(SomaliNet) Somalia's powerful Islamic Courts announced they will forcefully free Somali cleric who is held in prison by Somaliland authority if they don't release him safely. The head of Islamic Courts in Juba provinces in southern Somalia Sheik Hassan Abdulahi Hersi known as "Turki" indicated that his Islamic forces would launch tough measure against the arrest of Sheik Mohamed Ismael, a well known Islamist man by Somaliland. He said Islamic fighters will go to Hargeisa city and release him from the jail forcefully if the Somaliland authority would not comply with the calls from Somali religious people to let him free.
Sheik Hassan Turki also briefed his trip to Afdmadow town of Lower Juba region saying that his goal is to practice the Islamic law in completely southern Somalia and establish an Islamic authority in each settlement. He said his troops also reached today in Sakow and Buale environs in middle Juba region where they have received a warm welcome from the inhabitants who have chosen the rule of Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Okay. We'll shoot him instead. You can come pick him up.
#2
Great! Then we'll have an excuse to go after them with anything and everything we've got. We have "arrangements" with the Somaliland and Puntland governments.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/05/2006 22:47 Comments ||
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A Somali militia said Tuesday it had signed a deal with Somalia's weak government to retake by force a key southern port it lost to powerful Islamists last week, setting the stage for fresh unrest.
This is not an invasion but a plan to retake Kismayo from the Islamic courts that took the area without any concern for the local people.
As the Islamists claimed to have taken more territory in southern Somalia, the government would neither confirm nor deny an agreement but said the people of the port town of Kismayo had a right to defend themselves.
"We have finalised a deal with the transitional government of Somalia to wage attacks on Kismayo," said Colonel Abdullahi Ismail Fartag, a spokesman for a faction of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) that once controlled the port. "This is not an invasion but a plan to retake Kismayo from the Islamic courts that took the area without any concern for the local people," he told AFP from the government seat of Baidoa where JVA leaders have gathered.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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LONDON'S Mayor Ken Livingstone won a High Court challenge to overturn a four-week suspension from office for likening a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard.
At the end of a two-day hearing Justice Andrew Collins said he would quash the suspension and give his full decisions and reasons at a later date.
In February this year the Standards Board for England had found Mr Livingstone's comments to journalist Oliver Finegold some 12 months earlier to be "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive".
The Board suspended Mr Livingstone, one of Britain's most colourful and popular politicians, for a month beginning March 1, for bringing his office as Mayor of London into disrepute.
The suspension was delayed by the High Court while the mayor appealed.
Mr Livingstone has consistently refused to apologise for the remarks and said the panel that suspended him had overstepped its remit.
#1
He's a piece of anti-semitic, IRA-loving, Paleo-sympathiser, ultra-leftist slime. I have despised that man for over 20 years - don't say get over it, as far as I'm concerned he's filth.
I am currently grinding my teeth thinking on how that shit got away with it...
Oliver Finegold: Mr Livingstone, "Evening Standard." How did tonight go?
Ken Livingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?
Finegold: How did tonight go?
Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment?
Finegold: Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?
Livingstone: What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?
Finegold: No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal and I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?
Mr Livingstone: Arr right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?
Finegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?
Mr Livingstone: It's nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.
Finegold: I'm a journalist and I'm doing my job. I'm only asking for a comment.
Mr Livingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn't have a record of supporting fascism.
And if you think you can stomach some more of it's mumblings...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
10/05/2006 19:26 Comments ||
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#2
Ken is a anti jewish ,terrorist supporting, bigot.
Quite frankly I can't see how the UK has any hope. This vile creature keeps getting elected. The BBC run a public funded propaganda machine against western civilization. Sorry I think the UK is screwed.
What I want to know is, why is a patient, on a ward, still wearing his uniform?
On one occasion a member of the Parachute Regiment, still dressed in his combat uniform after being evacuated from Afghanistan...
From the article it sounds as if this took place quite a while after the soldier arrived at the hospital. Shouldn't he have been in one of those embarrasing hospital gowns by that time?
#6
Perhaps the failure to put the soldier in a hospital gown is part of the vaunted efficiency of the National Health Service. OTOH, even in the US sometimes patients will be partly or wholly dressed in their usual street clothes depending on the nature of their ailments. Eye & face injuries would be in that category.
#7
"You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan," the man said during a tirade.
I have seen many variations on this very statement coming from muslims. An example of how the terrorist PR campaign is what is keeping this thing alive. Many are convinced that western soldiers are over there whooping it up, shooting whatever moves, and raping what ever is left alive after they run out of ammo. It is totally brain-dead, but it works. And this is a big piece of what we have to deal with. I haven't heard of or seen a single baby born as a result of a rape, but that doesn't seem to bother the morons who believe this crap. And most of the dead guys have to have the guns pried out of their cold, dead hands. But they don't know or seem to care about that either. Before the conflict comes to an end, this will have to be addressed. Might as well get blitzing on this now and save some lives, and not just dry statements from time to time from officials, no matter how high up they are.
#1
of course not. Expecting the Turkish military to step in seems a bit like expecting the NYT to provide investigative journalism. It may have been true at one time....
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson announced on Tuesday in Washington that Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaþar Büyükanýt would be invited to the United States by Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace in the coming months.
Büyükanýt's visit will take place in February, the Turkish Daily News has learned.
At a briefing for Turkish reporters here Wilson described Büyükanýt as a friend of the United States and said that the Pentagon will work closely with him, as it worked with his predecessor, Gen. Hilmi Özkök. Wilson also said the United States is not worried about an ongoing and heightened debate over secularism between the military and the civilian government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan.
From East Asia Intel, subscription.
North Korea has constructed as many as five underground tunnels in the northern part of the country. U.S. intelligence agencies believe they are part of the regimes covert nuclear testing program. The tunnels are located near Mount Mumyeong in Chagang Province and include cables and vehicles that U.S. officials believe are signs of preparation for a nuclear test.
North Korea is unpredictable and could conduct an underground nuclear test with little or no warning, one official said. Test preparations are being watched closely.
Unpredictable, you say? Those officials know everything!
In South Korea, the National Intelligence Service confirmed that it had received information from defectors about a possible test. "We have received such information from the North Korean defectors, but we do not have any evidence to support the suspicions," the National Intelligence Service said in an e-mail released to reporters. "But we are sending another trainload of free cement north, just in case."
The five tunnels also may be linked to North Koreas missile development program. Or both programs.
The region is also suspected of housing North Koreas covert uranium enrichment program.
North Korea was a recipient of goods and equipment provided by the global nuclear supplier network headed by Pakistani A.Q. Khan. The equipment included gas centrifuges used to produce highly enriched uranium. Thanks, Perv. Your actions contributed greatly to world peace.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stated in a recently published book that the Khan network supplied centrifuges to North Korea.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/05/2006 13:36 ||
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Wouldn't it be something if there were five concurrent tests in the five tunnels?
#2
NS, this is precisely what needs to happen. We must cripple North Korea's entire atomic weapons test facility in order to prevent them from gaining a scintilla of increased credibility in their marketing and proliferation of nuclear technology to rogue and terrorist regimes.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/05/2006 16:22 Comments ||
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#5
I thought the NORK's had thousands of tunnels, many of them close to the DMZ, aimed toward SK and consisting of artillery emplacements ready to launch an all-out assault on their intended victims southern relatives.
How can underground test preparations be watched closely, anyway? Same goes for the subways built in Iran.
#6
How can underground test preparations be watched closely, anyway? Same goes for the subways built in Iran.
Please read "Deep Black" by William Burrows (no, not that William Burroughs). Underground construction always relies upon above-ground apparatus and support infrastructure. Just the mountain of soil removed from a tunnel is conspicuous to satellite reconnaisance. Need I mention how it is that we look for oil with satellites? Ever heard of side-scanning radar? GPR?
Not sure if this item says more about China or Israel
The Middle Kingdom's Middle East experts, including China's special envoy to the region, Sun Bigan, believe that this summer's Lebanese war between Iranian proxy Hezbollah and Israel has seriously weakened the Jewish State. Accordingly, energy-starved China sees little reason to alter its policy of strengthening relations with oil-rich Islamist Iran and its secular ally, Syria.
The clinical Chinese view is that Israel's failure to defeat Hezbollah (which is rearming under the noses of United Nations "peacekeepers" with Iranian-Syrian help) after 34 days of intense fighting and aerial bombardment was strategically important in terms of the damage done to Israel's deterrent power.
The war, according to Sun and specialists at Chinese think tanks, also painted Israel in the eyes of world opinion as a less than competent US pawn, plagued by internal problems and divisions, including corruption, class, religious and ethnic differences--the Chinese have taken notice of Israeli media reports of disproportionately high casualties among poorer Russian and Ethiopian immigrants--and exposed "old thinking" regarding borders and buffer zones. Sun is said to have told his Arab friends that Hezbollah's success in using rockets (including Chinese-made and -designed missiles) to effectively paralyze and depopulate northern Israel seriously undermined decades-old Israeli security arguments for the retention of supposedly strategic, contested lands, such as the Golan Heights captured from Syria during the June 1967 Middle East war.
#1
In China, as in the Arab world, wishful thinking is what passes for analysis. It is also why China has a long way to go before it has a chance of overtaking Thailand's economy, let alone Taiwan's.
#2
Do you really think the Chinese believe the fluff here or are they putting the best face on a fiasco for their allies? Hezb'Allah gained precious little for the expenditure of so much with the unintended cost of showing the Israelis what weaknesses had crept into their system over two decades of inactivity.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea shipped promised flood relief aid to North Korea on Wednesday, a day after Pyongyang threatened to conduct a nuclear test. The goods, including 6,400 tons of cement, were shipped to the North Korean port of Nampo, said the Unification Ministry, which handles North Korean affairs.
"As North Korea has yet to conduct a nuclear test, it is difficult to immediately halt sending flood relief aid, which is being provided on a humanitarian basis," a ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. "However, we will decide future plans (of shipments) after monitoring the situation," the official said.
Wanna bet Kimmie bangs his spoon on the highchair tray again tomorrow?
Wednesday's shipment was part of emergency assistance that Seoul promised the North after the communist nation was hit by massive floods in July. South Korea has said the one-time aid is separate from the regular humanitarian aid to the North it has halted since missile launches by the North in July.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Ya beat me to it, 3dc. The NORKS will use the cement as part of its stemming system to seal the tunnel prior to the testing of the device. 6400 tonnes of cement with every tantrum, what a deal. Mac in SKor was right in his posting the other day. SKor will do anything to prop up the NORK regime to avoid paying the bill for unification when the NORKS go Tango Uniform.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/05/2006 2:53 Comments ||
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#3
If they do an underground test, they better really shore up all the other tunnels as well.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/05/2006 8:18 Comments ||
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#7
Tango Uniform
(US) NATO phonetic alphabet for "Toes Up" also used by the FCC, FAA and DOD to mean killed or destroyed. (Alternative vulgar translation: "Tits Up").
(US Army & USMC) Not in optimal condition. (e.g. The HUMVEE went Tango Uniform before we even arrived.).
(US Air Force) Dead drunk.
(US) Object Inverted. (Upside Down) (e.g. 'I'm turning the plane Tango Uniform to get a better look.') May be used in a more vulgar fashion as "Tits Up"
Russia has asked North Korea to show restraint over its intention to hold nuclear tests saying it could aggravate the situation in the Korean peninsula, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reports.
We believe that this move could lead to a further escalation of the military-political situation on the Korean peninsula and could affect the international nuclear non-proliferation system, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sought a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear impasse.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Might be short hand for "We don't want Japan with Nuclear arms" please don't do this!
UNITED NATIONS: Japan on Wednesday sought to secure a U.N. Security Council warning to North Korea that there would be consequences if it conducted a nuclear test. But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said members were divided on how to respond to Pyongyang's threat and that North Korea had its "protectors" on the 15-nation council.
Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month's council president, sought backing from the 15 members for a statement that if North Korea went ahead the council would undertake further action, though it did not specify what that should be. "I think it is important for the international community, through the council, let North Korea understand that noncompliance would involve some consequences," Oshima said.
The Japanese draft expressed "deep concern" over North Korea's threat and said a nuclear test would "jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond." It said North Korea should abandon all nuclear weapons programs and resume six-party talks on the issue with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
*snicker*
What was it Captain America said yesterday? "The UN will now swing into inaction"?
Lol. The UN is always divided, along lines of interest, of course. For all the little bubbles to cover the same spot is nigh unto impossible, especially when triangulation is a key component of the foreign policy of veto-wielding members. Total waste of time.
#2
FOX NEWS > USA will NOT live? with a nuclear North Korea. CHARLES HRAUHAMMER [paraphrased] > The UNO/UNSC will do little or nothing to stop North Korea - "what will happen is that JAPAN will RE-ARM", or the least become more motivated to re-arm + begin to use its newfound military strength in support of Japanese interests around the world. The starving Norkies know they have no manifest destiny save to PC live-and-die for CHINA's interests, at China's command. IFF THE COMMON AGENDA FOR THE USA + ASIAN DEMOCRACIES-NEUTRALS IS THE CONTAINMENT OF CHINA'S AMBITIONS FOR ASIAN-PACIFIC HEGEMONY, THEN ALL HAVE AN INDIRECT BUT SIGNIFICANT AND RISQUE' STAKE IN NORTH KOREA DEV NUKE WEAPONS IFF DE FACTO INDEPENDENT FROM CHINESE CONTROL. This is why US-Allied INTEL have to VERIFY the TRUE INTENT/PREMISES + LT AGENDA OF PYONGYANG vv the CHICOMS.
China has urged North Korea not to destabilise the Korean peninsula by testing a nuclear weapon. The only ally of Kim Jong Il's increasingly paranoid regime advised Pyongyang today to negotiate with the international community rather than "take actions that escalate tensions".
"We hope that North Korea will exercise necessary calm and restraint over the nuclear test issue," said Liu Jianchao, the chief spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in a short statement. Beijing remained conspicuous by its silence yesterday when North Korea said for the first time that it was planning to test a nuclear bomb. The threat, coming after months of sabre-rattling and a series of conventional missile tests in July, provoked an international outcry, with South Korea, Japan, Russia, France, Britain and Russia all expressing their concern.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Will say again - the irony here is that the WOT may be the Norkies only hope of de facto breaking free from domination from Beijing. The people of both South KOrea + North Korea fought for the independence + sovereignty of KORYEA from BOTH ASIAN + EURO POWERS. The NorComs as a class had proclaimed to fight for the freedoms-rights of the KORYEAN PEOPLES only to delude/pretend that CHINA does NOT control them.
#5
The Chinese think they are big time strategic geniuses by putting out these moronically obvious public relations ploys. A child could figure out that they're being insincere.
#6
What counts is what China is saying on the hot line. I can't imagine they are eager to risk Japan going nuke. And Abe seems the guy to do it. Bad brinksmanship.
#7
NS has it right. China doesnt want to see a nuclear Japan, and a nuke blast by Nkor increases the odds of that. I think the Chinese are serious this time.
#9
What counts is what China is saying on the hot line. I can't imagine they are eager to risk Japan going nuke. And Abe seems the guy to do it. Bad brinksmanship.
Word, NS. It's the old, "Be very careful what you wish for ..." scenario.
Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.
As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin. It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.
The number of attacks has risen by a third in two years. Police representatives told the newspaper Le Figaro that the "taboo" of attacking officers on patrol has been broken. Instead, officers especially those patrolling in pairs or small groups faced attacks as soon as they tried to arrest locals.
Senior officers insisted that the problem was essentially criminal in nature, with crime bosses on the estates fighting back against tough tactics. The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the leading centre-Right candidate for the presidency, has sent heavily equipped units into areas with orders to regain control from drug smuggling gangs and other organised crime rings. Such aggressive raids were "disrupting the underground economy in the estates", one senior official told Le Figaro.
However, not all officers on the ground accept that essentially secular interpretation. Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.
He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."
Well, not the only things ...
However, Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police unions, Alliance, dismissed talk of an "intifada" as representing the views of only a minority. Mr Demarcq said that the increased attacks on officers were proof that the policy of "retaking territory" from criminal gangs was working.
Mayors in the worst affected suburbs, which saw weeks of riots and car-burning a year ago, have expressed fears of a vicious circle, as attacks by locals lead the police to harden their tactics, further increasing resentment.
Oh yaassss, it's the resentment of law and order that's the problem allright ...
As if to prove that point, there were angry reactions in the western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux following dawn raids in search of youths who attacked a police unit on Sunday. The raids led to one arrest. They followed clashes on Sunday night when scores of youths attacked seven officers who had tried to arrest a man for not wearing his seat belt while driving. That driver refused to stop, and later rammed a police car trying to block his path.
The mayor of Les Mureaux, Francois Garay, criticised aggressive police tactics that afterwards left "the people on the ground to pick up the pieces".
You might as well just convert and surrender now, Francois, it will be easier on you ...
#1
He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."
Okay, it's horrible, but I'm gonna say it anyway. They need bullets. They need one guy to take out a bunch of rioters and then turn himself in French law. This will (a) show the rioters that force begats force and that someone will fight back (b) show everyone that French law works as they prosecute the guy (c) Show the Islamist masses how popular this guy becomes with the people of France at a time when they are considering upping the heat.
#5
Thanks for this post, NS. This shows the situation is much more dire than we in US realize. If the French don't back police use of heavy force, they'll be fighting for themselves(or surrendering). This should already have elevated past police action, to the military. It is very common here to immediately get our National Guard into the streets when serious riots occur. The thought of armed troops in the area usually causes the thugs to think much more carefully about their actions. Someone nearby who has an M16 and knows how to shoot, can do a lot of damage in a very short time. Punks know that and respond accordingly.
#6
I actually think the most remarkable thing about this piece is the comment of Thoomis. I don't know how widely his comment is reported in France (A5089, JFM?), or if he has been saying it for some time, but it is interesting how it follows the Pope's comments, at least into English. I suspect one of the Pope's intents in making them was to release the debate within Europe from the bonds of PC control and this is an early example. I read that as good news, actually.
#7
Maybe instead of talking about it the French should just get the water cannons out next time this happens, and go for a full scale attack. Then retreat claiming that the area has been taken over by gangs, this allows the military to be brought in as the police were 'overwhelmed' and 'couldn't cope' this would be a legal enough way to deal with the situation.
#8
"Undeclared" intifada? It's been planned, an ongoing, for years -- just because an official spokesman has gone on national television to formally declare it in a way that those who choose not to know can no longer deny doesn't make it "undeclared". This overly punctilious PC attitude has been getting people killed over there!
A sane man -> Michel Thoomis said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."
However a Phrench poop feathered chicken said-> Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police unions, Alliance, dismissed talk of an "intifada" as representing the views of only a minority.
Phrench poop feathered chicken Demarcq said that the increased attacks on officers were proof that the policy of "retaking territory" from criminal gangs was working.
Additional poop feathered Mayors in the worst affected suburbs, which saw weeks of riots and car-burning a year ago, have expressed fears of a vicious circle, as attacks by locals lead the police to harden their tactics, further increasing resentment.
As if to prove the poop point, there were angry reactions in the western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux following dawn raids in search of youths who attacked a police unit on Sunday. The raids led to one arrest. They followed clashes on Sunday night when scores of youths attacked seven officers who had tried to arrest a man for not wearing his seat belt while driving. That driver refused to stop, and later rammed a police car trying to block his path.
The poop feathered mayor of Les Mureaux, Francois Garay, criticised aggressive police tactics that afterwards left "the people on the ground to pick up the pieces".
Posted by: ed ||
10/05/2006 12:22 Comments ||
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#11
I actually think the most remarkable thing about this piece is the comment of Thoomis. I don't know how widely his comment is reported in France
He represents the right-wing, anti-system police union Action Police CFTC, he gets zero msm coverage, excepted when a press agency quotes him; only media where this union is present is the conservative-rightwing-catholic-libertarian free radio, Radio-Courtoisie; the others police unions are socialist-leaning like Alliance, or close to the power like Synergie.
#16
It's going to take a full-scale combined ops organized raid to get this back under control. They should be surrounding one or two tower blocks at night, going from apartment to apartment to check the papers of each family. Anyone who isn't in France legally is in the deportation system pipeline out of the country before morning. Anyone who has an outstanding warrant goes straight to jail. Anyone who resists is shot. The French know how to do this. Paul Aussaresses, Jacques Massu and Roger Trinquier worked the Casbah in Algiers in exactly this way and broke the FLN in the city for the remainder of French rule. Aussaresses is still alive. I'm sure he'd be happy to advise.
Posted by: mac ||
10/05/2006 18:31 Comments ||
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#17
This is PRECISELY what should be happening in Baghdad as well.
Not really surprizing; here, IIRC, the rather antisemite (I think) pépé Le Pen got 20% of the jewish vote in 2002, more than its national result; Philippe De Villiers, conservative catholic claiming to be anti-system got a warm reception when he came to pay regards for Ilan Halimi, and he's quite popular among jews; Bruno Mégret, perhaps the french pol I feel closest to, is not antisemite at all; even the "blood & soil" pagans like Pierre vial or Guillaume Faye profess "judeo-indifference" (IE finally getting France out of its obsession with joooos, the beloved-dead-WWII-jews-killed-by-nazis-vote-for-the-System-or-the-nazis-will-return, and today's racist-evil-USzionist-who-kill-innocent-arabs); the various identity groups are certainly not zionists, but only the national-bolcheviks or similar red-brown are openly antisemite. And the neo-nazis are a few hundred at most according to the Rg police intelligence, for a pop of 62 millions.
And the "islamophobic" orgs like Occidentalis or France-Echos, classified (wrongly) as right-wing, are quite pro-zionist and even rather pro-US.
One of Europe's most successful far-right leaders has appealed to Jewish voters to join forces against radical Islam and back a party denounced as xenophobic.
Filip Dewinter, leader of Belgium's Vlaams Belang, described Antwerp's large Jewish community as natural partners "against the main enemy of the moment, the radical Islam, fundamentalism".
Vlaams Belang is expected to win at least a third of the votes in local elections on Sunday and emerge as the largest party in Antwerp, a city with tense race relations and one which has suffered racial murders this year. Mr Dewinter has come to the threshold of political power by advocating strict limits on immigration, including the return of economic migrants who fail to integrate, as well as independence for Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking half of Belgium.
He called for radical Islam to be denied official recognition and its supporters, and those who fail to integrate, denied Belgian nationality and possibly social security payments.
So far the Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, now the biggest political force in Flanders, has been kept out of any part of government in Belgium by a coalition of mainstream parties. But this so-called cordon sanitaire may crack if the grouping makes widely-anticipated gains on Sunday.
In a series of interviews yesterday Mr Dewinter raised the temperature in Antwerp, which has a large Jewish community living alongside thousands of Muslim immigrants.
"In the Jewish community we have about 30 to 35 per cent of the vote," said Mr Dewinter. "That's official because we know our score over there in the Jewish neighbourhood." Mr Dewinter denied any responsibility for inciting racial attacks and said that his opponents had found that "demonisation is necessary to maintain the cordon sanitaire against us".
The office of the 44-year-old former journalist boasts a Rubens portrait of a 17th-century mayor of Antwerp - a post which the Vlaams Belang leader covets. He spelled out clearly the tougher regime that immigrants, especially Muslim ones, would face were he to be elected.
Mr Dewinter said: "If they won't accept our way of life, if they won't accept those principles which are very clear and very necessary for Western democracy, I don't think we have to recognise Islam as an official religion in our country."
Six years ago the Vlaams Blok, which was the forerunner of the Vlaams Belang, won a third of the vote in Antwerp. The Blok was disbanded after a court ruled that it incited racial hatred. In regional elections two years ago the Vlaams Belang, which has most of the same personalities, polled 24 per cent.
About 40,000 people attended pop concerts in Antwerp over the weekend called to rally voters against racism and intolerance. But on the streets yesterday views were mixed about the Vlaams Belang agenda. Ludo Bons, an engineer, said: "There is some good and some bad. It's not just immigration. The French [speakers in Belgium] take money from the Flemish. Everybody thinks it is racist but not everyone who votes for Vlaams Belang is racist - some vote because of the French situation."
Iskender Zambur, whose parents came from Turkey, said: "The Vlaams Belang is racist and what they want is no solution. It's OK to live here but dangerous."
(KUNA) -- A total of 105 passengers aboard the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400 which was reported hijacked over Greek airspace Tuesday on a flight from Tirana, Albania, to Istanbul, Turkey, finally arrived in Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul after landing in Italy.
A passenger told reporters at Ataturk International Airport the hijacker did not hurt any one and has apologized to the passengers. Istanbul's governor, Muammer Guler, said the hijacker was identified as Hakan Ekinci, 28, and is wanted by Turkey's justice courts for absconding from military service. According to private news channel NTV, Ekinci hijacked the plane in protest of the Pope Benedict's visit to Turkey on the 2nd of November. Benedict had angered Muslims, last month, when he gave out a speech connecting Islam with violence.
CNN news channel said Ekinci wrote a letter to the pope saying that he is Christian and refuses to be enrolled in the military service in a Muslim army, denying previous reports that he is against the Pope's visit to Turkey. Turkish Media said Ekinci converted to Christianity and sent a letter to the Pope late August asking for his help to stop him from forcefully being recruited in Turkey's military service. Ekinci was born in Izmir city, western Turkey in 1978. He was accused of graft and robbery. He traveled to Albania last May and did not return back.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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A Turkish army deserter who hijacked a Turkish airliner to Italy is seeking asylum because he fears persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection, an Italian prosecutor said Wednesday.
He fears persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection...
"It looks like it was an operation which he had planned for some time, the reasons are of religious nature," Brindisi Prosecutor Giuseppe Giannuzzi told a news conference in this port city where the hijacking ended safely Tuesday night with the hijacker's surrender. "Having taken up the Christian religion, he feared going back to Turkey," said Giannuzzi, who interrogated the suspect after he surrendered.
Turkish officials have said that Hakan Ekinci was being sent back by Albania, where he had been denied asylum, to Turkey aboard the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400, with police waiting to arrest him in Istanbul where the 28-year-old deserter and convicted swindler would have landed Tuesday night.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Why did this gentleman feel the need to hijack a plane? Europe is teeming with refugees from Turkey and places a lot farther away than Turkey, people who somehow managed to get across the border without kidnapping a planeload of people. Did he think that if he is a Christian the Italians would overlook the unpleasantries of his arrival? What was this dude smoking?
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
10/05/2006 2:47 Comments ||
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We are writing to express our serious concerns about your administration's failure to monitor all mail to and from convicted terrorists in federal prisons. Your administration's disregard for this basic surveillance obligation leaves our nation at grave risk.YJCMTSU
As you know, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is supposed to carefully screen 100 percent of mail sent and received by high-risk inmates, including convicted terrorists. When the mail is in a foreign language, the BOP is expected to have the mail reviewed and translated by someone fluent in that language. The BOP is also supposed to monitor the verbal communications of convicted terrorists over the telephone, in visiting rooms, and in the cellblock. What!?!...CAIR and the ACLU are OK with this this violation of civil liberties? Say it aint so.
These screening requirements are intended to address the real threat posed by terrorists in our prisons. For instance, in March 2005, news reports indicated that three convicted terrorists at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo., who were imprisoned for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had written approximately 90 letters to Islamic extremists between 2002 and 2004. Some of these letters were written to members of a Spanish terror cell with links to terrorists suspected in the March 2004, train bombings in Madrid. Some might consider that as an example of successful surveillance. So why do I get the feeling theres a but coming here?
However, in a report released yesterday, the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Glenn Fine concluded that "the BOP has not ensured that mail for terrorist and other high-risk inmates on its monitoring lists is consistently read and analyzed to detect terrorism, criminal activities or other inappropriate behavior." As a result, according to the IG report, "the threat remains that terrorist and other high-risk inmates can use mail and verbal communications to conduct terrorist or criminal activities while incarcerated."
The failure to monitor the communications of these deadly terrorists already in captivity calls into question your ability to wage an effective war on terror and competently conduct intelligence operations that are crucial to keeping our nation safe.
We urge you to take immediate action to ensure that the Bureau of Prisons remedies this serious security failure. In the War on Terror, there is no excuse for any agency to allow terrorist activity in its midst. The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons must stop convicted terrorists from engaging in terrorist communications. Huh...No "New Direction" cliche? They must have been in an awfull rush to get this one out.
Sincerely,
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
Sen. Barack Obama
#1
I used to be interested in politics, but the Democrats have convinced me that they have nothing useful to say. They are shameless in their efforts to regain power, control over other people's lives, and the front row at the public money trough. They are not even useful as an opposition party, just a fungus on the body politic.
Posted by: Typical Dem ||
10/05/2006 11:26 Comments ||
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#4
Is this really that crazy? Shouldn't 100% of the communications of the convicted terrorists be monitored - we know most if not all of them are still in touch with and probably supervising their Jihadi colleagues on the outside. The often wrong-headed objections to the NSA programs don't get the Administration off the hook for dropping the ball here.
Posted by: just sayin ||
10/05/2006 11:53 Comments ||
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#5
The sad thing was, I had to check for myself to see if this was Scrappleface. Dems have become like shrill, ranting, harpies with a really bad case of PMS.
#6
Now the treason and subterfuge appear to no longer punishable by hanging, the Democratic party, the MSM, and this Mau Mau communist wannabee disclose further intelligence "sources and methods" by highlighting what they believe to be "monitoring" shortfalls. A lovely backhanded way to kick the pooch! Thank you, you bastards for surfacing all of this, I'm certain it will save many 19 year old lives.
#8
After all their spittle over the NSA, this is pure unadulterated hypocrisy. It amazes me that Democratic party is still able to walk after unloading so many rounds directly into their feet.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/05/2006 15:33 Comments ||
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#13
Regardless of who is doing the criticizing, this is pure fucking bull shit. These Mooslum terrorist never should have been allowed to correspond with anyone! Just how fucking stupid is the CIA and FBOP?!
#14
"They [democrats] are not even useful as an opposition party, just a fungus on the body politic."
Don't be giving fungus a bad name now, RWV. At least some fungi have their use. Particularly Portobello Mushrooms sauteed in a little olive oil and butter.
ATLANTA (AP) - Lawyers for two men charged with providing material support to terrorists want some charges against their clients dismissed and some evidence and conversations with investigators suppressed.
A flurry of motions were filed by defense lawyers for Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee in federal court in Atlanta this week. Sadequee, 20, and Ahmed, 21, are accused of discussing terror targets with Islamic extremists and undergoing training to carry out a ``violent jihad'' against civilian and government targets, including an air base in suburban Atlanta.
You mean they're on trial and not scooped up and locked away in a secret detention facility without the right to habeas? I thought that the new laws would deny citizens their rights, I read it at the Daily Kos.
Authorities say the men's motivation for planning attacks was ``defense of Muslims or retaliation for acts committed against Muslims.'' Both are U.S. citizens. They have pleaded not guilty.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Of course they do.
The LE model grinds on, until it grinds to a halt. At the end, if some asshat actually goes to jail, we all get to be surprised - and he gets advanced into higher levels of jihad. It's a mahvelous deal.
EFL
The earthquake that rocked India and Pakistan in early October of 2005 secured international headline spots for the magnitude of destruction. Something that nobody had expected was the continuation of the earthquake in the news, but for very unobvious reasons.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa played a considerable role in helping the residents of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir and northern Pakistan recover from the earthquake, which struck a region that is home to several camps and bases belonging to militant Kashmiri groups and other radical organizations linked to al-Qaeda.
#1
, which struck a region that is home to several camps and bases belonging to militant Kashmiri groups and other radical organizations linked to al-Qaeda.
I retract my comment "Oops, Missed"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/05/2006 19:50 Comments ||
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President General Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday he had convinced the West that the peace accord with militants in North Waziristan aimed to end Talibanisation in the area and bring peace and development to the tribal region.
Talking to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at the Camp Office, Musharraf said his visit to the United States was fruitful and would strengthen Pakistan's strategic relations with the United States. He regretted that India was accusing Pakistan of involvement in the Mumbai serial train bombings and said that at a meeting in Havana, he and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had agreed on forming a joint mechanism to fight terrorism. Musharraf said that a joint declaration issued at the end of the Havana meeting was a step forward towards the resolution of all issues including Kashmir.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Has Pervy said anything credible in the last 2 or 3 years? I wasn't paying him any attentiuon before that.
#2
Jeez, Perv. You might want to lay off the pipe and toss your copy of International Cunning And Diabolical Schemes For Dummies by Bashar 'Baby' Assad. It ain't working.
PARIS - Vatican relations with the Islamic world must be restarted from square one because Muslims insist on misinterpreting Pope Benedicts recent comments on Islam, Germanys top Catholic cardinal said in an article on Wednesday. Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Catholic Bishops Conference, accused Muslim critics of running a campaign against the Pope and said the Pontiff had nothing to apologise for.
Good. Keep saying that.
The blunt comments from Lehmann, whose rich and influential church has close ties to the German-born Pope, seem to have been sparked by an unusual call from the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) for him to retract his words.
These open or hidden threats have to stop ... The Catholic Church ... will not be bullied.
These open or hidden threats have to stop, Lehmann said in the weekly newspaper of his Mainz diocese. Obviously we have to start at square one because were not talking here about important contents of a necessary dialogue, but about the fundamental requirements for one to succeed.
There is freedom of religion and speech in our civilisation. The Pope can also be criticised. But there are elementary rules that apply for factual and fair contacts with each other and with clear statements, he wrote. One cannot constantly repeat completely unfounded misunderstandings when the texts are so clear.
The jihadis move forward by repeating unfounded nonsense.
Lehmanns article echoed a statement last week by the bishops he leads complaining some critics had tried to escalate the dispute with ever new charges, demands or even threats. The Catholic Church and many people in our country and around the world, who respect and defend the right of free speech, will not be bullied, the bishops conference said after its meeting in Fulda last week.
The German bishops, an influential voice at the Vatican because of their churchs financial power and theological depth, also repeated Benedicts frequent calls for Muslim countries to give their Christian minorities equal rights.
That's something that ought to be said louder and more often.
Meeting shortly after a Berlin theatre cancelled a Mozart opera for fear it might prompt Muslim protests, the bishops also expressed concern about self-censorship over religion. We are concerned that fear of religiously motivated violence is spreading, not only in Germany, and leading to a direct or indirect limitation of free speech, they said.
Figured the Church would notice that. Now we just need the various governments to notice.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The Pope & Co are not accomplishing anything - they blew their chance to do something truly substantial when they did not stand up to Islam and tried to explain. Sad, that. All the logical arguments are wasted on Islam. It was perceived as weakness. Period.
#3
Hey Muslims! Go screw yourselves, along with your pedophile punk prophet MO (spit). You've got two choices: change or be radioactive glass. My money, given your track record of idiocy, is on the second. YOUR DESTRUCTION WILL BE NO NET LOSS!
Posted by: mac ||
10/05/2006 1:39 Comments ||
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#4
The Pope & Co are not accomplishing anything
Maybe. But they are talking to Europe as much as to Islamic countries. Watch them carefully raise the heat over persecution of Christian minorities, using language common in the EU for other minorities.
And then let's see if there is any integrity left in Europe or if the words that come out of Brussels etc. are only codewords.
#6
We need to hear more from Western politicans supporting the Pope pointing out the lack of toleration,equality and religious freedom in Islamic countries.
Point out the fact that the Islamic countries actively teach their children to hate other religions which i for one as a Christian was never taught to hate others!!!!
#8
I have to agree with lotp, I think this is more of a battlespace preparation than a direct confrontation with islam. The Pope can see the lack of faith(ful) in Europe. He has to rally the faithful before he can really press the islamo-nuts.
#9
And then let's see if there is any integrity left in Europe or if the words that come out of Brussels etc. are only codewords.
Frankly, what do you expect? The EUcrats have their own agenda, and the dechristianization of Europe and the erasure of its identity (identities) are part and parcel of it. If there is any reaction, any kind, it will come AGAINST the current pôwer-structure.
This whole transnational "EU" is a long term project, it dates back to the 1920's, a rejection of nationalism after WWI, it's been implemented along socialist/neo-marxist and free-masonic lines (and, no, I'm not doing conspiracy theory here) since WWII crushed the soul of europeans.
Its direct goal is to "kill" Europe, to replace it with a new transnational, socialist (or tranzi, if you prefer) "Super-State" with a new "EU man". And I believe Eurabia is real, too, an another chapter of this. To dissolve identities, you've got to attack the Nation-State, and what better way to kill it than suppressing its sovereignty from the top, and "substituting" populations from the base, resulting in a mish-mash of multicultural identities ruled with a german type of sovereignty (based on ethnicity, I think JFM olds this view of the hidden influence of Germany on this whole mess). A "neo Ottoman empire", with its millets, complete with the programmed entry of turkey into the EU.
Of course, the islamists are given a free reign here, soon (a few decades), they will have enclaves within the dead empty shells of european Nation-States.
It is an utopia not unlike the old USSR (Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship), and in the end, it will fail the same, but I'm not sure Europe will survive, at least not in its current form.
#12
"The Catholic Church and many people in our country and around the world, who respect and defend the right of free speech, will not be bullied"
The Muslims have awoken Ecclesia Militans (the Church Militant). Its mission is spreading and defending the Holy Mother Church, against the assaults made against her and converting the infidels. Woe be unto them who oppose.
"something truly substantial when they did not stand up to Islam"
The Chruch DID stand up. It did so in its own way. Did you READ the Pope's apology? He regretted that they got upset over his words, but did NOT regret nor "take back" what he said that upset them: about Muhammed and Muslims using force to convert, and that being inimical to reason, as well as offensive to rationality, and wrong in the eyes of God.
#14
I agree, OS, but I think .com was getting at how it was "spun," and, thus, how the muzzies percieve what the Pope said, in the Muslim countries. It was spun as "look he apologized, let's push for more..."
Posted by: BA ||
10/05/2006 15:19 Comments ||
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#15
Not being Catholic, I don't want to sound like I'm critcizing the Pope or antagonizing the Catholic Church. It took some measure of boldness and courage for the Pope to speak out as he did. And his critcisms were spot on.
But I was disappointed in his follow-up statements, and in particular where he expressed his 'deep respect' for Islam. Deep respect for a gutter death-cult? That's where he lost me. I'm sure many here agree with me when I say his initial criticisms didn't go far enough. Perhaps the motivation was to not unnecessarily offend, but I think his later comments were a clear 'backing off' of his original statement. Thus, the frustration of many, including myself.
#17
Yes, the pontiff did tell them he was "sorry for their reaction" to his words but not for his words.
However, it looked to me like he shanked it w/the "deep respect" line as well. Bush, Hannity, and O'Reilly say the same thing and it makes me wince every time.
#18
The Pope is one of the few Western leaders who is standing against the Muslim conquest. I believe he is not particularly concerned with how the media spin his words. He knows that the people who need to hear them - in this case primarily Western European leaders - will hear what he said. Muslim seething in this case is just a freebie demonstrating the truth of what he said.
I agree that I shudder when GWB calls Islam the "Religion of Peace", but the time for such politically correct platitudes is about over. I do not hold deep respect for Islam. In fact, I have no respect for Islam. Muslims have the right to practice Islam while tolerating other points of view, but no more. They will have to learn this lesson once again.
#19
I shudder when GWB calls Islam the "Religion of Peace",
....or when he uses the phrase "the wonderful faith of islam."
What the bloody hell is he THINKING? Who gives him those ignorant lines? Has he no understanding? I try hard to not just respect him as our leader, but like the man as well. Sometimes he makes the liking a real chore.
#20
The Pope treats them as any Christian is supposed to - trying to follow the instructions in the Gospel. That's why he uses soft words on those things. But on fundamental issues, he is a rock, even moreso than was John Paul II, Magnus. And especially so when you get to the core of Islam - he is quite explicit in saying they need to abandon force and go over to faith.
#21
I stand by my comment. You've ignored my points. Preaching to the choir has not, and will not, accomplish anything - unless you think that Catholics needed firming up on what Islam actually is, an ideology of violence, domination, and hate. The message sure has gotten watered down, wouldn't you agree?
I'm not baiting you, but I completely disagree with your extremely generous view of the Pope's words and actions in this situation.
The original message was between fellows, but it got out and the professional Muzzy shit merchants manipulated it into another "outrage". The truth is, however, that the Pope started it, regardless of how it became public knowledge. So he must defend the point or he fails. I cheered him, initially, but I lost respect when he began backpedaling, and he most certainly has. Your logical arguments, as was one of my original points, are obviously wasted on Muzzies.
There is an obvious disconnect when non-zealots attempt to communicate with zealots. It makes sense, to us, to try to explain when the message gets lost or is confused, such as the idjit Muzzies putting the ancient words in the Pope's mouth. He did. Wasn't received, of course. To try again with another set of words in hopes of getting through is a Western tradition, so he did that, too. Each iteration I've seen has been slightly less honest and more conciliatory. Culminating with what I violently disagree with, the "deep respect" bullshit. Sit down... It's probably a lie. Now we have this idiocy about holding a dialog. To what end? The Pope knows the text is accurate and that the Muzzies will never accept it - so what the fuck is the point? It simply demonstrates they can drag the head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church down to their level and make him dance.
Every word that has come out of the Vatican since the 'slammies hit the streets that did not unequivocally say, "You've proven the text is correct." has been wasted, at best. They perceive the entire kerfuffle as a victory. "We cowed the Pope!" And, by their version of logic, they did. They are immune to our Western logic. Q.E.D.
And that is my point and my opinion. You're wrong.
#22
.com - Not sure how much of that was aimed at me. What choir do you mean? Western leaders? EU officials are already far down the road to surrender. I think we agree on that. I think the Pope was addressing European academics, and expected the 5-10% of Christians remaining in Europe to pay attention. I don't think the Pope is or was trying to teach the Muzzies anything. He is trying to rally the West. He stated a year ago at the Sant' Angelo retreat that Muslims believe that the Koran is revealed in toto and not subject to human interpretation. At his meeting with the Muslim ambassadors, he refused to allow them to answer. Calling for dialogue instead of for Crusade is a placeholder.
The Pope sees clearly that the Islamic Reformation is not what we in the West had hoped for - it is Islamic facism.
Here in America, barely 50% understand what we face. GWB sees. He gets it, but the country has not followed him. The only Protestant leader to speak out was Franklin Graham, and the MSM nearly destroyed him. The Pope is in an even worse position. Europe is nearly lost, and the Church has been weakened by 50 years of Vatican II, Liberation Theology, and pacifism.
I hate to throw him under the bus for the same reasons we refuse to throw W under the bus.
#23
Deep respect is a proper term - and its respect for the depth of their faith, not neccesarily the full content of it.
The Catechism teaches:
CCC: 870... many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its [The Church] visible confines.
The Pope is bound by this - and his decorum and"deep respect" is based on the fact that there is some truth and evidence of God in Islam. Its been overshadowed by thier resoprt to force and rejection of reason -- which was the point of the Pope's entire speech.
This is a courtesy extended evne to essential atheists like the Buddhists (more accurately, non-theists).
So do do or say otherwise would have been contrary to the faith the Pope holds.
It doenst matter if the arguments are wasted, as a Catholic he is required to make them. In the words of our Founding Fathers, " a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare" the reasons and reasoning. Were those words wasted? Certainly King George ignored them the way the Muslims ignore the content to e Pope has presented them. But its the RIGHT thing to do.
And you claim that the muslims "won"? You're dead wrong - you been hitting the pipe with Kos? If they "won" why are they still asking for an apology? Why hasn't the Pope taken back the words? Hmm?
I think you need to step back .com - you're dead wrong and appreaing to be bigoted and ignorant from where I stand.
"Culminating with what I violently disagree with, the "deep respect" bullshit. ""
You're saying the Pope publicly and deliberately lied? (And you insinuate that he continues to lie). Declaiming the Pope's honesty? PROVE IT Show a lie. And show how he keeps lying and getting worse. Otherwise you're off base and should back down and apologize. And despite your "youre wrong" comment, I'm right - sorry to say you're utterly wrong,and worse, incapable of recognizing it.
Sit down... It's probably a lie."
Sorry .com - that sealed it for me. Your biases have overcome your reason. You're not going to get away with liberal mischaracterizations and smear tactics here.
To put it in language plain enough that even you can understand it through your personal filters:
The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."
However it does caution against them jsut a few paraghraphs later:
CCC 844: In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.
CCC 847: This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
In light of this the Pope's remarks and actions are consistent with his faith.
#25
While I concur with .com in how the Pope missed a sterling opportunity to point out exactly how violent Islam is, with respect to their reactions to the Regensburg speech, Oldspook is making some extremely important points that must not be ignored. First, about the Pope's apology:
But I was disappointed in his follow-up statements, and in particular where he expressed his 'deep respect' for Islam.
mcsegeek1, please cut and paste (with a link) the passage where the Pope expresses a "deep respect for Islam" which, despite your quotation marks, you have made into a statement.
Here is the text of a follow-up to (not the original of) his (non) "apology", as I have been able to find it.
"I hope that in several occasions during the visit ... my deep respect for great religions, in particular for Muslims - who worship the one God and with whom we are engaged in defending and promoting together social justice, moral values, peace and freedom for all men - has emerged clearly," Benedict said during his weekly audience at the Vatican.
During another thread here, someone made the important distinction that, the Pope, as God's direct representative here on earth, must love and respect all of God's creations, no matter how deluded or mislead. Muslims certainly qualify for that definition.
NOWHERE does Benedict admit a "deep respect for Islam". Even as a scientific agnostic I have found much to admire in Pope Benedict. I made this clear in my lengthy post about his Regensburg speech.
Of all the Popes in my lifetime, Benedict strikes me as an exceptionally erudite man. His extremely careful choice of words demands excruciatingly close reading. Otherwise critical context and perspective easily can be lost. Just as with what the media so fondly calls his original "apology"
At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims.
These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.
This guy has iron-clad plausible deniability built in at the factory. Nor did he ever actually apologize or back down from his words..com, I know that you wanted stronger language. You and I both agree that the clock is ticking down to midnight and that anything less than blunt trauma is merely rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs. I do think that lotp is correct in her assessment that Benedict's speech was more couched for his European audience than for Muslims. Moreover, I consider the Pope to have very pointedly confronted Islam with his demands that Muslim-majority countries begin allowing for freedom of religion.
These are merely the opening salvos from an exceptionally eloquent and powerful man. I remain confident, if indeed impatient, that Benedict will not let down his flock nor, by extension, the Western world. Reads this man's word with extreme care. He lards them with many layers of important meaning and picks them with care.
#26
SR-71 - I was responding to OS, since he didn't opine but stated I was factually wrong. Funny, the facts of who said what support me.
OS - Dead wrong and incapable of admitting it, a Kos Kiddie hitting the pipe, bigoted, ignorant, using smear tactics, biased and unreasoning, full of shit, and owing an apology. Lol. Right. I don't dope or drink, so my faculties are fine. I didn't smear anyone, just said the obvious - for most non-Catholics, anyway.
Apparently there are some interesting similarities between people of deep faith, regardless of the brand. Seems you see the world through the Catholic filter - but I'm the one who's blind. Right.
The truth is independent of faith or belief. The statement that the Pope holds "deep respect for Islam" certainly strikes me as less than honest. Your reasoning for what he means is interesting to me as a Westerner, but it went right over the Muzzies' heads. And that observation pisses you off? Um, so what? I'm not a Catholic. Did you expect something different? Really? To me, he's just another guy who has stepped in something and is backpedaling. If thinking so and saying it aloud gives you cause to get personal, then back at ya - Fuck Off. BTW, just who the fuck do you think you are? Geez, you've just flushed the "deep respect" I had for you, not that you care.
No apology will be forthcoming, I'm just an observer and the only axe I have to grind is the truth.
I call bullshit. Vatican - Muslim relations have never gotten beyond "square one" so that they could fall back to square one.
The Muslims could give a shit about Catholicism except as one more flavor of Kuffar to behead or subjugate, in that order. To say that Muslims even seek dialogue is pandering to Islam in the extreme.
#29
The current Pope and the Catholic catechism are not the only prominent Christians to express respect for Islam -- if not for the behavior of Islamacists, past or present.
Charles Williams, one of the Inklings along with C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, was not Catholic but felt that the deep concern for discipline and holiness that characterized Islamic surrender to God came as close as one might to the full truth without Christ.
Would Williams have made excuses for current Islamic terror? I'm rather sure he wouldn't. Nor do I much like his personality as it emerges from his writings. But he was quite influential as a writer and highly respected by many -- including Lewis, who was a bit younger -- for his own spirituality.
Which might give us a little pause when making the sweeping sorts of claims that .com and others have made, either about the Pope or about Islam. I disagree that it is solely a death cult. I think you'll find that many of the Hispanic women who are converting to Islam -- and some of them ARE converting and probably more will over the next decade -- do so because it offers them a structure and a bulwark against a corrupt and exploitative culture that is nominally "Christian". They know they're giving up some freedom (perhaps they don't realize how much, if/when their society tips to being majority Muslim), but they also find a kind of inner freedom in the discipline that Islam at its best pursues.
And that is somewhat reminiscent of the early desert monastic Christians, among others.
If you take the lazy way out and refuse to see what is or might be perceived as good in Islam, you will be blind to why there is a very real chance it will *convert* many people -- and not all of them by the sword.
#30
To emphasize my own agreement with .com's stress upon just how important forceful and unequivocal declarations are at this point, I will say that Benedict seems to have taken Oscar Wilde a little too seriously when that famous English wit said:
"It is best to mince one's word finely as it make them so much easier to eat afterwards."
#32
If those declarations are needed right now -- and we're getting closer to that time IMO -- then they are not needed by the Pope yet. Or by POTUS.
Each of those leaders have massive responsibilities. They may not allow themselves the indulgence of the sort of black and white, nuke 'em till they glow, who gives a damn about consequences rhetoric that is so satisfying to some of us here.
Instead, they bear real responsibility for the outcomes of their speech. And they are acting accordingly IMO.
#33
lotp - I didn't make any sweeping claims about the Pope. I observed the sequence of events and gave my view of the effective results, on-topic with the article.
I find no redeeming value in Islam. I see it as an ideology which cannot co-exist with any other, responds with violence when it fails to gain dominance in other ways, thus a fundamentally dangerous force in the world. I differ with you on that very important point. But neither of us felt the need to get personal. Funny, no?
#34
Well, I'm not Catholic, nor do I come from a heritage that was. I truly have no direct emotional stake on either side of that.
What is interesting to me about Williams' deep attraction to a kind of ideal Islam (as a prototype for true surrender to God) is how much people like Tolkein (to a lesser degree) and Lewis (quite highly) respected Williams including his rather interesting take on church history Descent of the Dove.
It's been years since I read that, or any of his novels, plays or poetry. But I can recreate easily the several distinctive aspects of his theological / devotional stance. And through that I can see Islam in a wider context than its current use as an ideology through which tribal cultures fight back against encroaching modernism using murderous means, and in so doing serve the purposes of fat corrupt Saudi royals and other such parties.
It's a mistake to see Islam and those cultures as identical. Not only is that counterfactual, but perhaps even more importantly to do so blinds us to the reasons why others might respond very differently to Islam as a potential way of life.
#35
lotp - I have never had much interest in religion, so I haven't read the books you refer to. I was compelled to read the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, then chose to read the qu'uran and some books which tried to explain buddhism - poorly, lol. The Screwtape Letters (Do I have that right?) by Lewis was the only thing I've read that brushes up against your point - sorry - and that was over 30 years ago.
If there was a peaceful path to coexistence with Islam, then I'd be willing to watch it work and change my tune. I recognize that my experience was with the worst flavor, the Wahhabis. Liberalhawk used that observation on me to good effect way back, lol.
When I see the "moderates" fight back as we have, when I see them openly defend our liberal freedoms in numbers, I'm dismissing the coffee-table book authors, then I'll eat my finely-minced words (lol) and take them at face value. In fact, taking them at face value is precisely what I do now - and there's nothing yet apparent to change my view.
#36
This reminds me of an argument my father and my husband got into once, back when I and the world were young. I've no memory what it was about, as the subject was rather technical. But the thing is, my father was a research biochemist, Mr. Wife a chemical engineer-in-training. The topic they argued (ever so politely, as the not-yet-Mr. Wife didn't want to fatally annoy his future father-in-law, nor my father his soon-to-be son-in-law), from my perspective they were coming to the same conclusion; yet in their closely related fields the same words had different enough meanings that they talked at cross purposes, increasingly annoyed that the other stubbornly refused to see the right of it.
As far as I can tell the essence of Old Spook's argument is the message that the Pope is trying to send, as much to the people of Western Europe as the Muslims. .com is arguing that what the Muslims are receiving something entirely different, and that is the critical fact the Pope needs to actively manage. Y'all are talking at cross purposes, gentlemen.
I can only hope that part of the Pope's purpose was to cause the Muslims to reveal themselves in a way that our Western idiots cannot pretend they don't see. As leader of the Catholic Church, of course he has to use their traditional forms, but in a way that pushes all the Muslim buttons as well as causing the Muslims to push the buttons of the Europeans.
Or, quite possibly, I've read everybody wrong and I'm full of shit. That possibility has crossed my mind.
#39
"I can only hope that part of the Pope's purpose was to cause the Muslims to reveal themselves in a way that our Western idiots cannot pretend they don't see."
That was the impression I got, as well. And not just part of his purpose.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/05/2006 21:46 Comments ||
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#40
Damn! I read those at the same time, too! No kidding. Eve's Autobiography was what made me a complete Twain nut, lol.
#41
Then as a really big favour to me, make up with Old Spook, ok? We're all on the same side on the really important thing: the War on Jihadist Islam. (I'm just not going to say "on Islam" until forced to it, even though it looks highly likely that's where it will end up.) You both are really important voices here, I adore you both, and in my stupid hypersensitivity about such things I'm heartbroken right now.
#42
Becalm thyself, tw, lol. Whatever will happen, will most certainly happen. I cannot (and should not) ignore what has transpired here. I'm not full of shit, okay - some of the time I am, lol, but not here. I mean every word I've said and I see no reason to retract any of it. OS will do whatever he wants. I'm disappointed in how this transpired, but that's life.
#43
You both went on a search, and similar paths ended up in different places. Because you both reasoned your way there, you feel strongly about where you ended up. You are both very intelligent, widely read, good at building your argument, tough-minded, and stubborn as mules (not at all the same thing), and capable of stating your points much more strongly than you did in this thread. You are both wonderful men who are doing your best to do right in your bit of the universe.
And you both said hard things tonight. But I've no doubt you've both said harder things, and even sometimes got past it. It would have been easier, I suppose, if you'd just hit one another, and had to go together to the emergency room to each get your jaws wired back together.
For what it's worth, which isn't much, except in abstract.
#44
.com - I stand by my Pope on this one. He's said more than any other leader, religious or otherwise, and I see it as opening gambit
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2006 22:23 Comments ||
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#45
"I can only hope that part of the Pope's purpose was to cause the Muslims to reveal themselves in a way that our Western idiots cannot pretend they don't see."
Which, I believe, was lotp's entire point in post # 4.
All of you, please consider one single glaring statistic from the "Obssesion" video. If some 10-20% of the entire world's Muslim population is radicalized, this represents a headcount equaling the entire population of the United States.
We are confronted with a massive foe that can easily, through force, coercion and doctrinal suasion, overcome or simply carry along in its violent and abusive wake, the remaining Muslim world. Very little time remains wherein we have the luxury of "dialogue" or other nuanced forms of negotiation. In reality, such tools are of absolutely no worth in confronting an enemy hell-bent on killing or subjugating the rest of us, including any of their own uncooperative religious brethern.
Israel's dealings with the Palestinians should have proved for once and all that there is no negotiating with these bloodthirsty fanatics. Absent any voluable or tangible support from Islam's silent majority, we cannot but begin a forcible dismantling of their religion.
Pope Benedict's message is a good one and, as such, is desperately needed in terms of awakening Europe. Yet, remember, we are talking about a continent that has, part and parcel, already surrendered itself almost entirely to Islam.
While I no longer care if Muslim-majority nations perish in nuclear fire, I still hold out hope that some form of deterrence or disincentive can be brought to bear in order to avoid this Islamic holocaust. That this tragedy is almost mandatory, at this point, is a foregone conclusion on my own part. I merely await the efforts of those who have been appointed to resolve this impending crisis.
As to myself, I shall have to gather firearms and ammunition in anticipation of what I see as inevitable. For someone who has fired many guns but never owned more than a (highly accurate and fast muzzle velocity) air pistol, this is a huge change.
#46
btw - I'm an off/on practicing Catholic unlike OS, who I admire. I see the words as an incremental step back on the offense, not defense. While expressing "respect" he's basically told them to put up or shut up on the "Religion of Peace" BS. So far, they've lived down to all expectations.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2006 22:27 Comments ||
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#47
Damn it, I'll probably miss posting a recipe in my thread over this, but what do I care?
You both are really important voices here, I adore you both, and in my stupid hypersensitivity about such things I'm heartbroken right now.
trailing wife, you are being neither stupid or hyper. While I am disconcerted at the conflict in this thread, it's a much needed clearing of the air about what sort of threat and what measures will be and ARE needed to counteract radical Islam and, quite possibly, Islam in general.
.com - I stand by my Pope on this one. He's said more than any other leader, religious or otherwise, and I see it as opening gambit
And here I will certainly agree with you, Frank. As if a voice in the wilderness, Benedict's words have been raised unmistakably, however moderately so, against militant Islam.
#49
Oh, I am being stupid, Zenster. Because at this point I don't really care what either of them said. .com's search led him to a highly moral and ethical atheism, Old Spook's to a highly moral and ethical Catholicism. Because .com has seen the worst side of several religions, he has a legitimate distrust of it. On the other side, OldSpook sees in Pope Benedick the best of the Catholic tradition, and he is rightfully protective of that.
And I see two idealists (even if .com likes to be cynical about it) who are doing their best to fight to keep the world from literally going to hell. How can I not stupidly weep?
#50
"As to myself, I shall have to gather firearms and ammunition in anticipation of what I see as inevitable."
Well, if you're looking for advice on guns, RB might be a decent place to start; there are plenty of gun owners here. Start a gun thread one of these days, see what you get.
"For someone who has fired many guns but never owned more than a (highly accurate and fast muzzle velocity) air pistol, this is a huge change."
Would an AK-47 be enough of a change? That's what I got my youngest son for Christmas...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/05/2006 22:44 Comments ||
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#51
:-) we can agree to not disagree. Any step, however small is a step fwd. We may disagree on the pace (and I'm sure we will), but this is the way it has to be - the leaders of our Christian, Jewish, Hindu, et al, religions need to stand up and say "this sh*t won't fly !" (but, of course, I paraphrase).
Isolate, embarrass/drive a wedge, and then annihilate those that clearly won't change. It won't be any different than the End Of Worlds projections made here by several, but we'll have Militant Islam, a backasswards culture, isolated, and ready for eradication on a global scale.....
/serious, now playing:
I want my own Crusader Coat of Arms, dammit
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2006 22:46 Comments ||
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#52
A bridge agule rampant on a field azure, crossed with a bigger hammer on the bastard side, perhaps? The motto "Oderint dum metuant" is perhaps most appropriate.
#54
"Mine's Bigger" might last til the first field comparison with their finest. I prefer something I can defend :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2006 23:00 Comments ||
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#55
A bit late in the day, but to put Pope Benedict's references of "respect" for Muslims, one should look to prior declarations on the subject made by his predecessors.
The authoritative document on Catholic - Non-Christian religions is NOSTRA AETATE , published during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI (1965)
Excerpt:
3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
Benedict, I believe, is under no illusion about the Muslim threat, but his principal focus is on preserving the remnants of Christian faith in a secularist Europe. The battle lines were made evident when the the d' Estaing-led drafters of the EU Constitution ignored Pope John Paul II's plea to include preamble that included a reference to Europe's Christian heritage.
The trip to Turkey, I also believe, will be devoted to encouraging closer ties to the Easter Churches. An additional day was added to the itinerary for a papal visit to the Hagia Sophia "museum".
Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general Do you have to keep bringing that up?who is one of
Saddam Hussein's lawyers, said that any death sentence against the former Iraqi president would increase violence in the strife-torn country.
"It seems clear that a guilty verdict will set off catastrophic violence" and that a death sentence would be even worse, Clark told a Washington press conference. "It's hard to know how many Iraqis, dozens, hundreds, thousands, will die because of the sentence," he said.
A date for a verdict in the crimes against humanity trial against Saddam and seven co-accused, which opened in October, 2005, is due to be set soon after the trial resumes on October 16. If Saddam is found guilty and sentenced to death, Iraqi law lays down that he should be executed within 30 days, said Clark.
The US attorney general from 1967-69 reaffirmed his belief that the court is illegal because it was set up only to try Saddam. He criticised the judges because they were "selected, trained, paid, protected by the United States." Which is the real reason. He will oppose anything the US supports or does.
Saddam and his co-defendants, including a half brother Barzan al-Tikriti, are on trial for a crackdown on a Shiite town of Dujail following an assassination attempt in 1982. He faces a separate trial for genocide against Iraq's Kurdish minority in the 1988 Anfal campaign.
#6
"Ramsey Clark: executing Saddam will unleash catastrophic violence"
With any luck, starting with HIM.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/05/2006 23:00 Comments ||
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#7
On the other hand, executing Ramsey Clark might unleash catastrophic euphoria.
Posted by: Infidel Bob ||
10/05/2006 23:16 Comments ||
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#8
Ramsey Clark needs to be whacked - either by an IED or a "crossfire". He's more of a waste of oxygen consumption than the man that appointed him (JC), and that takes some doing. I regret that either of them are citizens of the United States.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/05/2006 23:25 Comments ||
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#9
My memory is a bit hazy... but there was this place and time where they executed defence lawyers together with their client if they plead innocence and lost their case. It was presumed that the lawyer knew well that the accused is not innocent if the evidence led to a conviction.
Or maybe it was doctors in ancient China...if a patient got sick and died of sickness it was considered doctor's fault and the doctor was sent to follow the patient. A doctor was paid when his patients were healthy, not when they were sick.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew into Baghdad for a surprise visit to press Iraqi leaders to resolve their differences and ease raging sectarian violence that has killed thousands. Our role is to support all the parties and indeed to press all of the parties to work towards that resolution quickly, because obviously the security situation is not one that can be tolerated and is not one that is being helped by political inaction, Dr Rice said travelling with her.
But her arrival in Baghdad was delayed by 30 minutes because of indirect fire at the airport complex, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Her plane circled until it was deemed safe for her to land.
Dr Rice, on a Middle East tour, was due to hold talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who met Sunnis and fellow Shiite majority leaders on Monday to agree a four-point plan to try to stem mistrust between the sects and ease sectarian violence.
#1
Did she wear her high leather ass-kicking boots?
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/05/2006 13:50 Comments ||
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#2
It's fair to say that all VIP visits to Baghdad are a surprise, by default.
But her arrival in Baghdad was delayed by 30 minutes because of indirect fire at the airport complex, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Her plane circled until it was deemed safe for her to land.
LOL! Only in Iraq. Thank you D. Rumsfeld. This isn't Searle.
October 5, 2006: While the new Iraqi Army has been developing nicely, the national police remain mired in corruption, brutality, and sectarianism. These are traditional ills in Iraq, and most of the Middle East for that matter. But they are also major obstacles to suppressing the terrorist organizations, since effective police work is at least as important as capable military operations. Efforts are underway to improve training, pay, and leadership. Some police units are being disbanded, when the leadership of the unit has been found totally inadequate. This is all a result of the Sunni Arab monopoly on military and police commands when Saddam was in power. Saddam only trusted Sunni Arabs, and few Kurds or Shia Arabs got senior police posts. Because of this, the new government had to start from scratch in building new leadership for the new army and police. This effort was more successful with the army. Many of the new police commanders were more loyal to their tribes, or their own financial success, than to their police responsibilities.
Anbar and the Wild West. The recent pact between the government and local leaders that established "Anbar Tribal Sheiks Council" (ATSC) is beginning to pay off. A number of tribal leaders have agreed to initiate routine patrols of roads in the province, to supplement government military and police patrols. The patrols will help reduce insurgent attacks on road traffic, which will lead to an improved economic situation in the province. In addition, by increasing the number of security personnel, and the number of check points, the tribal patrols will impede terrorist movements. Since the terrorism activity in Anbar is not almost completely dominated by Al Qaeda (viewed as "foreigners" by the locals), this will have a serious impact on the security situation there. Naturally, al Qaeda action against the ATSC is expected. It will probably come in the form of assassination attempts against prominent sheiks or members of their families. This may turn out to be counter-productive, since vengeance is an ancient tribal tradition. In the past, al Qaeda has been driven from many areas in central Iraq, when the terrorists sought to terrorize tribes with the assassination of tribal leaders. There are over a hundred functioning tribal organizations in Iraq, and al Qaeda now has the support of less than a dozen.
Why is there peace and prosperity in the north, and why doesn't anyone talk about it? Actually, the economy is booming in the Shia Arab south as well, but there is also some violence down there. But nearly all the violence you hear about in Iraq is in Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq. Meanwhile, the north is so peaceful that Western journalists, and just about anyone else, can move about freely, without fear of attack. How can this be? Well, for one thing, the Kurds have tight controls on their borders, and any Arabs entering are checked carefully. Arab Iraqis are welcome to visit, and many do, for vacations from the violence in the south. When asked, Kurds attribute their peaceful neighborhood to the fact that Kurds are not Arabs. But this is not the main reason, for the Kurds have, in the past, been as factious and violent as the Iraqi Arabs are now. But during the 1990s, when the U.S. and Britain agreed to keep Saddam's forces out of the north (to prevent another large scale massacre of Kurds), the Kurds sorted out their differences and learned the benefits of cooperation and law and order. In effect, the Kurds had a ten year head start on the rest of Iraq, in the "how to create peace and democracy" department. The Iraqi Arabs, Sunni and Shia, who come north on business, or for a vacation, note this. The Arabs believe they are superior to the Kurds ("a bunch of hillbillies," to most Arabs), and find it irritating that the Kurds have made things work, while down south, especially in central Iraq, things are still a mess. Given another seven years, the Iraqi Arabs will probably catch up. But this is not a popular solution to the "Iraq problem," and no career-conscious journalist is going to talk about it.
#1
This fact (the Northern Kurds and to a lesser extent, the Southern Shi'a getting along well) should be shouted from the rooftops and loudly by the DoD. Like someone (wiser than me) said of the Kurdish north:
It's like saying there's rampant crime in Chicago and NYC, and then screaming that the entire United States is about to fall into a civil war. It just ain't gonna happen.
*sigh* I guess if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead.
Posted by: BA ||
10/05/2006 13:36 Comments ||
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#2
Actually BA,
I noticed that even when it bleeds, what matters is whether they can spin it as Bush's fault.
When we took down Sadr's tots in Najaf, there was a night when the Marines nailed 700 of the Mahdi Army in that giant cementary. Didn't hear anything about it in the MSM. Had to go to the milblogs to find out about it.
If 700 dead insurgents is not "bleeding", what is?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/05/2006 15:03 Comments ||
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#3
Good point, Al. And, I agree wholly!
Posted by: BA ||
10/05/2006 15:21 Comments ||
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#4
The Kurds do have a powerful cultural advantage, also, though where they picked it up is anybody's guess. They strongly admire education and intelligence in their leaders.
This has long been evident, because most of the spokesmen for the Kurds are some of the most erudite and well-spoken public speakers out there. Some educated in Britain, their english is immaculate, and what they say is diplomatic and tactful.
This alone can move mountains in other nations. But that the Kurdish people recognize and respect this in their leaders, too, means that their nation is on a roll to success.
One of their larger industries in Kurdistan is now education, taught in Kurdish. And schooling is quickly becoming a prerogative even among their poor, as the way to advance in society.
#6
I am not sure we should continue to support Iraq as a nation and instead maybe we should allow them to separate into three nations. The Kurds can keep the Oil fields up North, the Shia the South, and the Sunnis can wallow in the poverty that they brought on themselves. You put up defensible borders in those areas and the Shia are left Shia-out-of-luck with no access to water, power, or oil.
CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq, Oct. 4, 2006 Only months away from completion, the pump tanks at RT3 are still empty as Iraqi workers put the finishing touches on the high-tech water treatment facility that will distribute clean, fresh water to millions of Baghdad area residents at the astonishing pace of 30 million gallons per day.
The water treatment facility in a Baghdad neighborhood outside Sadr City is one of two on-going projects visited by U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Halverson, deputy commanding general support for Multi-National Division Baghdad (MND-B), to gauge the status of essential services in the impoverished neighborhoods.
The state-of-the-art facility is comparable to water treatment plants in the United States, said Halverson, who added that clean water pumped from the facility should have a huge positive impact on the health of residents of the area.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/05/2006 06:51 ||
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#1
Wouldn't it be better to install a diesel powere generator for local power at each essential user like this water plant and possibly each hospital on an isolated loop protected from Akhmed's home wiring jungle on I Just Go Tivo Street.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/05/2006 8:05 Comments ||
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#2
If recent history is any guide then as soon as this fancy water treatment plant is turned on some key component will be blown up. An essential part of the AIF strategy is to prevent the Americans or the incumbant Iraqi government from actually accomplishing anything.
#3
Still all things considered... this is awsome news and even if it is blown up several times... it's a step (a huge step forward) in the right direction...
#4
Would you tolerate your 24/7 clean running hot/cold water to be blown up consistently?
When you get used to hot baths and clean clothes and dishes, you don't mess w/Momma. And you also get used to having reliable electricity for longer periods - they won't want people messing w/that, either.
Besides, what the Americans give, we can take away. They want to live like in mo's time, ok by me.
I remember reading a poster who's heart-warming Iraq story was a mother of 8 went out and bot a washer and dryer.
Saved so much time she went out and got herself a job.
HILLAH, Iraq, Oct. 4, 2006 At times, progress in Iraq is difficult to measure and often completely intangible but often, the Iraqi people and their Coalition partners produce amazing and obvious results.
Thanks to the Babil Provincial Reconstruction Team and their hard-working Iraqi counterparts, great things are happening in this history-steeped province, and residents are taking notice.
Along a five-mile stretch of long-vacant property in Hillah, a city of 600,000, months of the teams efforts are coming to fruition in a major stretch of road for which locals have waited for decades.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/05/2006 06:45 ||
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Rice doesnt get it.
Providing more humanitarian relief and freer movement across borders are ways the U.S. may be able to help improve the lives of Palestinians, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday that she hopes to revitalize and expand agreements made last year to help people and goods move with fewer restrictions across the borders with Israel and Egypt. Although she said she would like to increase resources for humanitarian relief, Rice made no specific pledge of U.S. aid. $245 million so far this year.
"Those are the kinds of on-the-ground things that make it easier for the Palestinian people," Rice said. Make it hard enough so they leave for Egypt or Jordan. Better yet, deport them to Syria.
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Rice's discussion with Abbas was private, said the United States supports an expansion of Abbas' security force, the presidential guard, as part of a multimillion-dollar plan to strengthen and streamline overlapping Palestinian security forces. More gun and ammo aid. Do try to keep Stingers out of their hands.
Abbas is trying to resolve a nine-month political stalemate with Hamas radicals who control part of the Palestinian government. At the same time, the United States has been trying to prompt Arab countries to increase their financial support for the Palestinians.
Posted by: ed ||
10/05/2006 09:57 ||
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#1
What's in it for us, Condi?
I believe it's called "shit"...
#3
It is only fifty years and countoing that they have been living of the western tit. In the meantime they have hijacked planes, massacred Lebanese and Jordanians all while enegaing in terrorism against Israel and nurturing dreams of genocide in their children. Last but not least they have threatened us, ie the people who feed them, with suicide bombings during teh cartoon crisis.
So this is what Rice should say: "You have one week to refund all the aid money you have recived sincze 1948, adjusted for inflation and interest or we napalm you out of existence. Get that money from your arab brothers or from the Little Riding Hood not my problem. You have one week. That money should be used on people who really desrve it like victims of islamo-facsism in Soudan".
#4
In a safety squeeze, the runner at third takes off when the batter makes contact, and hopes that the ball will go to a location from which it will be difficult for the fielding team to make a play at the plate.
#9
I thought she might be a good Sec of State. I was wrong. Aiding those who support terrorists because you feel badly about growling stomachs is not a sign of effectiveness or fairness and certainly points to an absence of ethics. Palestinians must learn the effect of their murderous cause; how disappointing that Sec. Rice is not capable of helping them do it.
#10
because you feel badly about growling stomachs
She is not to blame. She, along with millions of other post-boomers were educated fed the pablum of blame extension, or self-guilt depending upon one's race. Along with that fine fare comes the cult-like silent mantra that says all non-westerners have been and continue to be victimized and exploited by the evil robber barens of colonialism and imperialism. Once you accept the guilt and responsibility for the judged misdeeds of someone else, you are doomed. Just my humble opinion.
#11
"Once you accept the guilt and responsibility for the judged misdeeds of someone else, you are doomed."
We agree about that much. It is not exclusively her "fault", but her role of Secretaty of State for the Bush administration is one of the most critical positions in the world. She is carrying out this administration's policies, so it is true that the blame is not exclusively hers.
America has lost thousands of civilians and soldiers because of the fever of Muslim sympathy for jihadist murder; our Secretary of State is willing to feed that very same fever in the Palestinian territories.
In a complete perversion of reality, attainable only by such twisted individuals as Muslim psychotics, they will use our kindness to kill us.
If, faced with endless Islamic atrocities, the republicans cannot grasp what the democrats absolutely refuse to learn, we are all doomed. Doomed, I tells yez.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's army chief fired a top general Wednesday over his criticism of the war in Lebanon and government policy, the army said. The dismissed officer, Maj. Gen. Yiftah Ron-Tal gave unauthorized interviews to several Israeli news media earlier Wednesday, an army statement said.
Ron-Tal said army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz must "accept responsibility" for the shortcomings of Israel's 34-day war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, which ended Aug. 14.
Halutz, in a letter to Ron-Tal, said he was terminating the general's stay in the military immediately. Halutz said Ron-Tal's decision to make public statements was "unacceptable," the army statement said. "Israeli soldiers are forbidden to deal with political subjects and make public comments on political and diplomatic issues, and all the more so, it is forbidden for soldiers to publicly criticize the government," it said.
Ron-Tal is the second general to exit over the war. The commander of the northern sector, including the Lebanon border, Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, resigned after Halutz posted another general to oversee his command during the fighting.
Ron-Tal, who was already on leave before his scheduled retirement in December, was the commander of Israeli ground forces, a senior position. In the interviews, he also criticized Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza a year ago.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Prediction: Hezbo war resumes before end of year
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2006 1:34 Comments ||
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#2
Wartime military operations are neither political nor diplomatic. If that is how Halutz looks at things one may understand why the Lebanon campaign was such a failure.
#4
As soon as Hezbs have fully rearmed..underway now...they will attack again. This Halutz is a total disaster for Israel. Dismissing competent leaders of ground forces who disagree. This is going to lead to more slaughter of IDF troops. They'd better get Netanyahu in power, and restructure their forces ASAP. They have no time to lose.
#6
The point of Halkin's article is that the problems in Israel go far deepeer than Halutz. He is just a superficial symptom. And remember, Albertgore won the election in 2000, if you ifnore the electoral college and think like a moonbat; so Israel's situation is not that far from our own.
In Palestine, the strain between the ruling HAMAS and President Mahmood Abbas' al-Fatah party continues. So far, 12 people have died in armed clashes between the parties. Amid rumors of early elections, the latest public opinion polls show that support for al-Fatah is on the rise, while support for HAMAS is on the decline.
In the case of an early election today, al-Fatah would receive 32 percent of the total electorate, and HAMAS around 30 percent, while 30 percent of those polled report they do not trust either party...
According to a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, in the case of an early election today, al-Fatah would receive 32 percent of the total electorate, and HAMAS around 30 percent, while 30 percent of those polled report they do not trust either party. More than 50 percent of the voters urge HAMAS and Fatah to form a national unity government. However, experts note that the recent clash between the two parties rules out the possibility of such an endeavor. Fatah leader Abbas will reportedly seek the renewal of presidential and parliamentary elections in early 2007. Reports also indicate that Abbas will request the resignation of the HAMAS government, and form a new government under the leadership of an independent figure until the elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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A preliminary coalition agreement between Abbas' Fatah Party and Hamas, announced on Sept. 11, "is over now, and we have to start from square one," he said, not ruling out the renewal of talks at a later date.
A Hamas Cabinet minister, giving a dramatically different assessment of the situation, said the two sides were on the verge of forming a government, possibly one made up of professionals, not politicians.
Abbas also said a new Cabinet must be formed to end a recent surge in violence that claimed 10 lives in three days. He did not elaborate, but Abbas holds wide-ranging constitutional powers that include the authority to disband the current government. A Hamas Cabinet minister, giving a dramatically different assessment of the situation, said the two sides were on the verge of forming a government, possibly one made up of professionals, not politicians.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Wednesday accused the US of trying to "rearrange" the Middle East to suit American and Israeli interests.
She cares only to rearrange this region and to rearrange the Palestinian scene in a way that serves the American and Israeli agenda.
Haniyeh spoke as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the region for talks with the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. While the US supports Abbas as a legitimate negotiating partner, it considers Hamas a terrorist group, and Rice was not meeting with any of its members. "She cares only to rearrange this region and to rearrange the Palestinian scene in a way that serves the American and Israeli agenda," Haniyeh said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Picked right up on that, didn't he. What was his first clue? The invasion of a large Middle East country to oust its regime? The years long refusal to play footsie with Arafat even though most of the world had been pretending for decades that he wasn't a terrorist? Or was it the complete isolation of the PA when Hamas took over and refused to change its agenda of violence and the destruction of Israel?
Wouldn't pushing Israel into the sea also constitute a rearrangement of Middle Eastern affairs? or is Hamas now the protector of the status quo? Haniyeh must be scandalized that the US Sec. of State would seek to serve US interests, but his real problem is that so few people are listening to the standard whining these days. Tough time to be an unapologetic supporter of terrorism.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
10/05/2006 3:07 Comments ||
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The Thai Army chief who staged the coup last month said Thursday that he had agreed to hold the first talks with Muslim rebels since an insurgency erupted in 2004, in an abrupt policy change from the administration of the deposed prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who led the bloodless coup against Thaksin on Sept. 19, said officials from certain rebel factions had contacted a top army commander and requested talks. "I have agreed to the talks," Sonthi said. "I stress that these will be appeasement talks, not surrender negotiations." He did not indicate if any date had been set.
One rebel leader, meanwhile, urged the authorities to investigate Thaksin for crimes against humanity, saying the deposed leader should be tried at the International Court of Justice for alleged murders and disappearances of suspected insurgents. "Thaksin Shinawatra's hands are full of blood," said an exiled Muslim rebel leader, Lukman Lima, head of the Pattani United Liberation Organization, one of several groups fighting for a separate Muslim state in southern Thailand. In an e-mailed message from Sweden, Lukman said Thailand's incoming interim government would not be able to fully solve the divisions in the south unless they "bring Thaksin and some of his generals" to the court of justice in the Hague.
Thaksin's government, which came under harsh criticism for its strong-arm approach to the violence, had repeatedly declined to hold any talks with Muslim insurgents - a decision that had put him at odds with Sonthi, who had urged a peaceful approach. Thaksin was widely detested in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces where violence flared in January 2004. He deployed thousands of troops to the region, and shifted commanders and tactics many times. He ordered manhunts for militants and imposed draconian laws. Many allegedly moderate Muslims said the conflict could never be resolved as long as he remained in power.
The government's heavy-handed response also bred discontent in the army, which was one of the factors driving the military coup. Less than three weeks before the coup, Sonthi had proposed talks with insurgents, but Thaksin's government rejected the idea. "They see that only talks can end the violence against them," Sonthi said of the insurgents. "If they are seeking cooperation with us, that kind of approach is O.K. with me."
Sonthi's coup was welcomed by many Thais, who saw it as a good chance to resolve the Muslim insurgency that has killed more than 1,700 people. Sonthi, one of the few Muslims to rise to such a prominent position in Thailand, has been seen as a potential trojan horse healing force for the conflict.
October 5, 2006: In Syria, the Alawite (an Islamic sect) dictatorship is in big trouble. Under increasing pressure from the UN, regarding Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafik Bahaeddin al Hariri in February of 2005, Syrian leader Asad must either act against those in his government who are believed to be responsible, or face significant international sanctions. Although the Israel-Hizbollah War over the Summer gave him some breathing space, the UN is again ratcheting up the pressure. Syrian dictator Bashir Asad's problem is that if he does reshuffle his government, and fire the most obvious suspects, he may face resistance from hard-line Baathist elements, and possibly even a coup. On the other hand, if he ignores the UN, the sanctions may spark popular unrest and even rioting, since the bulk of the Syrian people (who are Sunni) are growing increasingly unhappy about living in poverty brought about by decades of rule by the Alawite minority. Reportedly Asad has initiated security measures that could be useful against either a coup or public disorder. Most Moslem nations are Sunni, and some of them are showing an interest in supporting a Sunni uprising in Syria. Sunni Arabs, in particular, are terrified of Iran, which is Shia Moslem. Iran has long propped up Syria, in part because the Alawites are a Shia sect.
Russian intelligence indicates that kidnapped IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser are in good physical condition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday. For a Jerusalem Online video of events click here The foreign minister made his comments during a visit by an Israeli delegation, led by MKs Ya'acov Margi (Shas) and Yisrael Hasson (Israel Beiteinu), to Strasburg. Goldwasser's wife, Karnit, was also part of the delegation. The group was joined by Aryeh Avidor, Israel's ambassador to the European Council and Boaz Rodkin, Ministry of Foreign Affair's European section deputy.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that Syria was continuing to act against the Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, while simultaneously calling for peace. Peretz comments were made during Wednesday's cabinet meeting, during which he also addressed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Israel. Her visit would promote the renewal of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. According to the defense minister, Rice was trying guide the Palestinian people towards the direction of establishing a government that would answer to the demands of the quartet.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Osama Bin Laden, an Afghanistan-based American journalist and writer believes, "went out through Iran and is probably in Saudi Arabia or Sudan or somewhere like that". He left moving westwards, not eastwards, she said.
Sarah Chayes, who arrived in Afghanistan in October 2001 to report for the National Public Radio as America got ready to invade the country and remove the Taliban regime, stayed on after her assignment ended in 2002. She eventually moved to Kandhar, and recently released her book on her Afghan experience titled 'The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Aghanistan after the Taliban'.
In an interview with India Abroad, Chayes, asked about her criticism of Pakistan and America's failure to "come down hard" on Pakistan for its "support" to the Taliban, said, "It (the support) never stopped, and it was pretty naïve of the American government to assume that it would stop. This has been their (Pakistan's) national policy for the last 30 years to exploit an extreme religion to advance a regional, tactical agenda. I don't believe Pakistan is behind 9/11, but I do think that for 30 years they have been using religious extremism in one form or another in their kind of power game in the region, and I don't think they ever stopped."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
When is the book coming out for WHITNEY HOUSTON vs. Osama's Naked-Breasts-on-the-Internet alleged sex slave-concubine-lover??? * "THE SEXUAL SLAVERY WAS GREAT UNTIL KINDO LEFT THE LINE OF CONTROL, D *** IT"!?
#4
Sarah Chayes, report(s) for the National Public Radio said, "Osama Bin Laden, an Afghanistan-based American journalist and writer believes, "went out through Iran and is probably in Saudi Arabia or Sudan or somewhere like that".
#5
You forget that the Taliban were actually helping the West in the Cold War and that they were kicking the Russians out and trained by the Pakis. But that doesn't mean I support them, never have done because they turned on us instead of sorting out there country. But I think that the West needs to co-operate more with Pakistan or put more pressure on Pakistan to actually kick any terroists out of there own country
#6
The Taliban didn't exist during the Cold War. The Soviets were fought by the (Dari-speaking for the most part) guys who became the Northern Alliance and by Hekmatyar's and a few others' Pashtuns. The Arabs were mostly aligned with Younis Khalis, a Pashtun warlord based in Jalalabad and with Rasool Sayyaf, who's still around and still, I presume, a Saudi stooge.
Most of the Pak aid went to the Pashtun groups, who spent an inordinate amount of time intriguing against each other -- admittedly an Afghan passtime as well as a Pahstun tribal trait. Hekmatyar was notorious for keeping his feet in both the Pak camp and the KGB camp, using both as required to further his own ambitions. After the Soviets were gone, it was Hek who initiated the Dog-Eat-Dog, rocketing Kabul and paralyzing any kind of effective government. The "Taliban" took advantage of the anarchy to take over most of the country, in about the same manner the Islamic Courts are taking over in Somalia right now.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2006 14:29 Comments ||
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#7
1997 article
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/soldiers_of_islam.htm
Creation of the Taliban
They emerged from anonymity in 1993 and in the span of four years have radically changed the complexion of the Afghan civil war by becoming the notable political elite. Essentially, the Taliban grew out of the turf battle between the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Interior Ministry in Islamabad during Benazir Bhutto's second term. The Establishment had resisted their creation and reportedly criticised Benazir Bhutto for the use of the Taliban for their November 1994 operation in rescuing the trade caravan on its way to Central Asia that had been captured by the local warlord of Kandahar. The ISI which had run the Afghan operations with complete autonomy since the late 1970s, was averse to the Taliban because they had continued to pin faith on the Hizb-i-Islami under Hikmatyar to dislodge the Rabbani government. More importantly, the ISI viewed the Taliban as yet another Benazir Bhutto ploy to reduce its role in Afghan affairs. But Maj. Gen.(Retd) Nasrullah Babar who had assumed a mandate from the Bhutto government to attempt a parallel track, which offered the possibility of opening new options in Afghanistan, relentlessly pursued the Talib option, which initially led to the weakening of the hold of the ISI on the conduct of Islamabad's Afghan policy. Eventually, the remarkable success of the Taliban forced the ISI to co-opt itself into training and guiding the Taliban ranks. Despite persistent denials by the Benazir Bhutto government, there is little doubt that the Taliban have been created, trained and equipped by the ISI and Interior Ministry special forces. According to some estimates, the Taliban require $70 million on a monthly basis to keep the militia in functional order and a 'major part of this money is provided from across the Afghan-Pak border. Recent purchases by the Taliban of tanks, artillery pieces and armoured personnel carriers ( APC ) have come from illegal tax checkpoints that have been raised along the trade routes linking Pakistan to the Central Asian Republics. The Taliban have become a more cohesive force, stocked with adequate weapons, including an Air Force, as a result of the ISI's vigorous assistance. There have also been reports that Pakistani Army personnel are already present in Taliban ranks, taking part in operational and tactical missions. Today the Taliban are over 50,000 strong, with 300 tanks, APCs and a squadron of MiG aircraft.1
Posted by: john ||
10/05/2006 20:03 Comments ||
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#8
Note that it was Benazir Bhutto's interior minister Nasrullah Babar that created the Taliban, against ISI advice.
Benazir of course, denies being the mother of the Taliban
Posted by: john ||
10/05/2006 20:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea shipped promised flood relief aid to North Korea on Wednesday, a day after Pyongyang threatened to conduct a nuclear test. The goods, including 6,400 tons of cement, were shipped to the North Korean port of Nampo, said the Unification Ministry, which handles North Korean affairs.
Russia has asked North Korea to show restraint over its intention to hold nuclear tests saying it could aggravate the situation in the Korean peninsula, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reports.
UNITED NATIONS: Japan on Wednesday sought to secure a U.N. Security Council warning to North Korea that there would be consequences if it conducted a nuclear test. But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said members were divided on how to respond to Pyongyang's threat and that North Korea had its "protectors" on the 15-nation council.
Dear President Bush:
ATLANTA (AP) - Lawyers for two men charged with providing material support to terrorists want some charges against their clients dismissed and some evidence and conversations with investigators suppressed.
President General Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday he had convinced the West that the peace accord with militants in North Waziristan aimed to end Talibanisation in the area and bring peace and development to the tribal region. 
PARIS - Vatican relations with the Islamic world must be restarted from square one because Muslims insist on misinterpreting Pope Benedicts recent comments on Islam, Germanys top Catholic cardinal said in an article on Wednesday. Cardinal 
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew into Baghdad for a surprise visit to press Iraqi leaders to resolve their differences and ease raging sectarian violence that has killed thousands. Our role is to support all the parties and indeed to press all of the parties to work towards that resolution quickly, because obviously the security situation is not one that can be tolerated and is not one that is being helped by political inaction, Dr Rice said travelling with her.
October 5, 2006: While the new Iraqi Army has been developing nicely, the national police remain mired in corruption, brutality, and sectarianism. These are traditional ills in Iraq, and most of the Middle East for that matter. But they are also major obstacles to suppressing the terrorist organizations, since effective police work is at least as important as capable military operations. Efforts are underway to improve training, pay, and leadership. Some police units are being disbanded, when the leadership of the unit has been found totally inadequate. This is all a result of the Sunni Arab monopoly on military and police commands when Saddam was in power. Saddam only trusted Sunni Arabs, and few Kurds or Shia Arabs got senior police posts. Because of this, the new government had to start from scratch in building new leadership for the new army and police. This effort was more successful with the army. Many of the new police commanders were more loyal to their tribes, or their own financial success, than to their police responsibilities. 
In Palestine, the strain between the ruling HAMAS and President Mahmood Abbas' al-Fatah party continues. So far, 12 people have died in armed clashes between the parties. Amid rumors of early elections, the latest public opinion polls show that support for al-Fatah is on the rise, while support for HAMAS is on the decline. 
A preliminary coalition agreement between Abbas' Fatah Party and Hamas, announced on Sept. 11, "is over now, and we have to start from square one," he said, not ruling out the renewal of talks at a later date. 
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Wednesday accused the US of trying to "rearrange" the Middle East to suit American and Israeli interests. 
October 5, 2006: In Syria, the Alawite (an Islamic sect) dictatorship is in big trouble. Under increasing pressure from the UN, regarding Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafik Bahaeddin al Hariri in February of 2005, Syrian leader Asad must either act against those in his government who are believed to be responsible, or face significant international sanctions. Although the Israel-Hizbollah War over the Summer gave him some breathing space, the UN is again ratcheting up the pressure. Syrian dictator Bashir Asad's problem is that if he does reshuffle his government, and fire the most obvious suspects, he may face resistance from hard-line Baathist elements, and possibly even a coup. On the other hand, if he ignores the UN, the sanctions may spark popular unrest and even rioting, since the bulk of the Syrian people (who are Sunni) are growing increasingly unhappy about living in poverty brought about by decades of rule by the Alawite minority. Reportedly Asad has initiated security measures that could be useful against either a coup or public disorder. Most Moslem nations are Sunni, and some of them are showing an interest in supporting a Sunni uprising in Syria. Sunni Arabs, in particular, are terrified of Iran, which is Shia Moslem. Iran has long propped up Syria, in part because the Alawites are a Shia sect.
Russian intelligence indicates that kidnapped IDF reservists 
Defense Minister 
Osama Bin Laden, an Afghanistan-based American journalist and writer believes, "went out through Iran and is probably in Saudi Arabia or Sudan or somewhere like that". He left moving westwards, not eastwards, she said. 
