iraqi Women Could Lose Rights
Iraqi women are in danger of losing many of their rights to Islamic law, and the U.S. occupation authority is not doing enough to prevent it, Democratic lawmakers said Monday.
Having stood in opposition to the whole plan, they’ll now stand opposed to the consequences.
The Iraqi Governing Council in December decided to abolish Saddam’s code and allow each religious group to apply its tradition. The decision has not been approved by U.S. occupation administrator L. Paul Bremer, who wields a veto. The 45 members of the House said Monday in a letter to President Bush that the administration must act now because it will be unable to reverse the council’s action after the scheduled June 30 transfer of power to Iraqis. "It would be a tragedy beyond words if Iraqi women lost the rights they had under Saddam Hussein, especially when the purpose of our mission in Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people," 44 Democrats and one independent wrote to Bush.
Yep. So what do you propose to do about it?
The letter echoes complaints that occupation authorities already have heard from Iraqi women. In December, about a dozen women wrote Bremer saying the coalition "created these male-dominated councils" and is obligated to "redress this discrimination." The U.S.-led authority has sought to raise women’s consciousness, sponsoring programs to advise women how to set up small businesses and organizing discussion groups on women’s issues. Many women still complain the coalition has failed to promote women’s rights as aggressively as its promises would suggest, and whatever gains they have made will diminish after the U.S.-led coalition transfers sovereignty to a new Iraqi government.
So, you’re telling us you want us to stay, right?
The lawmakers’ letter to Bush also appeared aimed at countering an op-ed piece in The Washington Post on Sunday in which Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz wrote about U.S. efforts for Iraqi women. Wolfowitz wrote that the United States "is giving special emphasis to helping Iraqi women," having allocated $27 million for women’s programs and trying to see to it that girls benefit from new education programs in Iraq. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said that in the newspaper piece, Wolfowitz "gushed over efforts to assist women in Iraq, but failed to mention the pending reversal of women’s rights laws on June 30. I would hope that Mr. Wolfowitz and this administration aren’t viewing this situation through rose-colored glasses. There is a women’s rights crisis on the horizon in Iraq, and we must take action while we still have a say in the matter," Maloney said.
So you want us to stay and tell the Iraqis what to do. Isn’t that rather different from your party’s message lately?
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2004 12:16:31 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maloney is a blowhard. NYorkers, Why?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  The Iraqi Governing Council in December decided to abolish Saddam's code
I hope the journalist is just being ignorant here because this 1959 civil code, governing family affairs, was in effect long before Saddam siezed power. 'Tho, to his credit, this is one thing the Baathists didn't run through the shredder.

If Bremer has veto power then he should not hesitate to use it because this temporary council has no business establishing permanent laws. Particular one that adversely effects over half the population.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 5:01 Comments || Top||

#3 
Maloney is a blowhard. NYorkers, Why?

Its hard to explain if you've never been to Long Island. Lots of people out that way like the sound of their own voices.
I've heard that the most dangerous place in New York is the spot in between Senator Clinton and a television camera.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/03/2004 7:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Of course it's a real problem as Iraq is going to wind up with some sort of Islamic republic if you have a vote.

The administration seemed to expect the Iraqi people to lay around like lumps of clay and it's not clear why. Maybe just good old fashioned racism.
Posted by: Hiryu || 02/03/2004 7:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Hiryu -- actually, I think the administration expected the Iraqis to act like civilized people.

GK -- the reason Saddam didn't toss the old law is because the old law was meaningless under his rule.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 8:21 Comments || Top||

#6  As was pointed out in a CPA briefing posted here in the last several days, this measure did not pass the Council. It will not go to Bremer. It's just one of many proposals that come up in a legislative body that go no where.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 9:13 Comments || Top||

#7  actually, if they had a real secret ballot in Iraq on the question of Sharia I think it would lose; they problem is that if people get elected locally in the Shia areas, they will have to seek Sistani's approval to run in subsequent elections and thus would be more likely to vote for Islamist type positions
this is why the CPA wanted to get a constitution voted on first
Posted by: mhw || 02/03/2004 22:18 Comments || Top||


Irbil boom likely Dire Revenge for Hassan Ghul bust
The bombings in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil may have been carried out to avenge the arrest of a veteran Al-Qaeda leader, a senior official of the US-led coalition said on Monday. Asked who was behind Sunday’s attacks that killed at least 65 people and wounded more than 200, the official said it may have been "payback" for the capture in Iraq of Hasan Ghul on January 22.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:14:15 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Ansar al-Islam is #1 suspect in Irbil boom
Kurds blamed Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group, for suicide bombings that killed at least 67 people, saying Monday its members increasingly have been slipping into Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s ouster.
From where?
Thousands gathered to mourn at Irbil’s largest mosque, where the two main Kurdish parties – both U.S. allies, but often at odds with each other – held a joint memorial in a show of unity. The attacks Sunday devastated the Kurdish parties’ offices in the northern city, the heartland of the Kurdish self-rule region. One of the parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, said a video camera captured images of the man who blew himself up inside its office, slipping in alongside hundreds of well-wishers greeting PUK officials on the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Only the back of the bomber’s head was visible in the footage. The man, apparently in his 20s or 30s, shook hands with one of the Irbil office’s deputy chiefs, then stepped forward and put his hand in that of another, Shakhwan Abbas. "That’s when he blew himself up," said Azad Jundiyani, head of the PUK’s media department.

Almost at the same time Sunday morning, the second bomber struck a similar ceremony at the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP. U.S. military officials said Monday 67 people were killed and 267 wounded in the two blasts. However, the two parties reported a higher toll – 76 – 46 at the PUK office and 30 at the KDP office. "All indications point to the involvement of Islamic terrorists with al-Qaeda connections," Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK-dominated sector of the Kurdish region, said by telephone from Washington. "This demonstrates that the terrorists are losing and this will only strengthen our resolve."

Kurdish officials say that since Saddam’s fall, more Ansar fighters have been infiltrating Iraq. "Our information indicates that al-Qaeda was behind this ugly terrorist act," said Kosrat Rasul Ali, the No. 2 man in PUK, told The Associated Press. He said there was full coordination among remnants of Saddam’s Baath party regime and al-Qaeda. Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters the Irbil bombings, along with a Jan. 18 attack in the capital that killed 25 people, were "different from the sort of hit-and-run style" of Saddam loyalists thought to be behind anti-U.S. attacks in Baghdad and central Iraq. "It concerns us that it could be another enemy, a different enemy, a foreign-influenced enemy, a terrorist network enemy," he said in Baghdad.

Sunday’s attacks brought the PUK and KDP closer, at least for now, and could fuel demands for self-rule. In an exchange of letters, the heads of the two parties, promised stronger ties. "The two of us, along with other political democratic parties, must work together to end these terrorist acts. The terrorists must realize that these acts will not weaken our struggle," KDP head Massoud Barzani wrote. "We shall work more seriously toward uniting our government. We will work together in order to live in a democratic, federal Iraq," replied the PUK’s Jalal Talabani. Neither leader was in Irbil when the attacks took place.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:07:17 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bummer. Assholes killed in the name of....
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  This is not a good time to be an Arab in Kurdistan.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 0:49 Comments || Top||

#3  There are more Kurds in Iran than in Iraq. From memory about twice as many. It looks to me that the Mullahs are sending Kurd fundos across the border. The appropraite response would be to give the Iraqi Kurds a free hand in arming their Iranian brothers. Thats a long and difficult to defend border.

'As ye sow, so shall ye reap also!'
Posted by: phil_b || 02/03/2004 3:12 Comments || Top||

#4  The problem, Phil, is that letting them freely arm the Iranian Kurds would also let them arm the Kurds in Turkey.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 8:23 Comments || Top||

#5  "would also let them arm the Kurds in Turkey"
And that's bad because...? Oops, just kidding. The Turks are our buddies, uh, again. I, um, forgot.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 17:23 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
On eve of terrorism meeting, report cites new Islamic militia
On the eve of a visit to Indonesia by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, to address a 29-nation, ministerial conference on terrorism, a new report says that another militant Islamic militia has emerged, which heightens the gravity of the terrorist threat here. The new group, Mujahidin Kompak, was formed by hard-liners who split from Jemaah Islamiyah, considered Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Southeast Asia, according to the report, which was written by Sidney Jones, director of the Indonesian office of International Crisis Group and widely considered the foremost authority on Jemaah Islamiyah.
Actually, I consider this a good sign. Groups splitting off, fights over ideological purity, the occasional hatchet applied to a rival's head in the dead of night... It all goes to help dissolve big, ugly enemies and turn them into smaller, more digestible pieces...
The emergence of the group, and an examination of its acts of violence in Central Sulawesi, which has been wracked by Christian-Muslim violence, "suggests a need to revise assessments about the nature and gravity of the terrorist threat in Indonesia," Jones wrote in the report, which was released on Tuesday. "While the shorter term prospects are somewhat encouraging, there is an under appreciated longer security risk." This is the sixth report about Jemaah Islamiyah and terrorism in Southeast Asia by Jones, an American. Australian, American and Asian intelligence and police officials are in general agreement that she has done a better job of understanding and analyzing the organization than their own agencies have. In this 41-page report, Jones puts in a footnote one of the most arresting facts: the date of the founding of Jemaah Islamiyah - Jan. 1, 1993. This comes from a document Jones obtained, and will surely be uncomfortable for many Indonesians, including senior government officials and religious leaders, who continue to insist that Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist.
Posted by: TS || 02/03/2004 1:38:46 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Christian-Muslim violence"

No such thing. Now, there IS vicious mooslim violence against Christians on the periphery of Dar al Islam as the mooslims try to control the locality and expand their grip. But this is almost all one-way violence.
Posted by: Texas_Trainer || 02/03/2004 13:49 Comments || Top||

#2  TT - What about all those rampaging Nuns looting, pillaging, and burning? Oh, oops, my bad... That was Nuns on Fire, a porno flick from Larry Flynt. Sorry. Never mind. ;->
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 17:12 Comments || Top||

#3  "The new group, Mujahidin Kompak, was formed by hard-liners who split from Jemaah Islamiyah, considered Al Qaeda’s affiliate..."

Holy cream of the crap, Batman!

...and in related news, Michael legally separates from the rest of the Jackson family because, as he states, "they just Aren't strange enough for me…”
Posted by: Hyper || 02/03/2004 17:52 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL! Send 'em to me honey.
Posted by: Nuss Ratchett || 02/03/2004 19:20 Comments || Top||


Pirates strike twice near S’pore waters
PIRATES struck twice near Singapore waters last Thursday, boarding vessels on the move and even surprising the shipmasters in their cabins. In the light of the attacks, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) issued a statement yesterday warning all shippers to be vigilant. No injuries were reported in the two incidents, which took place in the Singapore Straits, near Karimun Island in Indonesia. The two spots are 24km or so outside Singapore waters.

The pirates first struck the Cape Haralambos, a bulk carrier registered in the Marshall Islands which was heading for Singapore from India to load up on fuel, just after midnight. Three pirates armed with knives boarded the 69,000-ton vessel, tied up the shipmaster and scooted off with the ship’s cash and the crew’s valuables, worth more than $3,000 in all. Less than three hours later, just 6km away, another group struck the 8,900-ton Turkish-registered container ship Border. This time, five pirates wielding long knives boarded the ship and forced the shipmaster to surrender the key to its safe. But he managed to slip away and alert his crew. The pirates fled with only his watch. The Border was heading for Singapore from Port Klang, Malaysia.

The area has been relatively quiet till now, with no attacks reported there for more than a year. There had been one incident in 2002, and three each in 2001 and 2000. About 400 ships pass through this busy area daily. Some ships are known to replenish fuel, water and other supplies from other vessels out at sea. The MPA said shippers should use designated areas within the port for such activities. It ’strongly urges’ shipmasters, their crew, and the local and international shipping community to step up surveillance. This means, for example, ensuring vessels have anti-piracy measures such as closed-circuit cameras to monitor movements on the ship, and pirate-intrusion alarms.
Could be the same group did both attacks. Otherwise coordinated attacks are a AQ trademark, and this could have been a dry run. Sending a large cargo vessel at top speed against any naval vessel would guarantee to sink it and US naval vessels go through this Strait all the time.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/03/2004 3:22:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nah, these are just dirt-poor people who are desperate. This is the high seas version of a pawn shop in the bad part of town getting robbed.

The U.S. Navy has a top-secret defense against being rammed by cargo vessels...it's called, "moving out of the way".
Posted by: gromky || 02/03/2004 4:44 Comments || Top||

#2  "moving out of the way". Easy on the high seas, but a lot harder in a narrow strait with lots of shipping. I've watched ships move through the straits of Singapore and they pass at less than a thousand meters. At 35 knots, thats about 90 seconds to react. 45 seconds if each ship is approaching the other at 35 knots. A stationary ship or docked ship has no chance of getting out of the way.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/03/2004 5:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Then there's the other "top-secret defense against being rammed by cargo vessels:"
5"/62 Mk 45 Mod 4
5"/54 Mk 45
. . . and for those of you who love the old classics . . .
5"/38 Mk 12 (on the Iowa-class BB)
Posted by: Mike || 02/03/2004 10:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Mike: don't forget a few .50 cal's for "close in" work. Or a Phalanx.
Posted by: PBMcL || 02/03/2004 11:52 Comments || Top||

#5  If they're just using knives a Mossberg might suffice.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 14:04 Comments || Top||

#6  Will a Phalanx depress far enough to engage a surface target? If so, it'll ruin your whole day, for sure.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#7  I had thought somebody had posted it before on Rantburg that the Phalanx was being replaced, but it didn't show up in the search:
In recent years, the Vulcan 20 mm gun that is the heart of this weapon has increasingly been seen as not being effective enough against modern missile threats. For this reason, Phalanx may be replaced on many ships by the newer RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) System or other more potent CIWS systems.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 16:24 Comments || Top||

#8  Phalanx may be replaced on many ships by the newer RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile)
Sorta like Shipboard Chaparrral only without fins....
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 19:21 Comments || Top||

#9  Nah, these are just dirt-poor people who are desperate. This is the high seas version of a pawn shop in the bad part of town getting robbed.

In these two cases, agreed. In the Straits, there's tradition of fishermen engage in such side-business.

The U.S. Navy has a top-secret defense against being rammed by cargo vessels...it's called, "moving out of the way".

phil_b is right. Ships move fast in the Straits, many of them don't follow navigation rules or the designated channels (think French drivers) and there isn't a lot of time to react. The USS Ranger paid for it by colliding with a bulk freighter in 1979. Of course being in total EMCON didn't help matters any...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2004 23:07 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Clark may have to get a job
Evoking the image of Gen. George Custer's famed last stand, one of Wesley Clark's chief backers in New York said Tuesday it appeared the former general's race for the Democratic presidential nomination might be over. "I think the general is about to meet Sitting Bull," said state Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, a Manhattan Democrat. In a subsequent interview with The Associated Press, Paterson said he would continue to back Clark as long as he remained in the race. "I was kidding around (during the radio interview) and I'm still supporting him, but there comes a point _ some of these (seven) states are in the South ... and this is an area that we were trying to run strong in, so just being a realist, it's going to be kind of difficult" to continue, Paterson said. Paterson said if Clark managed to win Tuesday in Oklahoma, where pre-vote polls showed him running close with Kerry, the general might continue to fight. Spell said that even if Clark won no contests on Tuesday, his campaign would continue.
Tick... tick... tick...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 21:17 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Joe-mentum runs out
Joe Lieberman is on Fox News. He's hanging it up. Too bad for the Dummycrats. He coulda been a contender.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 21:06 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lieberman was the only 'crat that had a clue about the WoT, and had some sense of values and honor. Now the demo' ship has absolutely no moral rudder as it powers full steam ahead. If the country gets aboard, it will be a disaster when we go aground.

Hate to be full of nautical analogies today, but it fits. The GOP has the WoT going for it, but everything else is pandering with no moral stance. I am very concerned.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 21:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Agreed, AP. Joe was the only Donk with any discernible honor or sense. This wraps it up, IMHO.

Time to get serious about rousting the vote for Dubya - every vote will be needed cuz every step is uphill against the endless monotony of the LLL press dogma and spin.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 21:42 Comments || Top||

#3  The GOP certainly has the war on terror going for it against the democrats, but it still falls far short. If this is war, why the record deficits on non-military spending? What is being done to topple the Thugocracy in Iran? -- 75% of Iranians want this to happen! What is being done about the sicko Saudi situation? I'm sorry, but I don't think that Bush would ever take that one on -- yet it is perhaps the key.

So, Rantburgers, who in 2008? I would suggest a fiscal conservative, social-cultural moderate, and foreign policy eagle.

Any ideas?
Posted by: closet neo-con || 02/03/2004 23:07 Comments || Top||

#4  How appropriate--Lieberman on Fox--just where he belongs--fortunately the people who actually pay taxes have figured out GW's big tax cut lie--he will be a one termer like his old man--you can only lie so much--even if you have a black woman doing it for you b4 people figure out the real deal--this administration is of the rich/for the rich and by the rich
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/03/2004 23:20 Comments || Top||


"Fallen Angel’s" White house letter & SC package with letter
Hat tip to Drudge EFL
As federal investigators try to trace the origin of suspected ricin found Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, ABCNEWS has learned of an earlier, undisclosed incident in which a ricin-laced letter was intercepted on its way to the White House. In November, a letter postmarked Chattanooga, Tenn., and addressed to the White House was intercepted at an off-site mail sorting facility in the Washington area, sources told ABCNEWS. The powdery substance in the letter tested positive for ricin. However, the tests indicated that the poison was in a low-potency, granular form that posed no health risk, the sources said. According to two law enforcement sources, the intercepted letter addressed to the White House was signed "Fallen Angel." That sign-off was also used in a letter that was part of a package containing ricin that was left at a post office in Greenville, S.C., in October 2003. That letter complained about new federal trucking regulations requiring more rest for drivers. The letter described the author as "a fleet owner of a tanker company" and contained this threat: "If my demand is dismissed I’m capable of making Ricin 
 I will start dumping."
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 8:52:49 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Am I the only person who thinks the letter's claim is bogus? Of course, there were the stories about AQ agents trying to get licenses for driving hazardous materials tankers.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 21:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Fallen Angel sounds like some child molester.

I'm a free market leaning guy. Mandating rested drivers, rigs that are road worthy, safe handling of hazardous material, and the hole weed, whites and wine is a holy grail and not to be messed with. If people die...
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 23:58 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Sharon considers placing some Arab-Israelis under PA control
EFL
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering redrawing Israel’s border to place parts of Israel’s Arab population under Palestinian control in a final peace deal. The official stressed that any such move would have to be accepted by Israeli Arabs and come only as part of a final treaty with the Palestinians. However, the idea threatened to arouse the deepest fears of Israel’s Arab minority and drew immediate criticism from an Israeli Arab leader. Roughly 20 percent of Israel’s 6.6 million citizens are Arabs. Unlike their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in 1967, Israelis Arabs have the right to vote, receive Israeli social services and can work inside Israel.
They might not want to trade that for the blessings of Hamas administration or the tender mercies of al-Aqsa Martyrs shaking them down for protection money...
Relations with the Jewish majority, however, are often tense. Israeli Arabs have higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than Jews, and complain of frequent discrimination. In October 2000, Israeli police killed 13 Israeli-Arabs during riots that followed the outbreak of Israel-Palestinian violence, which some Israeli-Arabs supported.
I think it's the religion, rather than something congenital...
Sharon has recently floated a series of ideas aimed at reducing "friction" with the Palestinians. The possibility of placing some Israeli Arabs under Palestinian control is part of that goal, Israeli officials said.
Y'mean, like scaring them into better behavior? I dunno. They're not real good on cause and effect...
In return, Israel would seek parts of the West Bank, where more than 200,000 Israeli settlers live among some 2 million Palestinians.
They'd like al-Aqsa Martyrs for neighbors even less than the Israeli Arabs would...
On Tuesday, Sharon was quoted in the Maariv daily as saying he is examining a possible population exchange with the help of drawing a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. "I asked that it be examined legally. It is a complicated problem. I don’t have an answer on the matter yet, but I am certainly checking it," he told the newspaper. The senior Israeli official said exchanging populations is "an old method that has been used elsewhere."
The Assyrians used to do it all the time...
"It’s not a plan for now," the official stressed. "It will only be on the agenda when there is an agreement between the two sides ... If we come to an agreement with the Palestinians, then it will be raised." Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker, said he opposes the idea. "We are talking about a dangerous, anti-democratic suggestion, which will bring about a schism between the state and its Arab citizens," Tibi said.
He couldn’t comment further as he indicated he had a sudden need to change his underpants
He said residents of Israel’s Arab towns "are not pawns that Sharon can play with."
Wouldn’t this be just ducky! Arabs clamoring to live in Israel instead of under Arab rule; Israel affirming it’s Jewish identity; paleos scratching their head over whether this is a good or a bad thing. yummy.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/03/2004 2:13:48 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This article just says so much!
Posted by: Daniel King || 02/03/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Brilliant move, he's telling the Israel Arabs to choose a side.

Probably won't help diffuse the population bomb because I don't think they'll assimilate but it might stop the growing support among the Israeli Arabs for Arafat's mad regime.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/03/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#3  I just can't stop grinning that Sharon is playing this move. I'm suprised Arafish hasn't said anything yet.
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 16:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Diabolical. Sharon threatens to sell part of his population down the river.... Hmmmm.... Bet there might be an upswing in coversions. But like Nixon noted.... I don't believe the Arabs vote Likud. LOL.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Sorry. The above sounds harsh. It's more of a BTW gentleman which side of the fence to you care for?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:39 Comments || Top||

#6  There has been discrimination against Israeli Arabs for a long time; it started long before the intifada began. Many social programs and many financial programs are predicated on the recipient being a military veteran there. Non-veterans have trouble getting loans for housing and for businesses. Since most Israeli Arabs are kept out of the army (and for good reason!), they can't fully participate in the economy. And that is dangerous to any society.

There have been a lot of hidden tensions within the Israeli Jewish community. The Ashkenazim and the Sephardim have fought in the past. The Russian immigrants of the 1970s and 1980s felt aggrieved that they were shunted off to poor towns with poor schools. And the Ethopian Jews, law-abiding, pleasant, loyal—they received some truly mortal insults. It took a lot to drive them to riot, and they did once. There had been a blood drive, and many Ethopians reported to the hospitals to donate blood. Some of them then accidentally discovered that their blood was discarded unused because the doctors worried that they might have AIDS.

For Israel to be successful, it will need to find a way to have all its law-abiding citizens fully participate in the economy. The Palestinian murderers make it difficult (I know—understatement!), but it's vital that the Israeli Arabs be integrated into the economy. I don't know if the Israeli government can do it, and that is a pity.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/03/2004 16:59 Comments || Top||

#7  but it's vital that the Israeli Arabs be integrated into the economy

Not sure I agree.

Saudi Arabia is a Muslim state.

Iran is a Muslim state.

Why can't Israel be a Jewish state?
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/03/2004 17:20 Comments || Top||

#8  This has been under discussion for a long time. Parts of the Galilie are 90-100% Arab. Among the most interesting arabs are the E. Jerusalemites who, in a secret and free election, would almost certainly vote to be Israelis but who don't dare say so.
Posted by: mhw || 02/03/2004 18:04 Comments || Top||

#9  DenBeste wrote an interesting but looong discussion at: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/01/UpagainsttheWall.shtml
regarding this issue
Posted by: Dave || 02/03/2004 19:46 Comments || Top||

#10  DenBeste wrote an interesting but looong discussion
Dave, I think that sums up all of his posts! ;)
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 20:34 Comments || Top||

#11  As Bush said (paraphrasing liberally, of course) - "are with you with us or the terrorists?"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2004 21:33 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Algeria seizes large amount of arms from Islamists
Algerian security police seized a large amount of arms from militants of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), which is a major source of support and recruitment for al-Qaeda operations. According to the Algerian Armed Forces’ General Staff, the Islamists paid for the arms with money they received as ransom for 30 western tourists taken hostages in Sahara by GSPC men in February-March 2003. Algerian commandos liberated a group of the hostages. The second group was moved to Mali and set free after a large ransom was paid to the bandits. TV networks showed seized heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, some 200 Kalashnikov assault rifles, rifles with telescopic sites and a large amount of ammunition.

Algerian media also report Tuesday new acts of terrorism staged by Islamists against peaceful residents during the sacrificial Moslem festival of Id el-Adha. Two people were massacred in the district of Jijelli, two others were beheaded by bandits south of Skikda province. Several people were gravely wounded.
Posted by: TS || 02/03/2004 1:51:09 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front
Minot BUFFS Deploy to Guam.
The Air Force will send some heavy bombers to Guam this month to make up for lost firepower in the Pacific as thousands of troops from the region are sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. A spokeswoman at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., said Tuesday that "approximately six" B-52H Stratofortress bombers from the base would deploy to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, sometime in February.
Today’s weather forecast, Minot, ND: -6 degrees , Guam: 79 degrees.
About three hundred airmen from the base will go with them, Maj. Dani Johnson said.
Three hundred very happy airman.
Johnson said she did not know the duration of the deployment but said they typically last three months. Defense officials at the Pentagon said other bombers could be sent to the Pacific in the future. "We will stay there as long as they need us," Johnson said.
Have fun, remember the suntan lotion.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 1:45:45 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Somebody's gotta be feeling a bit nervous about this.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 13:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Izzat still the 5th SBW? Probably not, SAC is gone. Still, never turn down a TDY, especially to a pacific island. Even Guam counts.
Posted by: mojo || 02/03/2004 14:02 Comments || Top||

#3  especially to a pacific island. Even Guam counts.

Have B-52's been based on other Pacific Islands? Tinian? Okinawa I guess.... anywhere else?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||

#4  This is one of them ‘hard luck’ deployments that the Air force does. I bet they did not lack volunteers to go to Guam in the winter. I had to spend three ‘brutal’ years in Hawaii, two years on Crete Greece, and deployed six times to Nellis AFB NV (a month each). That was the 'good times', won't tell about the bad ones. Each time I went so that others could not. Bon Chance to the Buff crew-dogs and enjoy yourself on the beach.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/03/2004 17:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Just watch out for the snakes.
Posted by: bogeybob || 02/03/2004 17:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Shipman:
Have B-52's been based on other Pacific Islands?


You left out Honshu and Kyushu...
Posted by: mojo || 02/03/2004 18:00 Comments || Top||

#7  During the Vietnam era Mojo?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 18:44 Comments || Top||


Video of Oklahoma City Bombing?
The possibility that a video exists showing the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building led to a search of a home in Virginia, but the man whose residence was searched said no such video was found. No such video has ever been seen publicly and it is not clear whether one exists. Depending on what was on such a video, it could conceivably be used as evidence in bombing conspirator Terry Nichols’ trial on state murder charges, set to begin March 1.
I’d like to see them look more closely into Nichols trips to the Phillipines and who he met there.
The search of John Culbertson’s home in Centreville, Va., took place Friday. The search was first reported by the McCurtain Daily Gazette. Culbertson is a Washington-based consultant who once advised members of Congress on the Waco fire and Oklahoma City bombing investigations. He is a former aide to former Rep. James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat who was sent to prison for bribery, racketeering and tax evasion.
Now there’s a great resume.
Culbertson said in a telephone interview Monday that authorities did not find the video they were seeking, but he declined to comment further until he finished meeting with an attorney. He didn’t return subsequent telephone calls.
Oh ho, he’s being careful with his statement, isn’t he?
An affidavit in support of the search warrant was filed by Oklahoma City police inspector Mark Easley. Easley has been assisting the Oklahoma County district attorney’s office in its prosecution of Nichols, who faces 161 first-degree murder charges. Nichols already has been convicted of federal charges in the April 19, 1995, blast. The affidavit said Nichols’ attorneys had advised prosecutors that Culbertson might have a video of the explosion.
Might, maybe, possibly, etc.
In the affidavit, Easley said Dallas attorney Thomas W. Mills Jr. saw the video on Culbertson’s computer on Aug. 26, 1998. Culbertson allegedly told Mills the images came from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent. Mills said the video included images showing the building before the bombing, then with a "small glow" at its base, then with a "ball of fire rising from the building," according to the affidavit.
Sounds like video from a security camera or a ATM machine in the neighborhood. If there are multiple still pictures like the story reads, it’s a ATM. A BATF agent found it during the investigation and turned it in. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t one like this, but ATMs are not known for quality video images.
Easley said in the affidavit that he spoke to Culbertson by telephone before the search, and Culbertson said he showed such a video to Mills but that he had subsequently turned this material over to the House Judiciary Committee. Culbertson told Easley he couldn’t say whether he still had a copy of the video. Police in Virginia referred questions to the Oklahoma City Police Department, which declined to comment on the search. Prosecutors have consistently refused to comment on the case, citing a judge’s gag order.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 1:21:51 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh ho, careful wording is right..heh heh.

They didn't find THE video they were seeking but we don't know what they did find.

Sounds like his friend Easley set him up before the search. This should get more interesting - if we ever hear any details.
Posted by: B || 02/03/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#2  I thought there was a video and the FBI has it and was supposed to turn it over to Arlen by last December. Something about middle-eastern looking men????

Jayna Davis' website.

Haven't heard anything since.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 14:26 Comments || Top||


Korea
U.S. military blames lap dances for declining military discipline
Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
SEOUL – The U.S. military has asked South Korea to ban lap dancing and other lewd acts at local nightclubs near its bases, saying they negatively impact military discipline.

The officials said the military was taking similar steps at other bases in the United States and overseas against lap dancing.

The U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, which has 15,000 troops near the border with North Korea, recently sent letters to the South Korean Special Tourist Association and local mayors urging a crack down on lap dancing clubs near barracks.

Describing "client-focused exotic dancing" as the principal cause of worsening military discipline, the military letter called for local club owners to "prohibit any physical contact between dancers and (U.S.) customers." South Korean lap dancing clubs are totally dependent on American customers because they are not allowed to take local clients.

U.S. officials declined to specify what they meant by worsening military discipline.

"We are following trends in the United States," Lt. Col. Chris Bailey, the 2nd Infantry Division’s assistant chief of staff, told the Stars & Stripes newspaper. The U.S. Forces Korea has consulted mainland laws banning lap dancing, he said.

The more than 90 American installations throughout South Korea have long been a source of friction between residents living near the U.S. facilities, who complain of pollution, noise and traffic from the U.S. bases and occasional crimes by American troops.
Many crimes committed by U.S. servicemen involve nightclubs near their barracks. Amid an increasing number of American troops accused of crimes, their legal protection has become a sensitive issues for the two governments.

"The USFK will root out any practices that go contrary to a positive environment for U.S. soldiers, Korean residents and people of all nationalities," said Chae Yang-To, a spokesman for the 2nd Infantry Division.

The United States maintains 37,000 troops in South Korea to help defend it from a potential conflict with North Korea under a bilateral defense treaty signed after the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Sorry, I couldn’t help but post this. It just seemed in keeping with our recent booby discussions.:)

Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/03/2004 1:21:02 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  client-focused exotic dancing

LOL.... sounds like something out of Dilbert.
Using a client-focused exotic dancer I endeavored to add value to the company and become self-actualized.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 14:01 Comments || Top||

#2  It's mostly to answer complaints about human trafficking and prosititution:
A U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) communications officer said it came up with a guideline, titled ``Good Commerce Practices Guide,'' and distributed it to the local administrative bodies around its camps at cities such as Tongduchon, north of Seoul, as part of efforts to prevent prostitution and possible human trafficking.The new guideline also urges bars and clubs to forbid the customers to place money or bills in dancers' garments, g-strings, bras, garters or other apparel, a practice prevalent at the strip bars and nightclubs in the camp towns. Lap dancing, provided by all-but-naked strippers for paying customers seeking women to gyrate on their laps, was banned in Las Vegas and in Los Angeles before the move was compromised. He linked the latest suggestion to concerns about human trafficking and prostitution, which local media have repeatedly argued the American military was making little effort to prevent. The USFK will root out any practices that go contrary to a positive environment for U.S. soldiers, Korean residents and people of all nationalities, Chae Yang-to, a spokesman of the 2nd Infantry Division, said. ``The division will designate the Korean nightclubs that do not comply with the request for banning lap dancing as off-limits spots to its soldiers,'' he said.

Basically, some of the "dancers" have been forced, even kidnapped, and made to dance in the clubs. Of course, it's our fault.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 14:04 Comments || Top||

#3  They've already banned booze in the Middle East. Now no women in the Far East? Perhaps an Army of eunuchs next? Cut me a break.
Posted by: XMAN || 02/03/2004 14:30 Comments || Top||

#4  I bet that Lt. Col. Chris Bailey has NO FRIENDS at Camp Humphreys. I will admit that some of the dancers are forced or coerced into working at the clubs but a great many of them make good money and they don’t work very hard for it. I am speaking solely as an outsider that actually talked to several of these working girls in Sontang Si outside Osan AB (I had no money to offer so talk is all I ever got). All had a story to tell and some even said they were tricked into working at the clubs. But MOST said they were happy to be working ‘easy’ and not planting rice or working in a sweatshop. Another factoid about the girls in the clubs, MOST are not hookers, they are just dancers. The old days of paying a ‘bar fine’ and leaving with Miss Kwon are long gone (at least in the major cities). I saw one turn down $500 dollars to go home with a Major one time. This was in 1988 and that was almost two months wages!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/03/2004 17:43 Comments || Top||

#5  I would approve of the measure, but only if we were a couple of months away from war. That's when having angry Privates really pays off.
Posted by: Sorge || 02/03/2004 19:07 Comments || Top||

#6  New headline: Angry lap dancers blame US military for declining revenue
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 23:24 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Israeli scientists develop "bone glue"
Edited for brevity.
Researchers at two different Israeli universities have recently developed novel materials that respectively stimulate speedy bone and cartilage repair, and enable faster and improved healing of injuries. At the Technion in Haifa, Dr. Dror Seliktar has invented a unique gel called Gelrin that he believes will reduce the need for bone transplants and heal bone defects caused by cancer or trauma. There is large potential market for the product, according to Seliktar, as orthopedic bone procedures will soon reach one million annually in the U.S. alone. Gelrin’s "bone glue" combines biological and synthetic components that when mixed together, supports broken bones and allows them to grow new bone tissue. After the broken bone has fused, the material is broken down in the body, says Seliktar, who was aided in his research by master’s student Liora Almany-Levi. Seliktar says Gelrin could also be used for sports injuries and fused vertebral disks, as well as reduce the need for hip replacements in the elderly by preventing degeneration of cartilage and stimulating regrowth in the joints.
Meanwhile, under Arafat’s stellar leadership, Palestinian scientists continue to develop new ways of scattering bone matter into crowds of women and children.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 12:05:50 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So.. what has Islam or any islamic nation contributed to advance medicine again?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 12:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Practice?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Practice?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 13:02 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL.... right twice.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:24 Comments || Top||

#5  cheap shots,... but hey... why not?
Posted by: doc || 02/03/2004 15:25 Comments || Top||

#6  My Dad was an orthopedic surgeon who experimented with using superglue in a form of alternative treatment of slipped discs: Normally, the collapsed cartilage disk is removed and the two adjacent rings of the spine are fused, creating an abnormally long segment in the spine that makes the spine less flexible. My dad removed the disk and a ring, and used superglue to bind the remaining disk and ring together after drilling out a bigger hole for the nerves coming out from the column: His research showed that the spinal column would shrink in two days. He had great success with patients reporting no pain after the second day.

His big problem was with patients reporting that they had no pain after the second day. They'd immediately engage in strenuous activity instead of resting for a week to let the cartiage and bone fuse, and ruptured the seal between them. He'd have to go in, remove the disk, and fuse the bones per standard procedure.

His biggest peeve, until he died, was a patient who didn't listen to their doctor...
Posted by: Ptah || 02/03/2004 15:28 Comments || Top||

#7  "what has Islam or any islamic nation contributed to advance medicine again?"

Gosh, CF, that seems a little harsh. After all, a millennium ago, Islamic science and medicine was state of the art. Of course, they have slacked off a little in the intervening ten centuries and if you were sick it would behoove you to find a western-trained doctor who believed in things like the germ theory of disease and antibiotics.

Still, Islam has provided us with a whole bunch of scientific and astronomical names that start with "al". Words like Aldebaran, alcohol, alchemy and of course, that joint in your arm, the albow.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/03/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#8  week to let the cartiage and bone fuse,
Did he ever use a cast or someother way to enforce a period of rest? His idea sounds obvious and therefore part genius.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:44 Comments || Top||

#9  Yes and they inspired the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by inventing the Al Batross.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:48 Comments || Top||

#10  That would mean that they invented Al Gore, and therefore the internet!
Posted by: BH || 02/03/2004 16:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Al right, that's enough...
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/03/2004 17:17 Comments || Top||

#12  SteveS

Could you stop this PC bullshit, please?


A millenium ago so called Islamic medicine was living on the discoveries of a) The Greeks, Babylonians and others (just remember that during all history before 1000AD East mediterranean had been more advanced than West) b) Contacts with China and India c) The Christians, Jews and some Muslims who were notorious unbelievers. But with the completion of Islamization the Christians and Jews were either absorbed, deported or exterminated and after the closure of Ijtihad sceptic Muslims were no longer tolerated. That meant scientific activity virtually disappeared. But scientific production by really Muslim societies (ie not in transition after conquest) is about zero. As in nothing.

Posted by: JFM || 02/03/2004 17:28 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Coast Guard’s First African-American Admiral
One day in 1967, Erroll M. Brown, then a high school senior in St. Petersburg, Fla., opened his mailbox and pulled out a 3-by-5-inch white postcard addressed to him. It read in part, "Are you interested in going to the Coast Guard Academy?"

If interested, the recipient was to check a little box and give the postcard to his guidance counselor so his grades could be mailed in. The teenager checked the box after discussing military service with his mother and stepfather. He saw the academy as a way to pay for his college education. But he didn’t have the slightest inkling that checking the "yes" box on the little white postcard would be his first step toward becoming the first African-American admiral in the Coast Guard’s 207-year history in 1998.

"I’d played football in high school, but given my size, I wasn’t going to get a football scholarship," said the 5-foot-6-inch, 157-pound rear admiral. "My mother, who was an elementary school teacher, had stressed the importance of education, so I wanted to continue my education. My father, who served two years in the Army, said military service was a good deal, and that he wished he’d stayed in." His mother’s words of wisdom still resonate today for the 53-year-old admiral: "Son, it’s your decision, because you’re the one who is going to have to do it." Armed with his parents’ advice, the teenager had a decision to make.

"So I checked the ’yes’ box, and here I am!" said the quick-witted Brown, who calls himself a "frustrated wanna-be basketball player." That’s because he wanted to play basketball at the academy, but ended up making the football team and playing intramural basketball.

As the Coast Guard’s assistant commandant for systems, Brown manages a $1 billion annual budget, nearly $8 billion in capital plant infrastructure, 174 employees in four headquarters directorates, and some 1,526 employees at three headquarters units. This includes the Coast Guard Yard and the Engineering Logistics Center in Baltimore and the Aircraft Repair and Supply Center in Elizabeth City, N.C. Brown, known as the Coast Guard’s "chief engineer", also is responsible for supporting the organization’s five strategic goals of safety, protection of natural resources, mobility, maritime security and national defense. SNIP
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 11:44:05 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  LOL. Sad there's no comments. Wait! No I'm not... what's the news? LOL
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 18:45 Comments || Top||

#2  When the press stops pointing it out and when Americans who happen to be of some particular racial / ethnic blend stop pointing it out, America will truly be color blind. A good man / woman is a good man / woman -- who gives a shit what else they are? I'll take a green trisexual from Mars over a PC-weenie hyphenation-hound J-school jackass anytime. Good for Mr Brown - and good for us he's there doing the job. Screw the press.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 21:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Speaking for noone but myself, I didn't comment earlier because I didn't want to lend any support to the idea of this being a "(whatever)-American" accomplishment. In my mind, it's an "American" accomplishment, or it's not. There are no shades or degrees of American.

This is one hell of an accomplishment, and I am very proud of Adm. Brown and thank him for serving his country. I also enjoyed the amusing story of how he wound up at the academy more or less by a twist of fate.

But in my mind he's an American, hyphen be damned, and I salute him for accomplishing what few men of any heritage ever will.
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 21:53 Comments || Top||

#4  I too salute the man.

That sort of success in any career requires hard work and consistency of output over a long period of time. Kudos to him for choosing the route of education and hard work to achieve some measure of success in his chosen career!

Let's face it, the world, in every country, has huge problems with atavism (my group is better than your group) whether that is ethnic, geographic, or by race. The American cultural success over the past 50 years of providing significant unlimited opportunity for any who want to work hard and, yes, play by the rules of the culture one lives in, is wonderful. Let's salute America too!
Posted by: Coloradoan || 02/04/2004 6:25 Comments || Top||


Bush Plans Libyan, Sudanese Trips
DEBKA exposes Karl Rove’s plan. EFL:
As North African temperatures cool toward the end of summer or early fall – and perhaps even earlier -
Now reported as June
George W. Bush will set off on an official visit to Libya and Sudan. The president is programming his trips as dramatic high points of the seismic military and political changes his administration has set in motion in the Middle East and key regions of northern and eastern Africa. If elected for a second term, Bush will continue to drive forward along these tracks which essentially radiate from Washington’s Middle Eastern foreign and security policy hub and cockpit of its global war on terror.

Muammar Qaddafi, determined to prove he is America’s best friend in the Middle East, is holding back nothing on his unconventional weapons programs, equipment, stocks and documentation on sources of supply, offering Washington a veritable treasure trove of intelligence. Materials laid bare in Libya forced Pervez Musharraf to carry out a painful probe into charges of illicit trafficking in nuclear technology with Libya and Iran by his top scientists and officials, including the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan. A thriving black market in WMD has beginning taking shape from long-hidden documents, the most intriguing section of which should uncover Libya’s nuclear exchanges with Iraq and North Korea. As DEBKA-Net-Weekly revealed in the past, a large team of Iraqi nuclear scientists was employed at the clandestine al Kufra oasis nuclear complex in southern Libya. Their present whereabouts are known only to Qaddafi.
You don’t suppose Qaddafi has them under house arrest? Now that would be a lovely welcome gift for Bush.

His Tripoli centerpiece will be followed by a Khartoum spectacular celebrating America’s momentous success in bringing one of Africa’s most intractable conflicts, Sudan’s bloody 21-year civil war, to an end, and persuading President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir to sign peace with the man Washington has slated as vice president, the rebel leader, John Garang. At the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of the south, Garang fought the Muslim-dominated government in the north for autonomy for the mostly Christian or animist south in a conflict that cost some two million lives and displaced some four million people. Credit for this breakthrough belongs to former US senator and Sudan peace broker John Danforth
Interesting
Sudan’s natural resources were just as much an issue in the civil conflict as ethnic and religious causes and equally promise to be the key to its future prosperity. In January 2003, this Nile state’s proven oil resources stood at 563 m barrels. Output of 300,000 bpd is expected to rise to an estimated 450,000 in 2005 once the country is pacified and rebel attacks on oil installations a thing of the past. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports that designating Garang vice president is part of the arrangement governing the disposition of Sudan’s oil. The Abyai district will come under “presidential” control on the basis of half and half shares in national oil resources between Bashir and Garang.
Expect cries of "it’s all about the oil" from the usual sources. Unfortunately for them, voters pump gas.
In more than one respect, the Sudanese peace and power-sharing pact could be an even more effective campaign booster than Qaddafi’s repentance. The Christians, who make up a quarter of Sudan’s population of 37 million, were long supported by conservative Christian groups in the United States whose votes Bush will be soliciting. Their championship will be vindicated by a settlement that gives the Christian minority of Sudan the victory of a place in the sun.
And there’s the bone for the religious right wing.
Even better, according to our sources, the peace accord is revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources as incorporating a secret rider between the Sudanese and US presidents – known to Garang – which undertakes to remove the Shariya, or Islamic law, from the constitutional basis of government.
That’ll spin the turbans up.
For the first time ever, American diplomacy will have succeeded in converting a country dominated by radical Muslims – in Sudan’s case since the 17th century - into a secular democracy – in a period, moreover, when fundamentalist Islam is at its most militant and only a few years after Khartoum played host to Osama bin Laden’s headquarters.
If it works, it’ll be a real coup.
If it works, it could be this war's Midway...
Bush’s advisers are preparing to stage a truly gala reception for the two Sudanese leaders, the first of a series showcasing the presidency’s breakthroughs in Africa in full sight of the American electorate and culminating in a splashy signing ceremony in March or April.
Gee, what else is going on then?
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice has set up a committee with heads of the African American community. Working out of an undisclosed location in Los Angeles, they are assessing the next moves on Sudan and their impact on voting patterns in November.
Condi has a secret bunker in LA?
As Danforth’s mission draws to a successful conclusion, the president’s senior political adviser Karl Rove is taking charge of strategy on Sudan and its exploitation as campaign fodder.
Bwahahaha!!
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 10:21:39 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "A nice fruit basket and a bottle of California champagne sparkling cider are on the desk in your quarters, Sammy's nucular team is in the armoire. Please enjoy some down-home Tripoli hospitality during your stay, and we hear the pulled pork BBQ sandwiches at the Wheelus O-Club are simply fabulous!"
Posted by: seafarious || 02/03/2004 12:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Add on too this Kahns confession about about the Nuclear Black Market and you have a good start ot the year. I do wonder what happened to the IAEA's whining about Libya though?
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 16:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Be careful placing to much faith in this Sudan agreement. It might work out but Garang is the guy who has squirreled away millions in clandestine US aid money for personal wealth, even while his people starved. He is the master mind of faking child slavery and selling the kids to ignorant western aid agencies. Garang's human rights abuses would rival any tyrant around. The master mind of this peace deal is Riek Machar but he has been recently sidelined so Garang can take the glory. Machar is brilliant. Garang is a troglodyte with Comunist leanings. And even Bin Laden said of Bashir and his boys, "This is the Muslim Mafia". Like I said, I hope it works out, but if one considers the character of the key players, one is well advised to be cautiously optimistic at most.
Posted by: SudanWatcher || 02/03/2004 17:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Bad faith seems to be endemic on both sides, as we've seen as this drama played out over the past couple years. I imagine Bashir and Garang will spend most of their time trying to have each other assassinated. This is a first step in the right direction, but the destination's about 200 years away.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2004 21:05 Comments || Top||

#5  I hope Dubya does 2 things:

1) Tells the Muslim Mafia that the gig is up - FOAD to the lot of them. Sudan would make a fine MOAB testing range.

2) Takes his own carnitas con salsa and cook with him. Good pork will be thin on the ground thereabouts.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 21:30 Comments || Top||

#6  this story's from debka--enuf said--no way bush goes to libya before the election--the families will scream bloody murder--or sudan--friends with child slavers?--he's not that dumb
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/03/2004 23:24 Comments || Top||


Suspicious Powder Found in Connecticut Mail Center
A suspicious powder was found in an envelope at a Connecticut mail sorting facility on the same night the deadly poison ricin was discovered in a U.S. Senate mail room in Washington, officials said on Tuesday. A mail clerk discovered sandy granules in an envelope about midnight Monday at Wallingford, Connecticut, in one of the same facilities in which anthrax spores were found in 2001, a U.S. postal official said. The 2001 find came during a major anthrax scare that also involved Senate offices in the U.S. Capitol. The clerk was decontaminated as a precaution and was not injured. Preliminary tests of the powder were inconclusive.
Posted by: CobraCommander || 02/03/2004 9:45:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It is especially interesting that the perp has changed agents. Ricin is easier to make than high quality weaponized anthrax. Maybe we zapped the lab where the anthrax was prepared.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/03/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Hmmm..... well guys till the elections, do expect some major terrorist event occuring somewhere. Dubya would need it. I'm keepin ma fingers crossed. May Lord keep us all in His Protection.
Posted by: Faisal || 02/03/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||


Ricin - A Primer
Ricin is one of the most powerful naturally occurring poisons and has no known vaccine or antidote. It is extracted from the bean-like seeds of the castor plant, Ricinus communis. One million tons of the beans are processed around the world each year to make castor oil, which is used as a laxative and in automotive brake fluid.
The poison comes from the exterior of the bean, not the bean itself.
Ricin kills cells by preventing them from making proteins. A small dose can be fatal if swallowed, injected or inhaled. Ingesting ricin causes fever, stomach ache, diarrhea, vomiting and eventually death. Inhalation often results in death from respiratory failure in 36 to 72 hours. Injected ricin causes death from multiple organ failure. Ricin is not easily absorbed through the skin, and experts say it is not an efficient way of killing large numbers of people. It’s estimated that 4 tons of ricin dispersed by aerosol would be needed to kill half of the people within an area of about 40 square miles, compared with only about 2 pounds of anthrax.
Not a very good WMD.
But it can be effective in targeting individuals. Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was killed in London in 1978 when a pinhead-sized pellet laced with ricin was injected into his thigh - reportedly by a rigged umbrella.
Killed by Bulgarian agents with the help of the KGB.
United Nations weapons inspectors who left Iraq in 1998 listed ricin among the poisons they believed Saddam Hussein had produced. U.S. troops also found traces of the substance at suspected al-Qaida biological weapons sites in Afghanistan.
Instructions for making ricin are available on the web.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 9:29:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ricinus communis -- I knew it was a Communist plot! Bastards!

It's good that it's not terribly practical for use as WMD, but unfortunately castor beans aren't too hard to come by. I imagine it could still wreak havoc in an environment like a subway station, a la the Tokyo sarin attack?
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 9:53 Comments || Top||

#2  If I was running this operation, I'd have agents working in fast food joints near military bases. Mix ricin in the salt for the french fries and you could kill a hell of a lot of people. With the time lag between ingestion and death, you could finish your shift and make a clean getaway.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 9:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Just like "dirty" bombs, it doesn't have to be very leathel to be an effective terror weapon.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 10:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Kay specifically said in his latest report Saddam had an active Ricin program up until the war.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/03/2004 14:32 Comments || Top||

#5  It will be interesting to see if John "the terrorist threat has been exaggerated" Kerry opens his own mail tomorrow. Come on, Mr. Heinz, just a few unmarked envelopes on national TV.
Posted by: Matt || 02/03/2004 16:17 Comments || Top||

#6  You have a dark heart Matt.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:25 Comments || Top||

#7  "You have a dark heart Matt."
Yeah. Ain't it sweet?

I would LOVE for the finger-pointers and second-guessers and back-seat-drivers to get up close and personal with the shit they blather on about - for a change. Kerry & Friends all deserve one of these special little love notes so they can be party to the things they now only pretend to know about.
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 16:54 Comments || Top||

#8  Ship, in case this goes on my permanent record, I was just funnin' Mr. Heinz and can only wish I had as much hair as he does. His "exaggerated" remark, however, was a profoundly stupid thing to say.
Posted by: Matt || 02/03/2004 17:40 Comments || Top||

#9  I'm sorry Matt but it all goes on the permanent record. Yes Indeedy.... the big binder... good readin too... you'd be amazed! LOL Lucky's takes up 30 cubic feet....
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 18:51 Comments || Top||

#10  What about Clinton's?
Posted by: Matt || 02/03/2004 19:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Shipman--LOL! We're gonna need an official Rantburg Storage Unit™ at this rate!
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 21:55 Comments || Top||


Steyn: Kerry’s wacky on Bush’s "Fraudulent Coalition"
EFL - Read it all
...just because the Massachusetts senator is a mediocre establishment weathervane pol whose rhetorical style is a model of sonorous monotony doesn’t mean his statements aren’t just as goofy as Mr. Dean’s. When I caught him on the stump in New Hampshire, he was still using his line about how, instead of building a "legitimate coalition," President Bush "built a fraudulent coalition."

"Fraudulent"? Mr. Kerry makes much of his rapport with veterans, but I would love to see him tell the brave British, Australian and Polish troops who helped liberate the Iraqi people that their participation was "fraudulent," just as I would love to see Maureen Dowd, who dismisses the coalition as "a gaggle of poodles and lackeys," tell Britain’s Desert Rats or the big beefy Fijians escorting Iraqi Currency Exchange convoys that they’re "poodles." Indeed, I would gladly fly Mr. Kerry and Miss Dowd first-class to Iraq and put them up in the best hotel in Basra (separate rooms, I hasten to add) just for the privilege. The reaction of these allies might even startle Mr. Kerry’s features from their present allegedly Botoxicated immobility.

But just to make it simple: The G7 comprises the world’s major industrial democracies. Aside from America, there are six other countries. Three — the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan — have troops in Iraq. Three — France, Germany and Canada — do not. So a majority of G7 nations are members of this "fraudulent coalition." Eleven of the 19 NATO members have contributed troops to the "fraudulent coalition." Thirteen of the 25 members of the newly enlarged European Union have forces serving in the "fraudulent coalition." So, when John Kerry pledges to rebuild America’s international relationships, what he means is he disagrees with the majority of G7 governments, NATO governments, European governments and key regional players in Asia and the Pacific, as well as the people of Iraq.

On the other hand, Mr. Kerry’s position has the support of a majority of the Arab League.

Ouch!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2004 8:41:30 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good post Frank. I always enjoy Styne's insights.

Actually it's France that's the piker here and we now know they had bribes to protect. (Didn't someone say Kerry is French?)

Germany did contribute anti-chemical warfare teams, Fuchs Panzers, during the drive to Baghdad. They were based in Kuwait ostensibly under Operation Enduring Freedom (a long way from Kabul). If memory serves, the Fuchs Panzers did, on one occasion, enter Iraq to investigate a possible chemical warfare stash.

Canada has only 11,000 deployable troops and many of those are making an admirable contribution to Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. So let's cut 'em some slack on Iraq.

At any rate, Styne makes a great case that Kerry is full of s**t.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#2  If you want to read the true story about what's going on behind the scenes in the Democratic primary race, click here. Warning: You will laugh your ass off! And put down that coffee!
Posted by: Dar || 02/03/2004 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  I hope none of the Dems spout the poodle line. Kerry could win; I hope he is smart enough not to offend the members of the coalition who we depend on in many different arenas. Dean seems to be in more control of himelf lately. I think he and Clark are the most likely to utter some nonsence that damages our country. Kucinich can utter whatever he wants; nobody is interested in his sideshow.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/03/2004 11:07 Comments || Top||

#4  I am also willing to help pay the expenses of Monsieur Kerry and Mademoiselle Dowd so that they tell the troops in person how illegitimate they are. All I ask is that I get to film the event. Better than Bum Fights: Liberal Slur Fights 2004! A pay-per-view event! $19.95 advance sales and $29.95 the day of.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/03/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Put me down for a copy, Sarge!
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2004 21:15 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Interesting tidbit on US-Russian counter-terrorism relations
Excerpted from a much larger article.
Counterterrorism has been the centerpiece of recent cooperation, most of it secret. U.S. News has learned that in December, U.S. intelligence used electronic intercepts and satellite images to locate a band of Chechen terrorists wanted for murder and kidnapping who were fleeing through the mountains of Dagestan in southern Russia. Thirty-seven militants were killed in an assault by Russian special forces, artillery fire, and aerial bombing. The exchange of information goes both ways: The Russians provided data on the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan in 2001 and on Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iraq war.
Now ain’t that interesting ...
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:35:50 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I always suspected that something like this was going on, nice to see more and more confirmation of it.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/03/2004 8:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Your want info on moving targets in the boonies, we can do that better than anyone else with the tech we have. IR, satellites, intercepts, etc.

But these are fragile sources - ask the idiot Boston Globe reporter who published a "leak" during the Clinton administration that told how we were intercepting Bin Laden's sat-phone conversations; which promptly stopped being used, completely blowing the source of the info. THe press will eventually have to start choosing to be "American" over being a "Reporter" when reporting issues like that.

That is why were were blind to 9/11: tech gone (via press leak) and no real "spies" inside.

We are over-reliant on technical sources of intelligence. Its going to take us a decade to recover the US HUMINT business from the 25+ years of crippling "reforms" started under Carter and continued by every president since then (with the possible exception of Reagan - they let us off the leash there, against the Communists).

You want info from inside a farily closed group, you need HUMINT. We suck at that. Good that the Russians are willing to go quid pro quo.

The Russians still have KGB style guys they go to for that kind of thing. They cannot afford the high-tech, so they go with the tried and true: dangerous men in dangerous places. They have guys who will cut off a man's "appendages" and mail them to his father to get the idea across that they are serious about an issue.

People in Washington (and the press) have got to get over the "yuck" factor. HUMINT is a dirty, inexact business, and can require dirty deals, and some wet work. To have good HUMINT you have to deal with some bad people, and you will have some things go wrong (Iran-Contra for example).

But it has to be done, warts and all...

Consider the price paid if you do not do this stuff...

There are a few thousand dead people in NY City and the Pentagon bearing witness to what HUMINT failure costs.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/03/2004 9:19 Comments || Top||

#3  The USA and Russia alliance...don't let them see the new Movie Miracle, not because we beat the CCCP, but because of the horrible acting...the relatinship will be over quicker than that shot of Janet's nipple.
Posted by: Bin Dempsey || 02/03/2004 9:22 Comments || Top||

#4  I've commented before that Russia's Chechen operations show all the hallmarks of either lousy intel or lousy intel coordination, or both. This confirms my suspicions.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#5  The press will eventually have to start choosing to be "American" over being a "Reporter"

PUH-LEEEEEEZE. Leopard, spots, change, NOT.
Is that a haiku ?
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 10:31 Comments || Top||

#6  the idiot Boston Globe reporter...

There's my vote for the redundancy of the day.
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2004 12:05 Comments || Top||


Russia launches international manhunt for theater seige masterminds
The Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office has ended an investigation and sent to court a criminal case against five accomplices blamed for assisting terrorists in the Nord-Ost drama and the terrorists who staged an explosion at McDonalds fast food restaurant in the southwest of Moscow last October. A source in the prosecutor’s office told Itar-Tass that Aslanbek Khaskhanov, Aslan Murdalov, Khampash Sobrlaliyev and the Mezhiyev brothers (Alikhan and Akhyad) would stand trial on charges of terrorism and collaboration in the act of hostage taking during the Nord-Ost show. Earlier, the criminal case against the culprits responsible for the McDonalds blast had been separated from the North-Ost case, the source at the prosecutor’s office said. An investigation into a criminal case against the organizers of both terrorist acts continues. Russia declared an international search for Shamil Basayev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Khasan Zakayev and Gerikhan Dudayev as the plotters responsible for both acts of terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:23:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caucasus Corpse Count
At least 11 servicemen and pro-Moscow Chechen police officers were killed in rebel attacks and landmine explosions in Chechnya in the previous 24 hours, an official in the region’s Kremlin-backed administration said Monday. Four of the soldiers were killed and five others wounded in rebel attacks on federal outposts across Chechnya, the official said. Three of the servicemen died in separate skirmishes with rebels in Chechnya’s southern mountains, and two were killed when their fuel-laden truck hit a land mine and exploded in a giant fireball outside the village of Samashki on Sunday. The bodies of two Chechen policemen with gunshot wounds were found on a street in Grozny on Monday morning. In customary retaliation for rebel raids, federal artillery shelled suspected rebel hideouts in several parts of Chechnya. Federal forces also detained some 170 residents of Chechen towns and villages since Sunday in sweep operations.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:17:01 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Did the shelling have any effect?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  I doubt it...
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2004 10:04 Comments || Top||


International
Credible threat against airliners over
My guess is that this had something to do with al-Qaeda’s plan to hit us big on or around February 2 and that all the cancellations once again thwarted their plans.
THE "credible threat" of an attack on airliners, which led to the cancellation of 10 US-bound European flights and one domestic flight, was over, the US Department of Homeland Security said. "There was a specific information for those two days," spokeswoman Rachel Sunbarjar said. "This information has passed and we don’t have any new threat-related information." British Airways and Air France cancelled flights on Sunday and yesterday in response to concerns the terrorist group al-Qaeda was seeking to hijack jetliners to repeat the carnage of September 11, 2001. The international flights were between Britain, France and the United States. A Continental flight from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles via New York, and a domestic flight by Continental between Washington and Houston, Texas, were also cancelled.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:04:53 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "credible threat" over eh?
wonder if a few bodies are laying in a few dark places...
Posted by: Dcreeper || 02/03/2004 1:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Either that or the "holy" day the threat was scheduled for has passed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 8:24 Comments || Top||

#3  "al-Qaeda’s plan to hit us big on or around February 2"

is no one making the connection between this and the ricin attacks? it hasn't become a major threat, and hopefully won't, but the timing is right.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 21:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Mohammed Warsame appears in US court
A man who authorities say admitted to attending a training camp in Afghanistan at the same time Usama bin Laden was there appeared in court Monday to hear charges that he conspired with the terror network Al Qaeda. Mohammed Warsame answered "Yes" when the chief magistrate judge asked him if he understood the charges against him. A federal grand jury last month indicted Warsame on conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda. FBI agents arrested Warsame in December on a material witness warrant issued in New York.

The indictment alleges Warsame, 30, conspired to provide material support and resources to Al Qaeda from March 2000 until Dec. 8. Neither the indictment nor the affidavit reveal any other details about the alleged conspiracy, and the prosecutor declined to comment. Warsame, a Canadian citizen of Somali descent who lives in Minneapolis, was represented in court Monday by Dan Scott, the chief federal public defender in Minnesota. The two were not allowed to speak to each other, and Scott told the court he was upset by restrictions he said Attorney General John Ashcroft was trying to set before Warsame could be seen by any attorney. Scott said the conditions include who in Scott’s office can speak to Warsame, who can be present during discussions with him and what use can be made of information resulting from discussions. "They want me to agree to restrain his rights," Scott said after the hearing. "I won’t do it." Prosecutor Michael Ward said he and Scott should be able to reach a compromise so Scott and Warsame can see each other. The restrictions, he said, mainly deal with third-party messages that could be relayed by a family member or an attorney to a defendant. He said the conditions should not interfere with an attorney’s ability to prepare a case. Chief Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel set Warsame’s arraignment for next Monday. The same hearing will also be used to determine whether Warsame should continue to be detained.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/03/2004 12:02:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think there's a transliteration problem. His name should be spelled Mohammed Whathisname.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Zionists threatens to kill Hamas leaders
Zionist Defence Minister said the leaders of Islamic resistance groups are targets for assassination, raising the possibility of a further escalation in the Zionist-Palestinian bloodshed. Shaul Mofaz issued the threat yesterday in response to a declaration by the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, that Hamas is making an all-out effort to kidnap Zionist soldiers. "The statements of Yassin just emphasise the need to strike the heads of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad," Mofaz told the weekly meeting of the Zionist Cabinet, according to a Zionist official who attended the meeting. The statements by Mofaz and Yassin threaten to inflame an already tense situation.
Before the Israelis pull out of Gaza, they should make sure Sheikh Yassin is doorknob dead...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I disagree Fred. First the Isreali's should pullout to lure him into the open. He'll think he's safe and go outside waving to the crowds or just plain out lax his security. It's so much easier to hit someone with a cruise missle when you know where they are.
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 1:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Sheikh Yassin needs to go, and anybody stupid enough to attend his funeral needs some of Yassin's medicine, also. Any terrorist is fair game, dead or alive.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 1:21 Comments || Top||

#3  with a cruise missle - I like those cool predator drones. Not heard much about them recently, but 6 months back there were reports that they were putting all kinds of weapons on them. I'm sure the Israelis have their own versions. Just have a couple on permanent station over Gaza and they should be able to get anywhere in a couple of minutes to do the necessary.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/03/2004 3:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Lets need forget to kick that Rantisi motherf***** out of the gene-pool as wel, an article from December 2003 stated IIRC that Israel had ordered predator-drones but had to wait untill the US had produced enough of the things to meet their operational demand in Iraq and Afghanistan ( and Yemen,Somalia etc..)
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/03/2004 8:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Sheikh Yassin
Take away his handicap parking, destroy the ramps, smart-size the latrines... sneer.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Finally a posting on which I don't need to post any comments lol. The heading says it all eh shipman?
Posted by: Faisal || 02/03/2004 18:13 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes Indeedy Mr. Faisal! BTW it's not a threat it's a prophecy. BTW Faisal do you agree with the ADA? Just curious.. I think it's overdone.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 19:14 Comments || Top||

#8  Yew talking about the arab disability act? Shhhhhhhheeeeet! How the hell you think Faisal's famliy afford to keep him here? If you see Faisal tell him to get his little butt back on the grounds cause we got popcorn and Jeapordy for Slow Folks goin.
Posted by: Nuss Ratchett || 02/03/2004 19:18 Comments || Top||


Iran
Top Iran reform party to shun poll
Iran's largest reform party has said it would boycott this month's parliamentary election, even if a hardline watchdog overturns its ban on hundreds of reformist candidates. The impasse has plunged the Islamic republic, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, into what many see as its worst crisis since formation in 1979. "We will not take part in the elections of 20 February," Muhammad Reza Khatami, head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) party, told a news conference.
Apparently he's the brother with the spine...
He added the party, one of the main backers of his brother President Muhammad Khatami, would only put forward candidates for an election if the bans were overturned and the vote was postponed to allow more time for campaigning. He also said the party was not calling on the electorate to stay away from the polling booths, adding that it was "their sovereign choice." Reformists pushed on Monday for a postponement of the election in a showdown with hardliners which has plunged the Islamic Republic into its worst political crisis in years. "We support the position of the government not to organise give-away elections," said Khatami, who on Sunday had warned that the disqualifications amounted to a conservative "coup d'etat" supported by the military.
Looks like we've got a first-class crisis brewing there...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:01 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Remember that whole "if turn out is low" thing means the population is checking out. That so many canidates have been black balled and the publics support of these elections...?

Iran, what a nut!
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  "Soverign choice"? Oh, THAT'LL go over big in sharialand. Don't he know the black turbans rule through the direct intervention of GAWD? What an apostate! Maybe they better cut somethin' off him...
Posted by: mojo || 02/03/2004 11:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like we've got a first-class crisis brewing there...

Nah. The difference between the 'reformers' and the 'hardliners' is the difference between large and small-curd cottage cheese. What will show a crisis is brewing is if there is a low voter turnout, say 10% or less.

As for the military supporting the 'conservatives', that doesn't square with other info, and with recent reports of senior military being arrested and executed.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2004 22:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Hope Fred's right. Certainly low turnout is likely, and a sign that the people have checked out of the system. However, that's but a small step towards sacking up and doing something constructive about it.

Pappy, please provide links to stories of senior military being arrested and executed. Have not read anything to suggest this hopeful fact pattern.
Posted by: JAB || 02/03/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||


MPs` mass resignation draws mixed reactions
IRNA
One hundred and sixteen Iranian parliament members extended their resignations on Sunday in protest to mass disqualification of candidates from standing in the parliamentary elections on February 20. They announced their resignations in a joint letter, read by Tehran MP Mohsen Mir-Damadi and the MP from central Isfahan Rajab-Ali Mazrouie. The move by the lawmakers has entailed mixed reactions among the Iranian officials. The following are excerpts of comments made by some Iranian officials and parliamentarians concerning the issue:
** Interim Friday prayers leader of Qum, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli: Resignation plus strike are not a prestige.

**Deputy Governor General of Qum for the Political and Security Affairs, Fathollah Haqiqi: Officials in Qum will for the best of their efforts make sure rights of those branded unfairly as disqualified be restored.

**Secretary of the Association of University Instructors Mohsen Rahami: People, students and academicians are seriously concerned over and embarrassed by mass resignation of more than 122 MPs; definitely, Iranian nation will not remain indifferent towards the issue. There is no way but postponing the elections.

**Head of Justice Department in Khuzestan Province Amir Abbas Sohrab Beig: Disqualification of certain volunteers by Guardian Council does not mean refusing to hold the upcoming elections; the elections are of high significance and any effort to avoid their holding will be a crime.

**Chief of Justice Department in Tehran Abbasali Alizadeh: Justice Department will bar itself from any action as long as the strikes remain something civil and as long as no crime is committed; no crime has thus far been committed.

**MP from Qazvin Nasser Qavami: Guardian Council has been unfair in screening the would-be candidates; ulima, high religious authorities, government and President Mohammad Khatami in particular are urged not to allow the "illegal" elections be held.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The funny thing is that those blackballed canidates are probably (prolly) as anti-thinking as any of the keepers of the race of peace.

.com I will always use "prolly" from now on. Just makes more sense, Somebody contact Websters.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  This is playing out to be something of a crisis - at least in the press. In a country which has a lapdog legislative body that can't pass any laws not approved by the Black Hats and their puppet council, "Why?" comes to mind. In other words, it's already a total joke / sham / farce "democracy", so why is this a crisis? I simply see it as funny that not everyone will march to the Black Hats' tune. Cool. Embarrass the twits by exposing their farcical Mullacracy "government." Great theater, IMHO.

Lucky - I dunno where I first saw it, but it appealed to me, too! We're just tools of those who wish to taint the language! In Phrawnce we'd prolly be shot, eh?
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Thanks Bro.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/04/2004 0:08 Comments || Top||


Mild quakes shake southern Iran
IRNA
Two quakes with magnitudes, ranging from 3.5 to four richter degrees, jolted southern parts of Iran Sunday night and early Monday morning. A four-richter quake hit Bandarabbas (Hormuzgan Province) suburbs at 05:32 hours local time on Monday, while a 3.5-richter one already shaking Firouzabad in southern Fars Province at 20:25 hours local time, according to Tehran University`s Geophysics Institute. No report is yet available on likely toll or damage caused by the two earthquakes. Earthquakes are almost a rule in Iran, a country sitting on major faultlines in the earth`s structure. Some 35,000 people were killed in 1990 when earthquakes of up to 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the northwest of Iran.
The death tolls seem to be consistently higher than they are in other places that lie on fault lines, too. I think it's because of God's opinion of theocrats...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hopefully allah's just warming up the ol' arm for TERRORCON '04. If they're gonna keep ignoring the magic writing on the wall and such.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/03/2004 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Allah is warning Iranians not to oppose his sacred instrument, the Guardian Council.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/03/2004 0:46 Comments || Top||

#3  It's like allah in Chinatown II.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/03/2004 0:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Wonder what the casualties will be with this one? Probably zero according to Iran, who will seek to cover their asses this time.
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 1:09 Comments || Top||

#5  These are just the little tenderizers that set up things for the big ones. Any nervous mullahs out there?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2004 1:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Jahan Ramezani has a good article on the geological factors behind the Iran earth quakes. Unfortunately, he seems oblivious to the theological aspects discussed here.:)
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 02/03/2004 6:36 Comments || Top||

#7  And GAWD said:
"Dom't MAKE me come down there!"
Posted by: mojo || 02/03/2004 11:06 Comments || Top||

#8  Just a couple of taps with the ole sledgehammer before starting with the overhead swing....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2004 11:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Makes you wonder where Bushehr, et. al., sit in relation to these fault lines, eh?
Posted by: Raj || 02/03/2004 12:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Step2 tells me I need to look at the long term semsmic charts of the region. He insists it looks like a 13 year playing "Wipeout" from memory with one stick.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Police Probe Ricin in Senate Building
A white powder, which preliminary tests indicated could be the deadly substance ricin, was discovered Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. A government official said further tests were being conducted at Fort Detrick in Maryland, with more definitive results expected by Tuesday.
The Capital Police are press conferencing on Fox News right now. It appears the stuff is ricin. It doesn't look like there are any casualties. If it is, I'd expect there would be a lot more packages mailed out...
The powder was found in an envelope in Frist's office suite on the fourth floor of the Dirksen building, one of three structures occupied by senators and their staffs, said a congressional source. Sgt. Contricia Ford, spokeswoman for the Capitol Police, said authorities were conducting more extensive tests. The Homeland Security Department is monitoring the situation, spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. Police found traces of ricin in a north London apartment last January and arrested seven men of North African origin in connection with the virulent toxin that has been linked to al-Qaida terrorists and Iraq.
If this turns out to be really, truly positive, I'd expect North Africans to be behind it...
A package containing ricin was also found at a post facility serving Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina in October.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The powder was found in an envelope in Frist's office suite on the fourth floor of the Dirksen building,

All the proof you need the Democrats can'thandle the WoT. The Jihadi's don't even want to attack them.
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2004 1:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Follow-up on this ought to be very interesting...
Posted by: .com || 02/03/2004 3:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Wow... Rove will do anything.
/DTs
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 7:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Doesn't have to be a turban wearer to make ricin. The domestic terror groups are fond of it as well. For example from January:
The wife of a San Diego marine and her lover pleaded innocent in federal court Thursday to a charge of attempted murder for allegedly trying to kill the marine on at least five separate occasions. (snip) Next, the women tried making ricin, a toxin classified as a biological weapon. They allegedly got the recipe from a white supremacist Web site but were unsuccessful making the drug from castor beans.

Can't find the article, but another white supremactist was arrested a couple of years ago with a quanity of ricin. If you want to kill a lot of people, like our friends from sandy regions do, mailing it seems like a poor delivery system. Smells more like a domestic individual.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 8:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Steve, that's what I thought, but then I remembered that they found ricin all over Europe last year, in the possession of al'Qaeda-linked jihadis. I seem to remember some in France and some in Britain -- perhaps the Finsbury mosque?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 8:27 Comments || Top||


#7  Doesn't anybody remember the "Fallen Angel" letter from October when he threatened to use Ricin if the Trucking laws weren't changed? He's only a month late. The Feebs have been looking for him for a while now. But, if it is International, then it smells like Zarqawi to me.
Posted by: floatinginspace || 02/03/2004 8:54 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh, sure, the jihadis have plenty of ricin, I'll give you that. It's the method of delivery that bothers me. It's the same as the anthrax, stick it in a envelope and mail it. If you want to kill a lot of people, you need a better delivery system and a lot of it. Ricin is good for assasination, but poor for mass killing. More likely someone is trying to scare us again, and that leads me back to the domestic angle.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 8:57 Comments || Top||

#9  CDC-Facts About Ricin
# Inhalation: Within a few hours of inhaling significant amounts of ricin, the likely symptoms would be respiratory distress (difficulty breathing), fever, cough, nausea, and tightness in the chest. Heavy sweating may follow as well as fluid building up in the lungs (pulmonary edema). This would make breathing even more difficult, and the skin might turn blue. Excess fluid in the lungs would be diagnosed by x-ray or by listening to the chest with a stethoscope. Finally, low blood pressure and respiratory failure may occur, leading to death. In cases of known exposure to ricin, people having respiratory symptoms that started within 12 hours of inhaling ricin should seek medical care.
# Ingestion: If someone swallows a significant amount of ricin, he or she would develop vomiting and diarrhea that may become bloody. Severe dehydration may be the result, followed by low blood pressure. Other signs or symptoms may include hallucinations, seizures, and blood in the urine. Within several days, the person’s liver, spleen, and kidneys might stop working, and the person could die.
# Skin and eye exposure: Ricin in the powder or mist form can cause redness and pain of the skin and the eyes.
# Death from ricin poisoning could take place within 36 to 72 hours of exposure, depending on the route of exposure (inhalation, ingestion, or injection) and the dose received. If death has not occurred in 3 to 5 days, the victim usually recovers.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/03/2004 9:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Update: HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A postal worker found an unidentified powder in an envelope addressed to the Republican National Committee, and inspectors were investigating, officials said Tuesday. The employee at the Wallingford postal sorting center found the gray, sandy powder leaking out of an envelope late Monday night, police and postal officials said. The discovery came at about the same time that a white power was found in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office in Washington that tested positive for the poison ricin in preliminary findings. The Wallingford center is the same Connecticut postal facility where anthrax spores were found in 2001. A 94-year-old Oxford woman, Ottilie Lundgren, died after inhaling the bacteria, one of five people who died nationwide in the anthrax attacks that fall. Investigators believe she got anthrax through mail that passed through the Wallingford sorting center. Preliminary test results on the new Wallingford sample were inconclusive and officials took the powder to the state Department of Public Health laboratory in Hartford for further testing. The results were expected late Tuesday morning.
"It could potentially be a hoax. There's really no explanation I can think of for a grayish powder to be in that kind of an envelope," said Hal Stephens, a supervisor for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Connecticut. Investigators believe the letter, a business reply envelope that did not require postage, was mailed from somewhere in Connecticut. The powder in Frist's office apparently was delivered through the mail system. More definitive tests were expected later Tuesday. The worker who found the powder was wearing gloves, officials said.
"All the employees are fine," said Carl Walton, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Connecticut. "Nobody needed medical treatment. They washed up and went home."


Addressed to the RNC? Maybe one of the trolls from the looney left is "expressing" himself?
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 9:41 Comments || Top||

#11  does anyone know if the mail irradiation methods used for anthrax work on ricin (or any other bio agents)?
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#12  does anyone know if the mail irradiation methods used for anthrax work on ricin (or any other bio agents)?

No, ricin is technically a poison, not a bio weapon. It is just extracted from a biological source, the castor bean plant. Irradiation only works on living things, such as a anthrax virus.
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 13:34 Comments || Top||

#13  Thanks, Steve - i believe it's categorized as a biotoxin..... I was just curious if the irradiation process would break up the molecular structure enough to render it useless.....been researching this a good part of the day... thanks for your info!
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/03/2004 13:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Anthrax is a bacillus, not a virus. Irradiation probably will not work on ricin -- I say probably because depending on the nature and strength of the radiation, it can denature protein, and that would inactivate ricin. Don't know the details so can't comment further.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2004 14:03 Comments || Top||

#15  Should we expect the FBI to mount a major task-force to go after Dr. Hatfill again?
Posted by: Sgt.DT || 02/03/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#16  Naw... Sgt.DT.... this has the looks of the Shining Jewel movement.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:18 Comments || Top||

#17  Apparently it's been confirmed -- some ass hat mailed Frist ricin. No word on the Connecticut post office, yet.

Wasn't the Senate Majority Leader also targeted in the anthrax mailings?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 15:32 Comments || Top||

#18  Hmm, notice the lack of panic? A lot of people I know kind of flipped out during the Anthrax incident. People seem calmer this time around. Of course, the Anthrax attack was pretty much at the same time as 9-11.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 02/03/2004 15:34 Comments || Top||

#19  Shipman,

Do you mean the Peruvian Shining Path movement?

OT:

A Rula Lenska film festival? Has anyone put out Rock Follies on a US region DVD?
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/03/2004 15:45 Comments || Top||

#20  Naw... Eric nothing that subtle... More like a shinning Richard Jewel moment.... Hatfill/Jewel etc.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 16:28 Comments || Top||

#21  Hmm...someone should package some over to Sharon and hope he sprinkles some in his salad. Another Israel conspricy to blame movements in America.
Posted by: Rob Ramage || 02/03/2004 16:49 Comments || Top||

#22  Mr. Crawford (#17)~ Senate Minority Leader (Daschle) with the anthrax mailings....odd.

I'm quite torn on this one - seems more like a domestic case - possibly the same person/persons as the anthrax mailings, especially since the same types of facilities targeted...on the other hand, it happened on 02 Feb (now THAT's putting some good faith in the postal system!), which leads me to believe all of the recent threats from AQ.
Posted by: DAB || 02/03/2004 17:06 Comments || Top||

#23  The White House received a ricin letter in December.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/03/2004 19:15 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Police say over 400 Chechens disappeared in 2003
More than 400 people disappeared last year in separatist Chechnya, official figures showed on Monday, but a rights group said the real figure may be four times higher. Pro-Moscow Chechen officials have complained that scores of people disappear every year, driven away by unidentified uniformed men. They have suggested that Russian forces hunting for separatist rebels might be responsible for many cases. The Russian military in Chechnya have denied the existence of so-called "death squads", which murder local residents on the slightest suspicion of having separatist links.
Maybe they should give some thought to setting some up, then. Just do it right, without killing everybody in sight...
"According to our information, 444 residents went missing in Chechnya in 2003," a Chechen Interior ministry spokesman said by telephone. "This is 20 percent less than in 2002." He said many of those missing were criminals on the run or had joined rebel gangs. Interfax news agency quoted rights group Memorial as saying the government number more or less corresponded to its figure of 473 for the year, but referred to only a third of the region. "The figure of 473 kidnappings needs to be multiplied three or four times in order to understand the real scale of what has happened," Memorial head Oleg Orlov told Interfax. President Vladimir Putin's, whose more than 70-percent popularity rating ahead of a March re-election bid owes much to his tough stance on Chechnya, scrapped the post of his human rights representative in Chechnya last month and entrusted Kremlin-backed president Akhmad Kadyrov with the task. On Monday the International Committee of the Red Cross Thingy (ICRC) said it still did not know where one of its kidnapped Chechen employees was. Usman Saidaliyev was abducted from his home during the night by unidentified armed men six months ago. "Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts," the Red Cross said in a statement. "This is of deep concern to his family and colleagues."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: Southern
Mugabe targets big Anglo sugar farm print friendly version
Mining giant Anglo American is set to become the largest South African-listed group to be hit by Zimbabwe's land-reform programme, as its only agricultural asset in the country, Hippo Valley sugar estates, has been earmarked for expropriation. Anglo American is one of the few remaining South African companies that still has large interests in Zimbabwe despite the precarious economic situation. Hippo Valley, the country's largest sugar company, is still listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Zimbabwe's land-reform policy, based on the expropriation of white-held farmland, has been widely criticised. President Thabo Mbeki's policy of quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe has had little visible effect as the country's economy is struggling with inflation of 598% and an estimated 70% unemployment rate. Another local sugar giant that may be at risk is Tongaat Hulett, which owns Triangle Sugar in Zimbabwe and until recently was getting about 15% of its earnings from there. Tongaat was reluctant to discuss the issue yesterday.
Keep grabbing off those geese that used to lay golden eggs, Bob...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/03/2004 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  print friendly version

About time for that cup of coffee, Fred. :)
Posted by: Steve || 02/03/2004 8:01 Comments || Top||

#2  I think Bob is actually a humanitarian. Dictators like Kim and Castro often let there countries dangle on the brink of collapse for decades. Bob has decided to utilize the express lane.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/03/2004 9:22 Comments || Top||

#3  LOL, (sort of), Super Hose! While we wait and watch, the chi-coms get the mineral assets for cheap. Try their Zim embassy site, perhaps, although there's no break-down of the figures. I can reasonably discern that they are not paying loadsa money for burnt-out farms which aren't growing cotton and maize. BTW, there was a rumour that Rhodesian chrome was on the first flight to the moon, good stuff.

PS The Rhodesia Light Infantery birthday to-day. Raise your glasses.
Posted by: Rhodesiafever || 02/03/2004 14:29 Comments || Top||

#4  The Rhodesia Light Infantery birthday to-day. Raise your glasses.

Hear, hear
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2004 15:05 Comments || Top||

#5  The Rhodesia Light Infantery birthday to-day. Raise your glasses. Hear, hear

Cheers guys! Mine's a Lion! To the beginning of the middle of the end of Civilisation and the third Chimurenga, may Bob get to hell before me, and warm it up some, 'cos it's going to get a lot hotter when I arrive.
Posted by: Rhodesiafever || 02/03/2004 16:06 Comments || Top||



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