RANGAMATI, Feb 19: Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) of Marishsha Zone in a drive last night in Baghaichhari upazila of the district recovered two foreign made arms and several rounds of ammunition, security sources said, reports BSS. The recovered arms include two Chinese made 0.315 rifles and nine bullets, sources added.
The sources said four BDR patrol teams led by Marishsha Zone commander Lt. Col. GM Azizur Rahman and Captain Mohammed Shafiul Alam cordoned a camp in the deep forest, about 150 kilometers from Rangamati township, at around 8-45pm.
Sensing the presence of BDR members, miscreants numbering about 8 to 10 managed to fleerun awayrun like scalded dogs escape from the scene leaving the arms and ammunition, the sources said and identified the offenders as members of the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an anti CHT accord organization comprised of tribal members.
Not an Islamist movement either, are they?
BDR handed over the recovered arms and bullets to Baghaichhari upazila police and filed an arms case in this connection.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
22:55 ||
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Appeasing the radicals does not help. Here is another example.
The Danish-Swedish diary giant Arla is the worst hit victim of the Muslim boycott of Danish products. Arab countries constituted Arlas most important export markets. An article in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten today suggest that Arla itself has for many years been boycotting Israel because apparently companies doing business in Muslim countries are obliged to accept a clause that they will not trade with Israel.
[PS: Arla immediately denied this in a press statement]
Naturally, private companies and individuals are entitled to boycott whomever they want to. The present instance, however, shows that those who try to be a friend of extremists have no guarantee that the extremists will reciprocate the friendship...
#2
I'm loving this whole thing. I hope it goes on and on, getting bigger and bigger. Many people who previous were unaware of the whole appeasing Muslims thing, can now see how far it's gone and how it just makes the problem worse.
#3
I agree. This whole thing is a wake up call, a clarifying moment. Eventually it will die down and the usual appeasers will get back to trying to distract the world with our own petty quarrels and convince us that these nutters are really nothing to worry about...no threats exist, it's just a phantom menace conjured up by the NeoCons. But it will be harder to do and fewer people will be able to believe them.
For those of you following the NSA affair, this article will bring you up to date on all the nattering.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, standing firmly with the White House on the administration's eavesdropping program, said Sunday he doesn't think new or updated legislation is needed to govern domestic surveillance to foil terrorists. "I don't think that it does need to be rewritten, but we are holding hearings in the Judiciary Committee right now," Frist said on CBS'"Face the Nation."
Frist also said he didn't think a court order is needed before eavesdropping, under the program, occurs. "Does it have to be thrown over to the courts? I don't think so. I personally don't think so," he said. Critics argue the program, run by the National Security Agency, sidesteps the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prohibits domestic eavesdropping without a warrant from a special intelligence court.
"This NSA program - it has to comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it has to comply with the Fourth Amendment," which guarantees protection against unreasonable searches, California Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Some lawmakers are drafting legislation to change FISA, and Sen. Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says he has worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program.
While insisting the program is legal and setting the bar high on any possible legislative changes, White House officials recently signaled they are willing to work with Congress if it feels that further "codification" of the law is needed. A White House spokesman declined to comment further on the issue on Sunday. White House officials are discussing a proposal by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, that would more specifically OK warrantless domestic surveillance, but give lawmakers more oversight.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said there is bipartisan consensus on Congress to make FISA, which was written in the 1970s, more flexible, establish more congressional oversight into such surveillance and preserve judicial review, or the need for a warrant in certain cases. "I do believe we can provide oversight in a meaningful way without compromising the program, and I am adamant that the courts have some role when it comes to warrants," Graham said. "If you're going to follow an American citizen around for an extended period of time believing they're collaborating with the enemy, at some point in time, you need to get some judicial review, because mistakes can be made."
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told Fox that it's in the Bush administration's interest to make sure there is a neutral party overseeing the program. "Otherwise, you're going to have a number of Americans out there who incorrectly think that (former FBI Director) J. Edgar Hoover has been brought back to life and that there could be abuses taking place."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
20:11 ||
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to "mess with" him days after Rice described Venezuela as a menace to regional democracy in the midst of tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.
"Don't mess with me Condoleezza. Don't mess with me, girl," Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast, sarcastically offering her a kiss and jokingly referring to her as "Condolence."
The warning comes days after Rice described Venezuela as one of the "biggest problems" for the Western Hemisphere and promised to develop regional alliances as part of an "inoculation" strategy to expose what the State Department calls anti-democratic behavior in Venezuela.
Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of trying to topple him, and says the United States will attempt to sow chaos this year as he launches a re-election bid.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, have been strained since Chavez accused the United States of plotting a coup d'etat that briefly ousted him in 2002
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006
19:59 ||
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#1
This guy's headed for a work accident.
Posted by: E. B. Condescending ||
02/19/2006 20:48
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#2
He obviously didn't see her in that black leather greatcoat and heels. Were she to meet him in that outfit, his appropriate dress would be diapers.
#5
These boots are made for walkin' --- you think, maybe he didn't see that pic? I'd be a little concern if I were he.... the reactions of those troops to her in that pic? ... well, "bring it on, Hughie Babe... we got 'ya covered, Condi"... was what I got from that pic...
A man who claimed to have a cellphone implanted in his head was convicted Friday of jumping a White House fence in a bid to meet former president Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea.
Shawn Cox, 29, of Mammoth Spring, Ark., was sentenced to 150 days in jail but a District of Columbia Superior Court judge suspended the sentence - with the stipulation Cox stay at least one block away from the executive mansion. He also was fined $50...
Nothing else going on in Iraq to occupy their attention, I guess...
More than 1,000 students at Diyala University marched through the streets of Baqouba to the governor's office Sunday to protest the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted in several European dailies. The students were also protesting a recent video showing British forces beating Iraqi youths during a January 2004 protest in Amarah. Signs read "We sacrifice our souls and blood for Islam" and other religious slogans.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
19:43 ||
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Police Brig. Gen. Hatim Khalaf and his driver were killed when a roadside bomb exploded 20 miles southwest of Kirkuk, police said. Khalaf was the chief of the operations center for the police in Kirkuk, headquarters of Iraq's northern oil-producing center. Two policemen were injured in a roadside bombing Sunday in Fallujah, the former insurgent headquarters 40 miles west of Baghdad. Fallujah has seen several deadly attacks in the past two weeks even though it became one of the most tightly controlled cities in Iraq after falling to a U.S. assault in November 2004.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
19:41 ||
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Pakistan successfully test-fired a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Sunday, a military statement said. It said the Hatf-II/Abdali ground-to-ground missile had a range of 200 km (125 miles) and could carry "nuclear and other types of warheads." "All planned technical parameters were validated," the statement said. It gave no more details nor the site of the test, which was announced as President Pervez Musharraf was due to leave for a five-day state visit to China. In a reference to neighbouring countries, the statement said advance notice of the test had been given to "all concerned."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
19:35 ||
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An attempt by Irans radical theocratic government to organise an international conference of Islamist parties in Tehran to adopt a unanimous position on the publication of cartoons depicting Islams Prophet Muhammad may have to be put off due to lack of interest from political parties across the Muslim world.
Iran invited a total of 149 various political parties in Muslim countries to take part in its Global Conference of Parties from Islamic States.
The event was billed by Irans state-run media as a major international response to the blasphemous, Islamophobic moves of Western governments. A draft resolution prepared by the organisers included references to Irans nuclear stand-off with the West and declared support for the Islamic Republic.
Contrary to their expectation, the organisers have not heard from the vast majority of the invitees. Up until now, only three parties from Algeria have signed up for the conference, despite the extensive advertisement that has been carried out and the huge cost that comes with it.
The event has had to been postponed several times due to lack of interest.
Twelve parties were invited to take part in the conference from Pakistan, eight from Bangladesh, seven from Turkey, five from Indonesia, five from Algeria, four from India, three from Albania, two from Tunisia, two from Kyrgyzstan, two from Sudan, one from Syria, one from Morocco, and 55 from Afghanistan.
Iran has many surrogates among the Islamist political parties in the Muslim world, Naji al-Tufaili, a Lebanese Shiite political commentator said in a telephone interview in Cairo. But this time, the Iranian leaders felt the worldwide row over the cartoons provided an opportunity for them to appeal to Islamist parties that have not been in their sphere of influence. They failed, because these parties could clearly see that Iran was trying to make political capital for itself out of religious sentiments of the Muslims.
Syrian and Turkish parties have said they would be willing to participate if the event was not called an Islamic conference. Remember how Iran is planning to defeat the US by riling up the Moslem world into an unconventional war?
Osama bin Laden accused U.S. forces of "barbaric" acts in Iraq comparable to those committed by Saddam Hussein, according to an audio tape first broadcast in January and posted on the Internet in full on Monday.
"The (U.S.) criminality has gone as far as raping women and holding them hostage before their husbands ... as for the torture of men it has now come to the use of burning chemical acids and electric drills in their joints," he said in the tape posted with an English-language voice over.
"Despite all these barbaric methods ... the mujahideen are strengthening and increasing by the grace of Allah," he said.
The tape, whose authenticity could not be verified, was posted on the Internet by the al Qaeda media group al-Sahab.
In January, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television aired parts of the tape, in which bin Laden said al Qaeda was preparing further attacks in the United States.
U.S. intelligence analysts then authenticated the tape as a message from bin Laden. It was the first bin Laden tape since 2004.
In the audio released on Monday, bin Laden said the insurgency in Iraq was gaining strength despite "barbaric and oppressive steps taken by the American army and its agents to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam."
The tape was first broadcast by Al Jazeera before new images surfaced of Iraqi prisoner abuse by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison in a 2004 scandal. The images showed sexual humiliation of prisoners and physical abuse.
U.S. officials have often accused Saddam of links to al Qaeda, one of the reasons of the U.S.-led war on Iraq which was chiefly based on allegations Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Bin Laden's remarks appeared to disassociate his group from Saddam's regime.
He said Washington was trying to muffle any media outlet that reports the truth about the losses of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Commenting on British newspaper report in a November that U.S. President George W. Bush had mulled bombing Al Jazeera's head office, the Saudi-born militant called Bush the "butcher of freedom" and criticized the prominent Arab television and the leaders of its host country, Qatar.
"Recently it has surfaced in documents that the butcher of freedom in the world had resolved to bomb the head offices of Al Jazeera satellite channel in Qatar after he had bombed its offices in Kabul and Baghdad although it, as it stands, is the instrument of your (Americans) servants there (in Qatar)."
In 2001, the station's Kabul office was hit by U.S. bombs and in 2003 Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a U.S. strike on its Baghdad office. The United States has denied deliberately targeting the station.
#3
So, basically, he's accusing us of what his own shahids have been doing?
Thanks, press, for reporting "even-handedly". Had you reported the atrocities commited by the terrorists, then the world would be able to laugh at bin Laden's crap. Now, they'll believe him, and any attempt to show the truth will be treated as a lie.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 21:59
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Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
the protests are a proxy attack on Mussharaf a this point
Pakistan had banned protests after riots killed five people in two cities last week.
Elsewhere in the Muslim world on Sunday, demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.
Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of the victims were beaten to death by rioters.
In Saudi Arabia, newspapers ran full-page apologies by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first ran the caricatures in September. The newspaper's Web site said businesses placed the ad on their own initiative, using an apology issued by the newspaper late last month. It did not identify the companies or say if they were Danish.
Boycotts of Danish products throughout the Muslim world have taken a heavy toll on Denmark's exporters, especially those selling Denmark's famed dairy products.
The cartoons, which have been reprinted by other Western publications, have outraged Muslims. But protests over the past three weeks have grown into a broader anger against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.
Demonstrations have turned increasingly violent and claimed at least 45 lives worldwide, including 11 in Afghanistan during a three-day span two weeks ago and 10 on Friday in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi. The Libyan riot outside the Italian consulate apparently was sparked by a right-wing Italian Cabinet minister who wore a T-shirt with a caricature of Muhammad.
On Sunday, thousands of police and paramilitary troops manned armored personnel carriers and sandbag bunkers in and around Islamabad to block a planned rally organized by a coalition of hardline Islamic parties that sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-American.
As roadblocks went up around the capital, authorities declared they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman, an opposition leader who denounced the government ban as unconstitutional, was allowed to stage a small rally with eight other opposition lawmakers and a few supporters. They chanted "God is great!" and "Any friend of America is a traitor."
But police fired tear gas and guns to chase off hundreds of stone-throwing protesters who tried to join the rally and then enter an enclave where most foreign embassies are. The three-hour clash left the street littered with rocks and spent tear gas shells. An Associated Press reporter saw two injured police, one bleeding from his head, and several injured protesters.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said police used tear gas, but denied they fired guns. The private Geo TV network said officers fired rubber bullets.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, a top leader of the hardline Islamic coalition, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Forum), was confined to his Lahore residence and others were detained or told to stay at home, police said.
"These people could create problems of law and order," said Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed, chief investigator of the Lahore police.
In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, police said 15,000 coalition supporters, most wearing white shrouds of mourning splashed with red paint to symbolize their willingness to die defending the prophet's honor, rallied peacefully.
Twelve-year-old Amar Ahmed joined the protest, carrying a sign reading, "O Allah, give me courage to kill the blasphemer."
Hundreds of Muslims burned a church in the southern city of Sukkur. No worshippers were inside at the time, but one person was hurt afterward when police fired tear gas.
Local police chief Akbar Arian said the riot was not sparked by the cartoons but by allegations that a local Christian had burned pages of Islam's holy book, the Quran another sign of the heightened sectarian tensions in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
In Indonesia, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in central Jakarta behind a banner that read, "We are ready to attack the enemies of the prophet."
Brandishing wooden staves and lobbing stones, they tried to storm the gates. They also set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of President Bush, and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing after a few minutes.
The U.S. Embassy condemned the attack as "thuggery."
In Istanbul, tens of thousands joined a protest organized by the Islamic Felicity Party, whose leaders shouted over loudspeakers that the crowd symbolized the anger of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims and urged them to "resist oppression." Protesters chanted slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States.
Ethem Erkovan, a 47-year-old participant who held a banner in one hand and his daughter in the other, accused Western nations of maligning Islam. "They are the ones who are trying to depict the expanding Islamic community as terrorists, though all we want is peace," he said.
and we will bash in the head and slit the throat of anyone who claims otherwise
Since last spring, Elizabeth Frank has carried her anti-war crusade to the hallways of several northwest suburban high schools. Once a month she sets up a table in the commons stacked with pamphlets and decorated with a shocking pink sign that reads: "Do You Know Enough to Enlist?"
So far, Frank's effort to educate students on the perils of joining the military mostly has been met by a wall of teenage indifference--few students seem interested in having a serious conversation about the consequences of war.
"We haven't had many problems, but we've gotten a few snide comments from staff," said Frank, a longtime peace activist from Chicago. "Each time I come to Prospect [High School in Mt. Prospect], there is one kid who walks by and flips me off. He never says anything, just walks by and gives me the finger."
Despite an occasional chilly reception, Frank and other "counter-recruiters" opposed to the war in Iraq are trying to persuade one potential soldier at a time to pursue other career options. In recent months, activists say, they have visited 25 high schools in the Chicago area as they expand efforts to preach their message that life in the armed forces isn't what recruiters make it out to be.
Some counter-recruiters complain that the Chicago Public Schools system has been slow to implement a 1984 federal court ruling that gives opponents of the military equal access to students. One peace group, Code Pink, joined anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan outside Amundsen High School in Chicago on Friday to raise awareness about the equal-access provision and call on schools to allow counter-recruiters on campus.
Mike Vaughn, a Chicago schools spokesman, said that administrators were reminded about the equal access provision last spring and that counter-recruiters are allowed to visit schools when they request it. As recently as Tuesday, Senn High School let some activists talk to students in the cafeteria.
The local effort mirrors a national movement to stymie military recruitment in a period when American support for the war has plunged and as the U.S. military comes off a year when it failed to meet recruiting goals.
In San Francisco, voters in November approved a non-binding resolution that called on city officials to create scholarships and training programs that would reduce the military's appeal to young adults. And about 5,000 students in Massachusetts public schools "opted out," or had their names and phone numbers removed from lists that public schools are required to pass on to military recruiters.
In several cities throughout the country, including Chicago, activists have targeted young Hispanic men to educate them about the pitfalls of joining the military.
Bill Kelo, a spokesman for the U.S. Army recruiting efforts in Chicago, suggested that counter-recruiting activity has had no effect locally. In the first quarter of fiscal 2006, Kelo said the number of U.S. Army enlistees in the area has risen by 46 percent compared with the same period the previous year.
The Army has increased signing bonuses and other incentives as well as putting more recruiters on the street and allocating more money to advertising after a difficult recruiting year in 2005.
"We say our piece, and the [counter-recruiters] have a right to say theirs," Kelo said.
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that promotes non-violence, prints literature for counter-recruiters to distribute to young people who may be thinking about enlisting.
The activists warn students to read any contract carefully and to be wary of promises from recruiters that they can join the armed services but avoid combat. Their literature also suggests alternative ways for young people to serve their country such as joining the Peace Corps or running for office.
Earlier this year, two other high schools in Township High School District 214--Wheeling and Buffalo Grove--agreed to allow Frank to talk to students in the commons once a month.
At Wheeling, the school picks the day she can visit, but at Buffalo Grove and Prospect, Frank says she tries to pick a day that comes on the heels of an appearance by a military recruiter, so the topic is still fresh in the minds of students.
A recent visit to Wheeling happened to fall on the same day that a Marines recruiter stopped by.
"I had a nice chat with the guy, but he was a bit defensive," said Frank, who lives in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood.
During a counter-recruiting session last week at Prospect, most of the students who stopped by Frank's table quickly passed over the literature and seemed more interested in the hard candy she had placed in a basket.
A few teachers and staff members stopped by to say hello to Frank, 57, whose two children graduated from Prospect.
In a different category were the two boys in khakis and button-down shirts who checked out the literature. One of the teens told her that his attitude on Iraq is that "we should kill them all."
A little later a young man with a lip ring told Frank that he hoped to join the Army and become a sniper. Frank suggested that he talk to Rick Davis, 58, a Vietnam War veteran who was manning the table with her that day, about what life at war is like.
With each young person he talks to, Davis suggests that they ask themselves a series of questions: Are you willing to give up all that is near and dear to you for an undetermined period of time? Is this a cause for which you are willing to die? Is it a cause for which you are willing to kill?
"It's the `Are you willing to kill' question that stops a lot of the kids in their tracks," said Davis, a former Marine sergeant. "If you are not able to answer yes to all three questions, I don't think the military is the place for you."
When Frank arrived for her first counter-recruiting session at Buffalo Grove High School last month, some students were surprised to see a peace activist given the chance to offer an opposing view to the military.
"It was good to hear from someone who wasn't sugar-coating everything," said Paul Thornton, 17, a senior.
Danielle Levin, a senior member of the school's JROTC program, said that initially she was wary of seeing a peace activist in the school. But Levin, 17, concluded that Frank was offering a "fact-based" presentation.
"The decision of whether to enlist is something you need to be well informed about," said Levin. "But I think they need to be careful about how they present their information. Anybody can interpret facts and statistics to make them say what they want. It's really simple for recruiters to put it one way and the [peace activists] to put it another." That's the trouble with kids today, they have no respect for their pinko hippie elders.
Conservative bloggers should encourage more elected officials to give interviews for blogs.
It could become a major political edge, because it doesn't have the "sound bite" problem. That is, if say a US Senator was an expert on a topic, he could give a response worthy of a Lincoln-Douglas debate, even if it ran several pages of detailed information, instead of just blurting out some talking point.
Talk about possibly raising the quality of debate!
Few people know it, but the US congress has some serious, world-class experts on certain topics, and yet they can never really explain all the stuff they know. And since bloggers aren't necessarily like reporters, trying to trip up and drag down everyone they interview, the politician could relax and say something intelligent for a change.
Bloggers are also under no obligation not to publish written interview information. So a congressman or senator who was an expert on military appropriations could bring in graphics, charts, bibliographies, and any and every training aid he wanted, and it would appear all over blogistan, reaching a goodly number of people, and being archived for future reference.
An important point to emphasize with such officials is that it is NOT a typical interview, that the blogger interviewing them is possibly just going to give them subject headers ahead of time and letting them fill in the rest, if that. And at no particular pace, or even sitting across from each other. No games, no tricks. Maybe a few real questions *after* they have analyzed what the official has written and said.
This is critical, because bloggers don't want to just be given the typical press release made by some weasely vassel staffer. So they have to tell them ahead of time that blog readers can have a very high interest and expertise in their subject, so want the "advanced" material.
Bloggers can also return to the official serious and educated feedback that they may not be getting anywhere else. Blog readers, as has been demonstrated in the past, can be as sharp as a tack and can spot data conflicts from a mile away. This can be priceless to those with limited and possibly conflicted advisors.
MR. RUSSERT: .... Since the September 11 attacks, the FBI has said that money for the September 11 strikes was transferred to the hijackers primarily through the United Arab Emirates banking system, and much of the operational planning for the attacks took place inside the United Arab Emirates.
Many of the hijackers traveled to the U.S. through the United Arab Emirates. Also, the hijacker who steered a United Airlines flight into the World Trade Centers south tower: born in the United Arab Emirates.
After the attacks, U.S. Treasury Department officials complained about a lack of cooperation by the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries trying to track Osama bin Ladens bank accounts. Why would we allow a company based in United Arab Emirates be in charge of security for our ports?
SECY CHERTOFF: Well, let me make it very clear, first of all. We have a very disciplined process, its a classified process, for reviewing any acquisition by a foreign company of assets that we consider relevant to national security. That process worked here. Without getting into classified information, what we typically do if there are concerns is we build in certain conditions, or requirements, that the company has to agree to to make sure we address the national security concerns. And here the Coast Guard and Customs and border protection really play the leading role for our department in terms of designing those conditions and making sure that theyre obeyed.
I do have to caution people, though. The fact that there were somebody born in United Arab Emirates or that some people went to the United Arab Emirates doesnt mean that every company there is automatically guilty, or automatically has to be excluded from owning something here any more than we...
MR. RUSSERT: But why take a risk?
SECY CHERTOFF: Well, I mean, you know, Richard Reid was British. He was going to blow up an airliner. We dont say the British cant buy companies here. We dont take a risk. What we do is we require a very careful reviewwe have the FBI involved, we have the Department of Defense involvedof what the challenges are. We have, in fact, dealt with this port before because we deal with it overseas as part of our comprehensive global security network. Weve built in, and we will build in safeguards to make sure that these kinds of things dont happen. And, you know, this is part of the balancing of security, which is our paramount concern, with the need to still maintain a real robust global trading environment.
#1
Someone selling us a bill of goods. P&O is but one of many companies operating in these five American ports. Its biggest compdetitor is a Danish company.
Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.
Pakistani security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the capital of Islamabad to block a planned mass demonstration and fired tear gas and gunshots to chase off protesters. In Turkey, tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States.
Protests over the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been republished in other European publications and elsewhere, have swept across the Muslim world, growing into mass outlets for rage against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.
Christians also have become targets. Pakistani Muslims protesting in the southern city of Sukkur ransacked and burned a church Sunday after hearing accusations that a Christian man had burned pages of the Quran, Islam's holy book.
That incident came a day after Muslims protesting in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people. Some 30 other people have died during protests over the cartoons that erupted about three weeks ago.
In Jakarta, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. mission in the center of the city, behind a banner reading "We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet."
Protesters throwing stones and brandishing wooden staves tried to break through the gates. They set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of President Bush and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing after a few minutes.
The U.S. Embassy called the attacks deplorable, describing them as acts of "thuggery."
A protest organizer said the West, and particularly the United States, is attacking Islam.
"They want to destroy Islam through the issue of terrorism ... and all those things are engineered by the United States," said Maksuni, who only uses one name.
ah yes, pretty clever to engineer your attack on our embassy.
"We are fighting America fiercely this time," he said. "And we also are fighting Denmark."
In Pakistan, where protests last week left five people dead, police put up roadblocks around Islamabad to keep people from entering the capital for a planned mass protest called by a coalition of six hard-line Islamic parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal - United Action Forum.
Authorities also detained several lawmakers and Islamic leaders during raids in three cities and announced they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people to prevent the demonstration.
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a senior figure in the Islamic coalition, was eventually given permission to lead a small rally through a square in the city center. The protesters chanted "God is great!" and "Any friend of America is a traitor."
But when about 100 other protesters tried to reach the square, officers fired tear gas and at least one gunshot to chase them off. More gunshots were heard later in the city, but it wasn't clear who fired them. At least two policemen were injured, one bleeding from the head. Several demonstrators also were hurt.
A crowd of 700 people, some throwing stones at police, tried to march toward Islamabad's heavily guarded diplomatic enclave about 1.3 miles from the square but with blocked by troops in armored personnel carriers.
Police also blocked about 1,500 protesters from reaching Islamabad from the city of Peshawar by putting shipping containers and sandbags on a bridge along a highway leading to the capital, said Mohammed Iqbal, a key member of the religious alliance.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, about 600 people staged a protest in Chaman, a town near the Afghan border, burning Danish flags and an effigy of the Danish prime minister.
Such protests prompted Denmark on Sunday to temporarily recall its ambassador to Pakistan, Bent Wigotski, because it was impossible for him "to perform his job duties during the present circumstances," the Danish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
#1
I think it would be a nice idea to have a switch that would run a small current between the bars of gates surrounding an embassy. Not enough for an obvious shock. But, if you grabbed two of the bars, the current would run between your hands, through your heart. Just enough to cause defibrilization. Less than half an amp, I think is all that is needed.
Figure that you could give three heart attacks an hour without the crowd catching on. But if the demo lasts a long time, you will really start culling its most violent participants.
#2
Is it time to formally remind Muslim governments that allowing attacks on foreign embassies constitutes an act of war? And follow on by removing all non-essential personnel and family members, to underline the point?
#4
A public newspaper in Denmark publishes cartoons in the Fall. Islam attacks US embassies in Febuary. What am I missing? The fact that these are contrived and formented events by islamic retards being led by their noses because the Prophet Muhammad tells them not to think for themselves?
The tipping point has been reached. Time to bring the Parallel islamic Universe sucking in upon it's self like an encounter with a black hole.
You complain, mr. President - with no small justification - about the Islamophobia of The West. In connection with that, some have complained of a drawing of Muhammed with a bomblike turban as being the most offensive. Very well, what do you think hurts Islam the most? The cartoon or this: that millions of viewers watch crazed and savage madmen decapitate their victims with knives or slaughter thousands of innocents, Moslems included, from New York to Iraq and Bali?
Respectfully, mr. President, these killings and threats are of little use. If you say we cant show the likeness, or alleged likeness, of Muhammed in Denmark, I say: our rights are not up for discussion. Moslem repressions will not be accepted as the basis for diminishing the foundations of Western Democracy
#7
The proper way to defend Embassies is with flamethrowers and gatling guns. Be sure to let it be known that the napalm is mixed with pig fat too, just in case.
I'm sick of this kind of crap. It's past time those attacking the US in any fashion start paying a price for it.
#9
I want smoke and sparks along with smoking dead when they attack our embassies. No more hostages, no more sacking. Defend as if you mean it, and have troops stand by. If the host gov't kleptocrat officials won't allow reinforcement troop overflights, tell them we will bomb their personal possessions, THEN the capitol
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 18:37
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#10
Note that this was an "attempted" overrun. In afganistan there was an "attempted" overrun of an american base here also (numerous people shot). These guys will quickly figure out the american targets are hardened and ready and will go back to the softer European embassies.
Posted by: Patrick ||
02/19/2006 18:59
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#11
Patrick, not the point. They should not have attacked ANY embassy.
Of course, if the host govt's can't/won't maintain security around embassies, it simply can be interpreted they don't want them there. Pull out the staff, then investments and co-operative ventures. It's time anyway that some jobs return back home.
They apparently want to go back to 7th century, let's give them a hand.
#12
Pull the embassy, cut off funding, call in any loans. The announcement of this should include the explanation that "if you cannot prevent acts of war, we will be forced to interpret that as your official policy".
Fuck 'em.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 21:56
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#13
Oh, and maybe, just maybe, if we make the penalties for tolerating Islamist bullshit high enough, then the moderates will make their appearance.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 21:56
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#14
Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy in Indonesia
These people really do have short memories, don't they?
The next time a natural disaster befalls Indonesia, send no help, offer no assistance. Unlike them, we DO remember how we've been treated....
The crisis over Iran's atomic agenda is deepening, but the world's nuclear watchdog chief has warned there may be no choice but to accept limited uranium enrichment by Tehran, diplomats say.
For a mistrustful West, the quid pro quo would be to give U.N. inspectors more intrusive powers via a Security Council resolution to prevent suspected atomic bomb projects.
Tehran in turn would have to pledge no industrial-scale enrichment of uranium.
Countries on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have called for the Iranian controversy to be referred to the U.N. Security Council by March 6.
Iran hit back by breaking a moratorium on enrichment, the process of making fuel for atomic plants or, potentially, bombs.
The board vote has driven Iran into a corner under a banner of national pride and risks paralyzing the Council given that veto-holding Russia and China reject sanctions on Tehran mooted by Washington, IAEA veterans say.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei will make no recommendations in a broad report on three years of probes in Iran he is to give to board members on February 27, a week before they convene to weigh whether to urge a course of action by the Security Council.
But he has already suggested in diplomatic circles that a compromise may lie in accepting small-scale enrichment in Iran in exchange for guarantees of no full nuclear fuel production that could enable diversions into bomb-making, diplomats say.
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006
16:42 ||
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Oops
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006 16:45
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Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006 16:47
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Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006 16:47
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It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Baradei's role is to slow roll the West into Arab control of nukes.
Posted by: too true ||
02/19/2006 16:48
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This should be posted in Rantburg's WTF Has This Guy Been Smoking? category. ElBaradei should take his Dynamit Nobel prize money and go home and live a comfortable life in retirement.
Iran has stated that it will wipe Israel off the map. It has a program that is made for nuclear weapons. You do not negotiate with people like that. You project power upon them. That is how you negotiate with the MMs.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/19/2006 16:54
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The US response to this should be an official declaration that any first use in the region would result in the complete sterilization of all lifeforms in the offending country by airburst neutron bombs, followed by all lands, properties, and goods being given to the nation attacked.
And, it should be noted in the same breath, that by declaring this, in NO way means that the US will tolerate proliferation, development, or possession of nuclear weapons by hostile powers in the region.
This amounts to a national death penalty for using nuclear weapons, even if they don't make it to their target, which should also be emphasized.
Ergo, if Iran attacks Israel, Iran become part of "greater Israel", henceforth. Israel may choose to sell off parts of it if it chooses.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 18:28
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Folks, el Baradei's part of the Egyptian nuclear program. About five minutes after Iran announces they have a nuke, Egypt will anounce they have one, too. His job hasn't been to actually stop proliferation, but to cover for it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 22:00
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From an interview with Ex-Senator Alan Simpson via Captain's Quarters
W: So I take it, Senator, that you really miss this place?
S: [Claps hands and laughs] Oh, no, I do! I loved it, I did, I loved it. And I loved it because it was fun. I have a lot of pals on both sides of the aisle. I worked with President Clinton, enjoyed him, President Bush, President Carter, good people doing good things. But let me tell you, you'll never find it if you just follow the Washington media. You'll never know the good -- all you'll get is controversy, crap, and confusion.
W: [laughing] Well, there you go, there's a slogan. I've got to put that on a bumper sticker.
I'm hoping that a CQ reader with a penchant for design can work up a graphic with that slogan for the White House press corps. We can display it every time they go insane over Controversy, Crap, and ConfusionTM.
via Instaguy. Go Howard!
JOHN Howard has strongly criticised aspects of Muslim culture, warning they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program. unprecedented and unneeded?
While he remained confident that the overwhelming majority of Muslims would be successfully integrated, the Prime Minister said there were two unique problems that previous intakes of migrants from Europe and Asia did not have.
"I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society, and that is a difficulty," Mr Howard told The Australian.
"You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese, or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem." "raving should be an exclusion rule, so should eye-rolling, or whacking females about their ankles"
The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. "I think some of the associated attitudes towards women (are) a problem," he said.
"For all the conservatism towards women and so forth within some of the Mediterranean cultures, it's as nothing compared with some of the more extreme attitudes.
"The second one of those things is a broader problem, but to be fair to them, it's an attitude that is changing with the younger ones." "punks"
The comments are contained in a new book to mark the 10th anniversary of Mr Howard's rise to power. Written by The Australian's team of journalists and commentators, The Howard Factor -- a decade that changed the nation will be published on February 27 and launched by the Prime Minister on March 2.
Mr Howard gave a series of interviews for the book on December 9, the final sitting day of the parliamentary year for 2005. This happened to be just two days before the race riots in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla.
The Prime Minister did not specify which Muslim source nations he was concerned about.
By placing Lebanese immigrants in the same integrated category as the Italian, Greek, Chinese and Baltic, he appears to have been referring to the Christian rather than the Muslim intake from the Middle East.
The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the conservative Muslims about whom Mr Howard was talking represented only a "tiny fraction".
"There is (also) a tiny fraction of Australians who believe in white supremacy," said Dr Ali, who chairs Mr Howard's Muslim advisory group. "I blame them"
"I think he (Mr Howard) understands that the large majority of Muslims are like everyone else. who want Sharia
"In any society there are immigrants who try to hold on to their traditions, and it takes time to change. My faith is in the following generation -- the next generation will be more adaptive."
In the interview, Mr Howard was upbeat about the immigration program.
Australia crossed two immigrant thresholds in 2003-04, which is the latest year for which Bureau of Statistics tables are available. The overseas-born population rose to 24per cent -- its highest proportion since the 1890s. And the European share of the immigrant total fell below 50 per cent for the first time.
The previous Labor government of Paul Keating had the overseas-born at 23 per cent of the population, and the European component was 57 per cent.
Mr Howard seemed genuinely pleased when the numbers were read out to him.
"Really? I think what it demonstrates is that we have run a truly non-discriminatory immigration policy."
After slashing immigration in his first term between 1996 and 1998, Mr Howard has steadily ratcheted up the intake to levels that now exceed those under Labor's Bob Hawke in the 1980s.
As Opposition leader in 1988, Mr Howard attacked Asian immigration. He later apologised and conceded the move cost him his job at the time.
His comment in August that year was: "I wouldn't like to see it (the rate of Asian immigration) greater. I'm not in favour of going back to a White Australia policy. I do believe that if it is -- in the eyes of some in the community -- that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater."
Mr Howard's latest observations on Muslim culture are not in the same category, because they do not suggest the rate of Muslim immigration should be slowed down in the interests of social cohesion. "The public sometimes mixes up attitudes to immigration with attitudes to our identity and our history," he told The Australian.
"I think one of the reasons why people have been accepting of all of this is that they feel they have a Government and a Prime Minister that is in favour of what I might call a slightly less zealous multiculturalism than was practised by my predecessor.
"Not a return to assimilation so much, but somewhere in between, which is what people want.
"What resonates most with people, I find, is they don't mind where new people come from, as long as they've got skills, and as long as they become Australians when they arrive.
"But that doesn't mean they should forget where they were born." "cuz they can certainly find their ass shipped back, third class in a crate"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006
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Now wait for the tantrums from neighbouring islamic countries. They have to show solidarity with their brethrens, you know.
The government is conducting frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations to return a group of suspected terrorists to Algeria before a series of looming court cases that could see them released from prison.
The men constitute a 'credible threat' to national security, according to the government, which wants to deport them as a matter of urgency. But concerns from human rights groups means the men cannot be sent back until Foreign Office officials have secured a memorandum of understanding from the Algerian government that they will be treated fairly upon their return. No turning the AC up too high! And no panties!!
Uh huh...
JEDDAH: Women in Pakistan have started to call the shots. They are figuring prominently in all walks of life. They have made it to the Senate, the National Assembly and are at the helms of various government departments.
"Pakistans first lady Sehba Musharraf said women have been given prominent roles in the government. They are being empowered to shoulder more responsibilities and play their part in the development of the country. They are now ministers, advisers and members of Parliament.
In an exclusive interview to Arab News on Sunday Mrs. Musharraf dwelt on the role of Pakistani women in the government and in society.
Attired in a traditional garbage bag shalwar qameez, Mrs. Musharraf greeted us with a smile at the high-security presidents residence, called Army House - a simple but elegant place in Rawalpindi - on the outskirts of Islamabad.
A beautiful and intelligent woman, Mrs. Musharraf, who has firmly backed her husbands policies on national and international issues, spoke about womens empowerment, obstacles and other factors that concern them in Pakistan.
Since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to power in 1999, women have been given a greater and more prominent role in government at all levels, she said.
"Women constitute 50 percent of our population, and so they need to be empowered in a way that they can play a complementary role," said Mrs. Musharraf. "It is enshrined in our constitution, and when my husband came to power in 1999 it was among the main thrusts of his agenda. He wanted to strengthen the economy and the only way to do so was to empower the lower strata of society. Of course you need to empower the more educated middle class, but you cannot ignore the lower strata, and women play a significant role in this."
Nevertheless, women in Pakistan still have to overcome obstacles such as illiteracy, poverty and abuse. Honor killing is a very serious and disturbing issue. Ya think?
#1
The women she knows are empowered: the wives, mothers and daughters of the men holding power. The rest of the women in her society live at the sufference of the men in their lives, and she lies when she says otherwise.
Make or break week for David 'Liveshot' Gregory?
MAIN PRESS PLANS ANOTHER WEEK OF CHENEY SHOOTING COVERAGE
Sun Feb 19 2006 10:57:36 ET
If the nation's top magazines have the pulse of the country -- get ready for another exhaustive week of exhaustive Cheney shooting coverage!
This just in... Both TIME and NEWSWEEK are planning high impact covers of Cheney for newsstands starting tomorrow, with each magazine rolling out top staff bylines and thousands of words on the hunting incident: TIME: With deep reporting by John Cloud, Mike Allen and Matthew Cooper/ Washington, Cathy Booth Thomas and Patricia Kilday Hart/ Austin, and Hilary Hylton. NEWSWEEK urgently brings in its big investigative guns: Evan Thomas, Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Richard Wolffe, Holly Bailey, Mark Hosenball and Eleanor Clift in Washington and Carol Rust in Texas. Not quite the 1927 Yankees, but a good roundup of Trotskyites nonetheless.
NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter essays that media budget cuts and shifting news priorities have contributed to the public being in the dark about Cheney's ways and means.
TIME headlines a poll: DICK CHENEY APPROVAL RATING 29% AKA: Kicking a man while he's down. It's easier!
NEWSWEEK editor Mark Whitaker defends his decision to push for another week of Cheney-Shooting coverage: "The reason we ultimately decided to stick with a cover is not because of the hunting incident itself-although we did turn up some new details that you might not have read elsewhere-but because of what it says about the mysterious world of the most powerful vice president of recent times." In other words, 'we don't like Cheney, and now we finally have our best shot at him.'
#1
What? OMG! David Gregory saw his shadow and we're doomed to another week of Cheney all day, all night? And here I thought Washington reporters didn't have shadows and couldn't see themselves in mirrors.
#2
"DICK CHENEY APPROVAL RATING 29% "
The Dems disapprove because he's Cheney. And a big hunk of the rest are not thrilled with the aid his mistake gave to the foes of the Second Amendment. It's a lot easier to score 'disapproval' points than 'approval' - people don't approve unless you do pretty much everything to their satisfaction, but they will disapprove if you only fail to satisfy on one point. That is, I think, what is behind Bush's fairly low 'approval' ratings.
#3
press corps approval rating ? square root of negative one = i
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 14:21
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THE MSM ARE NOT ONLY HURTING OUR COUNTRY, THEY ARE AFFECTING THE ABILITY OF THE USA TO WIN THE WOT. I AM ABOUT READY FOR THE U.S. GOVT TO DECLARE A MEDIA WAR AND START GETTING THE TRUTH OUT MORE EFFECTIVELY AND EFFICENTLY. DOWN WITH THE MSM.
DESPITE FREQUENT DECLARATIONS OF REFORM, it seems that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has learned nothing from the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal, in which Saddam Hussein's billions corrupted the U.N.'s entire Iraq embargo bureaucracy. Earlier this month, Annan accepted from the ruler of Dubai an environmental prize of $500,000--a fat sum that represents the latest in a long series of glaring conflicts of interest. Call this one Cash-for-Kofi.
Annan received his award at a glittering February 6 ceremony in Dubai, as outlined in a press release from Annan's office that noted the honor, but neglected to mention the half million bucks that came with it. Surrounded by presidents, businessmen, and nearly 130 environmental ministers, Annan collected this purse as winner of the biennial Zayed International Prize for the Environment, given out by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
But let us assume these folks were impartial. It's possible that with the Zayed prize already handed out in earlier years to Jimmy Carter and the BBC, the depleted global pool held no candidate more worthy than Annan.
The real issue is why on earth Kofi Annan thinks it a good idea while serving as secretary-general to accept $500,000--for any reason--from a high-ranking official of a U.N. member state. Sheikh Mohammed is not only the ruler of Dubai but the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. No doubt he bestowed this award as a gesture of appreciation. But if the other 190 U.N. member states were to follow his lead, Annan would be rolling in $95 million worth of personal prize money. Once the secretary-general allows himself to become a collector of cash awards, where's the line to be drawn? If Syria were to offer him a $10 million environmental prize, or China were to up the ante to $100 million, should he grab a suitcase and go pick it up?
Annan accepted the Dubai prize on the heels of setting up an ethics office within the U.N. Secretariat just last month. He has recently issued guidelines requiring staff to report any gifts of more than $250, down from previous guidelines that smiled on the acceptance of doo-dads worth up to $10,000. Staff rules do not apply to the secretary-general himself, who is presumed to operate as an exemplary civil servant. But one wonders what U.N. employees will make of their boss's big purse. Just last summer, a former U.N. procurement officer, Alexander Yakovlev, pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes involving taxpayer-funded U.N. contracts. Annan's secretariat has yet to get to the bottom of this still-spreading scandal in its own procurement department. Imagine for a moment that U.N. contractors were to start holding contests for the world's finest procurement officer, and began handing out big cash prizes to U.N. officials. Should the secretary-general then congratulate the winners--or investigate them?
Not unaware of appearances, Annan announced at the Dubai award ceremony that he would be using his prize as seed money for a foundation he plans to set up in Africa, devoted to agriculture and girls' education. To date, he has provided no information about what this promised foundation might be or who will run it, or what perquisites might go to its founder, or to anyone else associated with it. Asked recently for details, Annan's spokesman replied, "When we have more information, we'll pass it on to you."
Such non-answers have a familiar ring to anyone who has followed the saga of the sporty green Mercedes, shipped into Ghana in 1998 by Annan's son, Kojo Annan, who saved $14,000 in customs duties at the time via inappropriate use of his father's name and U.N. privileges. In that instance, the transaction was obscured behind a humanitarian façade, with the U.N. Development Program office in Ghana setting its U.N. seal on the paperwork. Annan, despite wiring his son $15,000 to help pay for the car, claims he knew nothing about it, and that it had nothing to do with him or the U.N. Perhaps Annan intends to more carefully supervise and account for his prize-seeded future foundation; but it must be admitted that the Mercedes experience is not a promising portent.
Nor is it a good sign that Annan, while enthusing about his prize in Dubai, appeared to have forgotten--if he ever took it on board in the first place--that from 1999-2003, Dubai was one of the hubs of kickback activity under the Oil-for-Food program. According to the U.S. Treasury and the U.N.'s own probe, led by Paul Volcker, at least two major front companies for Saddam Hussein's regime set up shop in Dubai: Al Hoda and Al Wasel & Babel. Between them, they secured more than $500 million worth of U.N.-approved contracts, and funneled tens of millions in kickbacks to Saddam. Volcker reports that a Dubai businessman, Ibrahim Lootah, owned 51 percent of one of these companies, Al Wasel & Babel, which received a commission for kickbacks processed through its account. Asked last year by Volcker's investigators about this commission, Lootah replied, "Why not get easy money?"
Why not, indeed? While the United States, India, Australia, and even France have investigated Oil-for-Food wrongdoing by their citizens, there is no sign Dubai has opened any such inquiry. Nor is there any sign that Annan ever brought it up with them. That's no surprise, given that in London, a week before receiving his prize, he brushed aside the entire Oil-for-Food debacle with the astounding phrase, "If there was a scandal."
If this year's Zayed prize money from Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai is to be dedicated to helping Africa, as we have been told, there is no good reason to channel the funds through the wallet of the U.N. secretary-general. Under the U.N. charter, Annan is paid to serve as the U.N.'s chief administrative officer, not its Prize Recipient-in-Chief. If Annan feels he cannot with good grace reject the honor of the Zayed prize, then in the interest of curbing future scandals, he might at least return the purse.
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.
We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose? Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
Flemming Rose is the culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
#1
But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission.
That's it in a nutshell. And dont forget that the word 'Islam' means 'Submission' not peace....
Police Sub-Inspector Daya Nayak is an "encounter specialist". He has personally shot dead more than 90 members of the Indian criminal underworld
MUMBAI: A sessions court here on Saturday issued a non-bailable warrant against Daya Nayak, encounter specialist and suspended police inspector, in a disproportionate assets case.
After the sessions court and the Bombay High Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea, Mr. Nayak moved the Supreme Court. It, however, declined to interfere with the High Court decision and directed him to surrender.
Earlier in the day, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) filed an application for the NBW. Additional public prosecutor R.V. Kini said Mr. Nayak was not found at his residence here and had been evading arrest since the Supreme Court made known its decision on Friday.
The sessions court also extended judicial custody for co-accused P. Manivelan till March 4.
It was alleged that Mr. Nayak had since 2002 accumulated wealth beyond his known sources of income.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006
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A 2003 interview with the Indian Dirty Harry
Sub-Inspector Daya Nayak, the Mumbai Police's best-known 'encounter' specialist, is the reported inspiration for N Chandra's Kagaar and Ram Gopal Varma's Ab Tak Chhapan.
Mangalore-born Nayak began life cleaning tables at 9 at Mumbai restaurants before joining the city police force.
After killing 83 gangsters in 'encounters,' Nayak found himself accused last week of being in cahoots with the same underworld he has pledged to annihilate.
Nayak responded to the charges in a frank chat with Contributing Correspondent Vijay Singh at his office in Andheri, northwest Mumbai.
Tell us about the journey from your village to being a police officer.
In 1979 I came to Mumbai from my village in Karnataka. I had studied till the 7th standard in a Kannada school. Our family's financial condition was very bad. So my mother told me to go to Mumbai to earn some money to help the family.
I came here and started working in a hotel. I was on good terms with the hotel owner. They treated me like a family member and insisted that I join school.
I completed my graduation while still working in the hotel. I studied and slept on the hotel's porch. I worked for eight years in the hotel till my graduation.
After graduation I started working with a plumber as a supervisor. He used to give me Rs 3,000 per month. I continued staying at the hotel till I got a police job.
What assignment brought you the spotlight?
After completing one year of police training, I was posted to the Juhu police station in 1996. I was assigned to monitor the Juhu jurisdiction on the night of December 31. I was informed by one of my informers that two members of the Chhota Rajan gang were going to be there.
I went there to arrest them, but they fired on us. In retaliation I shot them dead.
I was new [in the department] so I became worried after the encounter. I had fired at them because they fired on me. I was worried because they were big gangsters. But the police department appreciated my work, and that gave me more confidence. After that, I was shifted to the special squad working against gangsters.
How many 'encounters' have you been involved in so far? Any big names among them?
I have done 83 encounters. I have arrested more than 300 criminals. I have solved many big cases.
I eliminated many top criminals of Mumbai -- Vinod Matkar, Rafik Dabawala, Taufiq Kaliya. In an encounter at Dadar's busy flower market during peak hours I was injured and hospitalised for 17 days. I gunned down three terrorists. They had thrown a bomb at me but luckily I only suffered minor injuries.
There is always a controversy after an 'encounter.' Does this affect you?
This is part of pressurising us. The ISI and big gangsters are after us. Because we have a good network they can't do anything to us. So they adopt other ways to harass us. They make false allegations against us.
Many people are trying hard to make us work under political pressure, but it doesn't matter. I know what I am doing is right. That is enough for me.
You opened a school in your hometown. Who supported you in this endeavour? There was a controversy about that too.
I studied in a primary school built by my grandfather. After completing Class VII, children had to travel 15 to 20 km to study. I was emotionally attached to the school. Some people decided to make that school till SSC so we approached the Karnataka government, they provided us land.
My village friends and I worked hard to make that school till SSC. I had a police job and a good name in Mumbai so my village friends put me in front while approaching people to build the school.
It is not a private school, it is a government school which has just been developed by us. People who helped build the school are either my friends or others who have directly helped the school.
I have good terms with many film personalities because of my loyalty towards my work. Amitabh Bachchan was present at the school's inauguration. I handed the school over to the Karnataka government after the inauguration.
I handed over a file in which I mentioned details of who donated money for the school and how the money was spent to the Maharashtra government.
Some media people said Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel financed the school. They wanted to have me suspended. I faced an inquiry. I was transferred from here for two months, but nothing came out of that inquiry.
Films are being made on your life, you are reportedly writing a film script and apparently financing a film.
Film finance, no! I don't have so much money to finance films. This is a rumour.
Many people from the film industry know me. If they make films on police life, I give them some guidance. Sometimes I also tell them how the underworld and police work because what they show is not right.
There are ups and down in my life. It's like a film story. Many people approached me to make a film on my life. I tell them the facts, but leave it to them -- to what extent they will show my life on screen.
I hear Kagaar contains the maximum facts about my life. I just want that a good image of the police be shown on screen.
Ketan Tirodkar, a former Mumbai journalist, has filed a petition against you, alleging that you are influenced by the underworld.
Ketan Tirodkar used to work with Chhota Shakeel and is now making allegations about me? The facts will be revealed in court on November 3.
I never got involved with the wrong people or in any unlawful activity, that is why such people have adopted this way to target me.
I assure you I will never be involved in any wrong activity because I have seen a day when I had nothing. I don't want to do anything wrong because I know god will punish me.
Will we see you in politics in the future?
Many people say I am going to join politics, it is incorrect.
I am very satisfied with my job. I will retire from this department. Emotionally I am very attached to it.
What about family life?
We don't have a personal life. We lead such risky lives that there is no place for family life.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 11:24
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Top gun Daya Nayak declared fugitive
Mumbai: Where is Daya Nayak? That's the question bothering the Mumbai police and the High Court.
The encounter specialist, whose bail plea was rejected by the Supreme Court on Friday, was supposed to surrender on Saturday, but did not turn up.
The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) has declared him an absconder. However, CNN-IBN has learnt that Nayak has strong intentions of surrendering in the court and fighting the case.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 11:30
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Schools students protest cases against Daya Nayak
Mangalore: Students of a government high school on Monday boycotted classes and staged a "dawn-to-dusk" fast in their school grounds at Yennhole near Karkala in Udupi district, protesting "false cases" filed against encounter specialist Sub-Inspector Daya Nayak.
Over 250 students staged the protest in the hot sun to protest the cases against Nayak on charge of possessing assets disproportionate to his income, school sources said.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 11:31
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No pun intended *snicker, snicker*
Libya has suspended its security minister and other officials, a day after at least 10 people were killed during a demonstration at the Italian consulate in the north eastern city of Benghazi.
In Rome, meanwhile, Roberto Calderoli, the Italian reform minister, has resigned, bowing to pressure from government colleagues after Libya blamed his anti-Islamic insults for igniting the demonstration, the most deadly yet of a continuing international orgy of destruction wave of protests against cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.
A statement from the general secretariat of Libya's parliament on Saturday read: "Security Minister Nasr Mabrouk has been suspended from his duties and taken before an investigating magistrate." The statement added that a national day of mourning would be observed on Sunday to honour "our martyrs".
Calderoli, of the so-called xenophobic Northern League party, had appeared on a prime time news programme on Thursday wearing a T-shirt printed with the provocative cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year and which have recently been widely re-published in Europe.
The Libyan deaths took place after about 1000 people gathered to protest outside the Roman consulate.
Calderoli, who has frequently attacked Islam in recent weeks and once called Muslim immigrants in Italy "Ali Babas" *chortle* , seemed defiant to the last, showing no signs of contrition in a series of newspaper interviews published on Saturday. "I can be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt. The question is different. What's at stake is Western civilisation," the daily La Repubblica quoted him as saying. Yes, but logic and dhimmitude don't mix.
Berlusconi-al-Qadhafi talk
The al-Qadhafi foundation, headed by the reform-minded son of Muammar al-Qadhafi, the Libyan leader, issued a statement blaming the riot on Calderoli's "provocative and outrageous" actions. And who better to judge "provocative and outrageous" than the Al-Qadaffy foundation?
Meanwhile, in a telephone conversation Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and the Libyan leader agreed that the anti-Italian violence should have no "negative repercussions" for bilateral relations inshallah, Berlusconi's office said. Calderoli's brazen stand embarrassed Italy's centre-right government, which is campaigning for April general elections. On Saturday, several ministers, as well as leaders of the centre-left opposition, urged Calderoli to step down.
The two leaders had a "long and amicable" discussion focusing on Friday's violence in Benghazi.
Minister grovels desperately visits mosque
Gianfranco Fini, the Italian foreign minister, quickly scheduled a visit to Rome's main mosque for later Saturday, saying he wanted "to reaffirm that we respect every religion, and we expect identical respect," according to the ANSA and Apcom news agencies. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the Italian president and a highly respected voice in the country, issued a statement saying that in Italy, "there is a clear, undisputed policy that reflects the dominant feeling of non-Muslim Italians: the respect of religious creeds and of the faiths of all peoples.
"Above all, those who have a responsibility in government have to show responsible behaviour," Ciampi said, adding that he was "deeply saddened" by the clashes at Benghazi.
Calderoli defies PM
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Calderoli said he had declined a previous plea to resign from Berlusconi last week, after he threatened to wear the T-shirt. "I'm certainly not changing my mind," he told the paper. Under the Italian constitution, the premier does not have the power to sack ministers. Lunch, on the other hand, can definitely be sacked.
In comments reported by another newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Calderoli said he would resign only if Umberto Bossi, the Northern League leader, asked him to do so, and "after receiving a signal from the Islamic world that such a gesture would be useful". Please, oh Islamic world, give us infidels a sign!
Calderoli travelled to Bossi's house in northern Italy on Saturday to meet him and Fini, another Northern League minister. Fini, who had earlier appealed to Calderoli to avoid provoking Muslims, blamed his fellow minister for the violence in Libya. "It was predictable that Calderoli's display would trigger reactions in the Arab world," Fini told La Repubblica.
Because as we all know, Allan helps those who can't help themselves.
The front pages of Italian papers were dominated by the story on Saturday.
Israel's cabinet is to impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, now led by militant group Hamas. Israel will withhold an estimated $50m (£28m) in monthly customs revenues due to the PA, and will tighten borders for people and food crossing into Gaza.
Ahead of a cabinet meeting, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hamas-led PA as a "terrorist authority" and ruled out direct talks.
Israel would allow humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinians, Mr Olmert said. "It is clear that given the Hamas majority in the Palestinian parliament and the fact that the role of forming a government has been given to Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is effectively becoming a terrorist authority," Mr Olmert said. "Israel will not hold contacts with a government that Hamas is part of."
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask Ismail Haniya of Hamas to form a government, after his widely-expected nomination was confirmed on Sunday. Speaking on Saturday at the inauguration of the new Palestinian parliament, Mr Abbas stressed the need for a negotiated settlement with Israel.
Seventy-four Hamas members were among those sworn in to the Palestinian Legislative Council at ceremonies in Ramallah and Gaza City. Hamas officials rejected suggestions that they should recognise the state of Israel and enter talks, but did hint at holding a dialogue with Mr Abbas. Who says Hamas isn't flexible?
Also on Sunday, Israeli aircraft killed two Palestinians suspected of laying bombs near the border with Gaza. ^5!
The men, hit by a missile near the border fence at Kouza, were reported to be members of the Popular Resistance Committees, ... not the Committees of Popular Resistance, mind you
... which has carried out previous attacks against Israeli targets.
A small hardline Iranian group launched a fresh suicide bomber recruitment drive, hoping to lure volunteers ready to die in the fight against Israel, Salman Rushdie or foreign invaders.
"The most important martyrdom-seeking operations that we call on people to register for is to defend the country in case of an attack," explained Mohammad Samadi, spokesman for the "Committee for the Glorification of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement."
"We feel a serious threat by America," he told AFP at the event, held in a Tehran university building and attended by around 100 people.
After some three hours of speeches and films on Palestinian bombers, just a few dozen people stuck around to sign a form with three options: target the "occupiers of Qods (Jerusalem)", the "apostate Salman Rushdie" or "invaders."
Samadi said that over the past year, 1,000 people have registered to die and 300 of them had entered training courses including "theory and practice."
Iran's previous reformist government had distanced itself from the group. It asserted that this was merely a symbolic way for people to express their anger against Israel or Rushdie -- sentenced to death by Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 over his book "The Satanic Verses."
But radicals have been given a new lease of life with last June's election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has labelled Israel a "tumour" that "must be wiped off the map" and branded the Holocaust a "myth."
"The average age range of participants is between 18 and 25, but we also get 80-year-old applicants," Samadi said. "This is a way to give chance to people who have potential to show their capability to fight against invaders."
One of those signing up was Hamidreza Shahnazari, a bearded 24-year-old electrical student.
"I registered to prove that Iranian youth are not only those on the street with the latest fashions. There are many young people that dream about martyrdom every night," he said.
"It does not matter where or when; if there is a possibility for me to fight I will definitely dedicate my life to it.
Arezou, a 21-year-old Spanish language student, added: "I think the only choice is martyrdom. Israel is the main and biggest problem that we have to fight against it by martyrdom-seeking actions."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:45 ||
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...Hamidreza Shahnazari, a bearded 24-year-old electrical student.
#5
"The average age range of participants is between 18 and 25, but we also get 80-year-old applicants,"
Courting the naturally suicidal? Ain't gonna be no invaders to boom, downer dudes. It' gonna be death from the sky.
#7
"The average age range of participants is between 18 and 25, but we also get 80-year-old applicants,"
Don't make fun of me because I'm 80 years old, you young whippersnappers!!! I may have to hobble along to the venue, heh, and you may make fun of my stooped back and funny speech of an old geezer, but let me tell you, I can hex-plode the the best of you young bucks....yesserree. [I sure hope that they have the red-black-blue wire thingamajig all sorted out by now. I'm ready fer them 72 Virginians with no gol-danged bhurkas to have to wade through to the promised land..........hhhmmmmmmm.....yeahhhh]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/19/2006 16:48
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Help a Democrat, Hillary, and Anti-American American Socialism and the OWG = Global Caliphate? by killing yourself. Help the Environment and Save the SUN by supporting your local Camel- and Mud House dealership.
In the spring of 2001, long before Sept. 11 and the American focus on Iraq, the CIA asked its Paris station about rumors that 200 tons of nuclear material had vanished from two French-owned mines in the West African nation of Niger.
"We heard stories this stuff had gone to Iraq, or to Syria, or Libya, or China or North Korea. We heard all kinds of stories," said a now-retired CIA officer.
But the CIA soon concluded that a French-run consortium maintained strict control over stockpiles of uranium ore in Niger, a former French colony, and that none had been illegally diverted.
"Everything was accounted for," the former spy said. "Case closed."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
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This really boils down to whether we want to believe the French and the CIA over what the administration says. The press is, of course, in love with the French. Strangely enough, the same press that used to distrust the CIA is now inclined to believe its claims, now that it aggressively opposes American national interests.
A SAUDI-owned pan-Arab newspaper printed a full page apology from Jyllands-Posten, the Danish daily that first published cartoons of Prophet Mohammed unleashing a wave of fury from Muslims worldwide.
"These drawings apparently hurt millions of Muslims around the world, so we now offer our apology and deep regret for what happened because it is far from the paper's intention," said the statement titled "Apology" in big bold letters addressed to Muslim citizens and printed in Asharq al-Awasat.
It was signed by the paper's editor-in-chief Carsten Juste and was also posted in Arabic on Jyllands-Posten's website under a link titled "A new formulation for the apology."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
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can't say I blame them. If I owned a little paper and millions of crazy angry people were being organized to want me dead, I'd probably give that "I'm sorry that your sorry" apology too.
Look at the bright side. This drew a line in the sand and all of those "look at me, I'm a brave and daring artist who gets my Piss Christ funded by the NEA" have been exposed as blubbering cowards. ha!
#4
I am very disappointed: not by the Islamist temper tantrums but by the Western response.
What should have happened after the Islamics exploded:
Every newspaper in the Western World to print an explanatory piece, with the editor's side of the story, the cartoons in question (do YOU think they're offensive?), interview with local Muslims not offended, interview with local Muslims who are offended stating arguments on all sides, plus factual reporting of the Islamist tantrums not shying away or minimising the violence but fairly and accurately reporting all sides.
And all and sundry refusing to apologise point blank.
Explaining freedom of speech means all religions are treated equally and that freedom of speech means freedom to criticise religion as that is just a system of belief. Ideologies are up for debate and criticism they are not privelidged 'sacred cows'.
What really happened:
Mainstream media refused to print
Western countries offer grovelling apology
EU considers curtailing freedom with 'anti-blasphemy law'.
We have already lost. The terrorists have won. They didn't win because of superior firepower, they won because we let them.
We put the ideology of multiculturalism above critique, above debate in a fascist way imposed it on everyone: in schools, in the media, in government and now we are reaping the reward: more fascism is needed to enforce the original policy.
What really galls me is our forefathers fought that we might have freedom. Yet one or two generations gave it all away. Sold us down river.
No more freedom of speech for you and me.
Most people don't really want freedom it seems. They want security and to be looked after cradle to grave. Only a very few stood up to this.
#5
Not so fast folks!
The danes say they didn't do this. This is a Saudi fabrication (see the Danish statement on little green footballs).
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/19/2006 13:29
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If it settles the looneys down, god bless the fakers of this ad and the propaganda wing of the Saudi royal family (bee's pee be upon them).
After reading about the torching of churches and deaths in Nigeria; well, I think that anybody with an ounce of common sense (Joe Six-Pack) in the West has drawn the appropriate conclusions from this episode. The lesson is over. This svit's got to stop.
#8
From MSNBC: Saudi newspapers on Sunday ran full-page apologies by the Danish newspaper that first ran the cartoons. But Jyllands-Postens Web site said the newspaper wasnt involved in the ads. It said businesses placed the ad on their own initiative, using an apology issued by the newspaper late last month. It did not identify the companies or say if they were Danish.
The advertisements ran in three of Saudi Arabias main newspapers Al-Jazeera, Al-Riyadh and Al-Youm as well as the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat, which is distributed around the Arab world.
Posted by: ed ||
02/19/2006 18:09
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But what about Cheny and that shooter thing? Where is the apology for that?
A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein "cleaned up" his weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.
"The short answer to the question of where the WMDs Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John. A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va. (www.intelligencesummit.org)
"They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," he said.
#9
Ion Pacepa told about the soviet/russian doctrine pre-arranged plan of WMD-removing/destroying for client states (in order to deny a propaganda opportunity and to obsfucate) quite some time ago, a couple of years IIRC.
This is sketchy in my dim memory, but wasn't this called "sarindar" (exit)?
Yaasss, Google sez so, and bring theses links : 1 2 3
#11
Wasn't there some kind of Brazilian (???) link to these alleged (Read--most likely true) events? [Maybe my advanced tinnitus led me down the primrose path once again...but I could have sworn I'd heard that.] These lying, spinning, sold-to-the-highest-bidder traitors are despicable.
Al-Qaida's biggest ally in Africa is faltering in its efforts to transform the Sahara into an Afghanistan-style terror haven. But a critical mass of operatives has emerged in Italy, with ample resources and a broad shadow network primed to strike civilians across Europe.
Three Algerian members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an Algeria-based terror group cited on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terror organizations, were arrested last December by authorities in southern Italy and charged with planning attacks on civilians, according to Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.
More than $22 million was reportedly found in a vehicle used by the cell, which was preparing to target ships, stadiums and railway stations in a bid to trump the Sept. 11, 2001 al-Qaida attacks against the United States.
Phone conversations intercepted by police contained discussions to kill "at least 10,000 people and blow up a vessel "as big as the Titanic," Pisanu said, a plot foretold by a GSPC statement four days after the 2001 attack, pledging its commitment to Osama bin-Laden's terror franchise and threatening to harm "the interests of European countries and the U.S."
The GSPC, once estimated to have some 300 members in Algeria, was formed in the late 1990s to topple the government and create an Islamic state. Militants carried out a series of successful attacks last summer that reportedly killed 40 soldiers in remote parts of Algeria and Mauritania, but Algerian authorities have since cracked down and gained the upper hand.
The latest GSPC offensive, a Dec. 24 bombing in Dellys, a northeast Algerian port, caused only one casualty. Three high-ranking GSPC officials surrendered two days later and reportedly called on remaining militants to do the same, echoing the words of founder and former leader Hassan Hattab, who gave up the gun last September. And just two weeks ago, Ahmed Zerabib, another founder and religious guru of the group was confirmed dead after a clash with the Algerian army.
But while the GSPC's operational capacity may be drying up in the desert, the group's "emphasis on 'out-of-algeria' terrorist operations has made it the largest, most cohesive and dangerous terrorist organization in the al-Qaida orbit," according to a new report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington based think tank.
The report says Italy has "evolved from a logistics base" to a "de facto base of operations" for GSPC activities targeting Europe. The Italian network -- spanning Venice to Naples -- is said to be composed primarily of first-generation residents born in Algeria who immigrated to establish support cells for the ongoing insurgency in their homeland.
Algerian GSPC operatives based out of a Milan mosque were first arrested in 2002 for illegally acquiring explosives and weapons. In 2005, Italian police detained five of 11 Algerians suspected of belonging to the GSPC and investigated their involvement in a failed terrorist attack against the Spanish National Court in Madrid, among other incidents.
"GSPC cells in Italy employ a dual-track approach to planning terrorist attacks and provide support infrastructure -- safe houses, communications, weapons... and (forged documents) to cells elsewhere in Europe.
"Although the cells appear to be composed exclusively of Algerian Salafi jihadists," the report says, "their interaction with mixed Moroccan and Algerian cells in Spain, Norway and other countries demonstrates that the desire for global jihad has overcome the historical animosity between these two national groups."
Spanish authorities arrested 20 suspected terrorists Jan. 12 in Barcelona and Madrid, including Moroccan-born Omar Nackhcha, the head of a GSPC cell said to recruit and give logistical support to Iraq-bound militants and suicide bombers. A spokesman for Spain's Interior Ministry said one of the group's recruits was responsible for a suicide attack in November 2003 in Nasiriyah, Iraq, that killed 19 Italians and 9 Iraqis.
Nackhcha is also thought to have led another terrorist cell that helped the escape of three suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 persons.
Elsewhere, French authorities arrested 11 suspects last January with ties to the GSPC and charged them with recruiting suicide bombers to send to Iraq. In September, police seized three other Algerians affiliated with the group who were accused of preparing to bomb the Paris Metro.
Western intelligence agencies estimate the GSPC has an exile network of 800 to 900 active operatives and supporters spread throughout Europe, where arrests have also been made in Belgium, Britain, Norway and the Netherlands. Authorities fear the GSPC may hold a growing appeal to the thousands of estranged young Muslims that idle at the fringes of major European cities.
U.S. military officials, for their part, still insist that lawless swaths of Saharan Africa, coupled with high unemployment and swelling frustration with corrupt governments, gives the region significant "potential for instability" -- particularly since 50 percent of the population is younger than 15.
Concerned the area could become the "next Afghanistan," the U.S. kicked off a seven-year, $500 million counter-terrorism initiative to provide military expertise, equipment and developmental aid to nine North and West African countries considered fertile ground for the GSPC and other jihadist groups to recruit and train militants.
But a recent report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said the Sahara is "not a terrorist hotbed," and warned that heavy-handed U.S. military and financial support of authoritarian regimes could backfire.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:35 ||
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Authorities fear the GSPC may hold a growing appeal to the thousands of estranged young Muslims that idle at the fringes of major European cities.
The solution to the problem being contained within that sentence. Cut off the dole for the able-bodied, and they'll stop idling about like princelings.
#2
I wonder how good the Italians are anymore at rooting out and eliminating terrorists. 20 years ago they had some successes, but I haven't heard much from them recently.
The world's second-largest Muslim state -- at 150 million, co-equal with Pakistan, and behind Indonesia -- Bangladesh was well on its way to falling victim to a coalition of pro-al Qaeda politico-religious extremists. Almost unnoticed, they have been gnawing away at Bangladesh's fragile democratic institutions.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's husband was former president and military strongman Ziaur Rahman. He was assassinated in 1981. Her rival and head of the Awami League is another woman, Sheikh Hasina Wajed. Her father was the country's first prime minister, assassinated in 1975.
Under Mrs. Zia's leadership, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) has appeased Islamist fundamentalists by including Osama bin Laden's local fan club in her government. To wit: Jamaat-e-Islami stands for an Islamic republic. BNP coalition partner Islami Okiyya Jote is linked to the pro-al Qaeda Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al Islami (HuJI), which in turn is linked to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which wants to impose Sharia law by force. It is widely believed responsible for a countrywide wave of some 500 bombings last Aug. 17.
HuJI, or Movement of Islamic Holy War, is in league with some of Pakistan's officially banned but still tolerated extremist groups. The Indian army liberated Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, in 1971 after a bloody civil war.
JMB leader Bangla Bhai favors a Taliban-style medieval theocracy, yet another reason opposition Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina accused the government coalition of "letting loose criminal extremist forces."
Radical Islamist organizations proliferate in the cities, funded by at least 10 Middle Eastern charities, while terrorist training camps have been reported in dense jungle areas to the north. Indian intelligence, which closely watches its former ward, believes it has tracked more than 170 concentrations of pro-al Qaeda militants, including members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Indonesia terrorist group responsible for the Bali bombing and other terrorist attacks.
A former senior Bangladeshi intelligence executive said Jemaah Islamiya leader Hambali, arrested in Thailand in August 2003, had already decided to shift JI elements to Bangladesh to shield them from counterterrorist operations in Southeast Asia.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca flew to Dakha at the end of January to convey U.S. alarm to government leaders coupled with a stern warning: either they curb Islamist militancy and terror financing or face sanctions under the U.S. "Terrorist Financing Act." Mrs. Rocca also made clear the U.S. expected free and fair elections in 2006, as required by a frayed constitution.
Mrs. Rocca expressed surprise militant JMB leaders were allowed to operate freely even though they were known responsible for numerous terrorism acts. The foreign secretary was presumably hard of hearing because after meeting with Mrs. Rocca he quoted her as having told him, "Bangladesh is not only a functioning democracy but also a role model for Muslim countries." Then he added, "Rocca was very appreciative of the government's anti-militant crackdown and hoped that this effort would continue."
The U.S. agreed to an exchange of intelligence on matters of mutual concern and to train Bangladeshi operatives in the U.S. on how intelligence is shared in practice. The country's intelligence service knows only too well what the U.S. wants to know. Islamist sympathizers in the service make sure nothing of value is given to the Americans.
Mrs. Rocca called on the family of slain former Finance Minister Shah AMS Kibria who accused the government of "a farcical investigation to cover the masterminds" and demanded a U.N. investigation as happened after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "The culture of killing will not end in Bangladesh unless the people are active against those who give directions for political assassinations from behind," said Kibria's widow.
Mrs. Rocca also wanted to know why JMB chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman and sidekick Bangla Bhai had not been arrested. "Because we haven't caught them," came the lame reply.
In a well-planned demonstration of trans-Atlantic solidarity, a high-level European Union delegation timed its visit to coincide with Mrs. Rocca's -- and gave Bangladeshi leaders the same message: Stick to fair elections in October of this year or face some unpleasant though unspecified music. The opposition Awami League said the Election Commission and provisions for a caretaker government have already been gerrymandered to favor the ruling BNP and its Islamist props.
Suicide bombings and grenade assassinations are more common in Bangladesh than in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. But they seldom are reported. Time magazine's South Asian bureau chief was banned from the country after a 2002 article exposed the government's lackadaisical response to a buildup of Islamist terrorists with links to al Qaeda.
In 1998, Bangladesh suffered the worst floods of the 20th century, leaving 25 million people marooned while countless thousands drowned. Huge, cyclone-driven natural disasters have been the country's sad fate for centuries. Bangladesh's 700 rivers funnel down to a delta of five major waterways that are so many potential Katrinas without levees. Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina sees a political system without levees against the tide of Islamist extremism.
But following Mrs. Rocca's departure, she rallied her supporters from all over the country and began a "Long March" protest Feb. 2. Opposition activists enlisted an ever-larger following as they moved through towns and villages on their way to Dhaka. Within three days, 100,000 opposition supporters had moved to the capital's Paltan Square where Sheikh Hasina addressed what began to look like a peaceful counterrevolution against the Islamists. Not for long. Thousands were arrested -- Sheikh Hasina said 10,000, the government 5,000 -- but she had made her point. Sheikh Hasina also said she was ending the Awami League's yearlong boycott of the Islamist-dominated parliament. Her only purpose was to hold the other woman leader's feet to the fire of free elections.
Score one for Mrs. Rocca and the Bush administration. For the next move by Mrs. Zia and her Islamist bedfellows, stay tuned.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:32 ||
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Classic reaction:
Corrupt government plus large impovrished population and petro-dollar funded Wahabbi religious catalysts equals Al Qaeda terrorism.
As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada.
Four years after the Taliban regime was toppled, the test of wills threatens to set back the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan, American and Afghan analysts say. Suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan until last fall, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began debating a move into southern Afghanistan. The mission is expected to draw NATO into the first ground combat in its 57-year history. Fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in rugged, often mountainous terrain would be a major step beyond NATO's previous peacekeeping missions or the alliance's 78-day air war against Serbia in 1999 to end atrocities in Kosovo. The NATO forces are set to take over from U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan this spring, but will depend on American attack helicopters and other aircraft for support.
The decision to take on the mission came only after considerable debate within the alliance. The formal discussion began in September, about the time insurgents launched a wave of suicide attacks. At least 22 suicide bombers have struck since then, more than double the total for the previous three years. Bombers have targeted Canadian, German, Italian, Portuguese and other NATO troops, whose main mission has been peacekeeping and building schools and hospitals, not fighting insurgents..
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:22 ||
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As anger over European cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad continued to roil the Muslim world, Pakistani protesters last week destroyed the most visible symbols of western consumer culture--American icons McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut--as well as attacking banks, movie theaters, and government buildings. In the Afghan-border city of Peshawar, some 70,000 people clashed with police in the largest of the demonstrations in four cities, which authorities said were encouraged and directed by militant Islamist groups opposing Pakistan's U.S.-allied president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The turmoil elevates the already high security concerns surrounding President Bush's scheduled visit here next week, and it highlights the political pressures on Musharraf from Islamists and others critical of his support for American antiterrorism efforts. Last week's protests--in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi as well as Peshawar--come on the heels of public outrage here over American drone airstrikes on al Qaeda terrorist redoubts inside Pakistan.
Further, there is an increasingly bloody fight with insurgents in southern Baluchistan province
as well as growing antigovernment sentiment in other regions along the Afghan border where Pakistani troops are conducting antiterrorist operations. Islamists and other political foes are decrying the lack of progress toward removing the Army from politics. Talks with India over the explosive issue of Kashmir seem to be stuck. And Washington is pressing Musharraf to drop a natural gas pipeline deal with Iran.
And yet, to call on Musharraf in his element--which is to say, in his British colonial-era mansion on the grounds of a walled military compound near here--is to see a man who looks at ease, even in good humor. After more than six years in power after a bloodless coup, Musharraf, 62, last week was keen to tout progress. "We have stabilized Pakistan," he told a group of reporters from news organizations that included U.S. News.
In one sense, he is right. The economy is growing at a brisk 7 percent per year, and foreign reserves are up dramatically from 2001--when the general cast his lot with a Bush administration incensed at Pakistani support for the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and determined to knock them off. No combination of political opponents looks ready to replace him. But Musharraf's partnership with Washington has made governing this strategically pivotal nation of 162 million people almost diabolically difficult.
Several attacks by U.S. drone aircraft--especially one on January 13 that killed some al Qaeda leaders but not the targeted No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri--have also killed civilians and inflamed anti-American emotions. Pakistani officials say they weren't consulted in advance--a violation of their understanding with the Bush administration; U.S. officials have suggested otherwise. To some, the American strike smelled like a warning to Musharraf to step up his own military campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are said to be recruiting and training in Pakistan and launching attacks into Afghanistan from border sanctuaries. But to political foes, the attack made Musharraf look like a toady of the Americans. "It damages the president,"said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a Pakistani senator who is allied with Musharraf. "So what's our status--friend, foe, or in between?"
Musharraf, in a meeting with a group of American journalists last week, said he had condemned the January 13 raid as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. But he professed satisfaction with U.S. assurances that further strikes would take place only with prior consultation, and he praised current antiterrorism cooperation along the border. In what must be music to Bush administration ears, the Pakistani leader also acknowledged that some villagers were "harboring" terrorists. "They are guilty from all points of view," he said in last week's interview arranged by the East-West Center. Musharraf, who has said that five terrorists were among those killed on January 13, called al Qaeda's presence a more serious breach of Pakistani sovereignty than the U.S. missile strikes.
Unfortunately, the political fallout from the U.S. airstrikes appears to have undone most of the goodwill brought by American relief efforts after last October's devastating earthquake. And, for his part, Musharraf seemed to be walking a careful line when he criticized the cartoon-sparked violence but aligned himself with the sense of outrage over the depiction of the prophet Muhammad. "Even the most moderate Muslim will go into the street and talk against it," he said.
With parliamentary elections expected here next year, pressure is also building on Musharraf to remove his general's uniform--a promise that he made and then reneged on--if he intends to stay as president. The Bush administration has been pushing Musharraf to keep moving toward a restoration of full democracy--but not too hard. Says Stephen Cohen, a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, "Musharraf has persuaded them [the Bush administration] that he's the last bastion between them and Islamic chaos." Washington's jitters over a Pakistan without the general are barely concealed. Says a U.S. official, "The military, for good and bad, is a real force for stability in Pakistan." The general's civilian foes, added the official, are "feckless" and aspire to replace him "as a way to get money and power."
Critics insist that Washington is shortsighted in not backing democratic political parties and is alienating Pakistanis incensed at civilian deaths in the war on terrorism. "The military establishment in this country has never allowed political parties to grow and mature," argues Enver Beg, an opposition senator, who warns that if nothing changes, "this nation will go mad toward the West."
In a nation armed with nuclear weapons and constantly battling extremists, that is an outcome U.S. officials are hoping to avoid.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:20 ||
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A Sunday Herald investigation has undermined claims by a UK Lord that suspects arrested on terrorism charges in Scotland, but later freed, had been planning mass murder.
Lord Carlile, the independent assessor of UK terrorism laws, claimed last week that he had been shown secret information which convinced him the suspects posed a real threat and could have been prosecuted if the police had had more time to hold them.
His comments were made on the eve of a crucial vote, which the government won, favouring new legislation outlawing the act of glorifying terrorism.
The men were arrested in Edinburgh in December 2002 under anti-terror laws. The charges against them were dropped in December 2003.
Their lawyer has already hit out at Lord Carliles comments and at a whispering campaign by the security services who insist in private briefings that the men were guilty.
A document passed to the Sunday Herald shows that the Home Office knows that at least one of the men Fouad Lasnami is innocent.
The revelation is contained in a copy of an immigration hearing adjudication for Lasnami. The hearing, in Glasgow, was held almost a year after the charges were dropped. At the hearing, Lasnami fought for the right to remain in the UK, claiming he would be persecuted and possibly tortured and killed if sent back to Algeria.
A written report of the entire hearing, compiled by the immigration adjudicator, Donald Corke, revealed that the Home Offices own representative at the hearing admitted that the British government does not consider Lasnami to be a terrorist and says explicitly that he has no links to al-Qaeda.
The official said: It would be right to assume that there was an exchange of information between the Algerian and British security services [regarding Lasnami]. There had been a very thorough investigation in the United Kingdom. Because of the exchange of information, the United Kingdom would have supplied evidence of his clean bill of health. As far as the United Kingdom was concerned, he was not a terrorist or a member of al-Qaeda, otherwise he would still be in custody.
However, last night British intelligence was sticking to the line that they believed that at least some of the suspects were terrorists. One very senior intelligence official, who has seen the same documents as Lord Carlile, said he believed that these men are 100% terrorists of the al-Qaeda affiliated kind.
He said that it was possible Lasnami had been innocent while others were guilty, or that the Home Office had held back information from the immigration hearing in the hope he would be thrown out of the UK anyway.
He insisted that the information shown to Lord Carlile had not been cherry-picked or exaggerated. He added: The Scottish justice system was clearly not working in the public interest.
The official added: We need to look at the relationship between the police and the Crown Office. If you talk to any chief constable in Scotland, they complain about the Procurator Fiscal service.
Aamer Anwar, of Beltrami Anwar solicitors, who represented the men, said: What is being said about these men is utter rubbish based on misinformation and lies. To say there was no time or resources is nonsense. The point is that there was no evidence against them.
Lord Carlile has been briefed wrongly by the security services. Its a deliberate attempt to hoodwink someone who the public sees as independent, in order to push through unpleasant terror laws and create bogeymen that dont exist.
The lives of my clients have been destroyed. After Lord Carliles comments, one was in my office in tears.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:18 ||
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REAMS of unpublished Iraqi documents from Saddam Hussein's official archives may be translated after the disclosure of video evidence that shows him discussing germ warfare and attacks on the United States.
Some 36,000 boxes of captured documents may be opened to investigate claims suggesting the "smoking gun" evidence may lie in Syria. The discovery was made by non-governmental agencies -- leading to calls for all the documents to be made public so similar groups can search them for clues which government auditors may have missed.
On Saturday, a meeting entitled The Intelligence Summit -- an American donor-funded group -- was convened in Virginia where it played video highlights of conversations they translated showing Saddam and his deputy talking about biological weapons.
One official asks to divert civilian electricity from Basra's generators to help enrich uranium. Tariq Aziz, Saddam's deputy, is on tape discussing biological weapons and what they would do if France and Russia would not help them.
Saddam also refers to terrorism. "This story is coming, but not from Iraq," he says. This was taken to rule out his involvement in organising a terrorist attack, but there is a dispute over the translation of his comments.
Separately, Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a former Iraqi commander, gave an interview to an American website where he claims: "Saddam's weapons are in Syria due to certain military deals that were made going as far back as the late 1980s."
Peter Hoekstra, a Republican who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is leading calls for other documents to be made public. The Pentagon is expected to agree. The Iraq Survey Group originally found 40m documents.
In recent months, interviews with Iraqi officials and translated recordings have shown Saddam was considering chemical weapons and may have had links to al-Qaeda and a secret weapons of mass destruction programme in Syria.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:18 ||
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"This story is coming, but not from Iraq," he says.
We're funding it, but we'll never get caught.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/19/2006 11:48
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...what they would do if France and Russia would not help them.
Hmmm.... They'd turn to Germany and China?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/19/2006 11:51
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The controversial troop deployment to Helmand will draw directly on the "lessons from Iraq" when there was inadequate coalition planning for reconstruction, according to the officer commanding British forces in the region.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Col Gordon Messenger, who led 40 Commando of the Royal Marines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said that the failures of three years ago would not be repeated.
He made clear that the British approach, which will entail up to 50 civilians including diplomats and aid specialists working with the troops in Helmand, will differ from American strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Pentagon drives reconstruction policy.
"We have been very much part of a cross-governmental team here from the outset," said Col Messenger, who commands the 260-strong element preparing for the full force of 3,300 force due to be fully in place in Helmand by July.
"There will be representatives from the Foreign Office and Department for International Development alongside us. A new Post-Conflict Reconstruction Unit has been set up in the wake of lessons from Iraq."
The colonel acknowledged the high threat of suicide bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices and the likelihood of casualties.
A "myriad of ne'er do wells" in Helmand, including Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives, he said, would "have a go and test us out early" once patrolling begins in earnest in May.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:16 ||
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The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program.
But less than a day later, a top aide to Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., sought to clarify his position.
Roberts told The New York Times that he is concerned that the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could not issue warrants as quickly as the monitoring program requires. But he is optimistic that the problem could be worked out.
"You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit," Roberts said Friday.
While he didn't know how such a process would work, Roberts also said the much-discussed National Security Agency program "should come before the FISA court."
Roberts was not available on Saturday. The Senate Intelligence Committee's majority staff director, Bill Duhnke, said the Times story didn't reflected "the tenor and status" of the negotiations between Congress and the White House, as well as within Congress.
Duhnke said Roberts is looking at changes within the federal law but not necessarily involving the approval of the court.
"The senator remains open to a number of legislative and oversight options," Duhnke said Saturday. "His preference is always that the entire (intelligence) committee be briefed and involved in oversight issues. He also realizes that, as you negotiate between the branches, that isn't always possible."
Duhnke said Roberts hopes that during this negotiation process that all sides can be accommodated.
Roberts told the Times that he does not believe much support exists among lawmakers for exempting the program from the control of the FISA court. That is the approach Bush has favored and one that would be established under a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.
White House officials have said their bar for agreeing to any legislative changes would be high. They have signaled they are open only to legislation that would "further codify" in law the authority the president insists he already has without Congress' approval, something officials believe would be accomplished with DeWine's proposal.
Bush also has been cool to expansive debate about the program, saying Friday that the discussion going on now is "too bad, because guess who listens to the discussion? The enemy."
Roberts has defended Bush's program, which was revealed by the Times in a story in December. Bush says the program to monitor electronic communication between the United States and international sites involving suspected al-Qaeda operatives is vital to anti-terrorism efforts.
On Thursday, Roberts said he and the White House had agreed to give lawmakers more information on the nature of the program and that the administration had committed to making changes to the FISA law. At the same time, he delayed a Democratic effort to call for an investigation of the program.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:15 ||
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When I recently spoke with Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson at his headquarters in Baghdad, it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by a feeling of what might have been. Peterson, a big, witty officer in charge of training the Iraqi police force, spent two hours laying out a plan to bring order to a fractious country, a plan that was everything the American enterprise had always failed to be: bold, coherent and imagined all the way down to the hinges on the office doors.
The general volunteered for this job, leaving his family in Washington, and he works every day and every night on an assignment that will probably keep him in Baghdad for a year. When we met, he was wearing a blue baseball cap that said "police" in English and in Arabic, and he keeps a woodcut of Hammurabi, the Babylonian king, on his office wall to make sure he doesn't get ahead of himself. "An eye for an eye" Peterson said. "This society has been living under that rule for 3,700 years. Are you going to change this overnight? Did we change it overnight in our country?" Peterson seemed utterly determined to succeed. And it was not terribly difficult to imagine that he could. And then you think: if only we had done this three years ago.
In nearly every military and diplomatic realm, the American effort in Iraq is finally beginning to show the careful planning and concentrated thinking that seemed to vanish the moment American troops entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003. We've heard progress reports in the past, of course, and they have often preceded a stunning setback. But what is new is the level of sophistication that Americans are bringing to their work, and the intensity of their engagement across so many fronts.
A more subtle response to the insurgency was a long time in the making. American generals were caught flat-footed by the resistance that bloomed in 2003; they didn't plan for it, and they had no playbook to fight it. The result in the field often amounted to a war of attrition, which was designed to kill and capture as many insurgents as possible but which ended up alienating Iraqi civilians. These days, however, the military is making new efforts to help local Iraqis feel safe and secure in their homes. The two top American commanders, Gen. George Casey and Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, are proponents of placing far less emphasis on killing guerrillas and much more on working with the locals. In Baghdad, General Casey has set up a local counterinsurgency school, through which American officers must pass before they can head into the field. Find an American officer these days, and he is likely to tell you about the police officers he is supervising or the local council he's helping to set up.
A new approach is equally evident at the American Embassy, where the current ambassador and erstwhile neoconservative, Zalmay Khalilzad, is employing a hands-on strategy that is positively Kissingerian in its realism. On some days, Khalilzad, a native of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, and a Sunni Muslim, sits with Iraqi leaders for hours, fingering his prayer beads and hearing their complaints. In that sense, Ambassador Khalilzad could hardly differ more from his two predecessors, L. Paul Bremer III, who dispatched orders with the curtness of a viceroy, and John Negroponte, who, on instructions from Washington, stood largely out of view.
According to Iraqis and Western diplomats, Ambassador Khalilzad is orchestrating an extraordinarily ambitious power play: coaxing Sunni political leaders into the government while splitting the more moderate Iraqi insurgents from the beheaders and suicide bombers of Al Qaeda. If he succeeds, Khalilzad could remake the political landscape, curtail the insurgency and give the Iraqi government a bit of solid ground to stand on. If he doesn't succeed, the possibilities are endless, few of them good. Still, the ambassador's strategy is bolder than anything yet attempted.
Meanwhile, General Peterson, along with his boss, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, is trying to construct nothing less than a new national army, a police force for every city and the logistical and educational apparatus to support them. In earlier American efforts, an Iraqi policeman was considered "trained" if he had passed through a few days of schooling. These days, the training is much more extensive. On most mornings, the streets in Baghdad echo not just with the sounds of car bombs but also with shots fired from the police shooting range.
So far, there are signs that the new strategy may be working. As the Iraqi Army has taken over substantial portions of Iraq, insurgent attacks have declined from their peak in October. Of course, it's not clear whether that trend will continue. In the past, such trends have not. And Peterson isn't operating under any illusions about how long it will take him to complete his work. The charts that he uses to brief traveling Congressional delegations offer no date for when Iraqi Interior Ministry forces will be able to take full control of internal security.
And there's the rub: the Americans have already had three years in Iraq. It seems reasonably clear, given the opinion polls at home and the elections ahead, that they will not get three more, at least not with troop deployments at their current levels. The prediction floated by senior Iraqi officials is that American, British and other foreign forces, now numbering 160,000, will fall below 100,000 by year's end.
Given the chaotic situation that prevails in much of Iraq, that might not be enough. And even if American troops were to stay, it's not clear that the new American approach could succeed anyway. It may be that there are too many Sunnis with too many memories of being the group in power. Even with the best of intentions, Americans are still foreigners in Iraq; every day they do things shoot up a car approaching a checkpoint, for instance that make the Iraqis resent their presence. And the sectarian violence, which is turning every mixed Iraqi neighborhood into a battleground, might be too far along to turn around. Some officers, in private conversations, concede that they could lose.
In the classic arc of Greek tragedy, the hero rises to great heights, only to be brought low by his own hubris. In Iraq, the Americans may yet salvage a bloody success; commanders like General Peterson seem to believe to their bones that they can. But it's also possible that something more crushing is in the works, with a slightly different trajectory than the Greeks had in mind: the mighty country invades a smaller one, commits countless errors and wastes thousands of lives. After a time, the mighty country gathers itself and does everything right. And it is too late.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:13 ||
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This kind of crap really pisses me off. A journo, who has doubless never organized any thing more complex than a backyard barbeque. pontificates on re-engineering an entire country with all that has happened in its past.
How We Botched the German Occupation
By Demaree Bess
Berlin
Everywhere Ive traveled recently in Germany Ive run into Americans, ranging from generals down to privates, who ask perplexedly, What are we Americans supposed to be doing here? Are we going to take over this place and stay here forever?
Judging by reports received here from the United States, this perplexity of Americans in Germany is matching by the perplexity of Americans at home. We have got into this German job without understanding what we were tackling or why. Imagine how incredulous we would have been if anybody had told us---even so recently as five years ago---that hundreds of thousands of Americans would be camped in the middle of Europe in 1946, completely responsible for the conduct and welfare of approximately 20,000,000 Germans?
How does it happened that even some of our topmost officials in Germany admit that they dont know what they are doing here? The answer can be expressed, I believe, in one word---secrecy. . . .
Mr. Stimson probably has had more experience in international affairs than any other American. Before being appointed to head the War Department for the second time, he had also served as Secretary of State and had been Governor General of the Philippines. Thus he was familiar with the military requirements, the political implications and the practical problems involved in administering an alien and distant territory under wartime conditions. Mr. Hull, appreciating the value of Mr. Stimsons experience in world affairs, was inclined to defer to his judgment in most of the matters under dispute. Mr. Morgenthau, on the other hand, gradually became the chief spokesman for the advocates of an American-imposed revolution in Germany.
His so-called Morgenthau plan, which has since been widely publicized, was not just the personal policy of the former Secretary of the Treasury. It combined the ideas of a sizable group of aggressive Americans which included some conservative big businessmen as well as left-wing theorists. The group supporting Mr. Morgenthaus ideas included Americans of all races, creeds and political beliefs. It is doubtful whether Mr. Morgenthau could recall today the source of some of the most explosive ideas which he gradually adopted.
However that may be, the Cabinet committee soon found itself in disagreement, with Secretaries Stimson and Hull on one side and Mr. Morgenthau on the other. Hints of this disagreement leaked out at the time and the issue was represented as a hard peace versus a soft peace, but actually that was not the issue at all. In fact, the major disagreement then was over the question of procedure, and did not directly concern long-term economic and financial policies. The three Cabinet members were equally anxious to make sure that Germany should be deprived of the means for waging another war, nut Secretaries Stimson and Hull were determined not to bite off more than we could chew at one time. They wanted to reduce the original occupation plans to the simplest possible form, with three primary objectives in mind: (1) agreement by all the Allies upon a joint occupation; (2) provision of some hope for the German people that they might develop a decent life for themselves once they became completely demilitarized; and (3) the obligation not to burden the American people with more commitments than they might later prove willing to accept.
While these discussions were proceeding, however, Mr. Morgenthau became convinced that we should go into Germany with a complete blueprint, worked out in exhaustive detail, providing for an economic and industrial revolution so drastic that it would affect not only Germany but almost every other country in Europe. He wanted us to adopt this blueprint for ourselves and to use every conceivable means to pressure upon our Allies to get them to accept it. Whenever he was outvoted in the Cabinet committee, he had the immense advantage---as an intimate friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt---of being able to go through the side door of the White House and sell his ideas directly to the President. . . .
The French, unconvinced that the atomic bomb has opened an entirely new era, are insisting upon establishing buffer states between themselves and Germany. To this end, theyre trying to make a friend of the Germans in their zone and to encourage them to organize separatist movements.
The British, conscious, of the broader aspects of Western Europes economic situation, are devising schemes to revive German economic life in their zones, particularly in the Ruhr. In order to provide immediately for some of the things which Western Europeans so urgently require, theyre trying to establish some kind of international combine to operate Ruhr industries and coal mines---a proposal which they compare to the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Russians, grappling with the enormous tasks of reconstructing their own war-wracked homeland, are carrying off from their zone all the machines and tools and animals which they can use in Russia. While the Russians reduce the labor surplus in their zone by sending skilled German workers to Russia, they also encourage the remaining Germans to revive political and economic life with due attention to Russian models.
It is only in the American zone that the pastoral economy is emerging, which some Americans had visioned for the whole of Germany. Although the Potsdam Declaration technically superseded the American directive JCS 1067, in practice this directive never has been superseded, so far as Americans are concerned. We still are committed to apply in our zone a blue print which was designed for the whole of Germany, but which was never accepted by any of our Allies. This directive is chiefly concerned with tearing things down rather than building things up, and in the absence of any common policy for the whole of Germany, our particular zone is threatened with planned chaos.
No wonder so many Americans are asking, What are we doing in Germany? They can see that the Russians and British and French are initiating projects which promise some direct benefits to them in their zones. But when they look at our zone they see only headaches. These peculiar problems of the American zone will be discussed in a subsequent article.
#5
journalism is second to phys ed as the easiest degree to get in college. I had a journo fraternity roommate and he NEVER had homework, more worried about the braces so his teeth would be straight on graduation....looking for Tee Vee work
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 12:11
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Insurgents are targeting tribal sheiks and other Sunni Arab community leaders, seeking to undermine U.S. efforts to enlist them in weakening the rebellion, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
American officials have been saying for months that force alone cannot end the insurgency. Instead, they believe a deal with Sunni Arabs willing to lay down their arms and join the political process offers the best way to peace.
At first, U.S. overtures were met with cold indifference in Ramadi effectively the capital of Iraq's insurgency.
But in late November, tribal chiefs, religious leaders, former army officers and hundreds of ordinary Iraqis met with U.S. commanders in Ramadi for a conference promoted as a public discussion on how to get the Americans out of Iraq.
For the first time key religious and tribal leaders negotiated in earnest on key points, U.S. commanders said, progress that led to the creation of a negotiating team the Anbar Security Council. Sunni Arabs the community supporting the backbone of the insurgency were finally at the bargaining table.
But the insurgents have struck back. Within weeks, three sheiks, including one prominent leader on the council, Nasr al-Fahdawi, were assassinated. Another sheik escaped death when his house was bombed while he was away.
U.S. officials maintain that the attacks are a sign of desperation by insurgents fearful of Sunni Arabs joining the political process.
They're grasping for straws. They're attacking the sheiks ... because they know they've worn out their welcome, said Marine Lt. Col. Roger Turner, who commands the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment. These guys are now trying to spoil (negotiations) and they know that if Sunnis start participating, which they're doing, they'll lose their grip.
Following the November meeting, the sheiks gave their blessing to recruitment drives for soldiers and police. About 1,100 men applied for defunct police forces in early January. The sheiks' clout was on display only dozens of Iraqis had responded to previous recruitment drives.
Then, on Jan. 5, insurgents sent a man with explosives strapped to his body into a line of police recruits in Ramadi, killing 58 Iraqis and two U.S. troops.
The message reverberated across Ramadi.
It's slowed down the process, Turner said of the insurgent attacks. I'd say it's affected it but it hasn't stopped it ... the recruiting is slower but it's still coming.
The U.S. military says about 3,000 recruits or former officers have so far applied for police jobs across Anbar. Hundreds of them have recently been sent to police academies in Baghdad and Jordan.
Officials hope to eventually field a force of about 11,300 policemen across the province, where virtually all local police departments have disintegrated due to opposition to the government and fear of insurgent attacks.
At the heart of the fierce response was the desire to crush the emergence of any Iraqi security forces, which U.S. commanders hope will take control of more security responsibility in Anbar province this year.
Insurgents had largely refrained from attacking polling stations during national elections in December, but insurgent leaders believed the sheiks had crossed a line by endorsing Sunni membership in the Iraqi security forces.
The insurgents' willingness to confront leaders of ancient tribes either showed their confidence or a brash disregard for respected local leaders. U.S. commanders hope the strategy will backfire, but some also fear that the attacks may have been internal coups orchestrated by upstart tribesmen.
Some Iraqi officials, for example, suspect that pro- al-Qaeda in Iraq members of Sheik Nasr's own family killed him and that a blood feud could sprout from the assassination.
Meanwhile, insurgents have stepped up a scorched earth strategy to undermine the Anbar provincial government. A major telecommunications center was burned down this month, leaving Ramadi with no local phone service.
Newspapers are rarely sold and national television networks often do not reach Ramadi. Power plants have also been targeted in the past.
Nevertheless, local Iraqi officials say they will persevere with their contacts with the Americans and their Iraqi partners. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has offered to help free up reconstruction funds for the province, U.S. commanders say.
Anbar Gov. Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani said the provincial security council has asked for several key concessions: for Anbar residents to fill half of a locally based Iraqi army division and for expedited efforts to rebuild police forces.
Maamoun said residents preferred local troops to patrol this area because Iraqi soldiers currently in the province are mostly Shiite and have mistreated them.
But Maamoun also warned that some members of the security council were losing interest in negotiations because the government is not listening to them. Some U.S. officials said the council was also waiting for the new parliament to take office, which has triple the number of Sunni Arabs compared to the former legislature.
Whoever doesn't want this province stabilized doesn't answer fast. Whoever wants this province stabilized should answer fast, Maamoun said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:10 ||
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Barely 18 months ago Muqtada al-Sadr was a man on the run, wanted for murder and holed up with a band of fighters in a mosque besieged by U.S. troops.
Fast forward to February 2006 and the young Shiite cleric is a kingmaker with so much clout that he engineered a stunning political coup, helping Ibrahim al-Jaafari win approval for a second term as prime minister with significant consequences for Iraq and the United States.
Al-Sadr pulled it off while visiting Syria for talks with its hardline leadership, long accused of allowing insurgent leaders to remain on its soil and turning a blind eye to foreign jihadists using its territory to slip into Iraq to fight U.S. forces.
The single-vote victory by al-Jaafari over his heavily favored rival has showcased al-Sadr's ascent in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq a matter of concern to others in the Shiite establishment as well as the United States.
Officials of the Shiite alliance say the Sadrists' intervention in favor of al-Jaafari may have endangered Shiite unity, jeopardized the alliance's close links to the Kurds and could prompt some of the alliance's partners to join other blocs.
They hinted that intimidation, or even veiled threats of violence, may have been used by the Sadrists to help independent lawmakers make up their minds.
The Sadrists moved in forcefully in the 24 hours that preceded the vote, said Ridha Jawad Taqi of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the country's largest Shiite party. SCIRI's candidate, Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, lost to al-Jaafari.
Al-Sadr supporters, who are expected to be given five Cabinet posts in al-Jaafari's next government, deny any impropriety. They say they backed al-Jaafari because they share with him a vision for an Iraq free of foreign occupation.
They, however, were at pains to conceal their satisfaction that al-Jaafari's win dealt a blow to the Supreme Council, their rival within the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of religious parties that has won the largest number of seats 130 in the 275-member parliament.
We have no problem with the Supreme Council. It was a purely democratic contest decided by the ballot box, said Falah Hassan Shalshal, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr.
A close Sadrist alliance with Iraq's next prime minister would not be good news for Washington.
The United States is targeting Islam, the Muslim and Arab states in the Middle East and beyond, al-Sadr told Syrian television in a Feb. 13 interview. It wants to control the world.
Al-Sadr, between meetings with Jordan's leaders, stepped up calls Saturday for the United States and other foreign troops to leave Iraq.
The aim of my visit to the region is to improve relations with neighboring countries, which is a very important issue, and to free this area from the Western, American war, whether it be in Iraq, Iran, Syria or the rest of the region, al-Sadr said.
Before coming to Jordan, al-Sadr visited Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Syria. His aides say he plans visits to Lebanon and Egypt.
While in Syria, the 33-year-old al-Sadr met with radical Palestinian factions, expressed hope that the sweeping victory by the militant Hamas group is the beginning of an Islamic awakening.
He rejected calling Iraq's mostly Sunni insurgents terrorists and said al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a fictitious personality or one created by the (U.S.) occupation.
Al-Sadr and his followers burst on the Iraqi scene almost three years ago, filling the power vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam's regime. The movement quickly raised its profile, organizing anti-U.S. protests and later taking on the Americans in battles across central and southern Iraq.
The protracted battle of Najaf, a holy Shiite city south of Baghdad, in the summer of 2004 saw his militiamen soundly defeated by a joint U.S.-Iraqi force. Taking the fight to his stronghold in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Sadr City district brought him another defeat.
By the end of 2004, al-Sadr's days as an anti-U.S. warrior cleric were over, but he and his followers are still some distance from being a peaceful and democratic force.
The Sadrists have kept a highly mobile militia numbering in the thousands. They follow a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law and, according to residents in areas where they are dominant, often resort to violence to enforce it.
They are suspected of running death squads, primarily targeting Saddam loyalists and militant Sunni Arabs known for anti-Shiite sentiments. They are closely linked to Iran, maintain contacts with some factions of the Sunni-dominated insurgency and, like other Shiite groups, have allowed hundreds of militiamen to infiltrate the security forces.
In the southern city of Basra, for example, residents say al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen bomb stores suspected of selling liquor or permissive entertainment material. They intercept, and in some cases beat up, men and women whose appearance they deem immodest.
Last year, Mahdi militiamen burned three offices belonging to the Supreme Council after al-Sadr's Najaf office was torn down to allow for the expansion of a plaza outside the mosque of Imam Ali, Shiism's founding father.
In the southern city of Kut, residents say the Mahdi militiamen have stopped parading on the streets as they used to in 2004, but were suspected of bombing liquor stores and barber shops.
Muzafar al-Moussawi, al-Sadr's representative in Kut, denies the Mahdi Army was involved in the bombings, but acknowledges that its fighters assist security forces when asked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:08 ||
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#1
Tater should have been retired long time ago. People are assassinated right and left in Iraq and this POS is stil alive.
#3
If Sistani wanted him dead, he would be already. We're holding off for some reason. I don't know why
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 15:21
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#4
I don't know either, Frank. Tater already played the role of known, incompetent Iranian puppet. I think that we should see how he does as a dead martyr. We will then slap a study on it, have someone write a paper, and we will see which is the better way to go for future Taters.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/19/2006 16:58
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#5
He has picked up 20 lbs. since last time he made a news cycle. Somebody is feeding him.
#6
Sooner or later, Tater and his tots are going to have to be mashed. "Sooner" is my preference. I think a lot of Iranian involvement would be curtailed if it wasn't so easy for them to infiltrate all of Iraq. Second would be a nuke at the border crossing - a nice, DIRTY, multi-megaton nuke, with the wind blowing in an eastern direction.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/19/2006 20:15
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A powerful explosion in a karaoke bar near a Philippine army camp killed one person and wounded about 20 Saturday on southern Jolo island, where American troops are staying for joint war exercises.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Zimmer, said there were no American casualties and that the explosion would not hamper the two-week joint counterterrorism maneuvers that are to start Monday and focus on humanitarian projects.
"The explosion last night was caused by a bomb made of ammonium nitrate," Brig. Gen. Alexander Aleo, the top military officer on Jolo island, said Sunday. He said a Philippine driver working on contract for U.S. troops was killed and about 20 other people were wounded.
Security is a top concern during the exercises because of the presence of al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas on Jolo, about 580 miles south of Manila. The guerrillas have kidnapped Americans in the past and threatened to attack U.S. troops in the country.
About 250 American troops are to take part in "Balikatan," an annual joint war exercise between American and Filipino troops that has focused in recent years on counterterrorism.
The exercises this year are being held simultaneously in Manila and a number of other venues, including on Jolo, where Americans would mainly provide dental treatment for poor villagers, construct classrooms and give away medicines and books, officials said.
Witnesses said the explosion Saturday was so powerful that it caused part of the bar's roof to collapse and portions of its concrete wall to crumble.
Security for the Americans and opposition to the war drills by Muslim villagers have been nagging concerns on Jolo, which has a surfeit of unlicensed guns, frequent bloodshed and a bitter history with American forces.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:07 ||
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Once, not so long ago, Europe saw itself as the Middle East's honest broker, poised between a hard-line United States and an equally intransigent Muslim world. At the same time Russia, once a regional superpower, was... nowhere. While the European Union played mediator in conflicts from Palestine to Iran, Russia contented itself with hawking a few weapons systems and tending its own post-Soviet backyard.
What a difference a couple of years can make. In the wake of Hamas's Palestinian election win and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad's defiance over his country's uranium-enrichment program, Europe is edging ever closer to the tougher stance taken by the United States. Meanwhile, a newly confident Russia has stepped into Europe's shoes as middleman between East and West, reaching out to the region's untouchablesand making it clear that Moscow won't be taking orders from anyone.
Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin outraged the United States and Israel by inviting the leaders of Hamas to Moscow for talks. "Hamas is in powerthis is a fact" was Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's blunt message. "It came to power as a result of free democratic elections." Moscow has broken ranks with the West in Iran, too. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia won'tfor the time being, at leastback U.N. sanctions against Tehran, even as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that Iran is now "in open defiance of the international community." Russia insists instead that the way forward is to persuade Tehran to accept a scheme to enrich its uranium on Russian territory. "No one has the right to deny another country the right to safe atomic power," Russia's atomic-energy chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, recently told NEWSWEEK.
The new assertiveness, analysts say, is part and parcel of Russia's recent muscle-flexing in Eastern Europe. After a winter spent wielding energy as a political weapon against wayward former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Georgia, the Kremlin has now turned its sights to a broader forum. "First Russia went on a counterattack in the former Soviet Union," says analyst Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Now it is doing the same in the Middle East." Putin gave an important clue to Russia's thinking earlier this month when he described the Hamas victory as "an important setback for American efforts in the Middle East." The implication: America has no infallible monopoly on power and influence, and certainly not at Russia's expense.
For all the United States' and Israel's indignation at Russia's meddling, there's actually a chance that Moscow may succeed where the others have failed. "Unlike America, Russia is not bound up by legal objections to talking [with Hamas]," says Alexander Kalugin, Russia's special envoy to the Middle East, who met with senior Hamas representatives last week in Ramallah. And what Russia has to say to Hamas doesn't differ much in substance from the message propounded by the other members of the "quartet" of interested partiesthe United States, the EU and the United Nations. "Their message will be consistent: that Israel has a right to exist, that previous Palestinian Authority agreements should be honored and that they should renounce violence," says one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The main problem is that Russia didn't see fit to discuss its initiative with the others. "There was not a lot of advance consultation about the talks," admits the diplomat. For the Kremlin, it seems, the important point is to distance itself from the United Statesand to emphasize that Russia is no longer a junior partner in Washington's foreign policy.
The risk is, of course, that Russia's strategy of talking to Hamas could backfire. After all, Russia dubs its own Chechen separatists "terrorists" and complains vociferously when the U.K. and United States offer political asylum to rebel leaders such as Ilyas Akhmadov, a self-styled "ambassador" of independent Chechnya. "If today Moscow talks to Hamas," warns Russia's Chief Rabbi Beryl Lazar, "tomorrow we'll hear demands for talks with [Chechen rebel Shamil] Basayev, the day after tomorrow for talks with Al Qaeda."
And Russia's self-appointed role as honest broker doesn't sit terribly well with its place as a major arms supplier, especially to Iran. Last month Rosvooruzheniye, Russia's giant state-owned arms-export company, announced that Tehran had agreed to spend $1 billion on 30 Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems, capable of protecting a target from up to 48 incoming planes or projectiles to a range of six kilometers. Iran also has a longstanding accord with Moscow for up to $7 billion in conventional arms, including MiG-29 fighters, assistance with Iran's small submarine fleet, BMP-3 armored personnel carriers and landing craft.
The bottom line? Moscow may be broadly cooperative in international efforts to get Iran to cease its uranium- enrichment programbut at the same time, it's providing Iran with the means to defend itself against a possible air raid like the Israeli strike that destroyed Saddam Hussein's French-built Osirak reactor in 1981. In that, Russia's "new" role looks more like that played in the pastless middleman than a check on Washington and the West.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:06 ||
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#1
Remember that Russian diplomacy is very, very old, and taht they are big on learning from diplomatic history. However, there are some constants to their diplomatic efforts that need to be remembered.
First is that they are sticklers for the letter of treaties, but violate the heck out of the spirit of them. They see nothing wrong in this and often don't object when others do it.
Second, that when they are in the middle, they both seek to profit from that position, and they seek to remain in that position by not altering the balance of power. That is, they may provide an imbalance to seemingly favor one side, but it will not be effective. Such as the advanced radar they are now providing Iran.
Third, they have a deep understanding of the Asiatic concept of "face", so prefer a mutually less than satisfactory outcome to a clear win and loss.
Fourth, they can sometimes clear obstacles that neither side can remove themselves. For example, sneaking the WMDs out of Iraq solved many problems. It stopped intentional or accidental use; it stopped US WMD retaliation; and it avoided much embarassment to those countries that provided the WMD parts and chemicals in the first place.
Fifth, their dual European and Asiatic natures can sometimes work in breaking up diplomatic logjams. If one of their personalities doesn't work, they switch to the other.
The gunfight by the Tigris River was over. It was time to retrieve the bodies.
Staff Sgt. Cortez Powell looked at the dead man he'd shot in the face when insurgents had ambushed an American patrol. Because Powell's M4 assault rifle had jammed, he'd grabbed the pump-action shotgun slung over his shoulders and pulled the trigger.
Five other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division pulled two of the insurgents' bodies from the reeds and dragged them through the mud. "Strap [them] to the hood like a deer," said Staff Sgt. James Robinson, 25, of Hughes, Ark.
The soldiers heaved the two bodies onto the hood of a humvee and tied them down with a cord. As the humvee rumbled along, the dead insurgents' legs and arms flapped in the air.
Iraqi families stood in front of the surrounding houses. They watched the corpses ride by and glared at the U.S. soldiers.
Fifteen months earlier, when the First Infantry Division had sent 5,000 Iraqi and U.S. soldiers to retake Samarra from Sunni Muslim insurgents, it had been a test of the American occupation's ability not only to pacify but also to rebuild a part of Iraq dominated by the country's minority Sunnis.
More than a year later, U.S. troops are still battling insurgents in Samarra. Bloodshed is destroying the city and driving a wedge between the Iraqis who live there and the U.S. troops trying to keep order.
Violence, police corruption and the blurry lines of guerrilla warfare are clouding any hopes of victory.
"It's apocalyptic out there. Life has definitely gotten worse for" Iraqis, said Maj. Curtis Strange, 36, of Mobile, Ala., who works with Iraqi troops in Samarra. "You see Samarra and you almost want to build a new city and move all these people there."
The 101st Airborne plans to hand over the town to the Iraqi police and army by July 1.
In the meantime, soldiers such as Sgt. Powell desperately want to reach out to the community, but they're mired in daily skirmishes. Residents have fled, and a 7-mile-long, 5-foot-high earthen wall that U.S. soldiers built around the city last August has failed to keep out the insurgents.
Many of the U.S. troops who patrol the city say they don't see much hope for Samarra. Some officers privately worry that the city will fall to insurgents as Americans withdraw.
"Samarra is one example of many towns in Iraq that are barely functioning," said Capt. Ryan Edwards, 31, of Plain City, Ohio, who majored in Middle Eastern studies at West Point. "What the insurgents know is that we lack the will to go after them. It's not the American army that lacks the will; it's the American people and their leadership."
Most of Iraq, including its Shiite Muslim and Kurdish areas, is relatively free of the violence seen in Samarra. Yet a failure to secure Samarra and other Sunni areas in central and western Iraq - where about 85 percent of the daily insurgent attacks take place - would threaten the unity of the nation and could determine the Bush administration's legacy in Iraq.
The dirt wall that the Americans built around Samarra left three checkpoints, where residents can enter after they show identification and submit to searches. After the earthen wall went up, the city's population fell from about 200,000 to about 90,000, according to U.S. military officials.
The wall cut insurgent attacks in Samarra roughly in half, to eight to 10 a day. But they're increasing again. Eight roadside bombs exploded in Samarra in October; at least 15 blew up in January.
"The textbook answer is to build infrastructure," said Capt. Scott Brannon, who commands Bravo Company, which oversees Samarra. "But what happens with the contracts is that we're funding the AIF," or anti-Iraqi forces - the insurgency.
Brannon, a soft-spoken 34-year-old from Boaz, Ala., continued: "Every new unit that comes in has these tribal sheikh meetings where all these sheikhs say, 'Yeah, we want to help clean up Samarra'; and the new unit is dazed and confused and doesn't know who the bad guys are, and by the time they figure it out, it's time to leave."
In the middle of town, in an abandoned schoolhouse, Powell, 28, of Columbia, Mo., lives with his fellow soldiers from the Second Platoon of Bravo Company in the 101st Airborne's storied Rakkasan Brigade. The Rakkasan's reputation goes back to World War II, in which it played a decisive role.
Patrol Base Uvanni is named for Army National Guard Sgt. Michael Uvanni of Rome, N.Y., who was killed in the city on Oct. 1, 2004. A different name is painted in black on the door to the company's tactical operations center: the Alamo.
The Second Platoon and two others - about 120 men total - are based at the Alamo and at another base on the edge of town. They replaced three companies from the Third Infantry Division that had a total of more than 400 soldiers.
"If they ever figure out that we don't have many guys here, we'll be in trouble," said First Lt. Dennis Call, 31, who commands the Second Platoon. "If we're out on patrol with just seven guys, like usual, and we take two casualties, we'll get messed up."
The lieutenant, who's from Albuquerque, N.M., has a goofy grin, and his sergeants tousle his hair as though he were a favorite uncle. He writes biblical quotes on the walls and bookshelves of his closet bedroom in the Alamo schoolhouse.
One verse is from Galatians 6:9: "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
"Being in Iraq," Call said, "is like my time in the wilderness."
On a recent Sunday afternoon, Call sprinted through Samarra, heart pounding.
A rocket-propelled grenade had slammed into an observation post, sending chunks of concrete flying and his men diving for cover. Call was chasing a fleeing insurgent.
With three other soldiers, he dashed into a house, radios squawking. The women inside shrieked. A man moved from a hallway to the living room, almost a shadow in the dim house. Call jerked his M4 assault rifle back and forth, his finger on the trigger.
Then he ran down an alley, through another house and into the street.
The insurgent was gone.
The soldiers began walking to a humvee parked a block away.
Spec. Patrick McHenry sat behind the humvee's .50-caliber machine gun, scanning the area. He heard a ping, looked up and saw a grenade come flying over a wall.
"Frag," McHenry screamed. "Frag!"
Call glanced at what looked like a piece of fruit rolling toward him and his men. They dashed toward a courtyard. The explosion seemed to stop time as shrapnel cut into the walls around them.
The soldiers patted their bodies to make sure everything was still there.
McHenry, 23, of Jamestown, Pa., ran up. "It came from right over that... wall," he reported.
The men ran along the wall and stopped at a metal gate where they could see inside.
"It's an IP [Iraqi police] station!" Call said.
Powell blasted the padlock with his shotgun. The U.S. soldiers screamed at the police inside to drop their weapons.
The police substation was attached to Samarra General Hospital, and the soldiers questioned doctors and policemen alike, swabbing their hands, looking for explosives residue.
But there was no sign of the grenade thrower.
The men of the Second Platoon were furious. Many suspected that the police were behind the attack.
Distrust of the Iraqi police in Samarra runs deep among U.S. troops.
Last month, 33 police recruits from Samarra were killed when gunmen ambushed their bus and shot them in the head, execution-style.
Most Iraqis assumed Sunni insurgents had killed the men as a warning to anyone considering joining the security forces.
But Brannon, the Bravo Company commander, suspects that the killings were an inside job by police officials vying for control of which tribes supply recruits.
"I would not put it past them that someone in the IP leaked where that bus was going to be," he said. "There's a lot of politics here."
The Iraqi soldiers in the area are no better, Brannon said. U.S. military officials suspect that many of them, including a company commander, are on the insurgents' payrolls. Iraqi soldiers were removed from the city's checkpoints last month after intelligence reports said that the most-wanted terrorist in the country, al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave Iraqi soldiers $7,000 after they let him enter the city to broker an arms deal.
One afternoon, Lt. Call and his men were planning an afternoon "hearts and minds" foot patrol to hand out soccer balls to local children.
As Call sat preparing to go out, he heard two loud bursts from the .50-caliber machine gun on the roof.
Spec. Michael Pena, a beefy 21-year-old from Port Isabel, Texas, had opened fire. Boom-boom-boom.
Call and his men dashed out of the schoolhouse. Pena had shot an unarmed Iraqi man on the street. The man had walked past the signs marking the 200-yard "disable zone" that surrounds the Alamo and into the 100-yard "kill zone" around the base. To create the security perimeter, last year the Army had forced the residents of the block to leave the houses.
U.S. units in Iraq usually fire warning shots. Members of the 101st's Rakkasan Brigade don't.
A few days later, Call said his brigade command had told him, "The Rakkasans don't do warning shots." A warning shot in the vernacular of the Rakkasans, Call said, was a bullet that hit one Iraqi man while others could see.
"That's how you warn his buddy, is to pop him in the face with a kill shot?" Call said incredulously. "But what about when his buddy comes back with another guy... that and the other 15 guys in his family who you've made terrorists?"
Looking at the man splayed on the ground, Call turned to his medic, Spec. Patrick McCreery, and asked, "What... was he doing?"
McCreery didn't answer. The Iraqi's internal organs were hanging out of his side, and his blood poured across the ground. He was conscious and groaning.
"What... did they shoot him with?" McCreery asked, sweat showing on his brow. "Did someone call a... ambulance?"
The call to prayer was starting at a mosque down the street. The words Allahu akbar - God is great - wafted from a minaret's speakers.
The Iraqi looked up at the sky as he heard the words. He repeated the phrase "Ya Allah. Ya Allah. Ya Allah." Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
He looked at McCreery and raised his finger toward the house in front of him.
"This my house," he said in broken English.
McCreery reached down. With his hands cupped, he shoved the man's organs back into his body and held them in place as Call unwrapped a bandage to put around the hole.
"He's fading, he's fading," McCreery shouted.
Looking into the dying man's eyes, the medic said, "Hajji, hajji, look at me," using the title reserved for older Muslim men who presumably have gone on hajj - pilgrimage - to Mecca.
"Why? Why?" asked the man, his eyes beginning to close.
"Hajji," said McCreery, sweating heavily. "I don't know."
An Iraqi ambulance pulled up, and the humvees followed the man to the hospital that the soldiers had raided a few days earlier. The soldiers filed in and watched as the man died.
Call said nothing. McCreery, a 35-year-old former foundry worker from Levering, Mich., walked toward a wall, alone. He looked at the dead man for a moment and wiped tears from his eyes.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:04 ||
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#1
We need to kill a lot more Iraqis quickly. The Turks handled these people brutally until they stopped resisting; then they patted the survivors on the head and said "we won't do this again as long as you make nice and do what you are told; screw up and attack us again, or disobey orders, and lots of you will die." It worked. These people play by Hama Rules. If we can't adapt to that, it's time for us to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible and prepare to use nuclear weapons on the Islamists that will take over in Iraq as soon as we leave.
Posted by: mac ||
02/19/2006 8:22
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#3
Samarra is near the new headquarters of Al Qaeda (since they ran like scared rabbits from Anbar province). This is one area that has seen an increase in activity (as opposed to almost all the rst of Iraq that has seen a drop). Once we force AQ to move again, this area will probably return to normal.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/19/2006 13:36
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#4
Because Powell's M4 assault rifle had jammed, he'd grabbed the pump-action shotgun slung over his shoulders and pulled the trigger.
Hicks: I like to keep this handy. For close encounters.
A gathering of Iranians who say they are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain yesterday of attacks on coalition military bases in Iraq if there were a strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities.
''With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," said Mohammad Ali Samadi, a spokesman of Esteshadion (Martyrdom Seekers).
''We have registered more than 52,000 people who willingly are ready to defend their country," he said.
''If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their [US and British] sensitive places are quite close to Iranian borders," Samadi said after a gathering of about 200 students for a seminar on the suicide-bombing tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University.
Samadi reviewed the history of the suicide bombing as a weapon, praising it as the most effective Palestinian tactic in the confrontation with Israel.
The organizers also showed video clips of suicide attacks against Israelis.
They included one in the Morag settlement near Rafah in Gaza strip in February 2005.
One settler, three Israeli soldiers, and the two attackers were killed in the attack.
Hasan Abbasi, the main speaker, also praised suicide bombers, but denounced attacks against ''innocent people as Al Qaeda did in New York."
Abbasi told the audience of potential martyrs that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons as the United States and some of its allies have alleged.
''Our martyrdom-seekers are our nuclear weapons," said Abbasi, a university instructor and formerly ranking in the elite Revolutionary Guards.
After his speech, about 50 students filled out membership applications.
''This is a unique opportunity for me to die for God, next to my brothers in Palestine. That was why I signed up," said Reza Haghshenas, 22, an electrical engineering student.
A 23-year-old female student, Maryam Amereh, said: ''We are trying to defend Islam. It's a way to draw the attention of others to our activities."
But Rahim Hasanlu, a 22-year-old industrial management student, declared himself not interested in joining.
''I just attended to learn what they're saying, that's all."
Esteshadion was formed in late 2004. Recruiters called for members on a sporadic basis at Friday prayer ceremonies, state-sponsored rallies, and at the group's occasional meetings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:03 ||
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#1
These people don't really understand Americans at all, even the ones that have lived among us for 50 years. Give me three days in my former home state of Louisiana, and I can raise an army of 275,000, all with their own weapons. These people are going to REALLY piss us off one of these days, and they will simply cease to exist. Ask the Germans how they felt in 1941, versus how they felt in 1945. Ask the Japanese. Ask the Chinese and Norks. Ask the Cubans that were in Grenada, or the folks of Panama. Those were love taps beside what we COULD do. Read the history of the Civil War. There are still tens of millions of us that are still like those northern and southern soldiers of that era. WE won't be satisfied with killing you - we will want your head. Just your head, btw, and the rest of you can go to he$$. Do not piss on America - we have a history of getting angry in a way few others ever have. We're not that far off.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/19/2006 23:20
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Yemen still holds 172 al-Qaeda suspects in its prisons including 34 who were planning to go to Iraq, the country's interior minister said, according to report by Gulf News.
"We still have 172 al-Qaeda suspects in custody and security forces have been collecting information about them in joint coordination and cooperation with the states of the region. Thirty-four of them were planning to go to Iraq," said Dr Rashad Al Alimi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, in his speech at the 9th conference of European Police in Berlin on Wednesday.
"The security authorities foiled nine terror operations during the period from 2002 to 2005," the minister said. "And 130 al-Qaeda suspects have already been put on trial," he added in his speech, carried by the Yemeni media yesterday.
A group of 69 men, most of whom are al-Qaeda suspects, were arrested while infiltrating from the neighboring Saudi Arabia to Yemen during 2005.
The official confirmed that his country had handed over the 69 men to Saudi Arabia, according to security agreements between the two countries. "Some of those 69 men were planning to go to Iraq," he said.
The minister however did not make it clear whether the 172 al Qaeda suspects still being held include the 23 al Qaeda fugitives who escaped earlier this month from a Sana'a prison.
Al Alimi said security authorities in his country had made progress in the war on terror despite limited resources of security, and "poverty and unemployment form a good environment for breeding terrorism and extremism."
The official called on all states to adopt a comprehensive strategy for fighting terror and the reasons behind it. "Adopting a strategy to combat terrorism must have a comprehensive look which takes into consideration combating poverty, political reforms, drying sources of extremism, smuggling, illegal immigration in all countries," the official said.
Underscoring Yemen's bid to combat terrorism, Alimi said security forces stopped at least nine terrorist operations between 2002 and 2005, the UPI news agency reported.
The Yemeni official stressed the need to adopt a comprehensive anti-terror strategy that would focus on development issues, combating poverty, introducing political economic reforms and tackling the sources of extremism.
He said Yemen took pre-emptive measures in combating terrorism before 9-11, including tightening official control over religious schools and their curricula, noting that uncontrolled teaching at religious institutes can help incite extremism and mobilize the youth through misleading ideas.
Al Alimi also pointed out that Yemen introduced laws to increase supervision over money transfers and the sources of financing of civilian associations and institutions.
He said dialogue with Muslim extremists who were not involved in any violence was fruitful in bringing them back to the moderate path of Islam.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
05:02 ||
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In mid-September, Al Qaeda diverted a small but potent force from Iraq to a new mission: the opening of a new front in China. The unit was smuggled into the Chinese border town of Kushi in the Xinjiang Uygur province in November, after a meandering journey traced by DEBKA-Net-Weeklys counter-terror sources. There, the terrorists were quickly absorbed by the al Qaeda infrastructure of local Uygur Muslim extremist cells.
Their plan of campaign in the first stage was to reach Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai for strikes against US embassies and consulates, American firms operating in China and American tourists.
(This al Qaeda group was previously revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 229 on Nov. 11 [A Jihadist Airlift] as having set out from Baghdad between mid-September and early October, stopping over in Qatar and proceeding to Konduz in northern Afghanistan for special training.)
DEBKA-Net-Weeklys sources report the terrorists slipped north from Konduz into Tajikistan and onto the Kyrgyz section of the strategic Fergana Valley which straddles Central Asia. There, they rendezvoused at two places, Osh and Jalal-Abad close to the Kyrgyz-Uzbekistan border, establishing jumping-off points for both China and Central Asia.
The Islamist terrorists were guided from Konduz into Kyrgyzstan by armed men of al Qaedas operational arm in Uzbekistan, the MUI, which also has tentacles in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as training camps in the Fergana Valley. The commander of these cells is Tahir Yuldashev, an old comrade of Osama bin Laden who fought alongside him in Afghanistan. In 2004, Yuldashev returned to Tashkent from the badlands of Pakistans South Waziristan and was ordered to prepare facilities in Osh and Jalal-Abad for the incoming terrorist unit. His payment was a section of the force to boost his campaign against Uzbek president Karimov.
The unit from Konduz accordingly divided into two heads the largest proceeding from Osh into China and fetching up in Kushi, while the second group assembled in Jalal-Abad, turned west and crossed into Uzbekistan to set up base in the Fergana town of Andijon.
American and British military and intelligence officials picked up the groups arrival at the Konduz training facility, but decided after consultation that the large-scale forces needed to eradicate the facility would be hard to muster. They therefore resolved to await events and meanwhile find out where the mysterious al Qaeda force was heading.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weeklys intelligence sources, Washington reported the arrival to Moscow, hoping the counter-terror-trained Russian Motorized Rifle Division 201 stationed in Uzbekistan would step in to wipe out the al Qaeda intruders. The Russians declined to take action, but said they would not object to Beijing sending Chinese troops over the border to tackle the incoming terrorists.
This was the first time Moscow had ever consented to the Chinese military stepping into Central Asian soil and joining the war on terror in that region.
Clearly, the Kremlin, which frowns on American military bases and movements in Central Asia, was not eager to pull American chestnuts out of the fire
The skirmishing between Washington, Moscow and Beijing over who should tackle the al Qaeda menace if anyone had the result of opening the door for al Qaeda to move a force across half the globe from Iraq to the Far East unhindered and plant it in western China and eastern Uzbekistan.
The Chinese government was caught totally unprepared and did its best to tune out the loud alarums sounded by Chinese military and security chiefs.
However, on November 9, the Chinese police alerted the US embassy in Beijing to a possible attack by Islamic rebels on luxury hotels throughout China. The US embassy accordingly advised American visitors to review their plans to stay at four- and five-star hotels in China over the coming week.
A sharper notice was issued in the southern Chinese town of Guangzhou relaying credible information that a terrorist threat may exist against official US government facilities in the city. American citizens in south China were advised to remain alert to possible threats.
Chinas Ministry of Public Security responded to these warnings, which were obviously sourced in Chinese police circles, with anger. A statement accused an unnamed foreign citizen of fabricating the so-called attack on four- and five-star hotels in China. The Chinese foreign ministry chipped in with, Chinese public security has never issued such a warning for foreigners on the hotel issue, its spokesman told reporters. Chinese hotels are safe! he added.
US officials diplomatically withdrew their terror alert notice.
However, while Chinese officials are doing their utmost to calm fears that could affect the tourist industry, DEBKA-Net-Weeklys counter-terror sources affirm that a terror alert is indeed in force in Chinese cities.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/19/2006
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#2
Well, TW, not for the victims... but the aftermath of any jihadi booms in China may prove to be an entertaining spectacle, indeed. The Allanists have no idea what a shitload of cans of worms they would open.
#4
I suspect that more than making terrorist attacks, which are already happening in China at a tremendous clip, al-Qaeda plans to *publicize* attacks.
Remember that China is far more concerned about hiding the reality than it is the reality itself. As far as casualties, China could absorb a death rate of 100,000 a DAY for an entire YEAR before really starting to feel a pinch.
#6
Perhaps the Islamonutzis will succumb to a new foe ... Avian Flu. A suicide mission into the Hot Zone may prove ironically a self-fulfilling prophecy.
#10
You're right, of course, twobyfour. It was early, and I snarked without thinking. How is China responding to current [non-suicide] booms caused by those disappointed in love or business deals? We've read about several here, but I don't remember the follow-up.
#11
I read a paper about two years ago over on Hal Lindsey's site http://www.hallindseyoracle.com/
about the growth of Christianity in China. And, How appealing Chirsitianity is for the Chinese. Also, the article brought out that the newly created Chinese Christian Missionaries are now targeting Islam and its members for conversion to Christianity. It said to the effect that the face of the war in the Middle East will change dramatically when these Chinese missionaries begin to hit the streets. The goal was to send close to 1.5 million missionaries to the Middle East! Could this be the next Crusade?
Maybe Al Q read the same article. I will try to find the link to it.
#12
The PRC makes a lot of money on tourism (big shots in the Commie party own lots of shares of various enterprizes) and an Al Q would be a blow to both the budget and to prestige.
They would not be able to cover up a big hit.
The problem for the PRC is what to do about it. They already persecute the muslim tribes in the western part of China so what else are they going to do?
#15
I also wonder how capably the Chinese authorities in Beijing could cope with determined terrorist attacks by outsiders. My impression is that their control is shaky and relies in part on Chinese cultural deference to those in authority roles.
I might be wrong about this, but for instance they're having trouble with Net censorship.
#16
Historically, the Chinese relationship with Muslims has been to tolerate them UNTIL they get to uppity then exterminate a large number until they settle down for a few generations.
#17
The ISI routinely informs the Chinese about their citizens that have trained in the jihadi terror camps. They don't have a long lifespan.
The ISI has even executed Uigars on behalf of the Chinese (muslim brotherhood be damned).
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 18:16
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Sooner or later, the rest of the world is going to have to decide whether our problem is Islamists or Islam. Either way, there has to be an accounting. We've given away too much, too long. We need to start standing up to these assclowns, and breaking a few heads where needed. THey have to learn that THEY have to adjust to the rest of the world, the rest of the world is NOT going to adjust to them. Start with the next riot in any Western nation turning onto a bloodbath for the islamists. Follow up with some TOUGH sanctions against parts of the islamic world, including shutting by military force ports and harbors. As someone said, the demand will force us to learn new ways to do things, but will put the screws to the Arab world where 90% of the problem originates. We can turn the entire Middle East into another Somalia, and let it rot. Maybe that's what we should do.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/19/2006 18:55
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At least, OP, they do need some tough love. The question is on what scale should we set the TLM (Tough Love Machine) to? On a scale of 1 to 10. Note that this is a logarithmic scale, kinda like the Richter scale, where a step in the scale = a 10-fold increase in toughness.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/19/2006 19:02
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Look at the Islamic Truths thread on Pg 4. Some toughlove now may prevent a bloodbath later. But it is hard to face the reality of what is needed.
Apparently, DanNY was right, and Clinton didn't say that the cartoon publishers should be prosecuted.
From the link, here is the complete quote of what Pres. Clinton said:
"I strongly disagree with the creation and publication of cartoons that are considered blasphemous by the Muslims around the world," the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.
"I thought it was a mistake."
But he lamented the escalation of differences over the issue.
"I had no objections to Muslims who were demonstrating in a peaceful way their convictions.
"I thought [the cartoons issue] was also a great opportunity which I fear has been squandered to build bridges," AFP reports.
This is from the BBC press conference video. I for one apologize to Mr. Clinton, and lesson learned: always look at the tape.
I read it and passed it on to Alaska Paul. Crichton tears holes (footnoted and researched) in the Global Warming hysteria. These pukes smell grant dollars drifting away after Kyoto fell through
One of the perquisites of being president is the ability to have the author of a book you enjoyed pop into the White House for a chat.
Over the years, a number of writers have visited President Bush, including Natan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis and John Lewis Gaddis. And while the meetings are usually private, they rarely ruffle feathers.
Now, one has.
In his new book about Mr. Bush, "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "State of Fear," suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.
Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as "a dissenter on the theory of global warming," writes that the president "avidly read" the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement."
"The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more," he adds.
And so it has, fueling a common perception among environmental groups that Mr. Crichton's dismissal of global warming, coupled with his popularity as a novelist and screenwriter, has undermined efforts to pass legislation intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that leading scientists say causes climate change.
Mr. Crichton, whose views in "State of Fear" helped him win the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' annual journalism award this month, has been a leading doubter of global warming and last September appeared before a Senate committee to argue that the supporting science was mixed, at best.
"This shows the president is more interested in science fiction than science," Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said after learning of the White House meeting. Mr. O'Donnell's group monitors environmental policy.
"This administration has put no limit on global warming pollution and has consistently rebuffed any suggestion to do so," he said.
Not so, according to the White House, which said Mr. Barnes's book left a false impression of Mr. Bush's views on global warming.
Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House advisory agency, pointed to several speeches in which Mr. Bush had acknowledged the impact of global warming and the need to confront it, even if he questioned the degree to which humans contribute to it.
the flatulence from a typical WH press corps Q&A could power several small cities, should they choose to harness it - start with Helen Thomas and David "Jerk" Gregory
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006
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The fact that Bush is breathing "alarms" enviros. >:-(
The people who do actual research about "climate change" - Chrichton and Bjorn Lomberg, for example - and who are self-supporting seem to reach different conclusions than the people - "environmentalists," for instance - who are more interested in how much they can suck off the government teat than in the truth. For them, "truth" is whatever will scare people enough to make them hand over huge amounts of money - and control.
I'll take Chrichton, thankyewverymuch.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/19/2006 2:18
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How dare Bush listen to someone with an opposing viewpoint? It's scandalous!!!
Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today. The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.
Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain.
What they say and what they do is different.
Last night, Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July attacks, said the findings were "alarming". He added: "Vast numbers of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society." Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This poll confirms the widespread opposition among British Muslims to the so-called war on terror."
The most startling finding is the high level of support for applying sharia law in "predom-inantly Muslim" areas of Britain. Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right".
Half of the 500 people surveyed said relations between white Britons and Muslims were getting worse. Only just over half thought the conviction of the cleric Abu Hamza for incitement to murder and race hatred was fair.
Mr Khan, the MP for Tooting, said: "We must redouble our efforts to bring Muslims on board with the mainstream community. For all the efforts made since last July, things do not have appear to have got better." He agreed with Sir Iqbal that the poll showed Muslims still had a "big gripe" about foreign policy, particularly over the war on terror and Iraq.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "It shows we have a long way to go to win the battle of ideas within some parts of the Muslim community and why it is absolutely vital that we reinforce the voice of moderate Islam wherever possible."
Whatever that is.
A spokesman for Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said: "It is critically important to ensure that Muslims, and all faiths, feel part of modern British society. Today's survey indicates we still have a long way to go [but] we are committed to working with all faiths to ensure we achieve that end."
It's also important that Muslims, and all faiths, have loyalty to Britain. It's a two-way street: you can't be part of modern British society if you don't wish to be.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
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In the 'Foundation' series by Asimov, there was a cool machine which would take long winded input by politicians or others and boil it down to concise logical statements. If this poll was used as input, that machine would explode.
I wonder if logic itself is incompatible with Islam.
#4
agree with BAR - if you want to live by cult rules, go where the cult is accepted
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 15:19
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Unique Battle: "I wonder if logic itself is incompatible with Islam."
Clearly not, nor do they understand the Golden Rule of human behaviour. They are oppressed by you unless you also submit to their zomnied ideology. Fat chance!
#6
If they want Sharia shit, then return to the cesspool of the ME. These ppl simply cannot be recycled like even waste can - into something beneficial.
Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani, adviser to prime minister, on Saturday urged the European Parliament, the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of Islamic Conference to introduce laws to ensure acts such as publication of the blasphemous cartoons are not repeated in the future.
He's requesting that Islamists take formal possession of the world.
The world should follow inter-faith dialogues because the publication of cartoons has posed a threat to world peace. It is a responsibility of the European countries to tackle the issue because these irresponsible acts of individuals can disrupt global peace, said Durrani in a press conference.
Without freedom of the press you have no freedom at all. Someone will always tell you what to think, and you'll do it. That's the whole idea behind the Holy Koran, isn't it?
He was accompanied by a Norwegian delegation comprising members of the inter-faith council including Imam Mahboobur Rehman, Imam Seniad Kobilica, reverends of the Church of Norway, Geir Valle and Knut Kittelsaa and Barrister Muhammad Ali Sai, adviser to the World Council of Religions. Durrani said the UN should legislate to safeguard religious sentiments of the Muslims, Christians and Jews under the UN Conventions on Human Rights.
The convention that "guarantees" freedom of religion and freedom of conscience? I understand all the churches in Arabia have copies of it posted in their stained glass windows.
He said the publication of cartoons in the European newspapers is a well thought-out conspiracy to jeopardise socio-economic ties between the European countries and the Muslim world.
"Yes, by Allen! A conspiracy! Hatched in the dead of night, in a smoke-filled room, by dark men of sinister aspect! I seen it! I seen it with my own eyes!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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lol.
to get so upset and aggitated over cartoons is beyond me.
How stupid can you get? well now we know.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/19/2006 1:07
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Former Khmer Rouge leaders must go to trial as soon as possible, the United Nations said on Saturday after the regime's former foreign minister admission to hospital. "The leaders are aging ... that's why we have to start the process as soon as possible," said Michelle Lee, the UN's leading administrator to a planned tribunal of former top cadres of the regime.
I find this disgusting on more levels than I can count. She's urging "speedy" trials so they don't die of old age before Carla del Ponte gets around to them. Their victims, a significant portion of the population of a rather nice and usually inoffensive country, remain dead, and will be that way until the last trumpet. They didn't receive multi-million dollar trials; they maybe got a death warrant, followed by a shovel to the back of the head, or decapitated with kitchen knives. But the formalities are the important part, and a "speedy" trial takes 30 years to put together.
Ieng Sary, who could be prosecuted for crimes committed during the communist regime's brutal rule over Cambodia, was admitted to hospital in Thailand with a serious heart condition, his son said on Friday. "He was sent to hospital four days ago. He is very serious, otherwise he would not be sent to the hospital," Ieng Vuth told AFP from the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin in northwestern Cambodia.
"He'll soon be out of any danger from the UN, and in fact beyond all cares and woe."
Ieng Sary, 76, is one of 10 former top Khmer Rouge cadres who could stand trial in a genocide tribunal expected to start later this year.
The world dithered, studiously looking the other way, while 2,000,000 died. In the end, it was the Vietnamese who saved the Cambodians. The UN should have been disbanded at that point. Instead, it goes doddering on, wading through piles of corpses in its dotage: Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Zim-bob-we...
He was a member of the inner circle of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, who is blamed for orchestrating one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.
He died of old age, too...
As many as two million people died from starvation, overwork or execution during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, who erased all vestiges of modern life in their drive for an agrarian utopia. So far, only two former regime leaders are in jail awaiting trial, and observers worry that others - including Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's number two, and Khieu Samphan, former Khmer Rouge head of state - could die before the joint UN-Cambodian tribunal is convened.
And they probably will...
Lee said Cambodia still lacked $9.6 million in tribunal funds. She said there was not a word yet whether donors would allow $6.9 million they contributed to a UN fund for Cambodia in the early 1990s to be channelled into the $56.3 million tribunal.
I've got an idea. Find a stout young fellow who owns a shovel and give him $20. I'll bet you could find one easy enough.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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At least 12 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded when rival militias using mortars, anti-aircraft guns and artillery clashed in Somalia's capital on Saturday. Residents said civilians including women and children were among the casualties when heavy fighting over territory broke out between gunmen loyal to Mogadishu's Islamic courts and a local warlord in the south of the capital.
Each side blamed the other for the hostilities, which highlight general lawlessness in the Horn of Africa country that has been without a functioning central government for the last 15 years and is run by various clan-based militias. Residents said the fighting started early on Saturday and continued through the day. Many residents fled the area. As night fell, sporadic shooting could still be heard. "They came here to ignite a new crisis, and we are ready to defend our areas," warlord Abdi Nurre Siyad said.
Shaikh Shariff Ahmed, who heads the influential Islamic court administration, confirmed the fighting and accused the warlord of being behind it. Among the dead, at least four were civilians, residents said. Hospital officials in the capital said 41 wounded were brought in, including seven children and 12 women. One stray mortar hit a house and seriously wounded two children, witnesses said. Another mortar killed a woman.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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Nigerian militants launched a string of attacks on the world's eighth largest oil exporter on Saturday, abducting nine foreign workers from an offshore barge and attacking at least two other facilities. Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said they were targeting all oil pipelines, production platforms and export terminals in Delta state, which accounts for about a quarter of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels per day production. "A barge was attacked by several speed boats. There was an exchange of fire and nine foreigners were kidnapped," an oil industry source said, adding that the barge, operated by US oil services company Willbros Group, was operating offshore in the Forcados area of Delta state.
A Shell oil facility near the 380,000 barrel-per-day Forcados export terminal, also in Delta state, was attacked and burst into flames, but a company source said the fire was extinguished.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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#1
Well-paid and restraints-free mercs are the answer. Clean this festering sore and sweep up the Sharia bullshit as well
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 0:16
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WARRI, Nigeria - Militants launched attacks across Nigerias troubled delta region Saturday, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreigners, including three Americans.
BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi authorities have released more than 400 male prisoners over the past few days, the US military said on Saturday. About 430 male detainees were released over the last several days, a statement said.
The releases took place after a joint Iraq-US board reviewed the cases of the detainees. Some 27,900 detainees have had their cases reviewed by the board since August 2004 and more than 14,600 have been freed, according to the US military.
Last week Major General Rick Lynch, spokesman for the coalition forces in Iraq, had announced that a fresh batch of about 450 detainees was to be released soon. Earlier in the month the US military released 50 men. In January, it freed more than 400 detainees, including five women. Four women continue to be held in prisons.
Last months release of women detainees attracted public attention as it followed shortly on demands by the kidnappers of US reporter Jill Carroll for the freeing of all female prisoners in Iraq. Both US and Iraqi spokesmen strongly denied any link at the time and have repeatedly said they would not negotiate with hostage-takers.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
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Unidentified men blew up pipelines at the Loti and Pirkoh gas fields on Saturday in Dera Bugti. The attack was the second on the gas plants in 24 hours. The militants blew up the gas pipelines from well number 24 and 10, suspending the supply of natural gas from the Loti gas field. Gas supply to Multan and Bahawalpur areas was stopped while security measures for Uch gas fields were increased.
Dera Bugti District Coordination Officer Abdul Samad Lasi said that well number 10 was leaking five million cubic feet of gas because of the severed pipeline. He said the Pirkoh and Loti gas plants had been shut down and officials were trying to control the leak. Jamhoori Watan Party General Secretary Agha Shahid Bugti said that security forces and Bugti tribesmen had exchanged fire and it was possible that a mortar or rocket had hit the pipeline. He denied that tribesmen were involved in the incident.
AMMAN Poultry shops in Zarqa will no longer be allowed to slaughter chickens on the premises under a recent decision taken by the governorate. A circular was distributed to owners of poultry shops last week, informing them that Zarqa Municipality had established a new slaughterhouse in the city. The shopkeepers were told they would have to redesign their stores and equip them with freezers and refrigerators to serve as sales outlets for chicken from the new slaughterhouse.
"And no biting their necks off!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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KARACHI: Sporadic violence spread throughout the city, starting Saturday evening and continuing past midnight after rumours spread that Sunni Tehreek (ST) leader Maulana Abbas Qadri had been killed by gunmen. While the rumours have proved wrong, a number of apparent ST activists came out on the streets, pelted passing vehicles with stones, forced shopkeepers to close their businesses and burnt tires.
The rumours started after people started receiving text messages on their mobile phones and also through phone calls, in which their friends wanted to inquire of the ST leader's whereabouts. They wanted to confirm whether the rumours of Maulana Qadri's death were true. According to Daily Times investigations, the rumours were baseless. A spokesperson for the ST ridiculed the rumours and said Maulana Qadri was all right.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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Technology in the hands of the ignorant. Text messaging rumours. Could be the start of something big.
( ) their friends wanted to inquire of the ST leader's whereabouts
Hey, Ahmad, have ya seen Qadri? Sposed to meet me here for shawarma.
A couple of txt msgs down the line and Qaris dead and violence reigns.
We could use this ..
Text someone in the region with the rumour that the vaccine against H5N1 has been developed so it can only be delivered in a bacon sandwich. Weve done this on purpose.
#2
Text someone in the region with the rumour that the vaccine against H5N1 has been developed so it can only be delivered in a bacon sandwich. Weve done this on purpose.
Next texted rumour: Bird flu has reached Pakistan -- we have to kill all our chickens! To be followed by full anti-West riots while the wives destroy the flocks... Kentucky Fried Chicken has already been destroyed anyway.
No it isn't funny, but it is their pattern. Can we make a rumour that loving livestock is the primary method of bird flu transmission?
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged reluctant Arab nations on Friday to threaten to isolate Iran unless it bows to international pressure to curb its suspected nuclear weapons programmes. Her appeal to Irans neighbours came before she visits Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week to lobby them to join a US campaign against Iran, which has won increasing support from Europe, Russia and China. I would hope that those states that are worried about this are prepared to really say to the Iranians: You are going to be isolated from us too if you continue down this road, Rice said in an interview with Arab-based media about her planned talks on the trip. There is really now an obligation to let the Iranians know in no uncertain terms that this isolation is going to be complete, she added.
As part of a strategy to woo Arab nations with a message she hopes resonates with them, Rice also highlighted US concerns Iran is destabilising the region by backing militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Arab governments have expressed concern about Irans nuclear ambitions. But they are generally wary of giving explicit support to any US policies when many in the region are angry at what they see as anti-Muslim American policies because of the Iraq war and perceived pro-Israel stances against Palestinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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About 27 people were killed when Muslims protests in Nigeria and Libya against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PTUI peace be upon him) descended into violence.
As is usually the case...
In Nigeria, Maiduguri Deputy Police Commissioner Haz Iwendi said rioters killed at least 16 people during riots. He told AFP that army troops and police reinforcements had been deployed to the city and that a curfew had been imposed to bring about a return to order. Weve arrested 115 people. Some 16 persons were killed by rioters, and 11 churches burnt, he said.
Because that's the way Islam honors God...
Mohammed Auwal, a civil servant, told AFP by telephone, When the protesters gathered for the protest at Ramat Square they were ordered by a police detachment to disperse but the crowd insisted on holding the protest. The policemen then fired canisters of teargas to disperse the crowd, he said. When news went into town about what happened at the square, a mob attacked motor spare-parts shops of Christian Igbo traders at Monday market in the city, looting and burning them, he added. A local reporter, Abdullahi Bego, told AFP from the scene that at least 20 shops had been looted and vandalised and churches had been burned to the ground.
Earlier in Libya, Italian officials said that around 11 people were killed in clashes with police when they tried to storm an Italian consulate here on Friday in protests against the Danish cartoons. At least 11 demonstrators have been killed according to the police who sent me that toll, said the first secretary of Italys embassy in Tripoli, Dominico Bellatoni, after Fridays unrest. The protesters set fire to the Danish flag and cars as they attempted to storm the Italian consulate in Benghazi, the only Western diplomatic mission in the city. Libyan state TV showed footage of stone-throwing protesters and security forces with guns in streets round a scorched building. The footage contained what sounded like gunshots. Private sources contacted from Tripoli said the toll was higher, between 15 and 25, while many injured had been taken to the Al Jala hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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#2
What the story doesn't say, as usual, is that most of those killed in Nigeria were Christians, including children and a priest killed inside a church. Animals.
Posted by: ed ||
02/19/2006 18:12
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How many times have we heard the following whining and yet received no specific answers from our leaders?
"Israel has nuclear weapons, so why single out Iran?"
"Pakistan got nukes and we lived with it."
"Who is to say the United States or Russia should have the bomb and not other countries?"
"Iran has promised to use its reactors for peaceful purposes, so why demonize the regime?"
In fact, the United States has a perfectly sound rationale for singling out Iran to halt its nuclear proliferation. At least six good reasons come to mind, not counting the more obvious objection over Iran's violation of U.N. non-proliferation protocols. It is past time that we spell them out to the world at large.
First, we cannot excuse Iran by acknowledging that the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, and Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons. In each case of acquisition, Western foreign-policy makers went into a crisis mode, as anti-liberal regimes gained stature and advantage by the ability to destroy Western cities.
A tragic lapse is not corrected by yet another similar mistake, especially since one should learn from the errors of the past. The logic of "They did it, so why can't I?" would lead to a nuclearized globe in which our daily multifarious wars, from Darfur to the Middle East, would all assume the potential to go nuclear. In contrast, the fewer the nuclear players, the more likely deterrence can play some role. There is no such thing as abstract hypocrisy when it is a matter of Armageddon.
Second, it is a fact that full-fledged democracies are less likely to attack one another. Although they are prone to fighting imperial Athens and republican Venice both were in some sort of war about three out of four years during the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century respectively consensual governments are not so ready to fight like kind. In contemporary terms that means that there is no chance whatsoever that an anti-American France and an increasingly anti-French America would, as nuclear democracies, attack each other. Russia, following the fall of Communism, and its partial evolution to democracy, poses less threat to the United States than when it was a totalitarian state.
It would be regrettable should Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, or Germany go nuclear but not the catastrophe of a nuclear Pakistan that, with impunity de facto, offers sanctuary to bin Laden and the planners of 9/11. The former governments operate under a free press, open elections, and free speech, and thus their war-making is subject to a series of checks and balances. Pakistan is a strongman's heartbeat away from an Islamic theocracy. And while India has volatile relations with its Islamic neighbor, the world is not nearly as worried about its arsenal as it is about autocratic Pakistan's.
Third, there are a number of rogue regimes that belong in a special category: North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Cuba, unfree states whose leaders have sought global attention and stature through sponsoring insurrection and terrorism beyond their borders. If it is scary that Russia, China, and Pakistan are now nuclear, it is terrifying that Kim Jong Il has the bomb, or that President Ahmadinejad might. Islamic fundamentalism or North Korean Stalinism might be antithetical to scientific advancement, but it is actually conducive to nuclear politics. When such renegade regimes go nuclear they gain the added lunatic edge: "We are either crazy or have nothing to lose or both but you aren't." In nuclear poker, the appearance of derangement is an apparent advantage.
Fourth, there are all sorts of scary combinations petrodollars, nukes, terrorism, and fanaticism. But Iran is a uniquely fivefold danger. It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption; nuclear weapons to threaten civilization; oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum hungry world; terrorists to either find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella or to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has a leader who wishes either to take his entire country into paradise, or at least back to the eighth century amid the ashes of the Middle East.
Just imagine the present controversy over the cartoons in the context of President Ahmadinejad with his finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.
Fifth, any country that seeks "peaceful" nuclear power and is completely self-sufficient in energy production is de facto suspect. Iran has enough natural gas to meet its clean electrical generation needs for centuries. The only possible rationale for its multi-billion-dollar program of building nuclear reactors, and spending billions more to hide and decentralize them, is to obtain weapons, and thus to gain clout and attention in a manner that otherwise is not warranted by either Iranian conventional forces, cultural influence, or economic achievement.
Sixth, the West is right to take on a certain responsibility to discourage nuclear proliferation. The technology for such weapons grew entirely out of Western science and technology. In fact, the story of nuclear proliferation is exclusively one of espionage, stealthy commerce, or American and European-trained native engineers using their foreign-acquired expertise. Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran have no ability themselves to create such weapons, in the same manner that Russia, China, and India learned or stole a craft established only from the knowledge of European-American physics and industrial engineering. Any country that cannot itself create such weapons is probably not going to ensure the necessary protocols to guard against their misuse or theft.
We can argue all we want over the solution it is either immoral to use military force or immoral not to use it; air strikes are feasible or will be an operational disaster; dissidents will rise up or have already mostly been killed or exiled; Russia and China will help solve or will instead enjoy our dilemma; Europe is now on board or is already triangulating; the U.N. will at last step in, or is more likely to damn the United States than Teheran.
Yet where all parties agree is that a poker-faced United States seems hesitant to act until moments before the missiles are armed, and is certainly not behaving like the hegemon or imperialist power so caricatured by Michael Moore and an array of post-September 11 university-press books. Until there is firm evidence that Iran has the warheads ready, the administration apparently does not wish to relive the nightmare of the past three years in which striking Iran will conjure up all the old Iraqi-style hysteria about unilateralism, preemption, incomplete or cooked intelligence, imperialism, and purported hostility toward a Muslim country.
In the greatest irony of all, the Left (who must understand well the nightmarish scenario of a fascist Iran with nuclear weapons) is suddenly bewildered by George Bush's apparent multilateral caution. The Senate Democrats don't know whether to attack the administration now for its nonchalance or to wait and second-guess them once the bombs begin to fall.
Either way, no one should doubt that a nuclear Iran would end the entire notion of global adjudication of nuclear proliferation as well as remain a recurrent nightmare to civilization itself.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
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Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Secretary General Maulana Fazalur Rehman were put under house arrest in a crackdown in which 900 MMA activists were also put under protective custody on Saturday. The Islamabad district administration had earlier reiterated that rallies in the city were banned in the interest of public peace, but the MMA had vowed to defy it and stage a demonstration today (Sunday).
Geo television said that Qazi (detained at his residence in Mansoora, Lahore) and Fazl (detained at his official residence in Islamabad) were due to lead a rally in the capital against the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Government officials told the MMA leaders that they had been detained to control the law and order situation, said the channel. The government has declared Qazis residence a sub-jail and restrained his movement from Mansoora till further orders, it added.
Any chance of Qazi tripping and falling down the stairs?
MMA leader Fareed Piracha told Daily Times that the provincial government had detained 1,300 activists. Other MMA leaders were also arrested from Rawalpindi and police are reportedly pursuing the Shabab-e-Mili president. Dozens of other opposition leaders have also been arrested in the capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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#1
shame if isolated bird flu (as in choked on a chicken) killed both POS's
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 0:08
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Didn't dishtowels like that one come in boxes of detergent around the late '50's?
SULAYMANYAH - A plane with five people on board crashed in northern Iraq on Friday, airport authorities in the Kurdish city of Sulaymanyah said. Unconfirmed sources said that four of the people killed were German nationals, but an airport spokesman only confirmed that there was one Iraqi and four foreigners on board without specifying their nationalities.
Radio contact with the small aircraft broke off near the town of Halabja in the north-east of the country, the authorities said. The plane originated in Azerbaijan and was heading for Sulaymanyah.
Likely bad maintenance.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
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LAHORE: A local mosques prayer leader was killed by unidentified men in the Factory Area police precincts on Saturday.
A holy man? Dead? Oh dear! I feel faint! Quick, Ethel! My pills! And open the good champagne!
Sources said that Muhammad Imran(27), a resident of Shujahabad (Multan) and prayer leader at a mosque on Bhatta Chowk, moved his family to Kamahan Road a week ago. He left his residence early on Saturday for Fajr prayers at the mosque, but was stopped by three men, who hit him with a sharp edged weapon and fled. The prayer leader was severely injured and passers-by rushed him to General Hospital where he died. The Factory Area police tried to cover the incident but the hospital confirmed it. Sub-Inspector Muhammad Arif said that although Imrans residence fell in his police stations precincts, no such incident had been reported. A case has not been registered and the body has been handed over to the family.
If the Paks sold all their policemen into slavery and bought ducks with the money, they'd still have the same level of protection and they'd be better fed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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Author Kurt Vonnegut has told the BBC that he came out of semi-retirement to write his new book A Man Without A Country because of his "contempt" for current US President George W Bush.
A Man Without A Country, Vonnegut's first book in five years, is a collection of short essays dealing with a wide range of topics, including humour and the difference between men and women - although the subject it tackles most is the current Bush presidency. The book is subtitled A Memoir Of Life In George W Bush's America, and Vonnegut - who is well known for his liberal views and attacks on the American right - told the BBC that he had "drawn energy from my contempt for our president."
He explained two friends from his children's generation "rescued" him by persuading him to write again. "They did for me what Jesus did for Lazarus," he said. Balance at the link... if you can stomach more of his drivel.
"I really was so dead I stunk, but now here I am back here at the age of 83."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/19/2006 2:09
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I remember a tv show about an old leftist retirement home in California. It was really old-school, with representatives of the IWW, several communist parties, etc. Decorated with pictures of such luminaries as Angela Davis and Che, it was the picture of pathos.
Along with their daily gruel, they would still get a double-helping of hate-spewing dialectic, which was as important to them as medicine.
A nursing home for decrepit, feeble-minded and toothless fanatics. Still despicable after all these years.
And speaking of pathos, I'm sick of it. How long do we have to endure the glorification of these self-hating haters who elevate their self esteem by pissing on anything and everything that is good?
Islam is the unexploded bomb of global politics. US foreign policy - the only foreign policy there is, for the United States is the only superpower - proceeds from the hope that a modern and democratic Islam will emerge from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Is it possible for Islam to reform? A negative answer implies that Ahmadinejad's January 5 call for world domination falls within the Islamic mainstream... The previous day, the London Guardian leaked a European intelligence report detailing Iran's efforts to acquire technology required to build nuclear weapons. A very few writers, including this one, have rejected the possibility of Islamic reformation, to the stony contempt of universally accepted opinion.
Now Pope Benedict XVI has let it be known that he does not believe Islam can reform. This we learn from the transcript of a January 5 US radio interview with one of Benedict's students and friends, Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, the provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, posted on the Asia Times Online forum by a sharp-eyed reader. Fessio described a private seminar on the subject of Islam last year at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence:
The main presentation by this Father [Christian] Troll was very interesting. He based it on a Pakistani Muslim scholar [named] Rashan, who was at the University of Chicago for many years... Rashan's position was Islam can enter into dialogue with modernity, but only if it radically reinterprets the Koran, and takes the specific legislation of the Koran... and now applies them, and modifies them, for a new society [in] which women are now respected for their full dignity, where democracy's important, religious freedom's important, and so on. And if Islam does that, then it will be able to enter into real dialogue and live together with other religions and other kinds of cultures.
And immediately the holy father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said, well, there's a fundamental problem with that because, he said, in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through his creatures. And so it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark... by establishing a church in which he gives authority to his followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.
The interviewer then asked Fessio, "And so the pope is a pessimist about that changing, because it would require a radical reinterpretation of what the Koran is?" Fessio replied, "Yeah, which is it's impossible, because it's against the very nature of the Koran, as it's understood by Muslims."
Hebrew and Christian scripture claim to be the report of human encounters with God. After the Torah is read each Saturday in synagogues, the congregation intones that the text stems from "the mouth of God by the hand of Moses", a leader whose flaws kept him from entering the Promised Land.
The Archangel Gabriel, by contrast, dictated the Koran to Mohammed, according to Islamic doctrine. That sets a dauntingly high threshold for textual critics. How does one criticize the word of God without rejecting its divine character? In that respect the Koran resembles the "Golden Tablets" of the Angel Moroni purported found by the Mormon leader Joseph Smith more than it does the Jewish or Christian bibles.
Strange as it may seem, the pope must whisper when he wants to state agreement with conventional Muslim opinion, namely that the Koranic prophecy is fixed for all time such that Islam cannot reform itself. If Islam cannot change, then a likely outcome will be civilizational war, something too horrific for US leaders to contemplate. What Benedict XVI thinks about the likelihood of civilizational war I do not know. Two elements of context, though, set in relief his reported comments concerning Islam's incapacity to reform.
The first is that Benedict's comments regarding the nature of Muslim revelation are deliberate and informed, for his primary focus as a theologian has been the subject of revelation. A second element of context is Benedict's admiration for the US separation of church and state. In an essay published in this month's issue of First Things, Benedict makes the remarkable (for a pope) statement that the US model is what the early church really had in mind. He proceeds from the famous argument of Pope Gelasius I (492-496) that "because of human weakness (pride!), they have separated the two offices" of king and priest. Neither the state church model of Northern Europe nor the secular model of France, Italy and Spain has sufficed, Benedict observes.
It is most promising that a European, indeed one who speaks with the authority of the throne of St Peter, has explained the difference between the Christian foundation of the US political system and theocratic Islam - even if the explanation came in the form of a stage whisper. I expect this to have profound consequences.
Later in the same essay, Benedict takes up a theme I have addressed over the years, namely the moral cause of Europe's demographic implosion (see Why Europe chooses extinction, April 8, 2003), writing:
Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as though they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen - at least by some people - as a liability rather than as a source of hope. Here it is obligatory to compare today's situation with the decline of the Roman Empire.
My investigation of the causes of Europe's present decline was inspired by comments of then-cardinal Ratzinger in a book-length interview with the German journalist Peter Seewald published in 1996 as The Salt of the Earth. Nothing is really new in Benedict's present formulation except, perhaps, his sense of urgency as the hour grows late and the moment of truth approaches. In the cited essay, Benedict excoriates the pessimism of Oswald Spengler, who claimed to have discovered a deterministic pattern of rise and fall of civilizations. Instead, he argues that "the fate of a society always depends upon its creative minorities", and that "Christians should look upon themselves as just such a creative minority".
I agree with the pope, not with my namesake. My choice of nom de guerre is ironic rather than semiotic. The fact that the West still has such a leader as Benedict XVI in itself is cause for optimism. It might be too late for Europe, but it is not too late for the United States, and that is where the pope's mustard seeds may fall on fertile ground.
#1
Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as though they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen - at least by some people - as a liability rather than as a source of hope. Here it is obligatory to compare today's situation with the decline of the Roman Empire.
This sums up the bulk of Euroland in a nutshell. It also sums up much of the left in the U.S.
Yes, one's future is artistic/philosophical/architectural heritage, to some extent. But without humans beings, it's all for nought.
It may seem new that people are seeing this behavioral tendency and describing it, but it isn't. Decades ago, in his book The Silmarillion, Tolkien wrote about something very much like this situation in a short story named "Akallabeth". The Silmarillion is a good but lengthy and difficult book, but it might be worth it for 'burgers to pick up a copy, read this particular short story contained within, and then look at the frontispiece and check the year of first publication.
One of the great challenges of the West is the need to craft a society where there is freedom of choice for people in their pursuit of careers and avocations yet there is sufficient social norming pressure to induce them to breed in sustainable numbers. The current state of our culture, particularly with regard to feminism in its current guise and the expectation set it tries to prmulgate, will not be up to the task.
Some very lofty notions and high ideals may, unfortunately, have to be modified, even jettisoned in order to maintain a sufficient birthrate. I don't necessarily like this, but we may be forced to accept the fact in the face of the alternative - extinction of the West.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/19/2006 6:47
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I disagree about what motivates people to breed.
Economics shows that in a poor society, no matter what other variables, people have a lot of children, when children are seen as both a money-making venture for the family and possibly support in later years for the old.
However, at a certain economic threshold, which varies by country, people stop having large families, as children move from the "credit" column to the "debit" column for their parents and the rest of their families. They are seen as hard work, expensive, and destined to leave their family as soon as they can.
Government has in past proven that it cannot significantly increase the number of children a couple wish to have, but they can further inhibit their desire, so that they have even fewer than two children per couple.
The reason for this is straightforward: the government is trying to help, instead of just getting out of the way. This interference, which invariably emphasises "child welfare", makes parenting an even more onerous task. They keep trying to raise the "responsibility" bar for people naturally overwhelmed with responsibility already.
So the way to get more children is to purposefully set up the conditions in which people *want* to breed, where children aren't a burden, and are again desireable.
Areas, regions, or parts of cities subtly set aside for breeding parents and children--nobody over the age of 40 or so. These places need employment, but for the male only, and otherwise need to be boring. Entertainment and materialism need to be carefully controlled, so that savings rates are high.
The area needs to be very child-oriented, with no contraception or abortion available, and housing built to cluster 5-7 families together with a "common yard" between them. These type cluster-houses have been shown to be very conducive to young parents.
Some degree of coercion needs to be introduced, such as encouraging single parents to marry, and an emphasis on conformity as far as having large families. Adults who medically cannot have children need to be ushered out. Conversely, there should be no sanction against adultery. At some point, even a small amount of fertility drugs might be introduced, to bring about increased multiple births for parents not breeding properly.
Only at this point, when you have couples busily making children, do you start to need the schools, clinics, and other up-front government services. But these have to be as stress free as possible.
Even what little entertainment is offered should emphasize having children.
This is a comprehensive scheme, an ideal unlikely to happen; but the more elements that do happen, the more likely a birthrate will go up.
#3
It appears to me, 'moose, that you have just declared that "the government is trying to help, instead of just getting out of the way" and then you have issued a prescription that cannot be filled except through governmental interference: "Areas, regions, or parts of cities subtly set aside ", "Entertainment and materialism need to be carefully controlled", etc. Put it on eastern-European soil and it almost sounds like an old Nazi breeding plan.
#5
Anonymoose don't look for solutions in economic rationality. A hint "an organism is not adapted to its environment, it is adapted to the environment of its ancestors."
#6
Darrell: Not Soviet, but Levittown and similar communities in post-WWII America. Much of what I am describing has already been done, resulting in the "baby boom generation".
Back then, much of what happened was unintentional, coincidental, and circumstantial, but the results were spectacular. That is why America in the 1950s was full of young children.
Today, to replicate the situation, the government would have to be deeply involved, but indirectly, not like today when they are in your face, in your wallet, and far more interested in productivity than procreation.
Who else but the government could prepare an area for new young families to occupy? Who else could provide the right kind of jobs and all the other incentives?
But until the children were born, the government has to leave the reproduction part alone. It can't brow-beat the parents and constantly remind them of their 20-year-long upcoming responsibilities. You don't want parents that are afraid of having children, scared at all the work, frightened of government intervention at the slightest lapse, etc.
Instead, the government actually has to let potential parents be somewhat irresponsible. To put it bluntly, most pregnancies are unintentional; and were it not for alcohol, the human species would be a fraction of its size.
'moose, while I applaud your goals you will make contraception illegal over my dead female body.
And fair warning - I won't die easily, as I own guns and know how to use them.
Just thought I'd contribute a friendly difference of opinion here .... ;-)
There are serious issues in a society that is so self-indulgent it does not value children. But let's leave 20th century authoritarian mass-state solutions to the graveyard, whether of the Nazi or the Stalinist kind.
With rapidly increasing life spans, we will be able to both pursue careers and have children. Increasingly even my generation, the baby boomers, have had more than one career in succession and that will be much more true for the younger generations.
What is needed is a sense that the future holds exciting possibilities. For that, people will work AND have kids -- and raise them well, too.
#8
Who else but the government could prepare an area for new young families to occupy? Who else could provide the right kind of jobs and all the other incentives?
The marketplace, as soon as people really want them.
#9
moose - you don't EVEN wanna get into trying to reconnect my vasectomy. We're not that friendly :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 14:23
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Wrt reform: While the Koran is supposed to be eternal, most of sharia is based on the hadith. The debate over sharia law was closed off over a thousand years ago, but people try from time to time to reopen ijtihad. So for all the respect Muslims pay sharia, it isn't "eternal" in the same way the Koran is supposed to be. So at least in theory it is possible to go back and rework sharia, perhaps adding a new principle and getting rid of a lot of the bogus hadith. (If I recall correctly, Khadafi tried something like that.)
Problem is that we infidels have no standing in such an enterprise. We can coax, but if the Muslims don't want to do it, it won't happen.
Me? I think Benedict isn't quite right: Islam _can_ reform, but won't. Not soon, anyway.
Posted by: James ||
02/19/2006 15:39
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and were it not for alcohol, the human species would be a fraction of its size.
Hate to burst your bubble, but there's a billion screaming Mohammedans on the planet and hardly a one of them was conceived through the divine intervention of St. Bud or St. Jack or St. Jim or St. Chivas.
That said, I understand where 'moose is coming from. I just vehemently oppose trying to enforce it through laws or other means.
Also, having grown up in a 3 generation household, I'm not at all sure it is good policy to keep grandparents away from their grandkids on a daily basis. The 50s suburbs were an anomaly in history and had their pathologies. Older generations are an important part of a kid's upbringing IMO.
#15
The Soviet way would be to force people into such communities. The American way is to incentivize them in, while trying to exclude those who aren't interested in reproducing.
In other words, creating a good environment for reproduction for people who, when in such a good environment, want to reproduce.
And though people like to copulate just for the sake of copulating; and women's desire to have careers are also valid desires; neither are conducive to having five or six children. Which is what you need to have, at least at first.
So these incentives are not for them. Sorry you can't have it all. Either five kids or a career is an exclusive or.
People who cannot be allowed into the community are those who do not want to reproduce, but who do want to copulate. One such individual can prevent two other people from reproducing by their interference. Like sterile screwworm flies.
While grandparents can have a good influence, such a community would have to be a 'Sun City' in reverse: that is, in Sun City, the young under 60 people can visit, but they are not allowed to stay there overnight, regularly.
In this case, the grandparents could visit all they wanted, but could not live in the community proper. The adults you want to have children have to interact with a lot, and mutually support their peers. When couples are surrounded by other couples with young children and pregnancies, they are far more inclined towards children themselves.
ROME - An Italian Cabinet minister blamed for sparking riots in Libya by wearing a T-shirt showing blasphemous cartoons resigned on Saturday, the news agency ANSA reported. Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli had been under increasing pressure to step down after his decision to wear the shirt featuring caricatures was blamed for the protests on Friday at the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which at least 10 people were killed.
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Two Macedonian contractors have been kidnapped near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the British military said on Saturday. British military spokesman Major Peter Cripps said they were abducted on Thursday while driving in a vehicle during routine work. "I can confirm that on the morning of Feb. 16 two Macedonians were abducted near Basra. The Iraqi police has been informed and is investigating," he said. Basra, Iraq's second city, has been relatively free of the violence plaguing the central part of the country but it has witnessed kidnappings.
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Not sure how much of a security risk this deal is, but some think it is, so it may be of interest to the Burg.
WASHINGTON Feb 18, 2006 (AP) A company at the Port of Miami has sued to block the takeover of shipping operations there by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. It is the first American courtroom effort to capsize a $6.8 billion sale already embroiled in a national debate over security risks at six major U.S. ports affected by the deal.
The Miami company, a subsidiary of Eller & Company Inc., presently is a business partner with London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which Dubai Ports World purchased last week. In a lawsuit in Florida circuit court, the Miami subsidiary said that under the sale it will become an "involuntary partner" with Dubai's government and it may seek more than $10 million in damages.
The Miami subsidiary, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., said the sale to Dubai was prohibited under its partnership agreement with the British firm and "may endanger the national security of the United States." It asked a judge to block the takeover and said it does not believe the company, Florida or the U.S. government can ensure Dubai Ports World's compliance with American security rules.
Sounds like a weak legal argument to me.
A spokesman for Peninsular and Oriental indicated the company had not yet seen the lawsuit and declined to comment immediately.
The lawsuit represents the earliest skirmish over lucrative contracts among the six major American ports where Peninsular and Oriental runs major commercial operations: New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. The lawsuit was filed moments before the court closed Friday and disclosed late Saturday by people working on the case.
The sale, already approved by the Bush administration, has drawn escalating criticism by lawmakers in Washington who maintain the United Arab Emirates is not consistent in its support of U.S. terrorism-fighting efforts. At least one Senate oversight hearing is planned for later this month.
The Port of Miami is among the nation's busiest. It is a hub for the nation's cruise ships, which carry more than 6 million passengers a year, and the seaport services more than 30 ocean carriers, which delivered more than 1 million cargo containers there last year.
A New Jersey lawmaker said Saturday he intends to require U.S. port security officials be American citizens, to prevent overseas companies operating domestic shipping facilities from hiring foreigners in such sensitive positions. Republican Frank A. LoBiondo, chairman of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, cited "significant" security worries over the sale to Dubai Ports World.
Caught by surprise over the breadth of concerns expressed in the United States, Dubai is cautiously organizing its response. The company quietly dispatched advisers to reassure port officials along the East Coast, and its chief operating officer internationally respected American shipping executive Edward "Ted" H. Bilkey is expected to travel to Washington this week for meetings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
The Bush administration in recent days has defended its approval of the sale, and has resisted demands by Congress to reconsider. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described the United Arab Emirates on Friday as a "long-standing friend and ally" and said the United States and UAE had a good relationship.
One of those mayors, Martin O'Malley of Baltimore, on Saturday harshly criticized the president's approval of the ports deal as an "outrageous, reckless and irresponsible decision" and urged the White House to reconsider the sale. Baltimore is one of the affected ports, and O'Malley is co-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Homeland Security. O'Malley also is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Maryland.
Just an impartial mayor looking out for his citizens.
In New York, families of some victims from the September 2001 terror attacks planned to criticize the deal during a press conference Sunday with Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of the sale. Schumer said he is dubious any assurances can justify involvement by the United Arab Emirates in American ports.
Schumer and other critics have cited the UAE's history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against New York and Washington. "A lot of families are incensed by this, because you're talking about the safety of the country," said William Doyle, whose son Joseph died at the World Trade Center. ""We have a problem already in our ports because all of our containers aren't checked, but now they want to add this unknown? It's not right."
Any company that runs an American port has to comply with American laws, including all the security requirements that might come down from DHS. Whether that company is based in Dubai or in Kansas, the rules are the same.
LoBiondo's legislative proposal would amend federal maritime laws to require facility security officers, which operate at terminals in every U.S. port, to be American citizens. LoBiondo said there are presently no citizenship requirements, which he said permits foreign companies who are or become partners in domestic terminal operations to employ security officers who are not Americans. "We cannot be lax about our nation's security nor fail to recognize that our ports are realistic targets of terrorists," LoBiondo said.
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#3
Caught by surprise over the breadth of concerns expressed in the United States, Dubai is cautiously organizing its response I bet they are
Any company that runs an American port has to comply with American laws, including all the security requirements that might come down from DHS. Whether that company is based in Dubai or in Kansas, the rules are the same. Steve just wondering, wouldn't this make monitoring these guys more complicated?
Posted by: Jan ||
02/19/2006 15:24
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Monitor what? all the Dubai natives who are coming to the US to operate the ports? If we don't want the Arabs to use the dollars we sell them for oil to buy the country we should stop.
LONDON - More than 10,000 people joined an angry central London protest on Saturday against the blasphemous cartoons that have infuriated many in the Muslim world. Free speech cheap insults, read one demonstrators placard. How dare you insult the blessed Prophet Muhammed (PTUI)? asked another.
Buses brought participants from cities around Britain to gather in Trafalgar Square, and they planned to march later on Saturday to Hyde Park.
Funded how? By whom? From where? Follow the money.
Speakers shouted from the podium and the crowd yelled back as the demonstration grew increasingly angry. Every Muslim understands this basic concept of the centrality in importance of Muhammad (PTUI) to their lives, said Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Muslim Action Committee, which organized the event. So when he is demonized, the young and old are deeply affected. As long as the abuse is ongoing we will continue to rise up in protest.
The Muslim world has been seething outraged by the drawings, first published in a Danish newspaper last September then reprinted with three extra cartoons added by a Danish iman, though no one ever seems to mention that in European papers in recent weeks in the name of press freedom.
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#1
Get the fuck over it already
This mind set being the height of stupidity grown men?!
Posted by: Jan ||
02/19/2006 1:04
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An earlier article noted that several demonstrators were killed during the riots to protest the Mo-toons; seems the London event fell short, in that none of the protesters collected his virgins. Maybe that is the way to remove these asshats; set them to seething and in the ensuing frenzy, they turn on anything, including each other.
#3
Could have sworn it was 80k last week, then 40k, now 10k. The numbers just keep going down.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/19/2006 2:27
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I think it's time to issue the police with tranquilizer dart guns. Set snipers up on the rooftops with such things, and start by taking out those carrying signs, then those guarding the speakers... but never the speakers themselves... then start rumours about unnamed communicable diseases common to places where many men go shoeless. Oh, and rush the fallen ones to isolation wards in hospital, investigate them thoroughly, then deport them as soon as they are deemed healthy enough to be sent back whence they came.
Five Yemeni soldiers and an army captain have been killed in battles with rebels in the northwest of the country, near the border with Saudi Arabia. A local tribal leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal, said the army launched reprisal attacks on Saturday near Saada, about 180km north of San'a, the Yemeni capital. The tribal official said at least 22 people - 16 of them government forces - had been killed in battles in the region over the past week, including the five reported dead in fighting on Friday. Earlier this month, other tribal officials reported at least 18 soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded.
The fighting dates to June 2004, when rebel Shia Muslim cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al-Houthi lead his forces in an uprising against the government. Al-Houthi was killed in September 2004, but his followers have continued their minority rebellion. Tribal officials said government troops were attacking rebel hideouts near Saada on Saturday and that dozens of families had fled the region in the past two weeks. More than 600 rebels and soldiers have died in the intermittent fighting since the rebellion began nearly two years ago. Al-Hawthi, known for his fiercely anti-US views, had been accused of sedition, forming an illegal armed group and attacking government buildings and security forces. Government officials refused to confirm accounts of the fighting, and security forces prevented reporters from entering the region.
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President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday asked Hamas to form the next Palestinian government and said he expected it to respect a commitment to talks with Israel. Abbas said in a speech at the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament that the government must follow all agreements signed with Israel, a state the militant Islamist group formally seeks to destroy. "The Hamas movement has become the majority in the Legislative Council and it will be tasked with the formation of the new government," Abbas said.
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Shanghai: China and Iran are close to setting plans to develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field, a multibillion dollar deal that comes as Tehran faces the prospect of sanctions over its nuclear programme.
According to Caijing, a respected financial magazine, a Chinese government delegation is due to visit Iran as early as March to formally sign an agreement allowing China Petrochemical or Sinopec to develop Yadavaran. The deal would complete a memorandum of understanding signed in 2004. In exchange for developing Yadavaran, one of Iran's largest onshore oil fields, China would agree to buy 10 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year for 25 years beginning in 2009, the report said, citing Sinopec board member Mou Shuling.
The deal is thought to be potentially worth about $100 billion. Chinese and Iranian officials in Beijing said they could not confirm the report.
Staff at Iran's embassy in Beijing said they were aware of the report but had not heard Mou's remarks, which Caijing said were made at a recent embassy event. A written statement from the Iranian Embassy noted that the two countries have been working together in various energy fields.
The Caijing report said that Chinese and Iranian officials met in December for talks on the project. It cited Mou as saying that the two governments and companies involved were moving ahead with the deal despite the controversy over Iran's nuclear programme. Western nations fear it is using the technology to develop weapons, but Tehran claims it is to produce electricity.
According to the Caijing report, Sinopec would hold a 51 per cent stake in the Yadavaran project, with India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), taking 29 per cent. The remainder would go to Iranian companies and possibly to Royal Dutch Shell, which has also expressed interest, it said. The report said there was some disagreement over intended capacity, with Iran asking China to agree to daily output of 300,000 barrels of oil, while Sino-pec preferred to set a target of 180,000 to avoid excess production.
Sinopec, Asia's largest refiner, has shares traded in New York, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Iranian state television is to air the videoed 'interviews' of seven people convicted of involvement in recent bomb attacks in the southwestern oil city of Ahvaz, press reports said on Saturday. The governor of Khuzestan province, Amir Hayat-Moqadam, said the "interviews with the ones responsible for the bombings... will be aired before the verdict is carried out". The seven were convicted of murder, 'waging war against God' and being 'corrupt on earth'.
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LAHORE: Security agencies on Saturday arrested five people from Batapur on suspicion of links with the Indian intelligence agency RAW. Sources said that security agencies arrested the suspects as they were attempting to smuggle drugs across the border at 6:00pm.
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Afghanistan has given Pakistan detailed information about members of the Taliban who Afghanistan says are orchestrating a stubborn insurgency from Pakistani soil, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday. Karzai said he was now waiting for action. "We gave our brothers a lot of information, very detailed information about individuals, locations and other issues," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul, referring to the intelligence handed over to the Pakistani authorities. Karzai refused to give details of the information handed over to Pakistan.
Don't hold your breath, Hamid.
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#1
testing, testing, 1-2-3
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/19/2006 0:34
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.
Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for Esteshadion, or Martyrdom Seekers, boasted of having hundreds of potential bombers in his talk at a seminar on suicide-bombings tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University. ``With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities,'' Samadi said. ``If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their (U.S. and British) sensitive places are quiet close to Iranian borders,'' Samadi said.
And our security is quite good.
Hasan Abbasi, a university instructor and former member of the elite Revolutionary Guards, told the audience of about 200 that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons as claimed by the United States and some of its allies. ``Our martyrdom-seekers are our nuclear weapons,'' said Abbasi, the event's main speaker.
Um, yeah, right, even for the Mad Mullahs that's pretty brazen.
After his speech, about 50 idiotsfoolsrubes students filled out membership applications. Esteshadion was formed in late 2004, calling for members on a sporadic basis at Friday prayer ceremonies, state-sponsored rallies and at the group's occasional meetings.
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#1
the graphic should be a rabid poodle. Cowards and idiots. Iran's finest from the low end of the IQ curve
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 0:10
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Better suicide bombers than suicide nuke bombers
A regional leader of Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP-Janajuddho) ...
A communist? You mean, he wasn't an Islamist?
... was killed in 'crossfire' between his accomplices and members of the Rapid Action Battalion at Baoishona village under Naragati Police Station of Narail district at midnight on Thursday.
I have no clue where that is.
He was identified as Mohammad Akhter Hossain, 34, son of late Omar Ali Shaikh of Joar village under Rupsha upazila of Khulna.
"Never heard of him! Does he have a mother?"
Rab sources said Akhter was arrested in Savar area of Dhaka Thursday morning.
"Akhter, why don't you take a stroll down these stairs with us?"
On his confessional statement, ...
... at which point Akhter would have told them anything ...
... the members of the elite force set out for Baoishona village, taking Akhter with them, to recover firearms and arrest his cohorts.
They always have their secret lair in some out of the way village. No sense having it in, say, Dhaka or Chittagong.
When they reached Mollapara Dargavita area of the village, Akhter's accomplices opened fire on the Rab men, forcing them to retaliate.
As usual, nobody hit anything, not even Akhter, who was already dead when he arrived ...
According to a Rab press release, Akhter was shot during the encounter and died instantly.
"I'm coming 'Lizabeth! [KA-BANG] rosebud!"
Akhter confessed to his involvement in extortion, murder, abduction, rape and bomb attacks in different areas of Khulna district, the press release added.
Was that before or after he died, not that it makes a difference.
Rupsha police said the PBCP leader used to raise tolls from transport owners and shrimp traders of Rupsha upazila.
Nice little racket, 'cept now he's doorknocker dead.
The Rab men recovered a single barrel gun and three bullets from the spot.
That's a single barrel shutter gun ...
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Major General Hussein Ali Kamal, under secretary of the Iraqi Interior Ministry for intelligence affairs, said: "We learned about the existence of death squads from US newspaper reports. We had no information about these squads from our agencies or from US forces."
"Tell them, Hogan!"
Speaking to Asharq al-Awsat by telephone from his office in Baghdad, Kamal added, "We have no details, except US newspaper reports indicating that US forces arrested 22 people wearing official police uniforms and holding an Iraqi official." He said, "The Iraqi Interior Ministry immediately opened an investigation yesterday. If we had any information on these squads, we would give it to the media. However, we will wait for the results of the investigation to obtain definite information."
Commenting on new torture pictures of Iraqi detainees in the Abu-Ghraib prison that were published recently, Kamal said, "These are the same pictures that were published a year ago and which caused huge media and political uproar. Our government denounced the incidents at the time."
"How the hell many times do you expect us to denounce them? Should we put it on our answering machine?"
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Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies. In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracy's traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons.
One senior mullah has now said it is "only natural" to have nuclear bombs as a "countermeasure" against other nuclear powers, thought to be a reference to America and Israel.
The pronouncement is particularly worrying because it has come from Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of the ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is widely regarded as the cleric closest to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nicknamed "Professor Crocodile" because of his harsh conservatism, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi's group opposes virtually any kind of rapprochement with the West and is believed to have influenced President Ahmadinejad's refusal to negotiate over Iran's nuclear programme.
The comments, which are the first public statement by the Yazdi clerical cabal on the nuclear issue, will be seen as an attempt by the country's religious hardliners to begin preparing a theological justification for the ownership - and if necessary the use - of atomic bombs.
They appeared on Rooz, an internet newspaper run by members of Iran's fractured reformist movement, which picked them up from remarks by Mohsen Gharavian reported on the media agency IraNews. Rooz reported that Mohsen Gharavian, a lecturer based in a religious school in the holy city of Qom, had declared "for the first time that the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to Sharia."
He also said: "When the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-measure. According to Sharia too, only the goal is important."
There's a bald statement.
Mohsen Gharavian did not specify what kinds of "goals" would justify a nuclear strike, but it is thought that any military intervention by the United States would be considered sufficient grounds. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has previously justified use of suicide bombers against "enemies of Islam" and believes that America is bent on destroying the Islamic republic and its values. The latest insight into the theocracy's thinking comes as the US signals a change in strategy on Iran, after the decision earlier this month to report it to the United Nations Security Council for its resumption of banned nuclear research.
While Washington has made it clear that military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites would be a "last resort", White House officials are also targeting change from within by funding Iranian opposition groups. The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said the Bush administration would seek an extra $75 million (£43 million) from Congress to help to support Iran's fractured pro-democracy movement and fund Farsi-language satellite broadcasts.
The announcement is the clearest public indication that Washington has adopted a two-track approach to Iran, combining the diplomatic search for a united international condemnation of its illicit nuclear programme with efforts to undermine the regime's status. The new tactic amounts to the pursuit of regime change by peaceful means, although that phrase is still not stated as official US policy. Washington hopes that a dedicated satellite channel beamed into Iran will encourage domestic dissent, such as the current strike by bus drivers - the most significant display of organised opposition since the 1999 and 2003 student protests.
Ms Rice unveiled the change of tactics a week after a visit to Washington by a senior British delegation that pressed for a co-ordinated Western policy on using satellite television and the internet to bolster internal opposition. The State Department had previously been wary of the two-track strategy.
As the Sunday Telegraph reported last week, Pentagon strategists have been updating plans for a another policy of "last resort" - blitzing Iranian nuclear sites in an effort to stop the regime gaining the atomic bomb.
The bus strike, which has led to the jailing of more than 1,000 drivers, was originally sparked by an industrial dispute over unpaid wages benefits. But the robustness of the state response has indicated the nervousness of the Ahmadinejad regime over any internal dissent. Reports from Iran say that Massoud Osanlou, the leader of the bus drivers' union, was arrested at his home by members of the Basij, the pro-regime militia, and had part of his tongue cut out as a warning to be quiet.
But the dispute already risks disillusioning Mr Ahmadinejad's core of working class support - among them municipal workers - who voted him into power on his promises to improve the lot of Iran's poor.
#4
Hmmm isn't that appropiate, but dont worry according to them, they in no way want to develop nuclear weapons. Hahahahah fortunately the Iranians are obviously just not that smart when it comes to hiding their intentions.
#5
To be used to eliminate Dubya & Co? as well as against US/US-led invasion on Iranian-ME soil, the ultimate "suicide attack" ala NORTH KOREA 's NATIONAL SUICIDE = ANTI-US REGIONAL WARMONGERING!?
By Mansoor Ijaz, MANSOOR IJAZ is an American Muslim of Pakistani ancestry.
ANOTHER WEEK, another Muslim country burns in rage over months-old Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an unflattering light. On Friday it was Libya, and earlier in the week it was my father's homeland, Pakistan, where violent protests were scattered across the nation. Some Muslims have decided that burning cities in defense of a prophet's teachings, which none of them seem willing to practice, is preferable to participating in rational debate about the myths and realities of a religion whose worst enemies are increasingly its own adherents.
This week's events should compel those of us who claim Islam as our system of philosophical guidance to ask hard questions of ourselves in order to revive the religion's essential foundation: justice, peaceful and tolerant coexistence, compassion, the search for knowledge and unwavering faith in the unity of God.
The raging Muslims in the streets of Lahore and London have missed a revelation: it is in America that a Muslim can live in a decent society that comes closest to those ideals. The societies that they claim to be loyal to, in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan,and so on, are the societies in which Islam can't be practiced on a foundation of 'justice' and 'compassion'. There's no such thing in those thugocracies, and there won't be in any caliphate that al-Qaeda or the GPSC would have Muslims build. Orrin Judd asks an interesting question: if Mohammed were to come back today, in which country would he say that the people live with the kind of dignity he demanded?
I am an American by birth and a Muslim by faith. For many of my American friends, I am a voice of reason in a sea of Islamist darkness, while many Muslims have called me an "Uncle Tom" for ingratiating myself with the vested interests they seek to destroy through their violence. Mostly, though, I try not to ignore the harsh realities the followers of my religion are often unwilling to face.
The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank.
Thus demonstrating the hypocrisy of the media as well.
The hypocrisy only starts there. Muslims and Arabs have done pitifully little to help improve the capacity of the Palestinian people to be good neighbors to their Israeli brethren. Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim "haves" put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the "have nots" to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages.
He seems to have a few Saoodi princes in mind. One could try to argue that every society has had its robber barons, its rapacious wealthy and powerful few. We certainly have in America. Yet it was, in substantial part, due to our religious beliefs that we made the robber barons yield enough, and in the right ways, to make our society more just. What chance do the Saoodis have when the princes and the clerics together maintain a chokehold on their society?
The second truth one that the West needs to come to grips with is that there is no such human persona as a "moderate Muslim." You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there.
While one can reject the claim of 'moderate'-ness in one's own faith -- indeed, one should do so, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian -- Muslims have to recognize, as Jews and Christians have done, that a person can be whole in one's faith and still be politically moderate, pleural and inclusive. That's the point of the Christian injunction to 'render what is due to Caesar'. Islam needs a Reformation: one wonders if the Kurds, the southeast Asians, and the Shi'a might be closer to that than the Arab Sunnis.
Haters of Islam use the simplicity and elegance of its black-and-white rigor for devious political advantage by classifying the Koran's religious edicts as the cult-like behavior of fanatics. The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values, or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war. The cartoon imbroglio offered Western media an opportunity to portray the prophet in his many dignified dimensions, not just the distorted ones; sadly, there were few takers.
Not that the Western media would have been spared had it done so. Remember, the cartoons were ignored for months until a Danish iman, prompted by people we haven't yet identified, decided to use additional, fake cartoons to whip up the hatred. Think a Danish newspaper could have, at that point, engaged in some dialogue on how to portray Mohammed?
But to look at angry Islam's reaction on television each night forces the question of what might be possible if all the lost energy of thousands of rioting Muslims went into the villages of Aceh to rebuild lost homes or into Kashmir to construct schools.
In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam's mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected the very system Islam's holy scriptures urged them to learn and practice. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize those of us in the West and to try to bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate or house.
This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not words, the sooner a great religion will return to its rightful role as guide for nearly a quarter of humanity.
We, like he, are waiting for Muslims to do just that. Show us the peace, tolerance and decency of your faith, show us how you take care of the poor, the sick, the lame in your societies, show us how you protect your children, show us how you provide a way for people to live in peace with themselves and with each other. It took us Christians a long time to figure out how to do that, and by no means are we perfect. But you've had almost as long, and while we won't expect perfection, there has to be more than what you've shown us in recent years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/19/2006
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#1
Sorry, Steve. I've given up hope. I don't even trust people like Ijaz; he's just one more Muzzy using taqqiyya. Screw the lot of them; they constitute a clear and present danger to national security. I want to see mass deportations from America and the West and Iran a smoking black radioactive glass sheet.
The world needs to be deislamicized the same way it was denazified after 1945 and the sooner we get started the better. Unfortunately for us we'll have to have another 9-11--or worse--before the national will to make that happen manifests itself. Even then, we'll probably have to do serious damage to our own freedoms; we'll have to either lock up or execute the lefti/tranzi idiots that comprise most of the Democratic Party because they constitute a very dangerous fifth column in our midst.
I see it getting very ugly in the next three to five years and I strongly suggest that any 'Burgers who haven't started buying guns, ammo, food and getting to know their neighbors well start doing so immediately. Private citizens are running out of time to prepare for the apparently inevitable and those who aren't prepared are going to pay a high and bitter price.
Posted by: mac ||
02/19/2006 8:06
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#2
Ijaz is still living with the internal contradictions of his religion.
for example he somehow believes the west is the one that can demonstrate true islamas in this,
"...The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values..."
and he doesn't even understand his own prophet as in this,
"... or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war."
he had about a dozen wives through connections with his followers; he also had about a dozen wives that he got when his gangsters massacred the men of other tribes and in addition to this he had another dozen or two sex slaves.
What I like to ask Moslems is "Gee with so many wives and being the greatest fellow who ever lived, its remarkable that he had no sons and only one daughter."
#3
"to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war"
If Mo (PTUI) had not incited those wars, there wouldn't have been so many dead husbands and fathers.
#4
here is a quote by Robert Spencer over at http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
"...Unfortunately, Mr. Ijaz seems to be a man between worlds; his loyalty subject to the claims of both. Eventually, I believe, he will be forced to choose; and it is that very choice he seeks to avoid by writing these kinds of pieces."
#6
to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war
That's a funny way to spell enslaved which is what Mo did to them - often after he and his gang murdered their husbands.
prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings
The commody of cource was slaves and booty taken during one of his raids. Those the the unique muslim values he is talking about....
#7
I found his argument compelling and he should be given a platform. The idea that all Muslims, billions of them, are bad people and should be exterminated is fantasy at it's worst. Oh yeah, lets fire up those ovens so we that we can live in a peaceful world. bleah.
Ijaz has the answer to the problem that we face. Bring the Muslims and their religion into the 21st century. Get the good Muslim people to stop blaming "others" and start acting like a religion of peace.
You only need look to the West to see the number of idiots that can be rallied to support evil ideas like Communism or Nazism.
You want to talk about what we need to do to keep terrorists out of our midst - be they communist, fascist or islamist - count me in. Start talking about all Muslims as terrorists, count me out.
#9
I agree with you, mhw. But the only way out of this mess is to recognize that the solution is to bring the good Muslims on board to ideas that any human being can agree with and Ijaz is doing that here. I understand taqqiyya. But this seems sincere to me and I think we should applaud him and encourage other Muslims to adopt his ideas.
#10
This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not words, the sooner a great religion will return to its rightful role as guide for nearly a quarter of humanity.
Four years since 9/11 -- the "truest believers" haven't stood up in noticeable numbers.
34 years since Munich -- the "truest believers" haven't stood up.
How many generations are we supposed to wait for these "truest believers" to stand up? Perhaps we should view Islam as akin to socialism: "Nice idea in theory, but the practice is always so screwed up it just makes things worse."
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 12:38
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#11
2b -- Ijaz so horribly mis-states the history of Mohammed, how can you trust him on anything? Sure, Mo' married to help the widows and orphans left by wars... wars he started. Why didn't Ijaz mention that?
I don't trust anyone who plays the "Islam means peace" crap. It's a lie, and when I hear someone repeating that lie, I have to wonder what else the person's lying about.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 12:44
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#12
Nice idea in theory, but the practice is always so screwed up it just makes things worse."
ok, I agree. But then what?
I've read your posts enough to know that you don't agree with mac's call for Iran a smoking black radioactive glass sheet.
This isn't a problem that is going to go away by demanding that Muslim's renounce their faith. I would wager that despite the protests and the media reports that most Muslims really don't like the idea of suicide bombers blowing up children in baby carriges.
#13
2b, I too am trying to reconcile my Christian faith with what I believe we and the rest of the West are facing. I agree with you: I don't want to kill huge numbers, they cannot be forced to give up their faith, there are innocents etc. But the moderates, or truely faithful have been silent.
We need a plan now. If we continue to wait, the next war will be fought with nuclear weapons. I love my neighbor, but I love my own family more.
I hope that you or someone else can propose a plan that avoids the slaughter that I see looming.
#14
I would wager that despite the protests and the media reports that most Muslims really don't like the idea of suicide bombers blowing up children in baby carriges.
Then they should stop supporting those who do. They should expose those who do.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 12:58
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#15
Well said, SR-71. And I completely agree with you RC. I just don't think that the answer is to lump them all into one group.
Islam is a religion based on blame. I would go further and say that Mohammed, for power and greed, created a new religion that allowed him to do what Christianity does not - convert by the sword.
None of that matters. It is what it is. Now we need to move forward. I think Ijaz is sincere. We should support his efforts.
I don't have the answers. But I'm tired of hearing that we should just "get rid of them all". It's unrealistic.
#17
that's true, inspector. I'd say that we should look to Christianity to see what caused whites to stay silent to the abuses by the KKK. I'd wager it was fear. But the problem is that the KKK distorted Christianity and the Jihadists actually are adhereing to their faith.
That said, I still think that we are best served by appealing to the good in Muslim people. I believe that good and evil is found in each of us. When we sink to calling for extermination of good people, we become the ones who are evil.
#18
the good v evil is not a 50/50 balance in all people. Rioting muslims may only be stupidly evil, but have redeaming qualities when they go home and kick the old lady in the burka? Don't buy into the idea all people have good in them...note the good muslim mom who is happy her sons were suicide bombers.
#19
This kind of debate (along with humor of a style I find that reminds me of my military past (USMC/USA)) is a great release for me. But let me pose a serious question. The challenge for those of us in the prevention business is to figure out how to craft domestic intelligence collection priorities regarding Muslims. Over and over again we encounter prohibitions against "profiling", yet daily I read reports and suspicious activities summaries from federal, state and local sources that paint a picture over and over again about suspicious activities at this mosque or that. Despite obvious radical elements in their place of worship, there is never a peep from the rest of the believers that attend the place. It seems like the overwhelming majority of followers are content to ignore out of fear or passively support radical activities, and their tacit support suggests that they cannot be relied upon to stop the clandestine activity. Couple that with an enormous amount of fund raising activity that flows overseas, and what can one conclude except that the MAJORITY of US Muslims are at least a passive threat?
#20
I am sorry 2b, but I think we are going to fight a war that is like what we did to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, muslims seemed to want that war, I know we will win it I am just sad so many are going to die.
#21
but I think we are going to fight a war that is like what we did to Nazi Germany
sadily, you are probably right. But we will need the good Muslims to win. Iraq is proof of that. I'm not naive to the gravity of the problem that we face.
I'll just say that if the media worked in our favor - I think we could head this thing off. I really do. But instead - just like with communism - they stoke the fires of discontent and as a result, thousands will die. And then, after millions die, they will just sit back and say ... it's the West's fault.
#22
"...what can one conclude except that the MAJORITY of US Muslims are at least a passive threat?"
Passive threat, at best-- and that's being extremely optimistic, IMO.
My kind of "moderate Muslim" is a Muslim who actively affirms, over and over to anyone who will listen, his absolute committment to fully support the Western (especially American) system of separation of church-- or mosque-- and state, and who works actively to drive out the extremist elements which have taken over his faith.
I have seen only a pitifully small number of such people since 9/11-- so few, in fact, that the number might as well be zero for all the help we can expect from them.
As far as I'm concerned, this notion of the "moderate Muslim" is nothing more than a pleasant, soothing falsehood concocted by well-intentioned people to keep from facing the reality of an Islam that constitutes a dire menace to our very survival.
JMHO...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/19/2006 14:25
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I would go further and say that Mohammed, for power and greed, created a new religion that allowed him to do what Christianity does not - convert by the sword.
Not to start that old religious argument again, but that statement is absurd, 2b. Christianity found plenty of converts at the point of the sword over the centuries, as well you know. That practice only stopped after the Thirty Years War in the 18th century of the Common Era.
What Mohammed did was found a new religion that allowed him to benefit personally from the those who did not convert at the point of the swords of himself and his robber gang. He'd hoped to benefit from pursuading the Jews that he was their long-awaited Messiah, and early on many in the region did think so (back when he was still praying in the direction of Jerusalem). But they fell away when he didn't usher in the Messianic Age and the restoration of the House of David to the throne in Jerusalem, and Mohammed never did forgive them for that.
I suspect (and I speak here as a North-Easterner and also a first generation American, so I have absolutely no solid data on which to base my conclusion -- therefore worth absolutely no more than the nothing you just paid to read it) that most Southern White Christians were silent about the activities of the KKK because they did not disapprove of them. That is, they had imbibed with their mother's milk the idea that the Blacks were naturally inferior, and that unless firmly suppressed would become a danger to themselves and others. And, while perhaps not entirely comfortable with individual actions against individuals known to themselves personally, rationalized the entirety as an uncomfortable necessity. In Nazi Germany there where many instances where people protected their Jewish friends, while merrily staging pogroms in the next community over... because those people were just Jooos.
Likewise, all those lovely Palestinian supporters justify the boomers because, as they are fond of saying, the Palestinians are victims of oppression. If Westerners can find such justification, what more do simple Muslims need to support passive acceptance? I agree that "Kill 'em all and let God sort it out," is both unworkable and evil. We cannot remove from the living over a billion people, most of whom passively accept the actions of perhaps as much as a few hundred thousand (nb: number pulled out of my hat, with no basis), even including those providing funds, and those rioting, raping, killing Christian schoolgirls, and pillaging local churches. We will have won when these passive supporters realize the cost of not objecting is too high. Which will take, I fear, a good deal of killing and destruction, flashed to television screens around the world.
The Muslim world must come to understand that, despite their clever manouvers in the UN and elsewhere, our armies cannot be stopped, and that Allah has no intention of helping them. The conquests of Afghanistan and Iraq were first stages of that lesson, but the world still thinks those victories can be rolled back by riots and rhetoric. They are wrong, because a simple majority of Americans (I don't think it's yet much more than that, but it suffices, and our numbers continue to grow -- the school kids took 9/11 personally) believes in the importance of this fight. And in Europe they are starting to see it, too, even if the politicians don't, yet.
But even if Europe does cave, I believe we can carry this fight on our own -- we know where the troops are barracked, we know where the leaders live, and we can rain destruction down upon them from beyond the horizon. The threats they hold -- dirty bombs, suicide bombers, even another oil boycott -- are none of them as dangerous to us as our hysterical media would like to believe. Even the 9/11 attacks, horrible as they were, killed only a few thousand in a country of several hundred million, stopped trading on the stock market for a few days, and cost the economy a few billion dollars. The attacks did not diminish our ability to defend ourselves, nor did they affect our cohesiveness as a society or significantly effect our productivity as the driver of the world economy.
We will win, it will get considerably uglier than it is now, but in the end Islam will be forced to join the modern world.
In the meantime, though, I think all mosques and Muslim organizations should be profiled until not a mouse squeeks in the basement that our intelligence services don't know about. ;-)
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/19/2006 14:44
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#25
Personally I think what we need is to get the articulate Islamic apologists on TV (and yes, their face will be pixilated and voice altered because of death threats).
Fox TV does have Robert Spencer on but needs to go the next step to have Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina or someone of that caliber on.
In the meantime, every month or so I write to the WaPo suggesting they have a column by an apostate.
#27
you make some good points, tw. First - your point is valid about the reasons that most whites stayed silent. It was no doubt a combination of fear of being ostracized as well as being indoctrinated to the belief that blacks were truly inferior. And to the problem that we face in that "moderate Muslims" share this same superiority mindset - you make an excellent point. However, Christianity as a religion had to be perverted to support both oppressing and killing one's neighbor, and Islam does not. I was using the example of the South as an example of something we might look to, to help bring good Muslims forward - while acknowledging the inherent problem that their texts condone bringing converts by the sword as well as not separating government from religion.
I'm not in the mood to defend Christianity. I believe Christ provided a path for a better way. That it's been abused throughout history to rally for poltical gain and greed is not news to me.
As for solutions, I agree that the Muslims will respong best to strength as well as some of the other points you made. I'm just tired of the exterminate them mentality - and as someone whose mother survived the holocaust, I know you are too.
#28
2b, all the Abrahamic religions have bloody hands. Judaism's stage of conversion-by-conquest occurred under the Hasmoneans (the kings descended from Judah Maccabee of Hannukah fame's brother). One of the reasons King Herod was so hated by the Jews he ruled (besides certain unattractive personal habits, like murdering his wives and offspring), was that he was an Idumean (spelling?), and his ancestors had converted to Judaism at sword's point perhaps 150 years earlier. Christianity is not now what it chose to be in times past, when its leaders were seduced from Christ's path (as you put it so well) by the poisoned chalice of political power. The Christianity you follow is most certainly not of that kind, and I admire the strength with which you follow the dictates of your faith. You make the world a better place.
If Islam were understood as you understand Christianity, we wouldn't be in the midst of this war they started. It is my hope that at the end of this war, it will be. Even if the message of Islam must be twisted a bit from Mohammed's intention.
And I have faith, just as I have faith that the Arab section of the globe will not be made smoking glass at our hands, that we will not have to kill them all to accomplish this.
#31
Thanks tw! Well said (and hugs :-) I've been out and thinking about this. And, I don't have much time but I want to say that I often refer to Christian principles as being that force which inspires us all to try to individually lift ourselves up. Christianity has been a strong force for good in the world, feeding the hungry, educating the masses, and teaching tolerance and forgiveness - above hate and revenge. But I don't mean to exclude Jews or atheists or others when I refer to it that way. Israel and Jewish communities, as well as other non-religious groups do that as well. And I'm sorry if I made it seem that I was implying it was exclusive - sometimes it's just easier, for the sake of brevity, to refer to ideas of Christ's teaching to encompass those ideals - but I've never meant to imply them as exclusive.
Israel is a excellent example of a society that also encompasses those same principals as well as Jewish communities world-wide. Discussions of religion always bring so much baggage with them.
But the point I'm always driving at is that what is different about the Muslim religion is that, with its emphasis on blame, humiliation and revenge it does not serve its adherents well.
It's much like our own media and liberal elites, with their obsession with assigning blame. Anything that goes wrong must be assigned blame. Not everyone in the world is fed? Must be the Joos or the white anglo saxon males to blame. No such thing as an accident anymore - must assign blame and jail time to actions that each one of us has probably been guilty of at some point in our life. Fat? Must be someone's fault. Lost your job? Blame The Man. It's self destructive and does nothing to help make the world a better place.
Jews, Christians and the west in general all have histories of state sponsored blood, rape and pillage. But we have moved forward towards a more civilized world. But the Muslim emphasis on blame and revenge and Sharia lock them into ideas whose time has long since past.
Mansoor Ijaz touches on this in this article and until the Muslims start to evaluate what is wrong in their own societies and make an effort we can't hope to win this war. But I feel the biggest problem that we face is that our own media and liberal elites - are no different. And they hold the megaphone that encourages exactly what exacerbates the problem. The demand that immaculate pefection can not be obtained due to ___________ (insert your Satan here)....and if we could only eliminate all those __________(insert your Satan here) then Utopia would emerge.
Muslims are just people ill served by their religion. Among them are good and bad - just like in our own societies. To win this war, we must find a way to appeal to their better nature. We can't do it without them.
#32
Not to beat the religion horse too much, but TW I think that you're right in that the RELIGIONS have bloody hands (all of them). BUT, I'd add, that if you look at the TRUE teachings of each religion, you'd see that Christ's teachings are 180 degrees from Big Mo's teachings. That's what worries me....as some here have more eloquently states...the muslims are TRULY following their "leader's" teachings and his lifestyle. I won't pretend to even begin to speak for Judaism, but as for Christianity, those who have killed in Christ's name have DISTORTED His teachings. Those who do it in Mo's name follow his teachings to the "letter of the law." And, all, please don't give me the Crusades argument....after researching it, I've about come to the conclusion that their fight is our fight against the Muslims...truly defensive in nature, and I hope and pray that we don't have to go to those lengths, but if we do...I'm "down with it." I will turn the other cheek when you strike me, but strike my family and/or nation, don't expect me to hold back (and, personally, I don't believe Christ would either). A final point in this matter to me is oftentimes Sudan....I, for one, as a Christian, believe we should stop the genocide going on there and would shout from the rooftops if we could save those (majority) African Muslims from their Arab "overlords" (not to mention the Christians among them).
Posted by: BA ||
02/19/2006 21:02
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#33
Agreed, BA. Especially on the issue of the Crusades. The Crusades were preceded by nearly 500 years of Muslim conquest. The hot war with Islam ceased with the Hudna of 1683 after the Siege of Vienna. I believe that the present is only a continuation of the first 1000 years of war between Islam and everyone else.
#34
My biggest fear is that by not stating the ugly truths -- the calm acceptance of jihadists by the mass of Muslims, the never-ending funding flowing from the general population of Muslims to the jihadists, the willingness of 40% of Britains Muslims to state in public they want sharia -- we're setting ourselves up for the ugliest of all possibilities.
Tolerating crap just gets you more crap. Eventually, something will snap; either there will be an atrocity that makes 9/11 fade into history, or the accumulation of small atrocities will push civilization's tolerance to the end. Putting a stop to the crap now will (hopefully) prevent that; either the moderates will be enheartened to finally stand up, or the cost of not being a moderate will be so high Islam will change on its own.
But the signs aren't good, even from the supposed moderates. Take this bit from Ijaz:
Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim "haves" put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the "have nots" to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages.
The fact is, Saudi and UN money flow to Palestinian schools. Practically floods into them.
And those schools teach jihad.
Does anyone think the curriculum would change if there was more Saudi money flowing in?
Why the focus on money that's not going in, while ignoring what's coming out of the schools that exist?
If your local school started teaching racial hatred and the glories of murder and death, would your focus be on its budget, or its message?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/19/2006 22:20
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#35
If your local school started teaching racial hatred and the glories of murder and death, would your focus be on its budget, or its message?
Good point - as well as agree with BA we could/should stop the genocide in Sudan. It wouldn't be that hard to do if all western societies assisted whole-heartedly.
What bothers me the most is that if the western media would support the efforts to enlighten the Muslim world, instead of pandering to their victim mentality and blame the West mantra - then I think the rational Muslims would be able to find a voice that allows them to move from the 7th Century into the 21st. But our liberals and our media have the same blame/victim mentality and feed into their delusions of victory and will leave us as the liberals always leave us - with mountains of skulls left in their climb toward utopia.
#4
How is it right to have anyone other than our own, monitor our ports.
I just don't get it.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/19/2006 15:02
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#5
the following is from the link I posted in my earlier comment. But the emirate's banking system was used by 9-11 hijackers, and the UAE was one of three nations that had recognized the brutal Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/19/2006 15:06
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The British House of Commons voted earlier this week to strengthen the anti-terrorism laws by criminalizing the glorification of terrorist operations. British Prime Minister Tony Blair achieved victory through the House of Commons in his anti-terrorism efforts as the House agreed, with a majority of 83 votes in favor of the new law. Despite criticism by a number of sympathizers members of the ruling Labor Party, Prime Minister Tony Blair obtained a clear majority as 315 MPs voted for the bill whereas 277 MPs who voted against it.
See, I'm not smart enough to understand why, on the one hand, Islamists are howling for the world's press to be muzzled to protect their tender sensibilities, and on the other hand they're demanding that their speech remain unrestricted, to the point of calling for murder, mayhem, and the overthrow of civilization.
Blair has lost three ballots since November 2005, which is partly due to a rebellion within his Labor Party. The British prime minister said that the vote would send a "signal of power" and help the authorities in confronting those who support violence.
But last year's attacks are all in the past now, and we were all so much younger then. And the victims aren't dead anymore, and the maimed have healed up, mostly. So maybe we should just let things go along like they've been going...
Last month, the House of Lords voted to remove this article from the anti-terrorism bill; however, the House of Commons voted in the past few days to restore it, despite the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats voting against this reinstallation. The bill will be sent back to the House of Lords over the next few days for another ballot.
There's no hurry, no urgency, all the time in the world...
According to the statements made by a Hizb ul-Tahrir representative to Asharq al-Awsat, "The bill is not final, and will be sent back to the House of Lords." The source pointed out that what was strange was that the bill, with all the articles that were rejected by the House of Lords, would be sent back to the same Upper House.
Maybe they'll get the idea this time...
He explained that Hizb ul-Tahrir would go to the High Court if it were banned by the British Government. He added that Hizb ul-Tahrir has bases in a number of Arab, Islamic, and European countries.
And is banned in many of them, for the same reasons the Brits talked briefly about cracking down on them.
The British Government, following the final approval of the bill after it passes through the House of Lords, hopes to ban fundamentalist organizations and parties, such as Hizb ul-Tahrir, and Al-Ghuraba, which was led by the Syrian, Omar Bakri, before he escaped to Beirut.
Y'mean before he ran away with his tail between his legs?
The anti-terrorism bill was presented after the July 2005 terrorist attacks, which led to the death of 50 people in London. Those in opposition to the new anti-terrorism law argued, "The term glorification is too ambiguous, and could endanger freedom of expression." Blair said that it was necessary to increase the powers of the security forces in order to launch campaigns against those believed to encourage violent attacks.
Those campaigns are going to come any day now, we're sure...
The dispute over the glorification term has become more urgent this month, after demonstrators in Britain protesting against the Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammad, raised banners inciting violence against non-Muslims.
I'd have thought it would have cleared things right up, what with people parading around with the glorification of violence on signs and banners and such.
Fundamentalists told Asharq al-Awsat that the anti-terrorism law in its new form would push the Islamists to work covertly.
Kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it, that they're describing a situation where they can't subvert the state in broad daylight as a bad thing.
Egyptian Islamist Dr Hani al-Sibai, director of the Al-Maqrizi Center for Studies in London said, "A law banning the glorification of terrorism means muzzling the Islamists, because the term is broad; even the Friday sermons will be subjected to the new law."
Even better.
Al-Sibai pointed out that the interpretation of the two Quranic chapters, al-Anfal and al-Towba, could be taken as glorification of terrorism as they refer to fighting.
So you're admitting that the problem comes down to Islam itself, rather than a small sect within it?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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From the Dept. of Are You Sure You Thought This Thing Through?
A day after Space Adventures announced it was in a venture to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights, the company said Friday it plans to build a $265 million spaceport in the United Arab Emirates.
And surely the Emiris would NEVER nationalize anything as trivial as a spaceport, yes?
The commercial spaceport would be based in Mos Eisely Ras Al-Khaimah near the southern end of the Persian Gulf, and the UAE government has made an initial investment of $30 million, the Arlington, Va.-based company said in a statement.
Arlington, VA, where less than five years ago a civilian aircraft was commandeered and deliberately driven into the Pentagon. How soon we forget.
The spaceport announcement comes on the heels of Space Adventures' new partnership with an investment firm founded by major sponsors of the Ansari X Prize to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights. The agreement between Space Adventures and the Texas-based venture capital firm Prodea would help finance suborbital vehicles being designed and built by the Russian aerospace firm Myasishchev Design Bureau.
And here's Russia in the mix. I'm feeling better and better about this. Not.
Posted by: ed ||
02/19/2006 1:38
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#3
Would the UAE be able to run a thing as complicated as a spaceport without American expertise? And wouldn't the construction company have the plans on file in case it were necessary to take care of things.... later?
#5
Lotta spaceports popping up now. Florida, Texas New Mexico. Now the UAE.... um anyone lauched anything yet? Any concrete plans to?
Step this way to see the future site of the golf course overlooking the future spaceport. Buy your lots now before the hoi and the poloi hear about it.
#9
And surely the Emiris would NEVER nationalize anything as trivial as a spaceport, yes?
You know, this actualy makes a kind of sense, we have those 6 seaports they want to buy, they would have a spaceport.
Sounds like interconnecting assets, we hold yours, you hold ours kinda thing.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/19/2006 10:33
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#13
A UAE spaceport and UAE port security in the US. Have we lost our minds? We are going transfer a little space technology to the UAE and allow an UAE company to run our port security? What, pray tell, would happen if someone shows a cartoon of Muhammad to one of the port security officials or at the spaceport?
Haji Yaqoob Qureshi, Indian minister from UP, has announced a bounty worth 510 million rupees on the head of the Danish cartoonist responsible for offensive caricatures and warned the United States of America of suicide plane attacks akin to 9/11. According to Hindustan Times, at a rally in Meerut on Friday the minister announced a huge award for anyone who killed the Danish cartoonist. The Muslim clerics in Lucknow, who plan to hold a huge rally in Lucknow on Sunday, called upon the community to boycott US and European products in protest against the cartoons. The clerics said the money flowing to these countries from India was being used against Islam.
Lambasting the US, the minister said that not one, two or three but hundred planes would be blasted against them. The planes will explode in every hour and minute there. The minister told Hindustan Times on phone that the people of Meerut would weigh the assassin of the cartoonist with gold and give Indian rupees 510 million. People of Meerut will contribute to collect this amount, said the minister. Reacting to the ministers insinuation, principal secretary (Home) Alok Sinha said Quereshi had been expressing the sentiments of the people of Meerut. He said it did not constitute any criminal offence. Indian opposition led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called for Yaqoobs arrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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#1
Indian minister announces Rs 510m for cartoonists death
Rs 510m = $1.98 ?
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
02/19/2006 0:38
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#2
Italian minister gets fired(forced to resign, whatever) over Cartoon T-shirt. Is this contract dude to get away with nothing?
#3
The Uttar Pradesh State Cabinet is full of fine upstanding muslim ministers. One minister resigned today. He was caught on TV selling heroin.
Minister resigns
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Minister of State for Minority Welfare Mehboob Ali resigned from the Cabinet in the wake of a news channel showing him admitting running a drug peddling racket in a sting operation.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 7:35
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#4
I find it hard to believe that Indian law does not prohibit this sort of thing, unless ministers have immunity.
#5
There is no immunity under Indian law for anyone other than the head of state (the President).
The Indian penal code does prohibit incitement to murder.
The UP Chief Minister has said that he sees no reason why Yacoob should be arrested because what he said concerns incidents located in a "far off country".
The Indian Central (Federal) authorities can step in but the Government relies on its UP MPs to stay in power.
Pressure is building though. Hopefully the entire UP state government will fall.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 8:52
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#6
It seems muslims are above the law....
LUCKNOW, FEBRUARY 18 UP Minister for Minority Welfare and Haji Yaqoob Quereshi who announced Rs 51 crore as reward for anyone beheading the Danish cartoonist for caricaturing Prophet Muhammad, today drew strong support from his Cabinet colleagues.
The law of the land doesnt permit a minister to speak like this. But I am sure that he spoke all this as an individual...(But) we can pay even more than Rs 51 crore to teach a lesson to such people who hurt the sentiment of the Muslim community, Samajwadi Party MP from Moradabad Dr Shafiqur Rahman Barq said. Whatever he said may be intended towards sending a clear message that those who commit blasphemy on Islam wont be spared at any cost. Killing the Danish cartoonist is the only option and we are ready to collect much more to pay as reward to one who punishes him.
The All India Waqf Welfare Council, meanwhile, held a meeting today and supported the call, saying Lucknow would contribute substantially to the bounty.
Hamid Kokab, Tourism Minister, meanwhile, tempered his support. The announcement of reward for beheading the cartoonist may be his personal opinion. As a minister, he cannot say so. It seems that his statement is an emotional outburst of a Muslim because the cartoon hurt the religious sentiment of a community, he said.
Posted by: john ||
02/19/2006 8:57
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#7
"...religious sentiment of a community, he said. "
Even murderous sentiments are to be accepted. Fork tongued Indians, that I've known, but from a minister?
US Ambassador John Boltons drive to crack down on UN fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from UN members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of UN members boiled to the surface this week when two US congressmen said nonaligned states had worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts ... to clean up the institution.
Afraid the grease is going away? Don't worry, it won't get to the point where you have to pay for your own lunches...
We and our colleagues in the House of Representatives have followed, and will continue to follow, your actions very closely, and we intend to hold you accountable for them, Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois and Democrat Tom Lantos of California wrote South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo in a letter circulated at the United Nations on Friday. Kumalo, the current chairman of the Group of 77, a bloc of 132 developing nations and China, said the group had been very, very upset by the letter but had decided at a hastily called emergency meeting not to respond to it.
Sigh. I can remember when South Africa was a first world nation. Now it's "developing." We won't dwell on what it's developing.
They are just one of 191 parliaments, Kumalo said. They were upset. We were upset. You can play that game endlessly. The mistake being made by Washington is to assume management reform matters only to Washington. It matters to all of us.
"It just matters to some of us for different reasons."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2006
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#1
it matters to us and we'll close our wallets. Game over. STFU and take it or pick up your rxit-stamped passport on the way back to your shithole countries, thankyouverymuch
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2006 0:13
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#2
Of course they're pissed, we're messing with their bread and butter, our free hand outs. I think it's their responsbility to use it properly.
JOLO, Philippines -- A powerful explosion wounded at least 20 people late Saturday in a karaoke bar near a Philippine army camp on southern Jolo island where American troops are staying for joint war exercises, witnesses and officials said.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt.-Col. Mark Zimmer, said there were no American casualties in the blast and that the incident would not hamper the two-week joint counterterrorism manoeuvres that are to start Monday and focus on humanitarian projects. ''There was no American casualty but we're investigating,'' Zimmer said.
Security is a top concern during the exercises because of the presence of al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas on Jolo, about 940 kilometres south of Manila. The guerrillas have kidnapped Americans in the past and threatened to attack U.S. troops in the country. ''There is no change in plans for what they're doing down there,'' Zimmer told The Associated Press by telephone from southern Zamboanga city, where other U.S. troops involved in war manoeuvres and joint training are based.
The blast occurred on the day about 250 American troops were welcomed by local officials in a ceremony on Jolo. They are to take part in ''Balikatan,'' an annual joint war exercise between American and Filipino troops that has focused in recent years on counterterrorism manoeuvres. The exercises this year are being held simultaneously in Manila and a number of other venues, including on Jolo, where Americans would mainly provide dental treatment for poor villagers, construct classrooms and give away medicines and books, officials said.
Col. Domingo Tutaan of the Philippine military's Southern Command said authorities were investigating what caused the blast and who was responsible. Witnesses said it was so powerful that it caused part of the bar's roof to collapse and portions of its concrete wall to crumble.
Those wounded were mostly drinking men and female entertainers at the bar, which was near the gate of the Philippine army's 104th Brigade headquarters, where U.S. troops are encamped under heavy guard, according to witnesses.
Security for the Americans and opposition to the war drills by Muslim villagers have been nagging concerns on Jolo, labelled a ''no man's land'' due to a surfeit of unlicensed guns, frequent bloodshed and a bitter history with American forces. Muslim activists still cite a violent U.S. campaign to quell restive native insurrectionists resisting U.S. rule in the early 1900s.
The Philippine military has been struggling to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf - at times with covert U.S. non-combat assistance - on Jolo, but a few hundred mountain-based guerrillas have endured numerous offensives and continue to threaten the impoverished island and nearby regions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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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.
RANGAMATI, Feb 19: Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) of Marishsha Zone in a drive last night in Baghaichhari upazila of the district recovered two foreign made arms and several rounds of ammunition, security sources said, reports BSS. The recovered arms include two Chinese made 0.315 rifles and nine bullets, sources added.
Police Brig. Gen. Hatim Khalaf and his driver were killed when a roadside bomb exploded 20 miles southwest of Kirkuk, police said. Khalaf was the chief of the operations center for the police in Kirkuk, headquarters of Iraq's northern oil-producing center. Two policemen were injured in a roadside bombing Sunday in Fallujah, the former insurgent headquarters 40 miles west of Baghdad. Fallujah has seen several deadly attacks in the past two weeks even though it became one of the most tightly controlled cities in Iraq after falling to a U.S. assault in November 2004.
Pakistan successfully test-fired a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Sunday, a military statement said. It said the Hatf-II/Abdali ground-to-ground missile had a range of 200 km (125 miles) and could carry "nuclear and other types of warheads." "All planned technical parameters were validated," the statement said. It gave no more details nor the site of the test, which was announced as President Pervez Musharraf was due to leave for a five-day state visit to China. In a reference to neighbouring countries, the statement said advance notice of the test had been given to "all concerned."
Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.
A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein "cleaned up" his weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.
As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada.
Barely 18 months ago Muqtada al-Sadr was a man on the run, wanted for murder and holed up with a band of fighters in a mosque besieged by U.S. troops.
Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani, adviser to prime minister, on Saturday urged the European Parliament, the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of Islamic Conference to introduce laws to ensure acts such as publication of the blasphemous cartoons are not repeated in the future. 
Former Khmer Rouge leaders must go to trial as soon as possible, the United Nations said on Saturday after the regime's former foreign minister admission to hospital. "The leaders are aging ... that's why we have to start the process as soon as possible," said Michelle Lee, the UN's leading administrator to a planned tribunal of former top cadres of the regime. 
At least 12 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded when rival militias using mortars, anti-aircraft guns and artillery clashed in Somalia's capital on Saturday. Residents said civilians including women and children were among the casualties when heavy fighting over territory broke out between gunmen loyal to Mogadishu's Islamic courts and a local warlord in the south of the capital. 
Nigerian militants launched a string of attacks on the world's eighth largest oil exporter on Saturday, abducting nine foreign workers from an offshore barge and attacking at least two other facilities. Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said they were targeting all oil pipelines, production platforms and export terminals in Delta state, which accounts for about a quarter of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels per day production. "A barge was attacked by several speed boats. There was an exchange of fire and nine foreigners were kidnapped," an oil industry source said, adding that the barge, operated by US oil services company Willbros Group, was operating offshore in the Forcados area of Delta state. 
BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi authorities have released more than 400 male prisoners over the past few days, the US military said on Saturday. About 430 male detainees were released over the last several days, a statement said.
Unidentified men blew up pipelines at the Loti and Pirkoh gas fields on Saturday in Dera Bugti. The attack was the second on the gas plants in 24 hours. The militants blew up the gas pipelines from well number 24 and 10, suspending the supply of natural gas from the Loti gas field. Gas supply to Multan and Bahawalpur areas was stopped while security measures for Uch gas fields were increased.
AMMAN Poultry shops in Zarqa will no longer be allowed to slaughter chickens on the premises under a recent decision taken by the governorate. A circular was distributed to owners of poultry shops last week, informing them that Zarqa Municipality had established a new slaughterhouse in the city. The shopkeepers were told they would have to redesign their stores and equip them with freezers and refrigerators to serve as sales outlets for chicken from the new slaughterhouse. 
KARACHI: Sporadic violence spread throughout the city, starting Saturday evening and continuing past midnight after rumours spread that Sunni Tehreek (ST) leader Maulana Abbas Qadri had been killed by gunmen. While the rumours have proved wrong, a number of apparent ST activists came out on the streets, pelted passing vehicles with stones, forced shopkeepers to close their businesses and burnt tires. 
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged reluctant Arab nations on Friday to threaten to isolate Iran unless it bows to international pressure to curb its suspected nuclear weapons programmes. Her appeal to Irans neighbours came before she visits Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week to lobby them to join a US campaign against Iran, which has won increasing support from Europe, Russia and China. I would hope that those states that are worried about this are prepared to really say to the Iranians: You are going to be isolated from us too if you continue down this road, Rice said in an interview with Arab-based media about her planned talks on the trip. There is really now an obligation to let the Iranians know in no uncertain terms that this isolation is going to be complete, she added. 
About 27 people were killed when Muslims protests in Nigeria and Libya against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Secretary General Maulana Fazalur Rehman were put under house arrest in a crackdown in which 900 MMA activists were also put under protective custody on Saturday. The Islamabad district administration had earlier reiterated that rallies in the city were banned in the interest of public peace, but the MMA had vowed to defy it and stage a demonstration today (Sunday).
Geo television said that Qazi (detained at his residence in Mansoora, Lahore) and Fazl (detained at his official residence in Islamabad) were due to lead a rally in the capital against the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Government officials told the MMA leaders that they had been detained to control the law and order situation, said the channel. The government has declared Qazis residence a sub-jail and restrained his movement from Mansoora till further orders, it added. 
SULAYMANYAH - A plane with five people on board crashed in northern Iraq on Friday, airport authorities in the Kurdish city of Sulaymanyah said. Unconfirmed sources said that four of the people killed were German nationals, but an airport spokesman only confirmed that there was one Iraqi and four foreigners on board without specifying their nationalities.
LAHORE: A local mosques prayer leader was killed by unidentified men in the Factory Area police precincts on Saturday. 
Author Kurt Vonnegut has told the BBC that he came out of semi-retirement to write his new book A Man Without A Country because of his "contempt" for current US President George W Bush. 
ROME - An Italian Cabinet minister blamed for sparking riots in Libya by wearing a T-shirt showing blasphemous cartoons resigned on Saturday, the news agency ANSA reported. Reforms Minister 
Two Macedonian contractors have been kidnapped near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the British military said on Saturday. British military spokesman Major Peter Cripps said they were abducted on Thursday while driving in a vehicle during routine work. "I can confirm that on the morning of Feb. 16 two Macedonians were abducted near Basra. The Iraqi police has been informed and is investigating," he said. Basra, Iraq's second city, has been relatively free of the violence plaguing the central part of the country but it has witnessed kidnappings.
LONDON - More than 10,000 people joined an angry central London protest on Saturday against the blasphemous cartoons that have infuriated many in the Muslim world. Free speech cheap insults, read one demonstrators placard. How dare you insult the blessed Prophet Muhammed (PTUI)? asked another.
Five Yemeni soldiers and an army captain have been killed in battles with rebels in the northwest of the country, near the border with Saudi Arabia. A local tribal leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal, said the army launched reprisal attacks on Saturday near Saada, about 180km north of San'a, the Yemeni capital. The tribal official said at least 22 people - 16 of them government forces - had been killed in battles in the region over the past week, including the five reported dead in fighting on Friday. Earlier this month, other tribal officials reported at least 18 soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded. 
President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday asked Hamas to form the next Palestinian government and said he expected it to respect a commitment to talks with Israel. Abbas said in a speech at the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament that the government must follow all agreements signed with Israel, a state the militant Islamist group formally seeks to destroy. "The Hamas movement has become the majority in the Legislative Council and it will be tasked with the formation of the new government," Abbas said.
Shanghai: China and Iran are close to setting plans to develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field, a multibillion dollar deal that comes as Tehran faces the prospect of sanctions over its nuclear programme.
Iranian state television is to air the videoed 'interviews' of seven people convicted of involvement in recent bomb attacks in the southwestern oil city of Ahvaz, press reports said on Saturday. The governor of Khuzestan province, Amir Hayat-Moqadam, said the "interviews with the ones responsible for the bombings... will be aired before the verdict is carried out". The seven were convicted of murder, 'waging war against God' and being 'corrupt on earth'.
Afghanistan has given Pakistan detailed information about members of the Taliban who Afghanistan says are orchestrating a stubborn insurgency from Pakistani soil, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday. Karzai said he was now waiting for action. "We gave our brothers a lot of information, very detailed information about individuals, locations and other issues," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul, referring to the intelligence handed over to the Pakistani authorities. Karzai refused to give details of the information handed over to Pakistan. 
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.
A regional leader of Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP-Janajuddho) ...
Major General Hussein Ali Kamal, under secretary of the Iraqi Interior Ministry for intelligence affairs, said: "We learned about the existence of death squads from US newspaper reports. We had no information about these squads from our agencies or from US forces." 
Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies. In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracy's traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons.
The British House of Commons voted earlier this week to strengthen the anti-terrorism laws by criminalizing the glorification of terrorist operations. British Prime Minister Tony Blair achieved victory through the House of Commons in his anti-terrorism efforts as the House agreed, with a majority of 83 votes in favor of the new law. Despite criticism by a number of 
Haji Yaqoob Qureshi, Indian minister from UP, has announced a bounty worth 510 million rupees on the head of the Danish cartoonist responsible for offensive caricatures and warned the United States of America of suicide plane attacks akin to 9/11. According to Hindustan Times, at a rally in Meerut on Friday the minister announced a huge award for anyone who killed the Danish cartoonist. The Muslim clerics in Lucknow, who plan to hold a huge rally in Lucknow on Sunday, called upon the community to boycott US and European products in protest against the cartoons. The clerics said the money flowing to these countries from India was being used against Islam.
US Ambassador John Boltons drive to crack down on UN fraud and abuse is triggering a backlash from developing nations who fear Washington is trying to wrest control from UN members. The simmering conflict between Washington and the developing nations that make up a majority of UN members boiled to the surface this week when two US congressmen said nonaligned states had worked feverishly in New York to block the efforts ... to clean up the institution. 
JOLO, Philippines -- A powerful explosion wounded at least 20 people late Saturday in a karaoke bar near a Philippine army camp on southern Jolo island where American troops are staying for joint war exercises, witnesses and officials said.
