Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called President Bush dangerously incompetent on Wednesday and said the administration ought to be doing more to prevent increasing sectarian violence in Iraq.
Where is (Secretary of State) Condoleeza Rice? Why isn't she over in the Middle East, as the chief diplomat of this country should be, trying to get the political forces to form a government over there? Reid told The Associated Press.
Reid said the U.S. was failing three different ways in Iraq. Military efforts have lagged, the economy is crippled by decreased oil and electricity production, and attempts to form a representative government are behind schedule, he said.
Reid criticized Bush for a series of recent appearances in key political states in which the president defended his Iraq war policies.
Why isn't he spending time with these leaders in the Middle East trying to get this government formed? Reid said.
Reid described the conditions Iraq as low-grade civil war.
I don't know how you define civil war. We know they're killing an average of 50 Iraqis a day. At least it's a low-grade civil war, that's for sure, he said.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006
20:07 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Tell Reid when he is president he can make orders until then stfu.
#6
Reid is from Reno. According to my pal who just moved into Neveda "Reno is a nest of corruption." Regardless of his squakey clean rep that is where Harry is from. He needs to take his STFU pills and calm down or he might come up with a case of someone with a bad cough who can't be bought off.
Posted by: SPoD ||
03/22/2006 23:20
Comments ||
Top||
An Afghan army officer says government troops have killed at least 15 suspected Taleban fighters innocent tribesmen on their nightly stroll who crossed the border from neighboring Pakistan. Don't shoot!! Don't shoot!! We are from the UN and we're here to help you!!!
The Afghan commander says his soldiers attacked the insurgents late Tuesday near the border town of Spin Boldak, in Kandahar province. I am sure they were just lost. You know crossing those mountains can get pretty confusing.
Guess the jogging trail wasn't marked very well.
He said among the dead was Taleban commander Mullah Shien, who is believed to have led several attacks. Mullah Shien. Is he any kin to Cindy Shien? Just asking.
The Afghan officer said at least four insurgents ran back across the border during the fighting. Mommy, mommy. Those bad men are shooting at us!!
Afghanistan is urging Pakistan to do more to fight Taleban militants. The Kabul government's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, speaking in Washington earlier this week, said Taleban training camps in Pakistan's tribal areas are a source of "instability and terror," posing a threat to the entire region. Nah. Yah got that that wrong there Minister Abdullah Abdullah (not to be confused with Rosanna Rosanna Danna). Pakistan and the ISI are doing everything in their power to prevent Taleban from setting up shop in Pakistan. You got the wrong GPS coordinates plugged in.
If they aren't Paks, then the Paks won't care if we and the Afghans whack them, right?
The Afghan foreign minister blames Taleban leaders for cross-border attacks carried out by pro-Taleban militants based in Pakistan. I wonder how many they would have killed if they claimed to be Christian converts?
With the warmer summer months approaching, insurgents from Afghanistan's ousted Taleban regime have vowed to increase their attacks on foreign forces and the western-backed government in Kabul. Ahh, Spring. The sound of gunfire...the spell of Poppies and chordite!! It has to be Afghanistan!
American-led forces overthrew the hard-line Islamist Taleban regime in Afghanistan more than four years ago, after the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. Taleban-controlled Afghanistan had been the base of operations for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror network. Ahhh...you've been watching too much Fox, and reading too many right-wing blogs. AQ ain't no threat. That's what Norman Mailer said.
Insurgents' continuing attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan and the Kabul government have killed more than 1500 people during the past year - the highest death toll since 2001. Can't be. Muslims don't kill muslims. Says so right in their Qoran.
#1
The Bolivian leader is a certifiable nutjob in the mold of Chavez. With this arrest, he has just killed the market for American tourists to Bolivia (except for leftists looking to commune with their revolutionary hero).
#3
sounds like a wanna be Vampire - Anne Rice -style
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006 20:17
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Frank-
More than that. Google his name and the first hit is for a fireworks web site. The second is his personal ad for a woman in Uruguay. He says he is a political refugee.
Scotsman
BRIAN FERGUSON
'Anti-Islam' sex tourism book takes to the stage at Festival
A CONTROVERSIAL novel about sex tourism in Thailand which landed its author in court accused of stirring hatred against Muslims is to be turned into a new play for the Edinburgh International Festival. Only giving the Abdullahs a little bite of their 72 virgins.
Catalan director Calixto Bieito, who is renowned for his X-rated productions, will work with novelist Michel Houellebecq to adapt his explosive book "Platform" for the stage.
The production is being billed as one of the highlights of this summer's Festival.
The novel caused uproar when it was published in 2001 and infuriated Muslim fundamentalists.
Platform tells the story of a French tourist who sets up a Thai travel agency specialising in sex tourism. In the book, the business meets the wrath of Islamic fundamentalists, who murder his girlfriend and more than 100 others in a terrorist attack on a leisure centre. Sex tourists v Jihadis. Sounds like Tarantino. "Reservoir Camels."
The book features embittered diatribes against Muslims from the bereaved businessman character. If Hamlet gets a soliloquay, why not Jacques Pervert?
The author, now said to live as a virtual recluse in Ireland, went on to be sued, unsuccessfully, in the French courts for inciting racial hatred. He was quoted in an interview at the time as describing Islam as "the most stupid of religions". Muslims are smart enough to take advantage of our stupidity. Most of France's current leaders will eventually live as virtual recluses in Ireland. Actually, De Gaulle spent his last days there.
Sir Brian McMaster today hailed director Bieito - who has been dubbed the "the Spanish Quentin Tarantino" after featuring necrophilia and torture in previous Edinburgh shows including Hamlet, Il Trovatore and Celestina - and described "Platform" as a masterpiece...
Posted by: Listen to Dogs ||
03/22/2006
16:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Signs are mounting that al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.
Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged al-Qaida is "organizing cells and gathering supporters."
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006
16:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Talk about suicide for Al-Qaida. Israel doesn't have many objections to building a wall or cleaning out an area outside their borders. The Mosad wouldn't be none too friendly either, unlike the CIA. Al-Qaida might gain support for only attacking jews (since attacking american forces didn't seem to get any), but it would be a short lived party.
#2
Gosh, what a surprise. Having found that their wars in Iraq, Western Europe and the US aren't going quite as well as planned, they want to check failure in Israel off their list. At this rate, they may soon become quite as ineffective as Fatah in achieving their goals.
#3
This is sort of old news. We know that:
1. Hamas is getting funding from Iran.
2. Hizb'Allah gets its funding from Iran.
3. Gaza is now a nest of jihadis.
4. Iran sez that it will wipe Israel off the map.
5. Iran has been giving aid and comfort to Al Q.
Iran, its proxies, and undoubtedly al Q will make an attack on Israel because they preceive weakness in the West. The ball, basically, is in our court.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/22/2006 17:52
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Are you calling for a screaming overhead smash, AP?
#6
makes perfect AQ sense....logic of the damaged lobes
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006 18:57
Comments ||
Top||
#7
I'm calling for the West to get its head out of its collective a$$ and see what is at stake. So will we wait for a nice big hit from Iran or will we take care of it now and save many lives on both sides of the street? My wish is for alternative B, but I feel that we are going to go through alternative A first.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/22/2006 19:00
Comments ||
Top||
#8
AP - Regards Iran, I think there's a good chance that inventories are being built up to meet all Pentagon plans requirements being seriously considered.
#9
Options are like assholes, each has their own. Strategically AQ would be making a blunder to directly attack Israel. But who says religious fanatics are logical?
This is all a way to raise the stakes against the West to take on Iran. The epicenter remains Iran.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006 19:14
Comments ||
Top||
#10
Jizlam: spewing forth. Why waste syllables on the obvious.
LATRUN JUNCTION, Israel - With sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, Israeli police chased a van with explosives on a main highway yesterday and captured a group of Palestinians who defense officials say planned a major bombing ahead of national elections. Nope...couldn't have been. A muslim wouldn't risk killing another Muslim by driving through a neighborhood filled with kids with explosives; or risk a shootout with IDF with kids around. Nope....just another lie from the Joooooooooooooooos.
Israel's parliamentary election is set for March 28; Palestinian attacks have altered the outcome of past balloting. Just a thought. But if the Paleos keep killing Israelis...that will favor the Likud Party. And the real hard-core conservatives want to level the dome of the mosque and wipe up the desert with whoever even dreams about killing another Israeli.
After chasing down the bomber halfway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, jittery security forces extended a closure on the West Bank and Gaza through election day. Sigh. Another day, another suicidal muslim...for allan's glory of course.
AP Television News video showed the 10 Palestinians removed from the van at gunpoint, stripped to their underwear, and forced to lie face down in a field next to the highway, arms extended. Sappers took away a 15-pound bomb, concealed in a bag. We wuz surrounded...and there wuz a million of them. No, 2 million. We had to give up....cuz allan said we wuz too important...he did.
#1
You think this would benefit Likud rather than Kadimah? I ask because I find Israeli politics about as impenetrable as Lebanese or Pakistani, although thankfully without the self-imposed bloodshed. ;-)
#2
Likud, IIUC. Kadimah without Sharon is still trying to prove their stones. Bibi's a known quantity, and will crush the Paleos without provocation, if necessary. Ohlmert's not a hawk.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006 18:50
Comments ||
Top||
#3
I would wager that the Israelis have long since quietly let it be known what exactly would result in certain steps, like the Jerusalem mosque being razed, all Paleos being driven out of East Jerusalem, or even out of Israel proper. And all Paleos being driven out of Gaza and the West Bank.
The last generation of Israelis didn't have the stomach for it, and now they pay the price. But it is a good question whether the next generation, raised in an environment of Paleo terror, will be as charitable.
Construction on a skyscraper expected to be the world's tallest was interrupted when Asian workers upset over low wages and poor treatment smashed cars and offices in a riot that an official said Wednesday caused nearly $1 million in damage.
The stoppage triggered a sympathy strike at Dubai International Airport, with thousands of laborers building a new terminal also laying down their tools, officials said.
Some 2,500 workers who are building the Burj Dubai tower and surrounding housing developments chased and beat security officers Tuesday night, smashed computers and files in offices, and destroyed about two dozen cars and construction machines, witnesses said.
The workers were angered because buses to their residential camp were delayed after their shifts, witnesses at the site said.
An Interior Ministry official who investigates labor issues, Lt. Col. Rashid Bakhit Al Jumairi, said the rioters caused almost $1 million in damage.
The workers, employed by Dubai-based construction firm Al Naboodah Laing O'Rourke, returned to the vast site Wednesday but refused to work.
Crowds of blue-garbed workers milled in the shadow of the concrete tower, now 36 stories tall, while leaders negotiated with officials from the company and the Ministry of Labor.
"Everyone is angry here. No one will work," said Khalid Farouk, 39, a laborer with Al Naboodah. Other workers said their leaders were asking for pay raises: skilled carpenters on the site earned $7.60 per day, with laborers getting $4 per day.
A reporter inquiring about the riots was ordered to leave the site by an Al Naboodah manager who refused to give his name. The firm's business development manager, Jonathan Eveleigh, declined to comment when reached by telephone.
Al Jumairi said the laborers were also asking Al Naboodah, one of the Emirates' biggest construction conglomerates, for overtime pay, better medical care and humane treatment by foremen.
"They are asking for small things," said Al Jumairi, the labor investigator. "I promised them I would sit with them until everything is settled."
Al Jumairi later said he was being diverted to negotiate with idled laborers at the airport.
Labor stoppages in Gulf countries have recently become common, with some two dozen strikes last year in the United Arab Emirates alone. Most have centered on unpaid salaries and triggered a Labor Ministry crackdown on contract-breaching companies.
The strikes and riots by Al Naboodah workers marred what otherwise appeared to be smooth construction of the Burj Dubai, which is to be a spire-shaped, stainless-steel-skinned tower expected to soar far beyond 100 stories.
Emaar, the tower's Dubai-based developer, is keeping the final height a secret until the $900 million Burj is complete by 2008.
A section of the tower is to host a 172-room luxury hotel operated by Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani.
The protesting workers are among almost 1 million migrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and elsewhere who have poured into Dubai to provide the low-wage muscle behind one of the world's great building booms. In five decades, Dubai has grown from a primitive town of 20,000 to a gridlocked metropolis of 1.5 million.
#3
Article: Other workers said their leaders were asking for pay raises: skilled carpenters on the site earned $7.60 per day, with laborers getting $4 per day.
These are Chinese wages. I'm surprised these guys don't get an expat stipend - Dubai is pretty expensive compared to Bangladesh or Pakistan.
Ol' Tony can sure turn a phrase when he wants to. (Emphasis mine.)
It is in confronting global terrorism today that the sharpest debate and disagreement is found. Nowhere is the supposed "folly" of the interventionist case so loudly trumpeted as in this case. Here, so it is said, as the third anniversary of the Iraq conflict takes place, is the wreckage of such a world view. Under Saddam Iraq was "stable". Now its stability is in the balance. Ergo, it should never have been done.
This is essentially the product of the conventional view of foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This view holds that there is no longer a defining issue in foreign policy. Countries should therefore manage their affairs and relationships according to their narrow national interests. The basic posture represented by this view is: not to provoke, to keep all as settled as it can be and cause no tectonic plates to move. It has its soft face in dealing with issues like global warming or Africa; and reserves its hard face only if directly attacked by another state, which is unlikely. It is a view which sees the world as not without challenge but basically calm, with a few nasty things lurking in deep waters, which it is best to avoid; but no major currents that inevitably threaten its placid surface. It believes the storms have been largely self-created.
This is the majority view of a large part of western opinion, certainly in Europe. According to this opinion, the policy of America since 9/11 has been a gross overreaction; George Bush is as much if not more of a threat to world peace as Osama bin Laden; and what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the Middle East, is an entirely understandable consequence of US/UK imperialism or worse, of just plain stupidity. Leave it all alone or at least treat it with sensitivity and it would all resolve itself in time; "it" never quite being defined, but just generally felt as anything that causes disruption.
This world view - which I would characterise as a doctrine of benign inactivity - sits in the commentator's seat, almost as a matter of principle. It has imposed a paradigm on world events that is extraordinary in its attraction and its scope. As we speak, Iraq is facing a crucial moment in its history: to unify and progress, under a government elected by its people for the first time in half a century; or to descend into sectarian strife, bringing a return to certain misery for millions. In Afghanistan, the same life choice for a nation, is being played out. And in many Arab and Muslim states, similar, though less publicised, struggles for democracy dominate their politics.
The effect of this paradigm is to see each setback in Iraq or Afghanistan, each revolting terrorist barbarity, each reverse for the forces of democracy or advance for the forces of tyranny as merely an illustration of the foolishness of our ever being there; as a reason why Saddam should have been left in place or the Taliban free to continue their alliance with Al Qaida. Those who still justify the interventions are treated with scorn.
Then, when terrorists strike in the nations like Britain or Spain, who supported such action, there is a groundswell of opinion formers keen to say, in effect, that it's hardly surprising - after all, if we do this to "their" countries, is it any wonder they do it to "ours"?
So the statement that Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine or indeed Chechnya, Kashmir or half a dozen other troublespots is seen by extremists as fertile ground for their recruiting - a statement of the obvious - is elided with the notion that we have "caused" such recruitment or made terrorism worse, a notion that, on any sane analysis, has the most profound implications for democracy.
The easiest line for any politician seeking office in the West today is to attack American policy. A couple of weeks ago as I was addressing young Slovak students, one got up, denouncing US/UK policy in Iraq, fully bought in to the demonisation of the US, utterly oblivious to the fact that without the US and the liberation of his country, he would have been unable to ask such a question, let alone get an answer to it.
There is an interesting debate going on inside government today about how to counter extremism in British communities. Ministers have been advised never to use the term "Islamist extremist". It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those - perfectly decent-minded people - who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims. And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a "Protestant" bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it.
Yet, in respect of radical Islam, the paradigm insists that to say what is true, is to provoke, to show insensitivity, to demonstrate the same qualities of purblind ignorance that leads us to suppose that Muslims view democracy or liberty in the same way we do.
Just as it lets go unchallenged the frequent refrain that it is to be expected that Muslim opinion will react violently to the invasion of Iraq: after all it is a Muslim country. Thus, the attitude is: we understand your sense of grievance; we acknowledge your anger at the invasion of a Muslim country; but to strike back through terrorism is wrong.
It is a posture of weakness, defeatism and most of all, deeply insulting to every Muslim who believes in freedom ie the majority. Instead of challenging the extremism, this attitude panders to it and therefore instead of choking it, feeds its growth.
None of this means, incidentally, that the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was right; merely that it is nonsense to suggest it was done because the countries are Muslim.
Rest is at the link - long foreign policy statement. I'd have loved to hear him give this speech. Churchillian indeed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006
15:05 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It is a posture of weakness, defeatism and most of all, deeply insulting to every Muslim who believes in freedom ie the majority.
*snort*
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 15:31
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Great catch, Barbara. If only Bush could speak like this.
I have one small disagreement. The 'Islamic Terrorist' is the devout muslim. The so-called 'moderates' are the not-truely devout muslims (otherwise they wouldn't be moderate....).
#6
Not just the dictators, thugs, and repressive regimes to be left in place, iff not allowed expounded unto unknown heights of repression and murder, but more for the UNO [read, USA] and USA to keep $$$ propping up these Govts unto eternity. Well, perennial isolationism and appeasement resulted in 9-11 anyways, and not only 9-11 but now America's enemies want Americans to believe that the genocide, defeat andor destruction of America IS BOTH WHAT AMERICANS TRULY WANT + IS GOOD FOR AMERICANS AND EVERYONE.
So they've cancelled the Dubai Ports World deal. Feel better now? Safer? I don't.
Because the problem is not just Dubai Ports World. It isn't even the recent reports that indicate the National Guard has been stretched too thin by the loss of both manpower and equipment to Iraq, or the upcoming release of two "Virginia Jihad" members, or the enrolment at Yale University of a former Taliban spokesman. It isn't the recent relaxation of security rules on airplanes (knives, scissors and knitting needles allowed on board and fewer bag searches at airports), and the continuing lack of security measures at major train stations throughout the country. It's not even the fact that Dubai pulled out of the deal only when faced with an in-depth investigation and at the request of the President (from whom, one can be certain, alternative promises were made in exchange).
This is something much, much bigger.
In February, I attended a conference in the Netherlands featuring experts on the concepts of dhimmitude, a word based on the Arabic word "dhimmi," or "protected," and Eurabia, a word created by scholar Bat Ye'or to describe a Euro-Arab solidarity that is leading gradually (though ever faster) to the Islamization of our European friends and allies.
In essence, Europeans, says Ye'or, have acquiesced to the powers and demands of the Arab world, cooperating and collaborating in areas of foreign policy, economy, and culture, in return for which Europe will be in principle safe from the violent conquest by Islam.
If this sounds like crazy conspiracy theory, in fact, it isn't really all that different from the politics we're used to in America. Countries that behave according to Western, Euro-American standards can count on Euro-American investment and military support; those who do not can expect repercussions. The difference here is simply one of a marriage between church and state: for Islamic nations, they are one and the same. Follow their religion, submit to their socio-economic demands, and their governments will not persecute or attack.
Consider, too, the central premise of Bat Ye'or's argument: that according to the principles of jihad, non-Muslims must be brought to convert preferably through peaceable means, but if necessary, through violence.
In an interview with John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, the Egyptian born Bat Ye'or explains:
"According to the jihadic doctrine, the world is divided into two parts: Muslims and Infidels, the latter living in the dar al-harb, the land of war, because their land must be Islamized by peaceful means, or by war if they resist. Before attacking the Infidels, Muslims must first call them to convert; if they refuse, they are asked to pay a ransom; if they refuse again, Muslims have the duty to wage war on them. Truce is accepted on condition that the Infidels pay a regular ransom and put no obstacle to the spread of Islam in their own countries. There are other conditions also, like sending soldiers to fight for Islamic interests. A truce should not last more than 10 years, and it is allowed only when the Muslim ruler is weak. Otherwise, war against the Infidels is mandatory."
The words "put no obstacle to the spread of Islam in their countries" explain, for instance, the establishment of Saudi-run mosques throughout Europe (the largest of which is based in Rotterdam home to Europe's major port) and of Saudi-owned schools and bookstores where anti-Western texts are taught and sold, where one finds books like The Muslim Way, a bestseller in the Dutch Muslim community that advises its readers that it is often necessary to beat women, that women are obliged to submit to their husbands' sexual desires on demand, and that homosexuals should be burned, stoned, or thrown from the highest available building, head first.
In exchange for this openness, Europe receives Arab oil, Arab investment, and a "truce" of sorts by which, as Muslims become the majority in many countries (which some believe could take place within decades), Jews and Christians will be safe to practice their religions, just as they were permitted to do as dhimmis in the 7th century, when, writes Bat Ye'or, "the infidel population had to recognize Islamic ownership on their land, submit to Islamic (i.e. Sharia) law, and accept payment of the poll tax. In return they were granted the effective protection of Islamic law, which gave them security, limited religious rights, and self administration in religious and civil law." On her web site (dhimmitude.org) she further notes, "Peace and security for non-Muslims are recognized only after their submission. Protection status is provided through the Islamization of conquered lands."
So what has this to do with American security today?
Just this: Influence and investment in the USA by Muslim nations particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE not only continues, but is escalating, invading our institutions with the $20 million grant to Harvard University by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal for the establishment of an Islamic Studies program (which can surely be expected to teach the kinds of things that similarly-sponsored schools teach in Europe); with the purchase last fall by Dubai's crown prince Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of 230 Park Avenue, the building above New York's Grand Central Station; with the takeover by another Dubai firm, Dubai Holdings, of the Doncasters Group, a UK-based manufacturer of parts for military aircraft, tanks, and petrochemical markets with plants throughout the US and Europe.
Doncasters' now Dubai Holding's biggest clients? Boeing, Honeywell, Siemens, and General Electric.
(It is perhaps worth noting that, as with the Dubai Ports World transactions, many of those companies agreeing to be purchased are not only European, but that of our closest European ally: Great Britain. And to quote a piece in Al Bayan, a government run UAE newspaper as cited by the Anti-Defamation League: "...But who planted the biggest and the most dangerous virus in the region? Isn't it Britain and Europe who planted the Israeli virus? Isn't America protecting and injecting this virus in every aspect of life so it can penetrate and become monstrous?").
Yet when questioned on these transactions, their defenders are quick to pull the "racism" card, arguing that we don't want to anger our "friends" in the United Arab Emirates, who have, they argue, supported and assisted some of America's anti-terror efforts.
(That they have supported and assisted some of political Islam's most vicious terrorists in their own effort is, apparently, not the point.)
In other words, the deal is struck: they'll be nice to us as long as we let them take over our ports, our real estate, our train stations (the ones lacking security systems), our institutions. If we refuse them, they may so the argument goes get angry, pack up their toys and go home, and then come back to bomb us in the morning.
These, we call our friends.
This, I call succumbing to terror.
This, I call dhimmitude.
Ye'or defines the term, in fact, in exactly this way, noting in her interview with Whitehead that the concept "represents a behavior dictated by fear (terrorism), pacifism when aggressed, rather than resistance, servility because of cowardice and vulnerability."
Isn't that what this is?
THE SELLING OF THE MILITARY
If you haven't heard of Dubai Holdings, the company that just purchased Doncasters while you weren't looking, you might want to find out more. They also have a $1 billion share of Daimler/Chrysler, makers of such commonly used US and European military equipment as ground transport vehicles and of such vital military weapons as missiles.
(And of course, if it is true that, as some have suggested, the UAE maintains friendly relations with the USA in part because of its need to purchase our arms, well, they seem to be doing away with that necessity quite handily.)
Moreover, Doncasters now Dubai Holding maintains close connections with General Electric the company that not only produces turbine engines for Boeing (among others) but, as it announces proudly on its web site, "Whether you're with a federal, state or local government agency, GE offers innovative technologies to help make your world safer. GE can integrate the latest advancements with your existing equipment and IT systems so you can increase security at embassies, borders, military installations, water treatment plants and other critical public infrastructure. Plus these integrated systems capture valuable data you can use to improve procedures, investigate events and prevent others from happening at all."
In the face of all this, the cancellation of the Dubai Ports World deal (which now seems possibly not to have been cancelled after all) doesn't seem to me to mean that much.
Okay, I know that some people do not see this as a threat. They argue that the UAE has been an ally to the US. They maintain that in a globalized economy, international exchanges of businesses are not only likely but desirable, that there should be no difference between selling a company to the UK and selling the same business to the Arab world even to countries which have taken a pronounced, militant stance against Israel, whose anti-Semitic leanings and support of Hamas and of the Taliban are well-documented, countries that have served as financial centers for terrorists, countries that have, in fact, harbored the very terrorists who killed thousands on our own shores.
Even, it seems, in the face of history.
(Whether the connections between some of these companies and friends, members, and family of the Bush Administration are relevant here is another question; stay tuned for Part Two of this investigation.)
Some defense contractors have told me global war by Islamic extremists is becoming a business. Tactics and procedures are being tested in Sri Lanka, bombs are tested in Indonesia, and suddenly they turn up in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the UAE, they say, knows that military defense is a growth business in the United States these days.
How do they know? Why do they know?
Speaking not of the UAE, but of their Saudi neighbors, Ibn Warraq, the esteemed author of Leaving Islam and Why I Am Not A Muslim pointed out at the Hague conference, "In August, 2002, the Rand Corporation published a report that described Saudi Arabia as ' the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent."
The report went on explain that "Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies. The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader'. And yet little seems to have changed in the West's behavior towards a regime that has financed terrorism, funnelled millions into madrassas that preach more anti-Western hatred, has corrupted institutions of higher education like Harvard and Georgetown University, has bought the favours of Western politicians and seeks to destroy Western civilisation at every turn. We know the reason: oil. But until we address the question of Saudi Arabia and its influence on life in the West we shall have no progress, no rest."
Is the UAE really all that different? Is that a chance we want to take with our military equipment, our clean water systems, our embassies, our railways, our ports?
Author and scholar Robert Spencer may make you wonder. Asked to define dhimmitude in his own words, he replied in an e-mail: It is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Koran's command that they "feel themselves subdued."(Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race."
Yes. I am afraid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/22/2006
14:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
When the "better red than dead" mentality arose in the 'fifties, they were immediately challenged by academics who challenged surrenderism. Our academics lack that moral strength.
#2
Ok, some good points in general, but some major problems which cause question to the whole:
They also have a $1 billion share of Daimler/Chrysler, makers of such commonly used US and European military equipment as ground transport vehicles and of such vital military weapons as missiles.
Well, ground support equipment is almost commodity, same as missiles. You see tow bars everyday at the airport, and missiles by nature are disposable.
Also, $1B is not that much in the auto industry, let alone aerospace. These are very poor examples.
Some defense contractors have told me global war by Islamic extremists is becoming a business.
Not sure who this would be, but most real defense contractors wouldn't touch these with a ten foot pole ... not enough initial money, and not enough sustaining. Sorry, but, this is dead wrong.
Raising some good points here, but, the examples really drop the ball.
#3
"Global war by Radical extremists is becoming a business" - no surprise here, as its called getting your enemies, real or potential, to defeat or destroy themselves. No different wid the Commies, now known as Conservative
"Fascists"/Socialists. at least in America = Amerikka, vv Lenin's famed "hangman" quote.
Posted by: N guard ||
03/22/2006 17:14
Comments ||
Top||
#5
*heh* lutefisk...
Norwegians in the Old Country look at those of us in the States who still go to the Lutheran Church basement for the lutefisk-n-lefse supper as being slightly goofy.
"Why eat it preserved in lye? We have refrigeration," is what I get from relatives there.
Posted by: Phil ||
03/22/2006 23:07
Comments ||
Top||
#10
We've screwed Norway at every turn; our most stalwart ally during, and since WWII.
I was the Norwegian-produced PENGUIN Anti-Ship Missile (Reverse FMS) Program logistics manager for USN in the late 1990's. The Norwegians have probably been our(USA) best We'll never learn...
#13
Why the reaction? While there were some humerous comments, I don't think anyone here was expressing disapproval of the Norwegians policing their waters.
Posted by: Phil ||
03/22/2006 23:58
Comments ||
Top||
But... but I thought we were told they are our allies when they trying to buy our port management??
The militant group Hamas said it was assured that the United Arab Emirates would continue to provide financial aid to the Palestinians under a Hamas-led government. A Hamas delegation led by political chief Khaled Meshaal was told during talks in Abu Dhabi that the oil-rich UAE would "go on providing financial aid to the Palestinian people and their Hamas-led government," delegation member Ezzat al-Reshq told AFP on Wednesday. Reshq said the Emirati side headed by Presidential Affairs Minister Sheikh Mansur bin Zayed al-Nahayan also promised to "continue to sponsor and support infrastructure projects in the occupied Palestinian territories." The UAE has funded housing projects in the territories, footing the bill for the reconstruction of some homes demolished by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip and in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Don't forget sponsoring the vets who nurtured injured baby duck and puppies back to health either
The UAE's official WAM news agency said Sheikh Mansur also stressed the importance of continuing "political negotiations" to reach a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Hamas team is on a tour of the region to mobilize financial and political support to counter US-led moves to starve the Hamas-led government of funds after its upset election win in January.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has also said it will carry on its financial support for the Palestinians. Does this mean he won't be getting kisses and holding hands in Texas anymore?
But the European Union, which is the Palestinian Authority's main source of funding with some 600 million dollars annually in aid, has threatened to cut all assistance as soon as the Hamas government takes office.
It has demanded that Hamas renounce violence, recognize Israel and respect former Israeli-Palestinian agreements as preconditions for continued aid.
According to WAM, Sheikh Mansur said the UAE would continue to "respect the will of the Palestinian Arab people in determining their fate, identifying their options and choosing their government," and voiced Abu Dhabi's "trust and full support for the Palestinian Authority."
But the Emirati minister also stressed "the importance of remaining on the course of political negotiations aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive peace in the region."
Israel has vowed not to have dealings with a Hamas government, and to continue to funds collected on behalf of the Palestinians until the movement changes its stance. This double talk from our great allies representing the RoP is getting old. Guess the "you're with us or against us" was just a clever line for a speach with no real meaning behind it.
#1
Article: "The court must ensure a fair and open process, and authorities need to substantiate their case," Ann Cooper, executive director the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.
"So far, the handling of this case has been alarming. It's unacceptable that Hussein was held without charge or due process for so long."
What a bunch of American journalists feel the Iraqi government must do may not be the same as what it feels it has to do during a wartime emergency. Note that Major John Andre was hanged for spying.
I'd heard the owners were seriously thinking of asking her about it...
NASSAU, Bahamas - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a big football fan, ruled out applying for the job of NFL commissioner after Paul Tagliabue retires.
"Unfortunately, it came open at the wrong time," Rice said Wednesday, clearly amused when a reporter posed the question. "Obviously, I'm very busy as secretary of state, and I intend to continue to be secretary of state as long as the president of the United States will have me."
Rice, an avid follower of the Cleveland Browns and pro football in general, has frequently said she aspires to run the league one day. In the days since Tagliabue announced he would retire in July, Rice's aides have said she was not interested.
Rice spoke while in the Bahamas to meet with 14 foreign ministers and the secretary general of the Caribbean Community and Common Market, a regional trade bloc.
#1
Hmmm - lessee, NFL Commissioner or Secretary of State of the United States?
Gee, that's a hard choice to make.
I think the NFL owners are legends in their own minds.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006 13:13
Comments ||
Top||
#2
She's made it very apparent that she's a big football fan, so I'm sure she didn't dismiss it out of hand.
However, I hope the real reason she dismissed it is because she's gearing up for the "Condi in '08" presidential campaign!
Posted by: Dar ||
03/22/2006 13:20
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Dar, wishful thinking. Condi has made it clear numerious times she isn't interested in the Presidency. Though we can all keep praying, I don't think it's going to happen.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/22/2006 14:16
Comments ||
Top||
#4
She had previously brushed off questions about Presidential aspirations with a statement to the effect of rather going for Commissioner of the NFL.
I suppose it would be unseemly for her to lobby for that job, but I wouldn't be surprised if sometime post-2009 she were to take that job.
A judge has indicted 32 suspected Islamic extremists in a failed plot to attack the National Court in Madrid, which tries terrorism cases. The suspects allegedly planned to pack a lorry with explosives and drive it into the building. The indictments were issued last week, but were only made public on Tuesday to coincide with a hearing for eight of the 32 suspects at the court. The rest will be formally notified of the indictments later this week.
The plot aimed to pack a truck with 500 kilogrammes of explosives and drive it into the National Court building, where nearly a thousand people work daily, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police officers, according to the 23-page indictment. The 32 suspects are charged with "belonging to a terrorist group" and "conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack with resulting deaths" and also with document forgery, the indictment said.
#2
In my weaker moments, I sometimes find myself in an extra-rotten place - rooting for the bad guys in some situations. Something of a convergence of two rotten vectors. This is one of those moments and Spain is one of those situations. Houston, we have Intersection.
Press release from the United Nations Environment Programme Division of Early Warning and Assessment (hold on to your wallets). Severely EFL.
Global International Waters Assessment Report Launched
"Freshwater Shortages, Engineering of River Flows, Pollution and Overfishing Highlighted in Final Global International Waters Assessment"
21 March 2006 - Freshwater shortages are likely to trigger increased environmental damage over the next 15 years, according to an international report of the worlds waters.
Falls in river flows, rising saltiness of estuaries, loss of fish and aquatic plant species and reductions in sediments to the coast are expected to rise in many areas of the globe by 2020.
These in turn will intensify farmland losses, food insecurity and damage to fisheries along with rises in malnutrition and disease.
Overall agriculture ranks highest as the key concern on the freshwater front among the 1,500 experts involved in the final report of the Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA). They left off the quotation marks around "experts"
Globally, there has been an increased demand for agricultural products and a trend towards more water-intensive food such as meat rather than vegetables and fruits rather than cereals. In other words, more people are eating better. AND the UN wants to tell everyone else besides themselves what they're allowed to eat. Figures.
Knowledge gaps are also to blame, with many developing countries operating in the dark on the size of their water resource, and the precise patterns of supply and demand. And why might that be? Couldn't have anything to do with spending their money on palaces and jets for the kleptocracy, could it?
Aquifers represent the largest information gap, which is an increasingly significant hindrance for effective water management given the growing dependence on groundwater," says the report released in advance of World Water Day 22 March. Tomorrow is World Water Day? Who knew? I'll be sure to take a shower in its honor.
The report recommends here it comes....
ecosystem service payments as one way of better valuing the goods and services provided by natural features like coral reefs and wetlands.
For example, it argues that wetlands in Mexico would be less vulnerable if landowners are paid for the waste water treatment provided by these natural pollution filters. Are paid? By whom? (Don't bother, I know the answer.) And what does that even mean? Here's a clue, assholes. Mexico's wetlands (and Mexico in general) would be better off if they got rid of their corrupt government. Ever think of recommending that?
Climate change is viewed as the overarching issue in the report, with specific concerns for fisheries and marine organisms. Ya' just knew they had to get "climate change" in there somewhere. I like climate change; I'm particularly glad the climate changed from the Ice Age of 10,000 years ago to what we have today. But maybe that's just me.
Their final report, Challenges to International Waters: Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective, is formally launched today, complete with a string of forward looking recommendations to reverse the damage and declines. Uh-oh. In other words, they want more of our money. As usual.
"I sincerely believe that overcoming poverty and meeting the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals requires us to look harder at the way we manage the natural world." Ya' want to overcome poverty worldwide? Eliminate (with extreme prejudice, preferably) all the kleptocrats, dictators, theocrats, mullahs, etc., who keep their people in poverty AND ignorance while they live the high life, and you're more than half-way there. Of course, the UN's ruling kleptocrats' mileage may vary on that.
Read the rest if you're interested - I'm going to use my time more productively. Like watching oil paint dry.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006
12:09 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
More expensive crap for the UN to justify its pathetic exsitance. Can we kill it now? Pluuueeese???
#2
Well, I'll see your "Clean Water"...and raise you "Somalia".
U.N. Appeals for Aid to Help Somalia
NAIROBI, Kenya - The United Nations appealed Tuesday for nearly $327 million in aid to help starving people in southern Somalia, which is suffering its worst drought in a decade.
About 2.1 million people are coping with severe food shortages caused by prolonged drought, war, displacement, flooding and human rights abuses, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"This current drought is unprecedented in 10 years, and the impact it is having on food, water, health, education and livelihoods is alarming," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the world body's acting humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.
"With a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, the humanitarian community needs to scale up its current response exponentially."
Think I'll flush my spare bucks down a toilet, Mr. Humanitarian Coordinator. It'll do about as much good as sending it to the UN to solve what ails Somalia.
#1
If I had my way, they would just kill all the bastards who do things like this and be done with it.
In fact, I'd be glad to help.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006 12:46
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Consider yourself lucky to be born an American, one of the very few places in the world to know and celebrate the true value of a woman. Other Western countries give it lip service, but when you look beneath the veneer, that is one of the reasons why America is the best place to live in the world.
#4
RVW - I'm grateful every morning I wake up that my ancestors got on those boats.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006 14:28
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Eff-all. I DO NOT need to cry at work right now.
Slow death, exceedingly slow and incredibly painful death is one of the few proper repayments for this sort of systematic torture (DO NOT call it "abuse").
The worst of it is that this is not an isolated incident. Typical, more like. This is why Islam must die.
#6
I also thank God I live in America. While this sort of thing probably happens here (people can be very ugly... ) -- its only in very rare and isolated incidents and would not be tolerated or condoned by the neighbors.
Her mother and stepfather should join her father-in-law in prison (or slow death as Zenster put it).
London's mayor has become embroiled in a new row after criticising two Jewish businessmen involved in building a key facility for the 2012 Olympics. Ken Livingstone attacked David and Simon Reuben for their role in an ongoing dispute about the Stratford City development in east London. He suggested the brothers "go back (to their own country) and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs".
The mayor made the comments during a speech at City Hall. The mayor's office said there was nothing further to add.
Conservative members of the London Assembly said the brothers were not Iranian, but had been born in India of Iraqi Jewish parents.
Three years of conflict in Iraq has corroded public trust in every aspect of his premiership, both domestic and foreign
If you want to understand the current plight of Tony Blair, there was a brief but revealing glimpse of it on BBC News 24 yesterday afternoon. The channel carried live a thoughtful, cogent speech by the prime minister on foreign policy, the first of a trilogy. The moment the PM finished, the presenter invited a correspondent to offer a few words of analysis - before returning to the big story of the day: the ongoing row over loans-for-peerages. Blair's face was gone, replaced by Tory benefactor Stuart Wheeler, denouncing the corruption of the Blair regime.
There it was, Blair's problem in a televisual nutshell: he can get no message across, can set no grand vision, drive through no important policy, because his voice is drowned out by political noise like the article you are now reading. This week's noise was Labour sleaze. Last week it was Labour's split on education reform. The week before that it was more alleged Labour sleaze, centred on the financial arrangements of Tessa Jowell. These are the passing squalls, but they are not the source of the storm. That lies elsewhere.
To find it, one has to look hard at that speech yesterday. Ambitious to lay out a coherent Blair doctrine of foreign policy, the prime minister began by restating his belief in liberal interventionism - the creed that democratic countries can no longer stand by while dictators commit hideous crimes against their own peoples.
When he first developed the idea, in the so-called Chicago speech of 1999, at the height of the Kosovo crisis, he won many admirers. Those who, like me, backed the principle of intervention believed Blair was articulating a new approach to international affairs, one that would no longer see the principle of state sovereignty trump all other moral considerations. That same year, Augusto Pinochet had failed in his attempt to hide behind the legal notion of "sovereign immunity" rather than be answerable for his crimes in Chile. The Blair doctrine suggested a new dispensation, one that would no longer let horror go unpunished, one that would not tolerate a second Rwanda.
Such talk sounds quaint now or, worse, deluded. The explanation is simple enough. The Iraq adventure poisoned the well for interventionism, perhaps for generations to come. Not because it made a case on humanitarian grounds, but because it invented a threat that was not there. At the turn of the decade many progressives were ready to believe in a new ethical, rather than realpolitik, motivation in foreign policy. But the Iraq war made a mockery of all that. From now on, any government urging military action for moral purpose will face hoots of derision and howls of scepticism. You said that about Iraq, the voters will say, and we won't be fooled again.
All of which lent Blair's speech a rather forlorn feel. As if in valedictory mode, the PM conceded those places where there had been no intervention, even though he wished there had. He had done nothing for Burma, nothing for the slave nation of North Korea, nothing for Zimbabwe. And, above all, though he referred to it only indirectly, nothing for Darfur. The lesson of Rwanda had gone utterly unheeded.
There was no hint of action for these places; Blair tacitly admitted that there is no chance of that. Partly because he is approaching the end of his tenure, but also because, after Iraq, the idea of marshalling an international consensus for armed action anywhere seems almost preposterous. His roll call of countries was a wish list, as remote from reality as a beauty queen's plea for world peace.
The same was true of his remarks on what he called "a clash about civilisation". Blair urged a firm stance not just against terrorist methods, but against the ideology of Bin Ladenist Islamism itself. We have to tell them, he said, that their "attitude to America is absurd, their concept of governance pre-feudal, their positions on women and other faiths reactionary and regressive". Yes, some may feel frightened of straying into this terrain, for fear of being branded a critic of Islam itself allan forbid!, but nevertheless a stand had to be taken against this particular "warped" strain of Islamism - chiefly by supporting those Muslims who are already fighting this battle themselves.
All of that made great sense and suggests that Blair has shifted his position. Once he tiptoed around the point; now he is willing to urge Muslims not to go into denial, but "to face up to the strain of extremism within [their] religion".
Yet this message too was drowned out. Of course, Blair is right that Bin Ladenist ideology is worldwide and lethal, and must be defeated. The trouble is, everyone knows not only that the Iraq war was unrelated to that titanic struggle, since Saddam had no link with al-Qaida, but that it has made it so much worse. Yesterday Blair urged us to ignore that fact, to realise that, whatever our earlier disagreements, we have to close ranks in wanting democracy to triumph over murderous sectarianism in Baghdad today. The trouble is, he is the one person who cannot make this case. Why should we follow his banner in the war against Islamist reaction, when it was he who led us blindly into such a calamity?
The crude, harsh truth is that no one can take what Blair says on foreign policy seriously, because he is responsible for the greatest foreign-policy disaster in half a century of British history. No matter that he emerged as a major world leader during the Kosovo war, or that he won international admiration after the Good Friday agreement. Now, because of that one fateful decision, his credibility is shot.
And it is not just in international affairs that Blair is overwhelmed by Iraq. Take the current sleaze affair. A useful law of scandal is that charges only bite when they confirm a pre-existing suspicion. In the 1990s Britons believed the Major government was decayed; the Hamilton and Aitken revelations duly validated that belief. When the Bernie Ecclestone affair broke in 1997, voters didn't see Blair or New Labour as financially corrupt (even though the charge then, of cash-for-policy, was much graver than anything revealed now). Today's scandal bites because it plays into something Britons do now believe about their government: that it is not honest and cannot be trusted.
And the explanation for that, once again, is Iraq. Polls show that Blair was broadly trusted before the invasion. But he told the nation that Saddam had weapons of destruction when he didn't, and Blair has never been trusted since. In this sense, removing Blair over a few undisclosed loans would be like jailing Al Capone for tax evasion: he will be punished for a small offence because the system couldn't get him for the much larger one.
Can he overcome this? Can Blair somehow persuade us, as he tried again yesterday, to draw a line under the three-year conflict that corrodes every aspect of his premiership, preventing him leading on matters domestic and foreign? I don't see how. It's understandable that he wants to recover his reputation and quit as a winner. He's like a gambler at the roulette wheel, sinking further and further into debt, but still praying for one more lucky spin that will restore his fortune. Maybe he'll enjoy a small win one of these days. But it can't last. His luck has run out. And he cannot blame fate or chance or anyone but himself - and his decision to fight the war that destroyed him.
You can find Blair's speech here. Reading it will help alleviate the nausea you may feel after reading the partisan polemic above.
#1
The trouble is, everyone knows not only that the Iraq war was unrelated to that titanic struggle, since Saddam had no link with al-Qaida, but that it has made it so much worse.
Don't these people ever wonder if their grandchildren will get access to their inaccurate writing and be embarrassed?
different story/results fom the one already posted below. EFL
Insurgents attacked a police station Wednesday for a second day in a row, but U.S. and Iraqi forces captured 50 of them after a two-hour gunbattle. About 60 gunmen attacked the police station in Madain, south of Baghdad, with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, said police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi. U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, catching the insurgents in crossfire, he said.
An American-style crossfire! No 3 am stroll, no shutter guns and no rounds of bullet to be recovered, just a lot of dead terrorists.
Four police were killed, including the commander of the special unit, and five were wounded, al-Mohammadawi said. None of the attackers died, and among the captives was a Syrian.
Madain, 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated Triangle of Death, a region rife with sectarian violence retaliatory kidnappings and killings in the underground conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006
11:38 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wow - that's a completely different story. I guess the "reporter" couldn't wait and filed his hit piece as soon as his friends had killed off the policemen, who should be mourned.
I'll bet that Wretchard and Malkin will both jump on this 180 deg turnaround. Will it get the same "play" as the first pathetic "reporting"? I doubt it.
#16
Four police were killed, including the commander of the special unit...
If they are being trained by the US, then he was at the front with his men. I wouldn't put it past friendly fire, but these guys are starting to think and act like western soldiers.
Embassy of Afghanistan in USA: http://www.embassyofafghanistan.org/
email addresses:
Info@embassyofafghanistan.org
Street address, phone and fax:
Embassy of Afghanistan
2341 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202.483.6410
Fax: 202.483.6488
I just tried the phone number. Its tough to get through the automatic voice message tree. Michele Maulkin gave this number: (202) 483-6410 which also leads to a voice message tree
Probably the best idea is a fax if you have a stand alone machine with redial capability.
President George W. Bush said he was opposed to amnesty or automatic citizenship for the some 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Amid an intense debate over the issue among US lawmakers, Bush on Tuesday ruled out amnesty for illegal immigrants but said he favored a "guest worker" program that would provide legal status for workers for a limited time period. "In my judgment, amnesty would be the wrong course of action," Bush told a news conference.
He said "a whole industry" of exploitation had emerged with workers being smuggled across the US border in dangerous conditions.
"The best way to do something about it is to say that if an American won't do a job and you can find somebody who will do the job, they ought to be allowed to do it legally on a temporary basis," Bush said.
Asked about those undocumented workers who have lived in the US for more than a decade, Bush said: "One of the issues is going to be to deal with somebody whose family has been here for a while, raised a family, and that'll be an interesting debate.
"My answer is: That person shouldn't get automatic citizenship."
Bush's comments came as a showdown looms in Congress over rival proposals on immigration reform and a day after the Mexican government bought full-page advertisements in major US newspapers to set out their stance on the issue.
"Mexico does not promote undocumented migration," the advertisement read in the New York Times and other newspapers.
Mexico supports "a safe, orderly guest worker program" but acknowledges the need for incentives such as housing credits to encourage the return of temporary workers to Mexico, said the advertisement, which was based on a document produced by Mexican legislators, government officials, academics and other experts.
"A guest worker program designed to process the legal temporary flow of workers will allow Mexico and the United States to better comabt criminal organizations specialized in the smuggling of migrants and the use of false documents...," the advertisement said.
The issue has split Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress, some of whom have pushed for strict enforcement measures on the US-Mexico border without providing the possibility of legalizing those undocumented workers already settled in the United States.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to agree on reforms while the House of Representatives has already voted for the construction of a wall along the US border with Mexico to stop illegal immigration, as well as severe penalties for violations of immigration laws.
Bush warned that illegal immigration was "an emotional issue" and if the debate was "not conducted properly," it would "send signals that I don't think will befit the nation's history and traditions."
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006
10:10 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Interesting. The Democrats think this is the new Third Rail of politics and are pandering as fast as they can - ignore the PR stunts by Richardson (NM) and Napolitano (AZ) - they were just trying to smear Bush. W sticks with his program, which was wildly distorted by almost everyone into an amnesty program. And the Third Way, simply enforcing the laws on the books, has gained a lot of steam. Should be bloody. I think the split on the right, the inability to find any common ground and unity, will cost the Republicans some House seats. The Democrats are certainly unified -- they'll suck up to anything that might vote.
#2
It'll solve nothing till the underlying cancer of the corrupt Mexican political culture is totally destroyed as Saddam's Baathis. It is not in their interests in the least to end the means to dump millions of their unemployed to insure the continuation of their power.
#3
So true, EF. That Mexico has decided they need not develop into anything more than a backwater collection of the fiefdoms of robber baron families is the problem. The US will soon stop being their solution. It can be draconian or it can be more gradual, but the game is definitely about to end.
I hope the internal pressure in Mexico builds to the breaking point, too. The "slumlords" of Mexico need to feel the pain of their people.
#4
"In my judgment, amnesty would be the wrong course of action..."
Amnesty? No certainly not! Please dont call it amnesty its earned citizenship. Its more like you know these people are our guests and you dont want to be rude to your guests. Granted, their first act upon entering the country was breaking the law but cmon theyre workers and what choice do they have if there arent any good jobs in their country. And if theyre skilled enough to exploit the laws and evade capture doesnt that just go to prove they have alittle merican ingenuity? Just what they need to succeed here in the land of opportunity. Even the ones that get caught crossing the border 13 or 14 times hell that shows gumption dammit! So no to amnesty (spit spit), our guests have earned their rights.
#6
Article: "A guest worker program designed to process the legal temporary flow of workers will allow Mexico and the United States to better comabt criminal organizations specialized in the smuggling of migrants and the use of false documents...," the advertisement said.
My view is that no matter what "guest worker" program we come up with, we need to seal the border. If we're going to start importing workers from abroad, why get them all from Mexico? Surely we can import some from Europe, Asia and Africa. The Mexican government doesn't really want unlimited immigration - it wants unlimited immigration from Mexico.
#9
I'm for moving the border further south and thus bring a better lifestyle to more and more American Indians (that's what they are). When the euro-mexicans get the balls to stop our southward creep, then we'll declare 5 or 6 new states. Baja California will be just that.
An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday. Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.
But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about his mental fitness. "We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.
Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination. "Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped." It was not immediately clear when he would be examined or when the trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see Rahman and he is not believed to have a lawyer.
#1
This is an "easy out". He may even be allowed to be a Christian if he is declared mad. However, he may be of a variety of martyr that wants to force the government's hand.
If you push, they will usually have to push back.
I am reminded of Pvt Slovik, who was given the option to say that he had just become separated from his unit, but insisted that he was a deserter, thus forcing the government to execute him.
ABERDEEN, Md. - The personal stuff they carried to war, the remnants of lives lost in Iraq, was spread neatly across long tables in a drafty warehouse last week. Mortuary affairs troops wearing surgical gloves at the Joint Personal Effects Depot went about the tedious work of counting and separating out what belonged to the soldier and what belonged to the government.
In three years of war, Lt. Col. Deborah Skillman, the depot's commander, said her unit at the military's Aberdeen Proving Ground has cut the time for getting the personal effects back to the families from 45 to 22 days. But the checklist efficiency does little to relieve the stress of handling, photographing, and doing the inventory on the last items a fallen comrade may have held, laughed about, cared about.
"You're touching somebody's life here," said Army Capt. Cathy Carman, 34, of Eustis, Fla., who is in charge of the section that carefully, almost reverently, packs and boxes up the belongings for shipment home. "It's an emotional job, nobody here will argue about that," said Carman. She gestured to a box of tissues kept nearby for the 120 troops and civilian personnel, many of them retired military, who handle the items belonging to soldiers and Marines killed in action.
Driver's license, house keys, letters from home, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, diaries, cigarette lighters, Air Jordans, photo albums, children's drawings, Christmas stockings. Also the spent cartridges from the farewell salute fired by the service member's buddies in Iraq.
Much of the depot's work goes to the reserve troops of the 246th and 311th Quartermasters Cos. from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. These are the 92Ms - "92 Mikes" in military jargon - for their jobs as mortuary affairs specialists.
Many in the Puerto Rican contingent answered the emergency call to search for remains in the 9/11 Pentagon attack, and some have gone to hunt for the remains of the missing in Vietnam and Laos. At Aberdeen last Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Raul Rivera, 40, of Lares, P.R., stressed that all items passing through the depot, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, are considered precious.
Rivera pointed to a torn-up piece of a brown paper bag with "We Love You" in what appeared to be a child's scrawl written in crayon upon it. "We don't know what that is. Maybe it's something a kid in Iraq gave to him. It was in his stuff and that's going home," Rivera said. "Even a paper clip, that's going home."
Civilian worker Tammy Stoneberg, 45, of Havre de Grace, Md., gently held up a small black rock. "Don't know where this rock came from or why he wanted it," she said," but it's gonna go back too."
Smiley-face stick-ons, Halloween "Freaky Teeth," copy of "Kiplinger's Safe Investing," a Nicaraguan cigar box, a Hickory Farms Beef Stick Summer Sausage, pack of Kool menthols.
When a soldier is killed in Iraq, his unit will inventory and pack up the things he kept at his bunk site in rucksacks, sea bags and foot lockers. The personal effects of the 2,310 troops killed in Iraq have all gone first to the Dover, Del., Air Force Base and then to Aberdeen. The belongings of thousands of troops who were wounded and flown out of Iraq also pass through Aberdeen, and are either sent home or to the soldier's home base.
Skillman paused to think of the most unusual personal effect she has sent home. "Has to be the motorcycle" that was somehow acquired by a soldier in Iraq, Skillman said. She's also had to deal with full-size refrigerators, 50-inch TVs and a prized moose head that a soldier had toted to the desert.
Playing cards, Trivial Pursuit - the "Saturday Night Live" Edition, Star Wars Galactic Battleground DVD, "The Soldier's New Testament," "Live from Baghdad" starring Michael Keaton, a computerized chess set, Perfect Poker poker game set.
There are rules and regulations about what can be returned. Anything bloodied, or burned by a blast, will be destroyed. Anything remotely pornographic will be tossed. Helmets and body armor are government property and stay with the unit to be analyzed by Army medical examiners. A sore point with many families had been the military's initial reluctance to return the desert camouflage uniforms worn by the troops, but the Pentagon now permits the next of kin to have them if they have not been bloodied. Special care is taken at the depot to wash and press the cammies and meticulously fold them so that the chest nametag is the first thing seen by the family opening the package.
Sometimes, ways around the regulations are found. Skillman told of a stray dog that became attached to a soldier at a forward base in Iraq. When the soldier was killed, the family learned that the dog had puppies. The family asked for one, but it wasn't permitted. Nobody knows, and nobody wants to know, how one of those puppies found its way into the U.S. at just about the time that the soldier's unit came home. But the family had a new best friend.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
10:02 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I don't know what it is with GIs and dogs, but we had one at the 12th RITS at Tan Son Nhut. The unit took up a collection to get the dog back to the States with the First Shirt when he left. The dog (Rusty) even had his own security badge and free access to the building, including the vault. The First Sergeant left about a month before I did, heading back to Langley AFB, VA. Never heard what happened to Rusty...
We had a wild iguana in Panama that lived in a mango tree in front of our barracks. It would come inside from time to time, especially during the rainy season. No one would even think of harming it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 13:15
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Sometimes, ways around the regulations are found. Skillman told of a stray dog that became attached to a soldier at a forward base in Iraq. When the soldier was killed, the family learned that the dog had puppies. The family asked for one, but it wasn't permitted. Nobody knows, and nobody wants to know, how one of those puppies found its way into the U.S. at just about the time that the soldier's unit came home. But the family had a new best friend.
I love Americans. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006 13:19
Comments ||
Top||
#1
The gist of this was that an American minister who was in charge of some interfaith dialogue with Islam was Amazed that the Afghan constitution would allow death to apostates.
Robert Spencer was amazed at the minister's ignorance.
I'm not amazed at all. The overwhelming majority of clergy get their info on Islam from personal contact or from dumbed down warm and fuzzy essays and the like. Thus, they are vulnerable to misinformation.
#2
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who leads the Church of Englands dialogue with Islam, told The Times: Im amazed that the constitution that has been agreed in post-Taleban Afghanistan under the very eyes of the international community should allow this kind of thing to take place for a person to be arrested for having been converted 14 years ago and to be threatened with execution simply for his beliefs."
He is an English bishop, even though some American Episcopalian clergy are also that willfully naive.
Posted by: ed ||
03/22/2006 12:01
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Not Spencer, but the windbag Hugh that posts on his site.
(Not saying the guy's wrong or a bad guy, just that he routinely takes 100 words when 5 would do.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 12:08
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Im amazed that the constitution . . .has been agreed in post-Taleban Afghanistan under the very eyes of the international community
hey. these laws exist throughout the islamic world. does he expect that afghanistan would be different?
or maybe he isn't aware of how bereft of civilized notions is the islamic world?
#1
You have to wonder when Carter stopped just being a weasel and actually began relishing eating his own feces. That bottom right picture, where he's with Arafat, you can see the last vestiges of queasiness. Almost makes him human, again. But in the others, he's enthusiastically chomping away.
Maybe he's a shining example of the depths people will go to for attention since, unlike Michael Moore for example, he isn't making really big bucks out of becoming a total laughingstock and traitor to America.
He's certainly not funny. I support this effort as it makes more sense than not doing it by a wide margin.
I like the al guardian lurid tittle...
A bill that would ban 'obscene public acts' such as sunbathing has provoked angry protests, writes John Aglionby
Indonesia's burgeoning conservative Islamic movement, which had been on a fairly steep upward trajectory over the last few years, has encountered its first significant roadblock. How the situation is resolved is likely to shape socio-political dynamics for the next few years in the world's most-populous but largely moderate Muslim nation.
Causing ructions is not some aspect of theology, but an attempt to enact a wide-ranging anti-pornography bill.
The legislation has sparked such a vehement backlash that its proponents, the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and a slew of Muslim organisations, are having to beat a somewhat undignified retreat. By Indonesian standards, where building consensus and not causing loss of face are fundamental social tenets and few people outside a liberal minority dare challenge the Islamic establishment, the strength of feeling is almost unprecedented.
The opposition is a motley coalition of women's rights groups, representatives from minority religions, the tourism industry, press freedom activists, the arts community and defenders of traditional culture.
None of them dispute that pornography is so widely available in Indonesia's mainstream media it needs to be reined in somehow.
There are, for example, few western countries that would show a posse of secondary school students watching a porn film in mid-afternoon and becoming so aroused they pair off couple by couple to go and have sex. Yet this scene appeared recently on an Indonesian soap opera. The fact that it was broadcast in the evening means little in a country where few children go to bed before 9pm. WTF?!?!?!?
Some of the bill's opponents argue that it is not more legislation that is needed, but better enforcement of existing regulations. Some newspapers, for instance, openly advertise massages that leave nothing to the imagination, and the police make virtually no attempt to clamp down on the numerous pirated porn film street vendors.
Many more secular politicians and activists say the bill's supporters are not really interested in the legislation per se but more in being seen to be doing something about pornography to burnish their Islamic credentials.
As evidence, they point to the fact that the bill's definition of pornography is so vague it does not clearly differentiate between pornography, obscenity and eroticism. But the biggest gripe is with the articles on what is known locally as pornoaksi, or pornographic actions. These, the opposition argue, massively curtail individuals' rights, and particularly those of women.
The bill states not only that anyone engaging in obscene public acts such as spouses kissing, women showing their navels and people sunbathing could be arrested, but it also says that anyone has the right to detain the offenders.
Some traditional dancing, such as the hip-gyrating that often accompanies the folk-pop dangdut music and is hugely popular with the lower classes, would also be branded as pornographic, as would visual art and performances depicting people not fully clothed and some local costumes, from Javanese outfits where women bare their shoulders to those of Papuans who wear nothing but a penis sheath.
Women's groups say women are targeted unfairly, artists say the bill would kill off their profession and almost everyone on Bali is so fearful that their economy would collapse that even the provincial governor has seriously raised the possibility of the resort island seceding from Indonesia if the legislation is passed.
Thousands-strong demonstrations demanding the bill be revised or even dropped have outnumbered the pro-legislation rallies.
The complaints are hitting home. The vice president, Jusuf Kalla, yesterday tried to reassure the Balinese by saying that the government does not support everything in the bill. Members of the parliamentary committee hearing civil society views on the bill have told Guardian Unlimited that virtually all of the pornoaksi articles have been withdrawn, and the two largest parties in parliament, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, are in rare agreement that the bill needs major revisions.
Resolution of the crisis is, however, nowhere in sight. Parliament goes into recess next week for a month and weeks of hearings are scheduled after that. The bill's advocates are expected to use that time to drum up support from across the country.
It is doubtful it will do them any good though. A more likely outcome is that parties like PKS, which soared from 2% of the vote in the 1999 general election to 9% in 2004, will have to modify its Islam-dominated message even further than it has already if it wants to become a really significant national political force.
#1
Hopefully, Indonesia is socially mature enough to refuse to be bullied by its "nasty nellies". If they cannot effectively use the law or violence as a tool, then they are beaten.
However, the forces of liberalization and moderation cannot rest with only an effective defense. They must continually pressure for more liberalization at the expense of those who would take it away--to force them to live in an ever-smaller box.
#3
A bill that would ban 'obscene public acts' such as sunbathing
Sunbathing. Got it? Are you sure? This has very little to do with pornography and everything to do with limiting any and all forms of "westernization" that have so rudely intruded themselves upon these stone-age barbarians.
As I have mentioned before, there is little about our modern world that does not offend so-called Muslim "sensibilities." These are skinless people living in a sandpaper world.
We need to offer Bali full military support should they seek to secede in the face of such discriminatory and oppressive bullsh!t.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
03/22/2006 19:36
Comments ||
Top||
#5
If Bali seriously moves to secede, Indonesia will fall apart. It's just about held together by surface tension and inertia now, and the military's willingness up till now to attack any who try. but that was when Indonesia was essentially a conservative but secular society. If there is a real attempt to impose Moslem rules, the islands just whirl apart too fast for the military to control.
#6
Since Muslim men cannot see a women outside of a burka without becoming aroused to the point of attacking her, maybe they should all be chemically castrated and put on thorazine. Given the amount of inbreeding in those societies, it would probably strengthen the human gene pool.
Long, needs p. 49; see link for footnotes.
by David Kennedy Houck
First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law?
Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe,[1] the trend is now crossing the Atlantic. Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging the principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil rights movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure."[2]
Well, goths are people too, normal people even, according to this... ok, they're normal, but funnier... and they make me feel all manly and upbeat in comparison, that's nice.
#1
The most terrifying realization for youth is the near-certain knowledge that they will make a pointlessly vain attempt to appear the opposite of their parents, but will eventually, after the stuporous fog finally lifts, end up precisely the same as their parents. Give or take a nose-ring or pierced nipple. It's a time-honored tradition among the privileged offspring of the tolerant West.
Most parents needlessly fear this phase, though it does usually coincide with the waste of immeasurable hard-earned money poured down the educational rat-hole. Though you paid for the equivalent of a law degree, that he turned out to be a poodle-clipper shouldn't unhinge you. Buy a poodle and gloat over the fact that you get yours trimmed free. Lemons. Lemonade.
#2
A lot of Goths are that way because they are afraid.
That is, public school is infested with a "cult of nice" that discourages teachers from teaching the whole truth, if it is nasty, mean, unpleasant, cruel, or basically, "not nice". This is why history, for example, has been so utterly gutted in the public schools, giving pages to vapid nonsense.
The Goth kids are smart enough to realize that they are being lied to, by omission, and they see things on their TVs that show that the world really isn't Hello Kitty and the Teletubbies in soft pastel colors, like their teachers have said.
So something so fearful that the adults around them won't talk about it must be scary indeed. And the Goths seek it out, not to embrace it, but just to put a form on it, so they will know what it is, and can avoid it.
The cure for a lot of Goths, then, is to be honest with them. To show them that being aware of evil, and knowing what evil is, is not the same as being evil.
In other words, they need to surf Rantburg for a few weeks.
At the same time, they should learn a little discrimination; that is, just because it looks good on paper, doesn't necessarily mean that it is good. In fact, that those who preach "goodness", can often be the most evil of them all.
#3
rofl - can we open up a goth helpline?? who cares about the problem of youth violence or drug taking and gang wars - lets all worry and fret about goths. lol only al - gaurdian can print this stuff and get away with it :) ,thanks for the laughs for posting this up.
#4
I think Rantburg should be required reading for every high school student. I'm sure their grades in history, science, geography, and "social studies" would improve greatly.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 13:33
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Well their knowledge will certainly improve :) (Mine certainly did (thanks to OP and others) and I'm over 40...)
Their grades however will probably suffer since they no longer toe the 'party line'....
#8
Goths are neither normal nor funny. They are mostly kids with attitude and self-image problems who feed on negative attention and who need help before they totally ruin their teen years with anti-social behavior.
Our 14-year-old daughter went into a Goth phase and we eventually reached a tipping point and resorted to "tough love". Her hair got cut by her mom and her Goth clothes and makeup went into the trash. Hanging out with the mall rats used to be forbidden and required some sneaking, but now she can only get the mall with her mom. She has to get approval for wardrobe each day and there are random room and bookbag searches. The pressure is subsiding in part because some of her Goth friends have voluntarily re-entered the normal world. She may go Goth again when she moves out of here, but I've had my fill of sitting across the dinner table from a Goth.
"Goth" is a social disease that can be treated with good old-fashioned parenting. Unfortunately, there's not so much of that around anymore.
Riyadh, 22 March (AKI) - The Saudi authorities detained three terror suspects late Tuesday following a security sweep in the kingdom, the regional daily Khaleej Times reports. In a press statement, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Torki said the men were detained in Khobar, a town in eastern Saudi Arabia, during a police operation in various cities. The three surrendered to the security authorities who had earlier laid siege to their house located next to an elementary school, al-Torki said. Neighbourhood residents were reportedly advised by the authorities not to leave their homes until the operation was over.
The Saudi daily Okaz quoted an eyewitness as saying those who were captured were unknown to the residents of the area and were not seen frequenting any of the mosques nearby. Earlier this week, the Saudi authorities had raided two houses in Khobar and Damam and arrested five terror suspects on Saturday.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/22/2006
08:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
When are they going to jail the Saudi terror facilitators in the House of Saud?
Zamboanga City, 22 March (AKI) - Communist and Islamic rebels in the autonomous Muslim region on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, have been working together for some time in their fight against the central government in Manila, a spokesman for the banned Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has confirmed. "These alliances are in line with the revolutionary (Communist) movement's support and recognition of the (mainly Islamic) Moro people's struggle against the puppet and reactionary Manila-based government," Gregorio Rosal said in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).
The southern Philippines have a long history of conflict, with Islamic rebel groups as well as communist rebels fighting for independence in the region. The various Islamic separatist groups want to establish an Islamic state in the mainly Catholic country. More than 120,000 people have been killed in Mindanao in the conflict that has lasted nearly 40 years. The CPP through its armed wing, the News People Army (NPA) has fought for over three decades to establish a Maoist state in the Philippines.
The most significant deal between the Communists and the Muslim groups was struck in 1998 between the National Democratic Front (NDF) - of which the CPP is a member - and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The National Democratic Front is an umbrella organisation that brings together the various pro-communist and pro-maoist rebel groups in the Philippines while the MILF is the largest of the various armed pro-Islamic groups in Mindanao active since 1987.
According to Rosal contact with various Muslim rebel groups in the Philippines began much earlier. "As early as 1987, the CPP had a good and fruitful relationship with the MILF, and began holding a number of top level meetings aimed at co-ordinating the struggle against the the common enemy - the Manila-based reactionary and pro-imperialist government," Rosal said.
Even before its deal with the MILF, the CPP also had contacts with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the first among the various revolutionary groups in Mindanao to be established. Founded in the early 1960s, the MNLF began its armed campaign in 1972. In 1996 the group signed a peace accord with the government in Manila and is no longer active in the region.
"As early as 1979, we also had some sort of a working - although not yet a formal - alliance with the Moro National Liberation Front," Rosal explained.
Although the hub of the NPA's operations is in Central Luzon, the area north of Manila, the group also operates through 130 different guerilla groups, some of which are on Mindanao. Informal peace talks have begun between the government of the Philippines and the different Communist and Islamic groups to bring about an end to the years of conflict that have stunted growth in Mindanao.
However the talks have not progressed to a formal level. On Wednesday, the informal peace talks between the government and the MILF, which were supposed to pave the way to formal negotiations, ended in an impasse while talks with the NDF ended in 2004.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/22/2006
08:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yes indeed -- go far enough left and you meet the right. Vicious animals.
The Kremlin may be reclaiming a dominant role in its former Soviet backyard.
In Belarus, Moscow-allied strongman Alexander Lukashenko just won re-election by a landslide at least by the official count. And President Vladimir Putin's allies could return to government in Sunday's Ukrainian parliamentary election, just over a year after the Orange Revolution.
Such developments set back Western hopes of a democratic tidal wave in the former Soviet sphere and could further tarnish Putin's democratic credentials as he tries to cast himself as a statesman capable of brokering deals with Iran and Hamas.
For Putin, however, asserting dominance over Belarus and Ukraine appears to be part of his strategy to re-establish Moscow as a global player during his year of the G-8 presidency.
"Russia wants to restore its superpower status, and that includes putting these countries back into its orbit," said Yevgeny Volk, Moscow director of the conservative U.S think tank Heritage Foundation.
"It is seeking to reclaim its influence over the former Soviet Union, and remove that of the United States and European Union," he added.
Russia was furious at what it saw as Western encroachment on its home turf after Ukraine's November 2004 Orange Revolution the mass protests over election fraud that brought reformist opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to power over the Kremlin's favored candidate, Viktor Yanukovych.
Months later, the impoverished Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan had its Tulip Revolution, becoming the third former Soviet state within 18 months to see opposition forces topple a Soviet-era leader. Georgia's Rose Revolution started the process in 2003.
Today, however, Russia is once again on the rise as nervous authoritarian regimes from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan where rights groups say government troops killed hundreds of civilians in a crackdown on protesters last year build closer ties to Moscow, partly as a way to cow opposition forces.
Even in Ukraine, disillusionment at political infighting and the economic collapse that followed the Orange Revolution have brought about a political comeback for Yanukovych, whose rigged victory in the 2004 presidential election was annulled by the Supreme Court.
Enjoying strong support in the Russian-speaking east, his party is poised to win the most seats in the new parliament and earn the right to form the government, even if it will probably need to govern in an uneasy coalition with the party of the pro-Western Yushchenko.
"The West's influence that triumphed in the color revolutions has clearly become a dead end for these nations," said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. "In Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, people live worse, not better than before."
By contrast, in Belarus, whose authoritarian president is shunned by Western nations as Europe's last dictator, cheap supplies of Russian gas provide a vital lifeline to the inefficient, state-dominated economy.
Analyst Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank said on Ekho Moskvy radio that while the Kremlin sometimes had tense relations with Belarus, its greatest interest lay in preserving the status quo in Minsk.
He also said that despite loud Western criticism of the Belarus election, there was no serious attempt to help pro-democratic forces, as happened in Ukraine.
"There was a strong fight for Ukraine, but no one fought for Belarus," Malashenko said.
Analysts agree that Russia's trump card in the region is its immense energy resources. They ensure that despite pro-Western inclinations, both Georgia and Ukraine remain dangerously dependent on their larger neighbor.
A pipeline explosion that cut off Russian supplies to Georgia this winter left millions shivering in their homes provoking accusations from the tiny U.S.-allied Caucasus Mountain state that Russia was deliberately trying to force it to its knees.
Ukraine meanwhile had to swallow a twofold increase in gas prices after a bitter New Year's dispute that saw Moscow turn off the gas taps.
"Russia is using strong economic levers. With the growth of oil and gas exports it has become much richer than it was in the 1990s and it is translating this economic might into political influence and power," said Volk.
At the center of the Russian policy in the region is a determination to resist the West's efforts to boost its influence at Russia's expense, in what Moscow says is falsely portrayed as a bid to promote democracy.
Russia on yesterday accused the United States of trying to enforce its vision of democracy on others, angrily rejecting President Bush's criticism that the Kremlin has rolled back freedoms.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:56 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
As I'd advised and warned the Reagan-Bush admins, and even Clinty's, Gorbachev = Gorbachevism > "The Children feed the Mother". With Putin-baby Russia and China are slowly but surely becoming the post-Cold War's equivalent of the Hapsburg AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE, a wilful, ANTI-AMERICAN, giant, Eurasian Stalinist co-oper stretching from East Asia-PACOA to the Baltics. You just gotta know iff and when America "volunteers" = militarily forced to surrender its sovereignty, Govt., and endowments/compar advantages to O'REILLYS alleged Ultra/Far/Hard/Radical Left's desired coalition of world states-OWG, that Russia-China will undoubtedly dominate said group of [ANTI-US] Nations. The Commies and OWG-ists win becuz they got everything for nothing, or in the alt at minima costs!?
One third of French people say they are racist, a French human rights watchdog said on Tuesday, after a survey that showed an increase from last year in the number of people who acknowledged being racist.
Some 33 percent of 1,011 people surveyed face-to-face by pollsters CSA said they were "somewhat" or "a little" racist, up 8 percentage points from last year, according to an annual report by the National Consultative Commission for Human Rights.
The poll asked the question "When it comes to you personally, would you say you are ..." followed by a list of options: somewhat racist, a bit racist, not racist, not very racist, not racist at all and don't want to say.
The poll revealed deep economic and social anxiety, Joel Thoraval, the commission's president, said in a statement released to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
"Despite the efforts deployed to fight racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia there is still a long way to go," he said.
The report, presented to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, was conducted from November 17-22, 2005, immediately after several weeks of rioting in poor suburbs around the country.
Thousands of cars were torched by youths who said they faced discrimination, police harassment and lack of access to jobs. Youth unemployment rises to 50 percent in some poor urban areas.
France does not keep official statistics on the number of people belonging to ethnic groups, arguing that to do so would undermine social cohesion and go against its republican ideals.
France has Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim minorities with about 600,000 Jews and 5 million Muslims, mainly of north African origin.
Asked about their main fears for French society 27 percent listed unemployment. Insecurity and poverty were cited by 16 and 11 percent respectively as their primary concern.
Right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen stunned France when he came second in the first round of presidential elections in 2002 against President Jacques Chirac, espousing policies that included a tough line on foreigners.
The French League of Human Rights said in a press release that politicians trivialised racism and associated petty crime, economic crisis and housing shortages with an excessive number of foreigners.
The number of violent racist or xenophobic acts reported to the authorities fell to 88 in 2005 from 169 in 2004, partly because of a sharp drop in Corsica, which accounted for almost half of all such acts in 2004, the commission's report said.
But the number of threats reported fell at a slower rate, to 382 in 2005 from 461 in 2004, the commission said.
Separately, Europe's top human rights body, the Council of Europe, issued a region-wide call for vigilance against the spread of discrimination, hate speech and stereotyping across different forms of media.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:55 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"...Europe's top human rights body, the Council of Europe, issued a region-wide call for vigilance against the spread of discrimination, hate speech and stereotyping..."
Did they call for an end to car burning, abduction, and murder? Do they have an affirmative action program for Council membership?
#4
The French League of Human Rights = LDH = leftist tools, whose leaders included collaborators of the national-islamist Fln during Algeria war (that's is, mostly marxist wartime traitors who helped war criminals who killed for example 150 000 harkis/pro France algerians in *horrible* fashion, after signing a peace), and who belong to the same islamo-leftist enablers than the communist Mrap, or in a lesser way, the socialist Sos-racisme.
#5
An increase of 25% in one year. That's quite a swing in opinion.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/22/2006 9:16
Comments ||
Top||
#6
The frogs' "human rights watchdog" is apparently self-flagellating (like the shiites at azura). It wants the population to be ashame of being 'bad mannered.' [Surrender monkies have good manners.]
#10
People who have had their cars burned and who pais attention on Muslims pretending to regulate the contents of Westen newspapers and calling for genocide of westerners (all while being fed by the westerner tax payer) tend to be somewhat upset.
People who live in another planet (read French journalists and elites) call this racist.
#11
Almost everybody is a racist. In fact, is there anyone who is not a racist ? Anyone ?
Fact, the reason babies and tottlers are often extremely cute, is that they require help and attention for life support. It is the same for animals. The parent is soft and willingly responds to pleads from the cute little offspring.
As adults, beautiful women, normally cute long after the rest have become gamely, are spoiled by the attention they receive. Twas ever thus, except when covered by burkas and tied in the tent.
#13
Not to be picky, but, I am going to point out that there is a mix up in terms.
Race refers to something that is almost genetic. Being Muslim is not genetic. This would be bigoted.
Anyway, France is one of the most bigoted places I have ever been, racist not so sure about, but if you refer to Anglo-Saxon then maybe. African, maybe but Muslim, that would be bigoted.
Arab and US officials are growing nervous at the prospect of a second congressional uprising against the acquisition of American assets by a Middle Eastern-controlled company in the wake of the Dubai Ports World debacle.
A person familiar with the thinking of both the US and United Arab Emirates said officials were concerned that the pending investigation of Dubai International Capitals £700m ($1.2m) purchase of Doncasters, a privately-held British aerospace manufacturer that works on sensitive US weapons programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter, could provoke a similar backlash and further damage the relationship between the two countries.
Although the proposed transaction has not yet drawn much attention in Congress, the first signs of unease emerged on Tuesday when John Barrow, a Democratic lawmaker, released a letter demanding a tour of Doncasters Georgia facility.
It is reported that your facility produces turbine engine parts critical to tanks and military aircraft...one must assume [it] plays a necessary and substantial role in the nations ongoing military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Barrow wrote.
The Treasury has said the deal will be subject to an extensive 45-day investigation, pushing back the completion to as late as May.
The review comes as officials from Dubai work to ease tensions in Washington after protests forced DP World, also a state-owned company, to agree to divest five US port terminals acquired from the UKs P&O.
Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the UAEs economy minister, who is visiting Washington, said in an interview that the overall relationship with the US, including security and intelligence, remained paramount. She did not want to prejudge the regulatory review of the Doncasters deal but conceded that the UAE needed to do more to educate the people in the US, including lawmakers.
President George W. Bush, who defended the DP World deal but was unable to quash the rebellion by members of his own party, has emphasised the UAEs role as an ally in the war on terror.
Even if the administration were to approve the Doncasters deal, the reaction to the DP World deal has signalled to foreign investors in the US particularly in Arab countries - that Congress has the capability to derail any deal.
Doncasters generated 35 per cent of its sales in the US in 2004 and would be likely to draw interest from private equity buyers if Arab ownership were to be blocked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Let's keep alienating one of the few friendly or at least cooperative countries in the gulf.
Thats a good strategy.
Anyone recognize the amount of US tax money went to building this relationship in the first place? Some in congress seem intent on undoing decades of quiet cooperation from Dubai.
It is one of the few places in the ME where there are professional, degreed women in the workplace.
An international audit concluded there are tens of thousands of dead voters listed on Venezuela's voter rolls, but the country's top electoral official said Tuesday that those errors are being fixed and do not amount to significant flaws.
The audit confirmed the voter registry is sound despite critics' claims of gross irregularities, electoral council president Jorge Rodriguez said.
Critics expressed doubts about the auditors' independence and accused the electoral council of siding with President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking re-election in December.
"With the Venezuelan voter registry just as it is now, the upcoming elections could be held," Rodriguez said as he announced the audit's results. He said it found inaccurate records accounted for less than 2 percent of the total.
That included an estimated 54,900 dead voters on the rolls, and about 39,400 others whose deaths have yet to be confirmed but are listed as being older than 100. Rodriguez said both are significant problems but constitute a tiny fraction of some 15 million registered voters.
"There cannot be dead people in the voter registry," he said. "The inconsistencies that were found, no matter how small, will be addressed."
Electoral workers are constantly updating the voter registry and have already eliminated old records for 400,000 dead people in recent years to prevent any possible fraud, Rodriguez said.
Auditors from the Costa Rica-based Electoral Consulting and Promotion Center analyzed samples of thousands of voters last year to reach their conclusions, officials said. The center is part of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and functions as an association of electoral agencies in Latin America.
"The opposition has serious doubts" about the audit, said Roberto Ansuini, a former electoral official who opposes Chavez and has researched flaws in the voter lists. "When we have the report, we can make our observations."
Officials said the auditors' report will be released later this week.
The audit did not directly address a case raised by Ansuini in which 1,921 people by the name Gonzalez were listed with an identical birth date, all in the one western state.
Carlos Quintero, director of the voter registry office, said officials checked electronic records against paper archives, and found errors in some 900 of those cases. He said officials believe the wrong birth date was entered in many cases when the data was transferred from paper files to computers years ago.
Rodriguez said the electoral council would post the voter registry on the Internet starting Tuesday to dispel any suspicions.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:52 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Dead voters. So Chavez is a classical modern Democrat. In a pudgy infantile girlie-man showbiz-stereotyped-strong-man sort of way. They'll have this small misunderstanding cleaned up in a jiffy. No harm done. No foul. Nothing to see here.
#2
This is why the left fears changing the voting procedures such as an ID card. Very few dead people are willing to get out of their grave to show ab ID before they vote.
Ten police officers and 23 Maoists were killed in new violence in Nepal, two days after the rebels announced a fresh initiative to topple the monarchy in the world's only Hindu kingdom.
Officials and witnesses said rebels attacked a police post in the village of Birtamod around 600 kilometers (350 miles) east of Kathmandu as well as a police post in nearby Sunsari district.
The attacks in eastern Nepal left 10 police officers and 3 Maoists dead, chief district officer Bhola Prasad Shivakoti and police officials in the capital said.
Shivakoti said 20 officers were injured, three of them seriously.
A local journalist who witnessed the attack, Lila Baral, said the rebels arrived in two trucks and attacked the police post from all sides, taking control of the area for about 45 minutes before fleeing.
All markets remained shut and highways were deserted after the incident.
The army meanwhile said its soldiers launched an offensive at Dharechowk 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Kathmandu that killed at least 20 rebels.
"So far 20 bodies of Maoist rebels have been recovered from the clash site," an army official said.
One Monday, 13 Nepalese soldiers and a Maoist guerrilla were reported killed in a two-hour gunbattle just east of Kathmandu.
The upsurge in violence comes after Maoists said they had reached an understanding with political parties sidelined by the king to hold a mass pro-democracy protest next month in an attempt to topple the royal government.
King Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed direct control of the impoverished Himalayan nation in February last year after blaming politicians for failing to stem the Maoist insurgency.
Britain, the United States and India cut military supplies to Nepal following the takeover by Gyanendra and have called on him to move to restore democracy.
At least 12,500 people have died since the Maoists launched an uprising a decade ago to topple the monarchy and install a communist republic.
On Sunday, the rebels decided to call off a six-day transport blockade which had slowed road traffic to a trickle, caused fuel shortages and sent prices of commodities soaring.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Why did we cut military supplies ? Does anyone think China cut military supplies to the Maoists ?
Pure stupidity.
A group of some 30 youths, believed to be from anarchist groups, hurled gasoline bombs at a branch of the National Bank of Greece in central Athens Tuesday, causing damage but wounding no one, police said.
The youths, dressed in black, escaped arrest and the fire was put out.
Arson attacks by anarchists are common in the Greek capital and have spiked since student riots broke out in France over plans to scrap job-protection laws.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:43 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sounds like a dress-up and play militant group.
#2
Mennonites. Or Ninjas. Could've been Ninjas. Probably not Young Republicans. They don't wear black, as a rule. Maybe NOI. Were they wearing bow ties? AP doesn't say, though they do seem rather down on anarchists. Gratuitously so. Must be personal.
#6
Greek anarchists have been pulling stunts like this for decades, at least. There seems to be a, "Boys will be boys," attitude about their little pranks -- at least the Greek police never seem to have looked very hard to find the perpetrators or prevent their activities. Of a piece with European attitudes toward terrorist behaviour until very recently, in fact.
Scores of al-Qaida members are currently on trial in Yemen on suspicion of planning and perpetrating terrorist attacks against Yemenis officials and Western targets both in Yemen and abroad. Unfortunately, the escape of 23 al-Qa'ida members from the maximum security prison in Sana at the beginning of February overshadows this important chapter in the war on terrorism.
This article is examines the Yemeni connection to worldwide Islamic terrorism, the involvement of Yemeni Muslim volunteers in the war in Iraq, and the measures taken by the Yemeni government to combat this terrorism. In addition, this article will track the recent developments in the trials of the Al-Qa'ida members.
On January 10, 2006 Magazinet, an evangelical Christian Norwegian newspaper, printed twelve caricatures-originally published in the right-wing Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005-of the Prophet Mohammed, one of which depicting the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped Turban.[1]
The original cartoons had accompanied an article on "self censorship" by the media in the face of threats by radical Islam. In the wake of the publication, a group called the Islamic Society in Denmark, which claims to represent Danish Muslims attempted to get the Danish government to prosecute the independent newspaper that had first published the cartoons. Failing in this, they then sent a delegation to the Middle East to ask the assistance of Egypt's grand mufti, Muhammad Sayid Tantawi, and Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League. Another delegation went to Lebanon and Syria and met with those countries' religious leaders. Both delegations met with Arabic media; including Hizballah's Al Manar TV, which is seen throughout the Arab world.
The Chechen leadership is negotiating with militants in an attempt to bring them back into civilian life, the prime minister of the North Caucasus republic said Wednesday.
"This is useful and very effective, because returning them to peaceful life is better than fighting," Ramzan Kadyrov said in an interview with government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
He said many militants were still following ideas popular in the mid-1990s, when the first Chechen campaign began.
"We explain to them that the situation has radically changed, and guarantee [their] life and immunity if their hands are not smeared with blood," he said. "If people do not understand [this], we will fight them, and this is legal according to our customs."
Kadyrov said a search for militant leaders was underway in mountainous areas, but added that this should not be confused with zachistki - operations the Army says flush out militants hiding among the local population, but that rights activists say have led to the disappearance and possible murder of hundreds of people.
He added that he needed help of Chechen people to detain militant leaders. Chechens are now willing to cooperate with local law-enforcement bodies, Kadyrov said, which have good links with federal bodies and special services.
Kadryov also said warlords Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov had masterminded the murder of his father, first Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, and the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan.
"No one can win freedom and independence by these methods. People such as Maskhadov and Basayev make everyone think that Islam is a bloodthirsty religion," Kadyrov said.
Ramzan Kadyrov took over from previous Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov, who was injured in a car accident in November last year and announced his resignation February 28.
Akhmad Kadyrov, who fought against federal forces in the first Chechen campaign but later condemned radicalism and sided with the Kremlin, was assassinated in May 2004 during Victory Day celebrations in Grozny.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
Two former armed group members have turned themselves in to police.
One of the militants surrendered a Kalashnikov assault rifle and admitted his involvement in a raid on the village of Roshni-Chu led by his armed group commander Kazbek Batalov, who was killed in a sweep operation later, a Sunzha district police source told Interfax. Several servicemen and police officers were killed in the Roshni-Chu attack last summer.
The second man said he had been a member of Viskhan Arsanukayev's armed group that operated in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:38 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
Pentagon and military officials say Iraq's not fighting a civil war yet, but warn that Iraqi security forces and the government could still collapse, dragging the country into one. So the U.S. military is drafting a series of contingency plans to deal with that very ominous possibility.
Military officials tell NBC News the first objective, however, is to head off a civil war. The U.S. military hopes to keep Iraqi security forces from taking sides in the sectarian violence by pressuring the Iraqi government to crack down on any rogue elements within the police or military.
The second option: U.S. forces could again be sent into combat against sectarian militias, which military officials say would require an increase in the number of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
And the last resort, if violence is spinning out of countrol: Military officials say they would also have to consider the possible withdrawal of American forces.
But why, after three years in Iraq, is the U.S. military still bogged down in the war?
Gen. William Wallace, the top military commander for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, blames it on a series of miscalculations from the start.
"I do fault myself and others for not questioning, perhaps, or challenging some of the assumptions that were made," says Wallace.
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who led the 101st Airborne in Iraq, now heads the Army's training center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., teaching the lessons learned from the war. One of those lessons is that the U.S. military stormed into Iraq with little knowledge of Iraqi culture, which is now being taught in all U.S. combat training.
"We don't speak the language, the dialect," says Petraeus. "We have to work through interpreters. We are different. We are from a different culture.'
U.S. commanders had also failed to recognize the potential threat from insurgents.
But for nearly two years the military was battling the insurgents based on Army doctrine for counter-insurgencies that was 20 years old. It's since been rewritten.
But ultimately, Petraeus says the insurgents can not be defeated by the military alone that the Iraqis must establish a legitimate government.
"I think the Iraqi leaders recognize that that is an imperative," says Petraeus. "They must, in fact, come up with a government of national unity."
Without that, Petraeus warns it could be a long, hot and potentially bloody summer.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Part of the problem is the chameleon like nature of gangs. Think Bloods, Baghdad chapter, who can morph between being political hired hit men one day, shake down artist the next, and just plain gangsters while hanging out. Some of the 'insurgency' is just that. Don't expect MSM to be able, or want to, tell the difference. How many blocks in American metro areas are actually 'controlled' by the authorities and how many are for all intents and purposes run by gangs. Yep, they'll step back when the cops cruise by, but as soon as they leave, guess who's running the block.
#2
Got an idea for "checking" them when they're operating under different circumstances (if not that different) than American gangs?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
03/22/2006 9:35
Comments ||
Top||
#3
The Pentagon's job is to plan for contingencies - all sorts of contingencies. This is not news. This is about prudently practicing "what if" drills, for any development that can reasonably be proposed to possibly happen.
#4
PMSNBC would be all over teh pentagon if they weren't planing too....no win situation when you play with losers
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006 10:10
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who led the 101st Airborne in Iraq, now heads the Army's training center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., teaching the lessons learned from the war. One of those lessons is that the U.S. military stormed into Iraq with little knowledge of Iraqi culture, which is now being taught in all U.S. combat training.
Al Qaida was believed to have replaced its leadership in Saudi Arabia.
Officials said Al Qaida was believed to have appointed commanders to replace those killed by Saudi security forces over the last few months. On Feb. 27, Al Qaida network chief Fahd Al Juweir was slain in a shootout in Riyad.
"The battle with them is not finished," Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz told state-run television on March 19. "You never know. Some new leaders might emerge."
In February, four leading Al Qaida operatives were killed during the battle with security forces in Riyad. The battle came in wake of a failed Al Qaida attempt to destroy the kingdom's largest oil refinery at Abqiq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Seven British men with alleged links to al-Qaida plotted to carry out a terrorist campaign in the UK with homemade explosives containing more than half a tonne of fertiliser, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
The defendants, mainly of Pakistani descent, had most of the necessary bomb-making components ready but were arrested in March 2004 before they had finalised a target, said David Waters QC, opening the prosecution case.
One of the accused, Omar Khyam, had discussed potential attacks on pubs, nightclubs or trains, and it was significant that another, Waheed Mahmood, worked for a major gas and electricity supplier, according to Mr Waters.
Most of the gang are accused of having undergone training at terrorist camps in Pakistan in the past few years. And they all "played their respective roles" in the plan to make a bomb or bombs, which would be used "to kill or injure citizens of the UK", said Mr Waters.
Khyam, 24, Jawad Akbar, 22, Waheed Mahmood, 33, and Shujah Mahmood, 18, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Anthony Garcia, 27, from Ilford, Essex; Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley, Surrey; and Salahuddin Amin, 30, from Luton, Bedfordshire, are charged with conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life. Khyam, Garcia and Hussain are accused of possessing 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - discovered by police in a storage unit in west London - for terrorist purposes, and Khyam and Shujah Mahmood are charged with possessing aluminium powder, which can also be used to make bombs. All seven defendants, who sat in the dock flanked by 11 prison officers, deny the charges.
Mr Waters said the court would hear details about another conspirator, Momin Khawaja, currently awaiting trial in Canada, who had a "vital role" in this plot.
A US citizen, Mohammed Babar, who has already admitted his part in the "British bomb plot", will testify at the Old Bailey in a few days' time.
The prosecutor said Babar had pleaded guilty in the US to obtaining ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder for use in UK bomb attacks. Babar, who lived in Pakistan from 2001 to 2004, has been given immunity from prosecution, the court heard.
Most of the defendants, whom Babar called the "Crawley lot", visited him there, where they underwent terrorist training in explosives techniques and worked out how to get bomb components and bring them to the UK.
Khyam and Amin both told Babar they worked for a man called Abdul Hadi, whom they claimed was "number three in al-Qaida".
Khyam, whom Mr Waters described as "very much at the centre of operations", said he wanted to carry out operations in the UK because it was as yet unscathed and should be hit because of its support for the US.
"The majority of that contact [with Babar] was in Pakistan and it involved, for the most part, one theme - the acquisition of training and expertise, particularly in relation to explosives," said Mr Waters.
Babar alleges that he first met Waheed Mahmood at the end of 2001, and later learned he was an al-Qaida supporter. He met Khyam in November 2002, while on a fund-raising trip to England.
Later, in Pakistan in 2003, Babar, Khyam and Amin discussed transporting detonators back to the UK, and small radios were bought so the detonators could be hidden inside, the court heard.
Babar had obtained aluminium powder at Khyam's request and later found out ammonium nitrate was being kept in his flat in Lahore, where Khyam was staying.
Khyam and Amin received two days training in explosives theory and practice in a house in Kohat, Pakistan, and in July 2003 Khyam and his brother Shujah went to a terrorist training camp in Kalam.
The Old Bailey heard that Garcia also attended, and used his experience to teach others how to dismantle and reassemble weapons. Akbar later joined them. Ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder were taken to the camp and they carried out experiments, one of which blew a hole in the ground, even though they used less than 1kg of ammonium nitrate.
The defendants, who returned to England later in 2003, adopted several measures to avoid detection, including using false names. Waheed Mahmood stressed that laptops and mobile phones should be disposed of on a regular basis and Khyam and Babar used code in their emails, for example "cigarettes" meant "detonators".
But they were arrested on March 30 2004, following a seven-week undercover surveillance operation by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist and special branch squads and the security services. Bugs were placed at an address where Khyam was staying in Slough, Berkshire, and Akbar's then home in Uxbridge, west London, and in Khyam's car, and the suspects, including Khawaja who came to England for a weekend in February 2004, were followed and taped.
The trial, which is expected to last at least six months, continues.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:29 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Anthony Garcia, 27"
Now that's a good Muslim name....what's the deal with this guy?
Austria: Muslim Soldiers Refuse to Salute Flag
From the desk of Paul Belien on Tue, 2006-03-21
Last week three Muslim conscripts of the Austrian army refused to salute the Austrian flag because this was incompatible with their faith. The Austrian paper Die Presse (18 March) reported that three soldiers of the Maria Theresia barracks, where most of the 1,000 Muslim soldiers serve, refused to salute the flag at a parade and instead turned their backs on it. The soldiers were not disciplined. However, an imam was summoned to issue a fatwa stating that Muslims are allowed to salute the Austrian flag.
Austrian Army officers have complained that Muslim conscripts about 3,5% of the Austrian armed forces are unable to do most jobs because they have permission to pray 5 times a day, no matter what job they are performing at the time. Some who attend Friday Prayers stay away for the rest of the day.
Following the incident the Austrian defense minister Günther Platter announced that the army will engage imams as permanent chaplains in order to mediate future conflicts. Die Presse suggests that it would be better to follow the example of the Austrian police and appoint Muslim officers to command Muslim recruits. If Muslims can't and won't serve with the loyalty and respect worthy of soldiers, then they should get the boot.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs ||
03/22/2006
01:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If Muslims can't and won't serve with the loyalty and respect worthy of soldiers, then they should get the boot.
Guess ypou missed yhe part about them beibf "Conscripts". (Think Draftees)
They WANT out.
I say the best thing to do is Jail them at hard labor for 90 days, make them learn you do NOT tell your superiors No.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/22/2006 8:22
Comments ||
Top||
#2
3 conscripts defy them and they completely fold. Remarkable.
Yes, indeed, they need to bring in imams, promote Muslims to officers, and give them command positions. Yep. That'll fix everything. Brilliant. If the Austrian Defense Ministry is any indicator, the Austrians will obviously make superior dhimmis.
#3
I'm sorry if I ramble on and always say the same things, but from what I've read and heard, more than 20% of french army is now muslim (that's a Shirakian feature, not a bug), with about 28% in the Army, and up to 40% in some shock units like paratroopers.
According to a past internal poll, army brass found out that only 1 in 10 of muslim soldiers would "fight for France" (same ratio than the general "youths" population, as confirmed by a schools survey) and against "their" country (Algeria, Tunisia, possibly any muslim country?).
This also poses many cohesion and disciplinary problems (that's what happens when you draw from the 'hoods), but main trend had been so far folding and establishing the first imams in the french army (which didn't exist even back then when it had a large muslim troop back in WWII or the Algeria war, during which more algerians fought for France, *very* bravely btw, than against it).
Bottom line is : where do their loyalty is? and that's the same question for theses austrian draftees, for that POS who fragged his comrades before GWII, for the various translaters working for the FBI or the Guantanamo interrogators, for the US muslim prison chaplains, for the Cair talking heads, etc, etc...
#4
I think a much better alternative would be to give them Sikh officers and NCOs. With significantly relaxed disciplinary restrictions. Sikhs would know how to persuade recalcitrant Moslems, even if it did result in a higher than normal rate of training accidents.
#5
The Roman Empire began to lose when the rank and file of their army became mostly foreigners. And, they were paid soldiers, not conscripts.
This situation will not right itself. There will be bloodshed, especially in France. France has disillusioned itself with an extremely successful Forign Legion all these years. These guys were hardened mercenary soldiers and remained loyal.
What they have today is a question mark.
In what has been billed by the police as a major terrorism trial, seven Britons appeared at the Old Bailey courthouse on Tuesday, accused of training in Pakistan to carry out bomb attacks in Britain more than one year before the London attacks in 2005.
One of the men, Omar Khyam, 24, was said by the prosecution to have told an associate that Britain should be attacked because "of its support for the U.S."
"They were intercepted before the plot could reach fruition," the prosecutor, David Waters, said as the seven men, 18 to 33, in jackets and suits, listened. But, Mr. Waters said, "the interception came only when most of the necessary components were in place, and all that remained before their plans achieved the ultimate goal was for the target or targets to be finally agreed."
The trial could last months, and the prosecution indicated Tuesday that a principal witness would be Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American computer programmer from Queens, N.Y.. Mr. Babar is to be called to testify from the United States, where he pleaded guilty to charges of supplying military equipment to a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan and working to aid the failed bomb plot in London.
The events leading to the trial became public when six of the suspects were arrested during police raids in March 2004, during which, the police said, more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was seized at a storage depot in West London.
The men have denied conspiring with a Canadian, Mohammed Momin Khawaja, to cause an explosion "likely to endanger life," along with other charges related to possessing bomb-making substances.
Mr. Waters, the prosecution lawyer, said the accused had spent time in Pakistan, where some had family connections.
"Their principal purpose, however, in spending time in Pakistan was to acquire expertise in relation, particularly, to explosives, an expertise which was to be deployed in the plan to cause explosions," he said.
The likely targets in Britain were pubs, nightclubs or trains, Mr. Waters said, quoting from a conversation between Mr. Babar, the witness, and Mr. Khyam, one of the defendants. "Khyam told Babar he wanted to do operations in the U.K.," he said. "He then referred to potential targets: pubs, nightclubs or trains."
"Khyam's motivation, as explained to Babar, was clear," Mr. Waters said. "The U.K. was unscathed; it needed to be hit because of its support for the U.S." Mr. Babar also learned during contacts with the accused in Britain before their arrest that they worked for a man called Abdul Hadi, whom Mr. Khyam had described as "No. 3 in Al Qaeda," according to the prosecution.
Mr. Waters chronicled several journeys by the accused men between Britain and Pakistan, and said some of them tested a small explosive using ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder at a camp in a place called Kalam.
"Some care was taken in order to disguise the fact that they were attending a terrorist training camp," he said. "For example, they took on the appearance of tourists visiting lakes and glaciers in the area in which the training camp was held."
Evidence was taken from surveillance that drew, in part, on listening devices in the homes of two defendants and in a car, Mr. Waters said.
The six men in addition to Mr. Khyam were identified as Waheed Mahmood, 33; Shujah-Ud-Din Mahmood, 18; Anthony Garcia, 27; Nabeel Hussain, 20; Jawad Akbar, 22; and Salahuddin Amin, 30.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
More than 200 masked insurgents stormed an Interior Ministry jail at daybreak on Tuesday, killing at least 18 police officers, freeing all the prisoners and leaving the facility a smoldering wreck.
The battle raged for nearly an hour at the jail, in Muqdadiya, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, as the fighters blasted government buildings with mortars, grenades and machine guns, Interior Ministry officials said.
The attack demonstrated that even though sectarian violence has recently emerged as Iraq's gravest concern, the antigovernment insurgency is far from over.
Showing a high degree of sophistication, insurgents reportedly cut telephone lines and then detonated several roadside bombs to block reinforcement troops from reaching the jail.
Overwhelmed Iraqi forces radioed for help, and American helicopter gunships quickly responded. As soon as they arrived, insurgents drilled them with machine-gun fire, American military officials said, wounding one American soldier.
"It was a huge attack," said Raad Rashid al-Mula Jawad, the governor of surrounding Diyala Province. "And we will avenge it. Our sons' blood will not be lost."
More than 30 prisoners escaped. According to Tassin Tawfik, an Iraqi Army official, "All of them were insurgents." Many had been detained Sunday in a raid by security forces in neighboring towns, The Associated Press reported, leading to the raid to free them.
The governor said the local police chief and several officers might have conspired with the insurgents and helped them get away.
"I accuse them, and have ordered an investigation," Mr. Jawad said.
The raid was reminiscent of an assault on a Falluja jail in February 2004, in which more than a dozen police officers were killed and 70 prisoners were freed. That attack was one of the first signs of tactical coordination between Iraqi insurgents and Al Qaeda, which claimed credit on the Internet, through one of its splinter groups, for the jail attack on Tuesday.
Insurgents seemed to be keeping up the pressure across the country on Tuesday, singling out a number of police patrols and government buildings.
One mortar shell sailed into the Green Zone, where the American Embassy is situated, at the same time that a delegation of United States senators was meeting with Iraqi officials. No injuries were reported.
Such attacks have become so commonplace in Baghdad that children playing on a nearby swing set kept on swinging, even as a cloud of thick brown dust rose behind them.
At a news conference after the meetings, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, reiterated a point that American officials have been making ceaselessly for several weeks: the sooner Iraqi leaders settle their differences and form a government, the better, because the American government believes that the violence in Iraq is fueled by an absence of clear authority.
Iraqi voters chose a new Parliament in December, but politicians are still haggling over crucial posts.
"April is fine," Mr. Levin said, about the Iraqi leaders' plan to form a government by then. "But we need that commitment kept, in order for there to be continuing support for American troops to be kept in Iraq."
"There's been too much dawdling while Baghdad is burning," Mr. Levin said.
American military officials announced Tuesday that they were looking into an allegation that American soldiers intentionally killed 11 Iraqi civilians last week.
The inquiry, the second announced in a week, stems from an episode on Wednesday in Ishaqi, a Sunni Arab town north of Baghdad.
American officials initially said that American troops had been fired on from a farmhouse during a raid to capture an insurgent, and that they had returned fire, from the ground and the air, killing four people.
Iraqi police officials immediately rejected that account, saying 11 people had been killed after American soldiers lined up an entire family from a 75-year-old grandmother to a 6-month-old baby and shot them.
A local police official, Farouq Hussein, told Reuters that all the victims had been shot in the head.
"It's a clear and perfect crime without any doubt," he said.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, an American military spokesman, said the military was investigating the episode. "This is not the way we operate," he said. "We take the allegation seriously, and we're working with the Iraqis to determine the facts."
Last week, American officials announced that they were investigating an occurrence in November in which residents in a western Iraq town accused American marines of gunning down 15 civilians after a marine was killed by a roadside bomb. Military officials originally reported that the civilians had been killed by the bomb blast, but later revised their account to say that the civilians were killed by gunfire.
An American soldier was fatally shot on Tuesday while patrolling in western Baghdad. In the same area, the bodies of eight more executed men were discovered.
Dozens of bodies have turned up virtually daily in Baghdad's streets, apparently the victims of warring Shiite and Sunni gangs, continuing a cycle of revenge that erupted after an important Shiite shrine was destroyed last month.
Sectarian tensions were especially high this past week as throngs of Shiite pilgrims streamed to Karbala, a holy city in southern Iraq, to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. So far, several pilgrims have been killed in drive-by shootings and others by roadside bombs.
Authorities in Diyala said they were focusing all their energies on protecting pilgrims traveling through the area on their way to Karbala, and so were caught off guard by the attack on the jail.
"The insurgents came from a direction we never expected," said a Diyala provincial official, who asked not to be identified. "The attack was very well planned."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:24 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
On other news, popcorn futures rose today on active trading.
We gave them democracy, and they are attempting to pound it back into the eighth century. Next time, let's give them a puppet dictator.
WHEN THE IRAQI REGIME collapsed in April 2003, few observers saw reason to mourn the loss of Saddam's brutal dictatorship. While a great deal of information about the former Iraqi regime's assorted atrocities has been uncovered since the invasion, newly-released documents go even further in demonstrating its manifest depravity.
One such document is CMPC-2003-012666, a letter from Qusay Hussein that directs as follows:
Transfer all Kuwaiti POW's / a total of 448 captured Kuwaitis who are located at the Al-Nida Al-Agher Prison and the Intelligence / General Center and Kazema Prison in Al-Kazema, to make them human shields at all locations that are expected to be attacked by the American aggressors. Put them in communication locations and essential ministries, radio and television, Military Industrial Commissions, and all other locations expected to be attacked by the criminal Anglo-American aggressors.
In addition to the barbarity of using prisoners as human shields, it should be noted that these documents constitute a clear refutation of the official position of the Iraqi government, which claimed from 1996 onwards that while it had taken 126 Kuwaitis prisoner during the Gulf War, they were no longer in Iraqi custody. Clearly, the Iraqi regime had no intention of releasing all of its Gulf War prisoners under any circumstances, but rather chose to retain them for the apparent purpose of creating the appearance of civilian casualties for propaganda purposes during the U.S. bombing campaign.
In a similar vein is CMPC-2004-002219-0, which lays out a series of memos between Saddam's office, Iraqi military intelligence, and the Iraqi army in order to draw up plans to attack Kurdish guerrilla bases. As these memos make clear, international treaties banning the use of chemical weapons (referred to throughout the memos with the euphemism "special equipment") were of little interest to Saddam Hussein:
1. Based on our Directorate's suggestion, an approval from the Secretary of the Presidency Office was obtained to strike, using special equipment, the quarters of Iran's agents in (Tkiyya, Bilkjar) basin next to Karah Dagh, and (Balisan) basin located on the main road next to Jawarkornah-Khlayfan, and do not execute this strike before informing the Secretary of the Presidency Office on how to implement it.
. . . 1. Operations to fight the saboteurs and agents of Iran and Khomeini Guards in your regions, using special equipment are sanctioned as follows:
A. Bases of Iran's agents in Balisan Basin(Balisan village-Totama-Ghitti-Sheikh Wisan) located next to the main road next to Khlayfan.
B. Bases of Iran's agents in village basins of (Tkiyyeh-Biljikar-Siyusnan, in the Karah Dagh vicinity.
. . . 1. The President/Leader (may God save him) ordered our directorate to study, with the professionals, directing a surprise strike against (Khomeini Guards bases located within the quarters of the first division of Barazani's saboteurs) using special equipment, and the possibility of executing it in any of the following methods (Air Force, Army Air Force, artillery).
. . . 4. The above mentioned targets, in paragraphs(A-B) under item 3, are important bases for Iran's agents and members of Iranian enemies, are far away (as targets for special equipment) from our units. They are considered more appropriate than others to strike with our equipment for being located in low regions which helps the chemical fumes to settle. We can also treat them with available ways (air force, tubular bombers, Samtiyyat (Helicopters) and at night
5. Our directorate suggested striking both targets, referred to in item 3, during this period using two thirds of available special equipment (Ricin) plus one third of available special equipment (Mustard Gas) and keeping the balance for emergency situations that might arise in the operation theater.
6. The top secret, personal and urgent letter No.953/965/k dated March 29, 87 from the President's Office Secretary, stated the following:
"Approval of striking has been obtained provided the results are exploited . . . for the purpose is not only to inflict losses among the saboteurs, but also to coordinate with the Corps . . . please advice prior to striking".
The mention of targeting Iranians as well as Kurds with chemical weapons may strike some Western observers as unusual, but it is worth remembering that Iran has historically supported Iraqi Kurds against the central government going back to the 1970s and that Iranian troops attacked Iraqi positions from the northern Kurdish areas in 1988 in the hopes of relieving pressure on their southern front.
It is important that we enumerate the atrocities carried out under Saddam's auspices. Those who died at the hands of his regime deserve nothing less.
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute Center for Policing Terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So, Dan, have you figured out what you want to be when you grow up? ;-)
Therefore we say that to force the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq the resistance has to measured by painful strikes against their forces and accompanying this a informative campaign clarifying the truth of the situation inside Iraq, and we must absolutely gain from the approaching date of general elections in Spain in the third month of the coming year. We believe that the Spanish government will not endure two or three attacks as a maximum limit because it will be forced to withdraw afterwards due to the popular pressure on it, for if its forces remain after these strikes it is almost certain the Socialist forces will win the elections, as one of the main goals of the Socialist party will be the withdrawal of the Spanish troops . . . the dominoes will fall quickly, although the basic problem will remain of toppling the first piece.
-Iraq al-Jihad, circa August 2003
"MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS PROBE FINDS NO AL-QAEDA LINK" was the headline of a widely-circulated Associated Press story two weeks ago. Citing a "Spanish intelligence chief" and a "Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain," the AP reported that "A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network." While acknowledging that the masterminds behind the attack were "likely motivated by bin Laden's October 2003 call for attacks on European countries that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq" and that "the plotters had links to other Muslim radicals in western Europe," the AP cited the Spanish intelligence chief as saying that there were "no telephone calls between the Madrid bombers and al Qaeda and no money transfers" and "no evidence they were in contact with the al Qaeda leader's inner circle."
Such a view is by no means new. Indeed, in June 2005 Dateline NBC reported that "Madrid is cited as the key turning point in the evolution of Islamic terror. Initially, Spanish and U.S. counterterrorism officials sought links between al-Qaeda (or, as the CIA now describes it, 'al-Qaeda Central'). But quickly they realized there weren't any. . . . It required no central direction from the mountains of Pakistan, simply a charismatic leader with links to men trained in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union."
SUCH A VIEW is no doubt attractive, but there are serious problems with it. As the March 11 Commission (an independent Spanish investigation into the attacks parallel to the U.S. 9/11 Commission) noted, there were numerous connections between the masterminds of the 3/11 attacks, al Qaeda, and a number of known al Qaeda associate groups including Ansar al-Islam, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (and its offshoot Salafi Jihad), and Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq (then al-Tawhid wal Jihad). There is also the al Qaeda strategy document Iraq al-Jihad, which appears to lay out in detail plans for attacks in Spain several months prior to the country's elections.
According to the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI)'s report on the motivations of Islamist terrorism in Europe, "The researchers from the FFI consider it likely that the terrorists behind the Madrid massacre were familiar with the contents of this strategy document" as well as that "the evidence leaves few doubts that the attacks in Madrid were carried out by al-Qaeda affiliates in Spain."
Most importantly, the March 11 Commission identified former Egyptian army explosives expert Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed as one of the planners of the Madrid bombings. According to an arrest warrant issued by Spanish judge Juan del Olmo, Ahmed is "a suspected member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad" who "took over leadership of a group of followers of extremist Islamist ideology, supporters of the Jihad and of Osama bin Laden" while living in Madrid. Now on trial in Milan for international terrorism, Ahmed was wiretapped by Italian authorities telling an associate that "The Madrid attack is my project and those who died as martyrs are my dearest friends."
Given that Egyptian Islamic Jihad is currently headed by al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, one would think that such a statement from one of its members, to say nothing of various statements from senior Spanish and Italian law enforcement and judicial officials, would settle the issue of al Qaeda involvement in the Madrid train bombings once and for all.
(Moreover, a key piece of the Spanish intelligence chief's claims, that no money transfers occurred between al Qaeda and the masterminds of the Madrid bombings, may also be in doubt. Both El Mundo and Corriere della Sera reported in September 2004 that Ahmed stated in a conversation wiretapped by Italian authorities that during his time in Madrid he was being financed by Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, a radical Saudi cleric who has been described as a "friend" of Osama bin Laden and been praised by the al Qaeda leader for his support in a number of al Qaeda propaganda videos.)
THE SPANISH INTELLIGENCE CHIEF'S CLAIM that there was no al Qaeda link to the Madrid bombings might be better understood within the context of Spanish domestic politics. After all, if the goal of the attacks was to topple the Popular Party government in order to bring about a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq, it would seem that al Qaeda was successful both in achieving the desired results and reading the Spanish political scene--which the Zapatero government might, understandably, be loathe to admit.
What is alarming is that U.S. counterterrorism officials have apparently also missed these tell-tale signs of al Qaeda involvement in connection with a major terrorist attack in a European capital. Although this might not be very surprising: According to a May 2004 article in U.S. News & World Report, when asked about Iraq al-Jihad "Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency also found the article unremarkable, 'a document like any number of other documents,' says one intelligence official."
Perhaps it was, but it was almost certainly a document whose online publication and dissemination had tragic consequences for the Spanish people.
ANY NUMBER OF INVESTIGATIONS into U.S. intelligence failures prior to 9/11 have revealed key gaps in the understanding of al Qaeda. As the FFI report on Islamist terrorism in Europe makes clear, there are no strict organizational division between al Qaeda and its various allies and associate groups, thus making the overlap between them fluid and difficult for investigators to track.
To rule out an al Qaeda link to the Madrid bombers at this stage would seem counterintuitive in light of the information currently available from any number of credible sources. For instance, Judge Juan del Olmo, who is heading up the official Spanish investigation into the attacks, has said that the Madrid bombings were "were carried out by a local cell linked to a international terrorist network . . . of Islamic fanatics which planted the bombs had links stretching through France, Belgium, Italy, Morocco and to Iraq." Is it that much to ask that the U.S. intelligence community be at least as informed as members of the Spanish judiciary?
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute Center for Policing Terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:19 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'll try 'Cynical Governments and Agencies' for $20, Alex.
President Bush made the new and risky admission at a press conference Tuesday that the war in Iraq might not end on his watch, a distinct tactical shift away from a relentless White House optimism that seems ever more at odds with the endless violence and news of disintegration from Iraq.
Passionate and often aggressive despite his political wounds, Bush declared that if he did not believe the United States could prevail in Iraq, he would pull the troops out now. But he acknowledged that day probably will not come during his presidency.
"That, of course, is an objective," Bush said, "and that'll be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
Bush made his comments at the White House as the war entered its fourth year with no end in sight. Facing Nixonian poll numbers, growing credibility problems and splintering Republican support, Bush has begun taking critics head-on, accepting hostile questions and acknowledging setbacks while trying to muster public resolve to continue an unpopular war.
Bush took issue with the conclusion of Ayad Allawi, former interim prime minister of Iraq, that the country has entered a civil war.
"Listen, we all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence," Bush said. "But the way I look at the situation is that the Iraqis took a look and decided not to go to civil war."
The evidence he cited was the Iraqi army's unity in the face of attacks and retributions from Sunni and Shiite factions, denunciations of the sectarian violence from Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the efforts by elected Iraqi officials to form a government.
"And I understand how tough it is," Bush said. "Don't get me wrong. I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is. I hear it from our troops. I read the reports every night. But I believe -- I believe the Iraqis -- this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't."
Bush's calibrated realism was dismissed by Democrats, who have struggled to come up with an alternative Iraq policy and seem to have settled on troop reductions this year as a way to force Iraqis to assume control of their country.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada pounced on Bush's admission, demanding in a statement that Bush abandon his open-ended troop commitment, something Reid said "was never contemplated or approved by the American people."
"Last year, Congress overwhelmingly called on President Bush to make 2006 a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty," Reid said. "The domestic public relations campaign waged by the White House and the new round of presidential speeches does not advance that goal."
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq and who continues to oppose an immediate pullout, laid out the Democratic position in a radio address Saturday, calling for a reduction in troop levels from 130,000 to 50,000 this year and demanding that Bush insist that Iraqis "get their political house in order."
The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Virginia's John Warner, delivered much the same message to Iraqi leaders during a visit to Iraq this week.
As part of his new willingness to respond to critics, Bush called during his news conference on Hearst columnist and veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas for the first time in three years.
Thomas challenged Bush on why he decided to invade Iraq and why he wanted "to go to war from the moment you stepped into the White House."
"I didn't want war," Bush replied. "To assume I wanted war is just -- is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect."
Entering a testy colloquy with one of his fiercest critics, Bush said, "No president wants war" but that his attitude changed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
"Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen ... and I'm never going to forget it," Bush said. When Thomas said Iraq "didn't do anything to you," Bush responded that he "saw a threat in Iraq."
Bush said al Qaeda terrorists now operating in Iraq know they are affecting debate in the United States. "I believe they want to hurt us again," Bush said. "They've declared Iraq to be the central front, and therefore we've got to make sure we win that, and I believe we will.
"I'm going to say it again: If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there," Bush said. "I wouldn't put those kids there. It's -- I meet with too many families who've lost a loved one to not be able to look them in the eye and say we're doing the right thing."
Bush also obliquely acknowledged his steep slide in public approval ratings to the mid-30s, addressing whether he still had the political capital he claimed after his re-election, with this blunt response:
"I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war," Bush said.
Bush also took on his own Republican critics on immigration as the Senate heads into a bruising debate next week that promises to divide his party over how to deal with the problem of 12 million illegal immigrants and yet find a way to provide employers with the unskilled labor they demand.
In a veiled warning that his own efforts to woo Hispanic voters could be jeopardized by the hard line many Republicans are taking, Bush said that the emotion-laden immigration debate, "if not conducted properly, will send signals that -- that I don't think will befit -- befit the nation's kind of history and traditions."
"When you make something illegal that people want, there's a way around it, around the rules and regulations," Bush said. "And so you've got people, 'coyotes,' stuffing people in the back of 18-wheelers or smuggling them across 105-degree desert heat. You've got forgers and tunnel diggers. You got a whole industry aimed at using people as a commodity. And it's wrong ... we need to do something about it."
Standing by the broad framework he has already laid out on immigration -- toughening law enforcement while allowing immigrants to legally do jobs Americans will not do through a guest worker program -- Bush left it to the Senate to resolve the issue of the 12 million people already here illegally, although he said they should not be in line for permanent residence ahead of those who have not broken the law.
"But one of the issues is going to be to deal with somebody whose family has been here for a while, raised a family," Bush said. "And that will be an interesting -- interesting debate. My answer is, that person shouldn't get automatic citizenship."
Bush attempted to turn the tables on Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and presidential contender who has called on the Senate to censure and possibly impeach Bush for conducting warrantless wiretapping in the search for terrorists.
"I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program," Bush said. "You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program."
Bush defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against calls, most recently from Feinstein, for his resignation.
"Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy -- not just the war plan we executed in Iraq, but the war plans that have been executed throughout the history of warfare," Bush said. But he left the door open to potential staff changes. "I'm not going to announce it right now," he said.
Bush acknowledged that Republicans running for re-election to Congress in November have distanced themselves from him. Senate Republicans already have ignored many of Bush's domestic initiatives -- cutting entitlement spending, health savings accounts and making his first-term tax cuts permanent -- in their recent budget.
"I can remember '02 when there was a certain nervousness," Bush said. "There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04 and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down." He urged Republicans to stick together. "We've got an aggressive agenda that, by working together, we'll get passed," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
From the article's lead sentence:
"President Bush made the new and risky admission at a press conference Tuesday that the war in Iraq might not end on his watch..."
From Bush's 2002 State of the Union Address:
"Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch."
What part of that didn't the author comprehend? And what part of what SecDef Rumsfeld said-- that Iraq would be a "long, hard slog"-- didn't she get?
Carolyn Lochhead is either a dimwit with the attention span of a month-old puppy, or she's a lying bitch who writes Democratic Party propaganda cynically disguised as "news."
I'll take "lying bitch" for $500, please...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/22/2006 9:20
Comments ||
Top||
#2
"President Bush made the new and risky admission at a press conference Tuesday that the war in Iraq might not end on his watch "
"Bush made his comments at the White House as the war entered its fourth year with no end in sight."
For the record Bush did NOT say the war would continue past his term. In response to a question about whether there would come a day when there would be no more troops in Iraq he replied that it would be up to future governments and future governments of Iraq. Considering the fact that the Jihad types dont want as much as one boot on their soil that statement could be considered explosive even as it was intended. But to extrapolate that Bush sees the war continuing from a statement about troop deployment is a complete load. BTW the US continues to have troops in South Korea decades after combat. Are we still at war in that theater?
#4
US continues to have troops in South Korea decades after combat. Are we still at war in that theater?
Technically, yes. We have only a cease-fire agreement (a Hudna by any other name...) between the US/UN and North Korea.
We also still have troops in Germany and Korea 60 years after fighting ended there. What's the big deal? The entire Left Coast has this totally unrealistic "understanding" of politics and the military, and are incompetent to write about those subjects. Unfortunately, the most incompetent all work for newspapers and television stations.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 13:01
Comments ||
Top||
#5
I saw this on the local news this morning. Stupid media people, yes, but they are finally being forced to notice that this really is a long term thing, ie it will not end when Bush leaves office. Hopefully this will make his successor's life a bit easier, as President Guiliani can just point to this and previous speeches as explanation why we are still over there. ;-)
Attending the preparation inquiry on Louia Sakka, Ilhami Sayan, a lawyer for Hamed Obysi appearing in the same trial, reported his suspicion about the defendants identity.
Claiming that Sakka might have been switched by the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Sayan continued: "I saw him twice during the pre-trial inquiry. I never forget someone I have seen before. Sakka was tall and thin, but the person appearing here is fat and of medium height. I met him twice in prison too. The man I initially saw was Sakka, but I am not sure after my second meeting. I am assuming the CIA switched Sakka to silence him. We have concerns for his life."
The lawyer, Osman Karahan revealed his suspicion about Sakka at the trial and requested an inquiry be launched.
The lawyer told: "Here is a man who is accused of having entered and exited Turkey 55 times with 18 different passports, and we fail to know which one is here," Karahan said in relation to the man attending the trial.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:16 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Claiming that Sakka might have been switched by the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Sayan continued: "I saw him twice during the pre-trial inquiry...I never forget someone I have seen before. Sakka was tall and thin, but the person appearing here is fat and of medium height."
...This soundslike a Colonel Flagg ep on MASH.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/22/2006 11:18
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Flagg wasn't MASH, he may have been CID tho, but certainly not FBI.
An Israeli military tribunal has charged two West Bank Palestinians with plotting bomb attacks for al-Qaeda.
It is the first time Israel has formally charged Palestinians with membership of the militant network.
The two men were arrested in December after allegedly meeting al-Qaeda operatives in Jordan to receive funding and training to carry out attacks.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas warned recently that al-Qaeda was trying to recruit in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli security officials have also confirmed al-Qaeda has been seeking members in the Palestinian territories, and that Israel is considered a prime target for attack.
The Israeli military says Azzam Abu Aladas and Balal Hafnai, both 19 and from the West Bank city of Nablus, met al-Qaeda operatives in Jordan at least three times between May and December last year.
They are accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a pizzeria in the Jewish French Hill neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
It was to be followed shortly afterwards by a car bomb in a nearby street targeting people who came to the scene.
The pair are suspected of recruiting potential suicide bombers to carry out the attacks.
The charge sheet presented to the Israeli military tribunal also alleges the two men received $4,240 (£2,424) from al-Qaeda to carry out the attacks.
Both have been charged with conspiring to commit murder, membership of an illegal group, illegal possession of weapons and carrying out military training with al-Qaeda.
They were arrested while crossing from Jordan to the West Bank in December.
It was not immediately clear how the two men would plead or whether a lawyer had been appointed to represent them.
Earlier this month, the Palestinian militant group Hamas rejected a message in which al-Qaeda urged it never to make peace with Israel.
Hamas' exiled political leader Khaled Meshaal said the group had "its own vision" and did not need al-Qaeda's advice.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:14 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
the two men received $4,240 (£2,424) from al-Qaeda to carry out the attacks.
The full text of the article is available yesterday, but I just wanted to make a couple of points. The first is that the US doesn't appear to have any clue as to what's going on in Iran HUMINT-wise, which in addition to being worrisome for anyone in favor of airstrikes, makes it extremely difficult to just pooh-pooh this stuff. The SIGINT says that the senior al-Qaeda leaders can still move and communicate - 3 years after Saif al-Adel masterminded the Riyadh bombings. The fact that the ranking Democrat on the House IR subcommittee devoted to terrorism says that intelligence indicates that the Iranians are in collaboration with al-Qaeda is rather telling in and of itself.
The article describes Abu Khayr as "the head of Al Qaeda's leadership council," which may indicate that we should probably move him up the food chain. Abdel Aziz al-Masri is named as "a biological weapons expert who heads the network's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction," so I'm assuming that he's Abu Khabab's replacement as the head of the WMD committee.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/22/2006
01:02 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Dan is, I think, being a little bit unfair to the US Intel community.
While it is true that we don't have definitive data on what Iran's leadership is up to or what their logistical arrangements are with Al Q at any given time, this does not mean that we have no HUMINT.
Having HUMINT does not guarantee perfect knowledge, it does not even guarantee good knowledge. In Iran, as in many other countries, the various departments, security services, councils and individuals each have their own game where they are lying to each other or conniving with each other or moving assets around to make a point.
Yes, having HUMINT is better than not having HUMINT. But the payoff for having HUMINT is difficult to quantify and even after the fact it is not clear what the impact of the HUMINT was.
East Germany had excellent penetration of W Germany's security offices. It didn't do them much good in the end.
#6
Don't we have a lot of folks who came from Iran and tell us where they have been digging for the last 5 years ? I think we get some very well informed who oppose the MMs and spill everything they know. Isn't it possible that some of them can contact relatives in Iran who are on the inside ? We may know all there is about Iran.
#7
HUMINT fall into two basic realms, that being COVERT and OVERT. OVERT, you break wind in room full of people, everyone notices but no one can identify the source. COVERT, you break wind in a room full of people, you know you broke wind, but everyone else in the room is too indoxicated to notice.
#13
It's the same tired shit we went through with Iraq. Intelligence, SIGINT or HUMINT, is not going to be entirely conclusive.
Particularly since the CIA has no direct activity on the ground, we are dependent on resistance third-party intelligence gathering. The MSM will judge these sources according to their own predetermined perspective as to whether or not they are credible.
It all comes down to judgment and probability.
My personal judgment is that Al Qaeda is running operations from Iran and has furnished Zarqawi with safe haven for years.
Moreover, the longer we wait to kick the door down, the longer the Moolahs have to counteract our efforts through more sophisticated methods.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006 11:32
Comments ||
Top||
#14
A very close friend of mine was the HUMINT collections manager for USEUCOM for a few years. It was a Major slot filled by an Air Force Master Sergeant (E-7). Most of what he did was highly classified. One of the most unheralded aspects of the end of the Cold War was the number of people that showed up at Stuttgart and said "I was your agent at XXXXXXXX".
Covert human intelligence has many ups and downs. You may never know if an agent has been "turned" - discovered and forced to work for the other side. You may not be able to correlate a report with any other type of intelligence, making it suspect. You may have an agent right where you want him/her, but that agent doesn't have the intelligence or training to provide technical details of what he/she sees. It's a dangerous job that provides only one type of intelligence that must be corroberated by others in order to be useful. I'm both surprised and grateful that we get as much useful information as we do.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 12:33
Comments ||
Top||
#19
That's what inspired my comment. Cheetos are great while waiting for the next comment to show up, but you need wet paper towels to clean your fingers or the keyboard gets all gummy and ucky.
I could switch to something healthy and less uckifying, like Trisket, but they taste like shit. There's a Paul Hogan line in there somewhere... :)
#20
I will refrain from my copy and paste schtick, as described yesterday, and ask a few questions regarding this article instead. What is an official? Am I to assume they get a government paycheck? And if so, in what capacity do these officials represent the government? Because it is the LA Times am I to assume these officials actually exist and if so, do they know what theyre talking about? Because they wish to remain anonymous should I assume theyre on the up-and-up or is it reasonable to think they may have an agenda? If the information is legitimate and in light of the climate surrounding Iranian nuclear ambitions why arent these officials willing to assign their names to these allegations? Should I assume the information is coming from reliable intelligence or is it from people or groups that have an agenda themselves? Is this a sound critique of these types of articles or ranting from a jaded news consumer?
I accept the necessity for un-sourced news from both the source and the journalists perspective. But if you remove all the recycled speculation attributed to anonymous sources from this article what do you get. One actual current quote that is itself speculation. But hey its the LA Times bayybee! This article will be picked up and reprinted as actual current news in powerhouse papers like Iranfocus.
#22
Is this a sound critique of these types of articles or ranting from a jaded news consumer?
I'll go with the former, DG. Sort of. It's a symbiotic relationship. Do I think the sources have an agenda? Yes, most times. Sometimes I wonder if there isn't a 'keep the lines open' action so that the 'reliable source' can, at times, feed misinformation or targeted-information.
Do I think the LAT or any other media would print names? No, not if they want to keep getting information.
My underlying thesis in American Theocracy is that these are the three major perils of the United States in the early 21st century.
Socialism, secularism, and ... oh, that's not what you mean.
First, radical religion this encompasses everything from the Pat Robertson-Jerry Falwell types to the attacks on medicine and science and the Left Behind books with their End Times and Armageddon scenarios. Second, oil dependence oil was essential to 20th century U.S. hegemony, and its growing scarcity and cost could play havoc. And third, debt is becoming a national weakness indeed, the borrowing industry in the U.S. has grown so rapidly that finance has displaced manufacturing as the leading U.S. sector. Pat Robertson is overbearing and shallow, but Jerry Falwell and the Southern Baptists, etc contribute much to public debate on vital issues. Too bad that Red-State Republicans don't pay attention.
Financing has always been around. The Rothschilds did well. Modern financing has helped us to build a world our forefathers couldn't imagine.
After George W. Bush narrowly won a second term in 2004, ...
... having a won a majority of the vote, something no Democrat since LBJ has managed to do ...
... which meant four more years of Religious Right power, over-dependence on oil and over-involvement in the Middle East and the fattening of the debt albatross, I decided to shift my focus from the biases, failings and deceits of the Bush family, going back four generations, which had been my focus during 2004 in my book American Dynasty.
Now sitting on the remainder pile.
The new book would concentrate on the three perils to the U.S. all of which, however, were closely related to the re-orientation of the Republican party that occurred under the two Bushes. Here readers should keep in mind that from 1980 to 2004. Only one presidential election (1996) did not have a Bush on the ticket as the presidential or vice presidential nominee. Between 1988 and 2006, the two Bush presidents put a particular stamp on the GOPs regionalism, religious pandering and fealty to oil and finance. Northern urban conceit or epiphany?
Progressive conceit, you find it everywhere.
A second major element of the new book is to look at the three perils in the context of the weaknesses of the previous leading world economic powers. All of them, from Rome to Britain, resembled the Bush era U.S. in imperial cockiness. They thought they were unique, that God was on their side and that they had transcended history. Ultimately, too much crusading, strutting, borrowing, luxuriating and interest-group entrenchment helped do them in. Empires don't facilitate free elections for their subjects, while permitting freedom of expression. I would have imposed reparations on Iraq, and implemented disproportionate retaliation against post-occupation terror.
He also forgets how Rome was brought down: that era's progressives refused to fight to preserve the land, and hired mercenaries and barbarians to defend them. Disease took a major role (measles killed 1/5 of Romans in the 2nd Century AD). Continued war and strife with competing wanna-be emperors took its toll. It's like Mr. Phillips hasn't ever heard of, let alone read, Edward Gibbons.
The excesses of the Religious Right in the Bush years represent a particular danger.. Some 45% of U.S. Christians believe in the End Times and Armageddon, and Tim LaHayes lurid Left Behind series helped mobilize them and shape Washington awareness of their importance. Centrist religious leaders believe its a gross distortion of the Bible, but theres no doubt that a large percentage of the Bush electorate believes that war and chaos in the holy lands (including Iraq) heralds the Second Coming.
The Left Behind series is escapist entertainment. It's harmless, and you only have to read it to recognize that. Guess there's another book Mr. Phillips hasn't read.
Oil was also central. Dick Cheney was very mindful of the coming shortfall, and during 2001 his Energy Task Force poured over maps of the Iraqi oilfields. The big U.S. oil companies were also desperate to have them, and since 2001, the U.S. military has increasingly taken up oilfield, pipeline and sea route protection. But alas, botching Iraq botched U.S. oil relationships. Someone took a gullibility pill.
If only we had elected Al Gore, we'd no longer be dependent on oil.
The Republicans have profited from a weak opposition. Bluntly put, since the 1960s the Democrats have been the vehicle for the growth of secularism and irreligion among perhaps a third of the U.S. population.
It doesn't help the Democrats that, on the six major social issues in this country, their position is the minority position. There's a name for a political party that consistently takes minority positions: the minority party.
Strong churchgoers now vote Republican for president by roughly 3:1. As of 2005-2006, the new chance for the Democrats is to compete for the people in the middle in particular, merely occasional religious attendees and moderates who think that the liberals went too far in the 1960s and 1970s but that the Religious Right and the would-be theocrats are the danger now. That is certainly my anslysis, and it is developed at great length in American Theocracy. The Secular State was the product of the religious wars of 16th century Europe. It was accepted by competing faiths, in the interest of institutional barriers to domination by one religion.
Secular doesn't mean irreligious, which is what the progressives demand. Secular means that all parties have a role, and no cardinal, grand vizier, preacher-man or rebbe tells the rest of us what to do and how to think.
Electorally, Its useful to divide Bushs supporters in two. On one side, the economic conservatives and centrist traditional GOPers; on the other, the true-believing religious electorate. Hes lost many of the middle-roaders with his Iraq, Katrina and Schiavo bungling. However, as long as he has most of his religious voters, itll be hard to push him below 35-40% job approval in the national polls. Islamist aggression will force a harder line on counter-terror, in the last years of the Bush administration. Traditional Seculars, who form the political Center, will support global security initiatives that Democrats have already squelched.
There's at least six different factions within the Repubs, and Bush continues to do well with several of them. Iraq isn't a bungle to most Republicans, and most Repubs see Katrina as a general failure of all levels of government.
Fear is likely to remain a Bush tactic.
As opposed to Howard Dean and Co., who never, ever use fear as a tactic.
His people have tried to polarize voters into seeing a fight between good and evil, stoking fear and a sense of global chaos. The doomsday preachers are on the same side. Fear as "Bush tactic?" If anything, the President's perception of the evil of Islamism (for me: Islam, per se) is an indequate assessment of that vulgar ideology of murderous aggression and human enslavement.
Central to Bush administration policy, is the inclusion of Islamists - like Hamas - in "democratic" processes.
What we are seeing in the Middle East is Weimar type plebiscites on extremism and terrorism, which Mid East Muslims are embracing. Real Politick dictates that Reagan-security should trump sham Carter-liberty, as the cornerstone of US foreign policy.
The majority of Americans are not in their camp, but there is a large minority certainly 25%, probably not 40% that want more Bible and less science, abstinence rather than contraception, fewer drugs and more faith (faith-healing) and uphold confidence in fuel supplies and resources because God will provide.
This guy is good at his straw-men, isn't he? It's too bad he doesn't get out more; the kinds of people he slams are some of the nicest, most charitable people I've ever met.
Neither Al Gore in 2000 or John Kerry in 2004 was a strong Democratic nominee. Most of the time they had nothing important to say. Got that right.
That's one.
Thats why Im an independent now. The Republicans started losing me in the late 1980s, and lost me completely with George W. Bush. In this year 2006, theyre starting to show signs of change, but so far its much too little much too late. One of our Republican congressmen here in Connecticut, Chris Shays, complains flat out that the party of Lincoln has become the party of theocracy. Yes, the Republicans should be vulnerable in the 2006 Congressional elections. But so far the Democrats have been a lackluster and unimaginative opposition. Their capacities or lack of them should also be part of the 2006 debate.
They will be -- count on it.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs ||
03/22/2006
00:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And third, debt is becoming a national weakness
All of them, from Rome to Britain, resembled the Bush era U.S. in imperial cockiness.
Nothing annoys me more than people who make historical comparisons and merely expose their ignorance of history. The British Empire went massively into debt to pay for the Napoleonic Wars. But once won, they enjoyed a century of unrivalled dominance and economic prosperity.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 8:11
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Last time I checked, it was the dim-o-crat party that took the lead in limiting oil drilling (and coal mining, and nuclear power, and when they can, wind power(!)) in this country...
Posted by: Phil ||
03/22/2006 9:10
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Perhpas if he were no so busy with pejoratives like "Theocrat", and sliming with a broad brush anyone that hold religious bleiefs, he might realize that he is simply wrong.
This whole screed reeks of some sort of anti-Bush hatred; the author looking for a reason for his hatred, and is thus trying to attach himself to anything, and consequently is makign himself into an ass.
"Theocracy" is not a "peril" to the US. Not nearly as much as the militant secularist atheism that seeks eradicate religion and morality from public life. It has already destroyed the black community with it s"its ok to be a sngle parte, its ok to bear children out of wedlokc, there are no such thing as personal consequences to yourself or God for your actions".
THAT is the sort of thing that has nearly destroyed this nation, and indded, its the polar opposite of theism that the biggest trheat to this naiton: they seek to eratdicate the one thing they cannot stand against: religion in the marketplace of ideas. The ACLU and atheists like this writer are still fighting to get religion *excluded* from public life, and seem to be completely unaware of the consequencse.
Thank God that we do have the first admenment which provides for freedom OF religion, not FROM religion.
And I am thankful that we have a president who is appointing judges and justices that will adhere tightly to the constitution instead of fabricting things wholesale from outside of it.
And I'm thankful that idiots like Jeving Phillips are in the minority in this nation -and are breeding themselves out of existence.
#5
This whole screed reeks of some sort of anti-Bush hatred; the author looking for a reason for his hatred, and is thus trying to attach himself to anything, and consequently is makign himself into an ass.
Well, it is from TPMCafe.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 9:44
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Well said. She's peddling another "ism" that seeks to divide and weaken the US from within. A hundred flavors of hatred with a common goal.
We became who we are because we were founded by people of good common sense, collective purpose, and who believed in individual Freedom created and protected by rule of law - including recourse.
I don't recall the Secularists being listed at Plymouth Rock or on the Jamestown rolls. They did not create America. They are simply yet another SIG. They are protected, equally, under our Constitution. Just like every other group, they deserve no quarter for attempting to impose themselves upon others. By rule of law, we should be earnestly working to remove them from any positions they have managed to acquire to advance their agenda.
She, and those of her ilk, who make the wild-eyed claim that the Constitution has been eroded by religion have not one shred of evidence to support it. None. It's pure dementia.
There is ample evidence, however, that those espousing Secularism have abused their offices and abused our institutions in their efforts to destroy what made American the home of Freedom for all.
There is also ample evidence that dementias converge.
#7
Secular doesn't mean irreligious... Exactly, it is the left that is irreligious. The right is less tolerant of Muslim integration of mosque and state. Sharia campaigns - in the guise of "Muslim Personal Law" - in South Africa, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, etc - were supported by the left and opposed by the right. Southern Baptists have a persistent demand: let us have real Secularism. And, I would argue, the SBs can deliver 5-7 million votes. So who champions Secularism?
#9
All of them, from Rome to Britain, resembled the Bush era U.S. in imperial cockiness. They thought they were unique, that God was on their side and that they had transcended history. Ultimately, too much crusading, strutting, borrowing, luxuriating and interest-group entrenchment helped do them in. Empires don't facilitate free elections for their subjects, while permitting freedom of expression.
Oh, puhleeese ... I stopped reading about here. All of you know my distaste for the overemphasis being placed on religiosity by the Oval Office. I point to the thundering silence regarding Abdul Rahman as a sterling example. However, I refuse to give the least creedence to this sort of hysterical twaddle.
The Left Behind series is escapist entertainment. It's harmless, and you only have to read it to recognize that.
I think you may (seriously) underestimate the number of people who take the Left Behind series seriously. Your own intelligence level well exceeds that of many other fundamentalist Christians who are reading this stuff. Few fundamentalist Christians I have ever known possess anything even remotely resembling the degree of worldview and political awareness that the average Rantburger maintains.
#11
It's obvious he's never so much as met any observant Catholics or evangelicals, and he probably crosses the street to avoid walking by churches, lest he contract "Christer cooties" from getting too close. He is right about the danger from "theocracy" in one sense: Marxism is a fantasy ideology, just like Islamism, and the fanatical Marxists want absolute power just as badly as the Islamists do.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/22/2006 12:54
Comments ||
Top||
#12
Wonder, too, if the carping about "debt" is going to eventually lead him into a full-bore rant about "fiat money" and "international Jewish bankers who control the world" and Carlisle Group and Skull & Bones and all that moonbat jazz.
Pssst, Kevin, . . . there's never been a better time to buy gold.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/22/2006 13:00
Comments ||
Top||
#15
Few fundamentalist Christians I have ever known possess anything even remotely resembling the degree of worldview and political awareness that the average Rantburger maintains.
You're right Zenster. Since (largely by choice) about 99%+ of the population lacks the political awareness of a Rantburger, that also means that your average athiest, truck driver, Hindu, and convenience store clerk also lack our political awareness. It's hardly a mark of distinction.
#16
what a bunch of blah, blah, blah from just another loser who blindly adheres to his anti-American religion far more faithfully Christians do.
Some things are so obvious and one is that Muslim extremism, that brought down the WTC and has been responsible for untold terror worldwide. Yet this guy is still worried that Jerry Falwell might think that the blue smurf is gay. What a stupid putz.
#17
Yet this guy is still worried that Jerry Falwell might think that the blue smurf is gay.
All smurfs are blue. And subject to bombing from the UN.
Falwell was griping over one of the Teletubbies. They're not gay -- just really freaking creepy.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 21:35
Comments ||
Top||
#18
Kevin Phillips is the left-wing "Republican" who's been predicting a Democratic surge for several decades now. He did it all through the Reagan, Bush and Clinton years. I guess one of these days, he'll eventually be right. The guy may fancy himself as once having been a Republican, but he was about at home in the GOP as Zell Miller was in the Democratic Party. The only reason this guy hasn't registered as a Democrat is because it would shred any tattered remnants of his pretense to impartiality when pronouncing on the doom of the GOP - any day now.
#19
Zenster: I point to the thundering silence regarding Abdul Rahman as a sterling example.
I can't get too worked up about it. Defense of minorities is a fine thing, but the reality is that we have a friendly government in Afghanistan today. Another point is that perhaps 99% of Afghanistan is devoutly Muslim - so there's not even a token domestic minority constituency for religious freedom. The alternative is an unfriendly government. Note that we're not through fighting terrorists as yet. Did we quibble about Stalin sending people off to gulags during WWII? Or about Chiang Kai Shek's regrettable tendency to bump his political opponents off? We can start discussing these things once al Qaeda is beaten, and Pakistan isn't run by terrorist-sponsoring leaders. Before then, we can make a few concessions to political and diplomatic realities.
#20
Note that thanks to Carter started pressuring the Shah with respect to human rights, we got Ayatollah Khomeini and his band of merry mullahs. And the Iranians were much more secular than Afghans are today.
Suspected militants blew up a gas pipeline in Balochistan on Tuesday, officials said. The pipeline is owned by Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) and feeds gas to the Punjab province. Officials at the company said supplies to consumers remained unaffected. One of our 30-inch diameter pipeline was damaged in the attack, which took place at around 1:30 am and some 11 km away from the Sui fields, said Naeem Ahmad Khan, a spokesman for SNGPL. Khan said the repair work on the damaged pipeline was likely to be completed within 24 hours.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Gotta be careful with those Macros.
Avoid at all cost Alt-22 (It's a special keyboard)
That's when the Bugti's attack a pipeline while being taken to Ein-Hellhole by the RAB after being questioned by THE MOSSAD who are searching for the sheet metal factories which are building the country-made shutterguns which are destablizing the region.
Nawab Akbar Bugti, the chief of the Bugti tribe, has taken to the hills of Balochistan to direct the Baloch insurgency, reports The Telegraph. The nawab sought refuge in a series of large caves in the mountains of Dera Bugti with several thousand armed tribesmen three months ago after Pakistani security forces bombed Dera Bugti and surrounding villages, says the British newspaper.
A correspondent for The Telegraph met the nawab in one of these caves after a long journey across varied terrain to avoid military cordons. Bugti told the reporters his aim was not to destabilise Pakistan, but to press the demand of his people, which are greater provincial autonomy, more public sector jobs and a higher share of revenues from the Sui natural gas fields. The government denies there is a military operation ongoing in Balochistan, but an American intelligence source told the Washington Post recently that Pakistan has deployed some 25,000 troops in the Marri tribal area, and the Bugti nawab estimates that another 23,000 are ranged against his forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
LONDON: The Anglican Church in Wales said Tuesday it was recalling all copies of its Welsh-languAge Y Llan (Church) magazine that features a French cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PTUI PBUH). Taken from the France-Soir newspaper, the cartoon shows Muhammad (PTUI PBUH) on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, Moses, and God who tells him: Dont complain, Mohammed, weve all been caricatured here.
Pointing that out'll getcha a price on your head...
The church in Wales is thoroughly investigating how this cartoon came to be reproduced in Y Llan, a spokesman for Barry Morgan, the Archbishop of Wales, said Tuesday. He added that Morgan had groveled sent apologies to the Muslim Council of Wales for any offence caused. The cartoon was used to illustrate an article in Y Llan which has a circulation of about 400 copies about the shared ancestry of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
TEHRAN Seven new petrochemical plants will come on stream in the next year (Iranian year starts March 21), noted here on Saturday, Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh. Along with the crude oil sales, other oil products including petrochemicals as well as the natural gas are also exported, the minister said in response to a question asked by a reporter on why 100 years after the oil discovery in Iran the country was still a mere crude exporter.
The more we focus on the exports of our oil products the more value added we gain. However, the world is in need of energy too, the minister stated adding, therefore, a portion of our exports should be allocated to the energy consumers, the Persian service of Fars News Agency reported on Saturday.
London, Mar. 21 The European Union has warned Iran that it may face diplomatic reprisals if it continues to defy the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its nuclear pursuit. The EU said that it had deep concern at Tehrans continuing failure to cooperate fully with the IAEA, in a statement issued on Monday.
Next up: 'deep disappointment'.
The EU deeply regrets that Iran has failed to implement in full the measures deemed necessary by the IAEA Board. As a result, the UN Security Council is currently considering appropriate steps. The Council believes that the Security Council should act to reinforce the authority of the IAEA, the statement said, adding that it continued to be committed to a diplomatic solution.
Except the Soviets Russians and Chinese have already nixed that. Sorry.
The 25-nation block called on Iranian leaders to urgently meet the full requests of the IAEA board of governors resolution of 4 February, including full suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The nuclear issue will remain a central and pressing concern. The Council however also underlines the necessity that Iran addresses effectively all the EUs areas of concern which include terrorism, Iran's approach to the Middle East peace process, regional issues as well as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The EU called on Iranian authorities to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally and condemned human rights abuses in Iran. In particular they condemned the violence used against peaceful protesters on International Women's Day. The EU will keep all its diplomatic options under close review and will calibrate its approach in the light of Iranian declarations and actions, the statement said.
And calibrate. And re-calibrate.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Consensus, we need consensus
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006 0:08
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Didn't Margret Thatcher once say that "concensus was the death of leadership"?
#3
yeah this has been doing the rounds on all the top websites the last few days - a real dream isn't it, if i had a wish it'd be to be a kid agin with lego kits like that to make - years of fun :)
A world summit between rabbis, imams and other religious leaders was threatened with an early end after a row over the Mohammed cartoons broke out.
No surprise here.
A scholastic argument started over the cartoons. But it was two imams who came to verbal blows over the controversy at the Seville conference.
No surprise here either, but..
Sohaib Bencheikh, an Islamic scholar who heads Marseilles Superior Institute of Islamic Science, complained the conference had been used to call for a condemnation of the Mohammed cartoons by the United Nations. He said: "We shouldn't think that the Prophet is so weak that he can be disgraced by a cartoon in bad taste."
Whoa. Major jolt to the ol' meter. Guess it does work after all.
The comment angered Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijiri, director general of ISESCO (Muslim equivalent of UNESCO) who walked out before he was persuaded to return by rabbis and imams.
Oh well. The needle sank right back down, from the lack of surprise that it was a tranzi imam stalking out to sulk.
More than 300 representatives from 20 countries are attending the congress which ends on Wednesday.
#2
Much like the Arab world has used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whipping boy to avoid any substantive progress within their own borders, I can easily see Islam refusing to begin any sort of genuine reform so long as the blasphemous caricatures of Mohammed continue to be allowed.
Nice stalling point so that these barbarians can keep up with their endless savagery and atrocities whilst the West goes on with its endless handwringing.
It is time to outlaw Islam until all Islamic nations permit freedom of religion.
ISLAMABAD - Stung by US President George Bushs refusal to grant access to American nuclear know-how, Pakistan accused the United States of discriminating against it and of upsetting the balance of power in South Asia.
Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told the Senate, the upper house of parliament, late on Monday, that any deal to supply technology for civilian nuclear power programmes for its rival India should also available to Pakistan. Pakistan will not accept any discriminatory treatment, Kasuri told the upper house. The US must have a package approach while dealing with India and Pakistan.
Two chances of that: slim and none.
On Tuesday, at a seminar in Islamabad, Pakistani defence analysts aired fears that the U.S.-India deal would sway the balance of power in South Asia even further in Indias favour. This imbalance now gets even worse as a consequence of Americas total and all out support to India, said Talat Masood, a former general turned political analyst.
Dang they're sharp. They noticed.
Visiting Pakistan last week at Bushs behest, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman gave Pakistani officials short shrift when they floated ideas of creating nuclear parks for US companies to develop nuclear energy plants.
Despite being told to forget about any deal, Pakistani officials protestations have become louder in recent days, possibly encouraged, analysts say, by the strong criticism Bush encountered at home over the concession to India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Pakistan, though a key ally of the United States in a global war on terrorism, remains under a cloud due to the role played by its top scientist in a nuclear black market scandal.
Kh-h-h-h-h-h-ha-a-a-a-a-an!
The Pakistani militarys past support for Islamist militant groups, some of which latterly forged links with al Qaeda, also does not help Pakistans case, analysts say.
Ya think?
Compared with Indias robust democracy, Pakistan has repeatedly switched between civilian and military rule making it hard to predict what kind of government if any will follow in the post-Musharraf era, analysts said.
The United States meantime has engaged India, seeing opportunities in its growing economic power, and, according to analysts, its potential as regional counterweight to China.
We do like betting on winners.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Samuel Bodman gave Pakistani officials short shrift
Samuel Bodman slapped them so hard, it will take years for the Paks to get over it.
"I have told you why I am here!"
"I am not here to talk about nuclear power!"
Posted by: john ||
03/22/2006 12:37
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Hand over bin Laden and we'll talk.
(Notice how I said nothing about giving them nuclear technology, just talk.)
Two youths have revealed how they escaped from the Super Mario Brothers Tamil Tigers after they were kidnapped by the Sri Lankan rebels, given weapons training and briefed on suicide operations. The young men, now in the care of UNICEF, confirmed the suspicion that the Tamil Tigers, also known as the LTTE, are continuing with child abductions, despite assurances to the contrary given to the international community at Geneva talks earlier this year.
In an interview this week, the two young abductees, named only as K Vinoharan, 15, and S Chandrakumar, 17, from the country's eastern port city of Trincomalee, recalled how they were forcibly taken away by an armed LTTE group and held captive for one week before they escaped earlier this month. The teenagers revealed that there were more than 200 youths, including some as young as 12 and 13, receiving weapons training at a camp, which houses one of the main rebel training facilities in the rebel-held territory around Trincomalee.
Vinoharan said five LTTE fighters grabbed him from the clutches of his pleading brother while they returned home from school on 1 March. "They grabbed me and hit me when I screamed. They put me in the van and drove away as my brother kept pleading with them to let me go," he said. The youths described how they went through strenuous training in weapons combat at the Trincomalee rebel camp and were told by their leaders to prepare to sacrifice their lives. "We were shown the sea and told if war breaks out we will have to attack the navy and, if required, jump on the navy boats and explode bombs that will be strapped around us," the two boys said.
Senior LTTE leaders were said to have visited the training camp on numerous occasions and witnessed first hand the progress of the training sessions. After six days in captivity, Chandrakumar and Vinoharan managed to make their getaway at night along the seashore adjoining the rebel training camp. The recruitment of children by the LTTE is on the increase, Amnesty International said in its latest report. Amnesty said even a large international presence following the tsunami has not significantly helped protect children from LTTE recruitment.
Taiwan has started to dismantle statues of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to shed vestiges of an authoriatarian past. The decision to remove statues of the leader from military bases on the independent island, which is still claimed by China, has sparked an outcry of public anger, the Financial Times reports.
Members of the opposition Kuomintang, the political party that left the Chinese mainland in 1949 after losing a civil war, called the move "evil" on Monday. Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive party said it was time move beyond Chiang's cult of personality. An aid of President Chen Shui-bian said "the more mature our democracy gets the less we will see of this."
Chiang's rule on both mainland China prior to the revolution and on Taiwan were marred by political oppression and corruption. Taiwanese have been peacefully divided in their views of Chiang. Debate on his legacy has been minimal since the Taiwan's democratization more than ten years ago, but a recent government report implicated the leader in the deaths some Taiwanese who were killed in an uprising against his regime.
#1
Chiang did more to fight the Japanese occupiers than did Mao. The Taiwanese would do better to think of an authoritarian future rather than revise the true nature of Chiang's national security regime.
#2
Someone's never heard of indigenous Taiwanese...
(Don't ask me why ethnicity still plays a role in Asia, but it does. Not all Taiwanese are descended from post-civil-war Chinese immigrants, and not all identify as readily.)
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
03/22/2006 2:08
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Poor Peanut.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 8:56
Comments ||
Top||
#4
It's a bit lengthy, but there is a great description
on who the native Taiwanese where on WikiPedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigine
Politically, the concept get's even more muddier.
See article from last year Asian Times when this issue was addressed from a political perspective.
Taiwan Poll: Who's the 'real' Taiwanese?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FC20Ad04.html
This section I found interesting:
"Three main groups on Taiwan
Taiwan people, most of whom came from the mainland or descended from those immigrants, can be classified in three groups:
1. Aborigines who have inhabited the island for thousands of years and are descended from small tribes related to groups in Indonesia and the Philippines;
2. Immigrants from China who arrived between 400 and 500 years ago, especially from what is now China's Fujian Province opposite Taiwan;
3. "Mainlanders" - those who fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek and the defeated KMT in or after 1949, when the communists won the civil war and took over the mainland. This influx of mainlanders added to tensions resulting from an island uprising in 1947 that highlighted the gap between the Taiwanese who had lived on the island for generations and those who had just arrived."
I have been always been puzzled by the Chinese Governments belief that they feel that Taiwan is a
Renegade Province that needs to be annexed into greater China.
Perhaps, other Rantburger's could shed some historical light on this.
#5
I find it hard to generate sympathy for that worthless gangster (he was a member of the Green Gang). China is better off without his ilk. Now to get rid of the commies too.
#7
#4
Taiwan under Chiang maintained that it was the legitimate government of China. The mainland Chinese maintained the mirror of that stance, that they were the legitimate government and Taiwan the breakaway province. Up until the Nixon years, China's UN seat was filled by Taiwan; the Nationalist government was the one that signed the original UN charter.
Up until Deng Xiao Ping, Taiwan and China were in about the same relation that South and North Korea are today. Despite Chiang's authoritarianism -- he was basically a warlord -- Taiwan has alway had much more economic freedom than the mainland. After the wreckage of the 2nd World War was cleared away, they built what had been a rustic backwater into an economic powerhouse, while the mainland played with oppression and purges and cultural revolution. Taiwan is what a Nationalist China would have grown into, had Mao lost.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006 9:44
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Thank you Fred for the Historical background on Taiwan.
I was checking Worldnet Daily and came across this article from Richard W. Hartzel and Roger C. S. Lin. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49379
I don't know if this applies in this situation regarding Taiwan/US/China affairs today; I am not fully familiar with all the relations between the 3 countries. But the authors makes the compelling argument that Taiwan is really a U.S. territory based on the rules of war and discredits China's claim to territorial ownership. And explains why the U.S. is still involved in the political/military affairs of this country and the basis for military intervening if the political leadership of Taiwan were to formally announce it's independent status and China launches military action against the island.
#9
Something else most people seem to forget is that Japan took control of Taiwan in 1895 and held the island until the end of World War II. That wasn't the first occupation by an outside power, either. The mainland Chinese look down on the people of Taiwan, but Taiwan has a significant GDP - higher than the mainland until recently.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 13:47
Comments ||
Top||
#10
What young R Crawford said.
Posted by: Joe Stillwell ||
03/22/2006 14:29
Comments ||
Top||
#11
Politics in Free China. The KMT is now the party advocating closer ties with the Communists. KMT leaders have visited Peking and were welcomed with open arms. Removing the statues, more than anything else, is a loss of face by the KMT, who still act as if they were the ruling party.
#13
same as removing Jefferson from school's names cuz' he once owned slaves - PC bullies trying to rewrite history. He was a man - you can bitch and moan, but he helped make Taiwan what it is today. Free, prosperous. Perhaps some prefer the PRC?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/22/2006 16:36
Comments ||
Top||
#14
Both Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek have huge memorial buildings in Taipei, although Chiang Kai-Shek's is much larger. I am not sure if this announcement affects the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial.
The government claims many illegal aliens deported from South Africa are not Zimbabwean citizens - but from other African countries. Zimbabwe is now taking steps to prevent fake Zimbabweans entering the country after deportation. The Zimbabwe High Commissioner to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo has embarked on a vetting excercise to ascertain whether illegal immigrants awaiting deportation in Lindela Holding Centre were true Zimbabweans.
Just how desparate do you have to be to want to leave South Africa and enter ... Zim-bob-we?
Zimbabwean High Commission spokesperson, Chris Mapanga, said more than 200 illegal immigrants from countries such as Malawi, Mozambique Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were being deported to Zimbabwe nearly twice a week claiming to be Zimbabwean nationals.
After the recent restructuring at the illegal immigrants facility, South Africa has started deporting illegal immigrants to Zimbabwe twice a week and it is estimated that between 600 and 900 Zimbabweans are deported every week from the Lindela repatriation centre west of Johannesburg. South Africa is the destination of choice for illegal Zimbabweans who number around three million, according to recent official estimates.
Mapanga said the deportation of "fake" Zimbabweans has given the country a stereotype in the continent. "We are taking this process seriously because it is depicting a wrong image about our country, he said. Conditions in which illegal immigrants are held while in detention are reported to be harsh. Last year, three Zimbabweans, including a pregnant woman, died while in detention at Lindela.
It is said despite being deported, border jumpers quickly found their way back to South Africa through illegal entry points in Beit Bridge. Most border jumpers approach locals who help them cross the Limpopo River for a fee of between R500 and R800 per individual.
#1
The Zimbabwe High Commissioner to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo has embarked on a vetting excercise to ascertain whether illegal immigrants awaiting deportation in Lindela Holding Centre were true Zimbabweans.
National residency cards and job permits coming soon.
#3
Most of the "fake" Zimbabweans probably understand that it's far easier to get BACK into South Africa from Zimbabwe than it is from their home states. It's not because Zimbabwe is so great, but that it's so lawless it's easy to get in and out of - especially back into South Africa.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 13:38
Comments ||
Top||
#4
D: Holy criminy! What sort of dunghole do you have to live in to think Zim-Bob's-Way-or-the-Highway is step up?
Re Old Patriot, Zimbabwe's government doesn't want other countries' citizens competing with its citizens for the right to illegally migrate to South Africa. It's kind of like how Mexico is securing its southern borders to prevent non-Mexicans from competing with Mexicans for the right to illegally migrate to the US.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said on Tuesday that foreign terrorists hiding in Waziristan would not be given amnesty because the deadline has now expired, Online reported. All camps of Afghan refugees in the tribal areas have been closed. The process of their repatriation has also been accelerated, he said. The government wants peace in the restive area but attacks on security forces will not be tolerated, he said at a meeting with tribal elders from Miranshah, Datta Khel and Mir Ali.
The government will hold talks unconditionally with those who want peace and development, however all should join hands to restore peace and tranquility in the region, Online quoted Sherpao as telling the tribal elders.
Staff report adds: The tribal elders urged the government to form a bipartisan parliamentary committee to resolve the conflict in tribal areas. But, flanked by Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli, the minister of state for information, Sherpao turned down the proposal. He said that a parliamentary committee of opposition and treasury members might politicise the sensitive issue. He sought open support from opposition members to overcome the trouble.
Sherpao rejected the claims of the tribal elders that security forces had only arrested Afghan refugees from their areas. I have already said that we arrested Arabs, Chinese, Uzbeks, Turkish and Chechens from Waziristan, he told journalists after the meeting.
He said the Al Qaeda network had been broken in the tribal areas, but some of its operatives are still at large and making attempts to create a law and order situation in Pakistan. He said Al Qaeda operatives might be present in other parts of the country. He said the government had banned the display of arms in Miranshah, Mir Ali and adjacent areas. Almost every home in the tribal areas has weapons. We have asked them not to display arms.
The interior minister favoured the process of interaction with tribal leaders, saying his ministry would facilitate negotiations between the NWFP governor and the tribal elders. Malik Attaullah and Malik Haji Muhammad Haleem, who led the delegation, told the minister that hatred of the armed forces was on the rise amongst the general public of the tribal areas. Attaullah told Daily Times that Waziristan residents were reacting to attacks by security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
A third case of a Molotov cocktail attack has occurred in four days. This time, four Molotov cocktails were hurled at the house of a 46-year-old Australian computer consultant in Damansara early Tuesday, and two of them exploded. No one was injured, according to police sources. However, the wooden door of the terrace house caught fire and burn marks were found on the front and back of a Kia Sephia car in the compound.
Last Saturday and Monday, Molotov cocktails were hurled at the houses of the executive director and a senior manager of KFC holdings. A police source said that the latest incident, which occurred at 12.30 am, was not linked to the two previous attacks. The source said that at the time of the incident, the Australian was at home with a female Malaysian friend. A security guard at the housing estate, who identified himself as Shahrulizam, 27, said two of his colleagues on duty saw a luxury car with four men drive into the residential area via the main entrance at 12.15 am. The guards thought that they were residents coming back home but 15 minutes later they heard the explosions. Subsequently, the car is believed to have left via a small road at the rear of the housing estate.
Tropical Cyclone Wati has come to a halt strengthening over the Coral Sea and forecasters admit they cannot predict whether it will turn and follow the destructive path of Cyclone Larry. As emergency services and the military struggled through torrrential rain to deliver aid to stricken far north Queensland communities, forecasters today changed their tune about Wati's next move. The cyclone, which has been intensifying for the past 24 hours, had been predicted to turn south. Today forecasters said it would "remain off the coast for the next few days" but said that it was hard to predict any movements after that.
"We just have to play a wait-and-see game," Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre forecaster Tony Wedd said. "Wati is much more of an erratically-moving cyclone than Larry, which moved in a straight line and very steadily. "Larry was well-behaved as far as cyclones go - apart from its destruction."
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council on Tuesday postponed a scheduled meeting on the Iranian nuclear crisis to a later date, to allow France and Britain to draft a new text to take into account Russian objections, a Western diplomat said.
And then they'll draft a new text to take into account Chinese objections. And then German objections. And then Somali objections. Funny, they never seem to take into account American objections.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
they have to take into account the objections of countries with a veto.
and yes, they do negotiate with the US about US objections.
In this particular case UK and France seem to be coordinating closely with Germany and the US. So its really the four of them trying to overcome Russian and Chinese objections.
Whether that works or not, we shall see. Whether its worth delaying an attack on Iran is worth debating. But positing a diff between the UK-French position and the US position at the UNSC on this, doesnt seem justified by the evidence.
#2
LH: I know, I know, I was being snarky. But it does seem that the perceived need to have a perfect draft, to which no one objects, is seen as more important than actually getting something done -- oh wait, it's time for lunch.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2006 11:05
Comments ||
Top||
#3
well theres two questions there. First, is it really necessary to have a unanimous vote on the UNSC, including all the non-permanent members. The diplos, in their professional wisdom, seem to think that adds weight to a resolution. My own opinion is that in the case of Iraq, the last Res that warned Iraq (I forget the number) we softened it to get unanimity, and that was a mistake. We'd have been better off with tougher resolution, but with some neg votes, as long as we could have gotten it past the P5.
The other is getting all the P5 on board. If your goal is actually to pass a res, and not just provoke a showdown to show where people stand, getting the deal is a good thing.
Now Im not against sometimes provoking a showdown to show where people stand. I think it might ultimately be worth doing that if Russia and China dont ever sign on - the Brits and French might not want to, since THEY (and the Germans) are the intended recipients of the lesson (that Russia cant be trusted).
But I think for now Rice, Bolton, et al think that a res that advances the process can be passed. And they dont seem to see Iran having a nuke in the next 3 months.
Oh, and I didnt mean to pick on you in particular, of course. Your posts are generally reasonable IMO. Just that rebuilding the US-EU relationship, and the work Rice has been doing in that area, seems like one of the less well told stories these days. Perhaps cause so many folks are either Bush haters, or EU haters.
#5
Iran will violate any resolution passed. The question is what Congress will support. They are going to want the fig leaf of lots of UN support for the attack. The speed at which Bush is moving indicates it won't happen till after the election, though the resolution will be before. I suspect next February.
Miranshah (Rantburg News Service): Locally-grown Taliban have taken control of most of North and South Waziristan, enforcing strict social edicts such as a ban on the sale of music and films, shaving of beards, singing, dancing, laughing, and titties the Guardian reports. "We'd never have noticed if we hadn't read it in the paper," a highly-placed official in Islamabad admitted, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I mean, the place isn't that different from the rest of the country, is it?"
Turban-wearing men of appropriately fearsome demeanor have been shaking down drivers at makeshift "checkpoints." Last week an Islamic court was established in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, to replace the traditional jirga. Dour-looking old men with shaggy beards hand out 7th-century style justice, guarded by dour-looking young men with scraggly beards brandishing knockoffs of Soviet weaponry.
The Pakistani military deployed 70,000 troops to Waziristan two years ago to rein in the militants. Rather than actually using them to put down rebellion, the local commanders spent their time chatting with duplicitous locals while tribal lashkars ran around beating drums and scaring the chickens. An army assault against an alleged Al Qaeda training camp outside Miranshah on March 1 left more than 100 dead. Since declaring a curfew in Miranshah, government troops claim to have regained shaky control. The so-called war on terror is going badly, said one diplomat. "That's because the Paks have been trying to have it both ways, fighting their definition of terrorism on one hand and nurturing their definition of Freedom Fighters on the other, regardless of the fact that they're the same people. They've been trying to subvert Afghanistan so they'd have strategic depth, and now they've ended up truncating their own country while their neighbors laugh at them."
Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban is a loose alliance of local rustics operating under spittle-spewing clerics of the sort beloved by many in the country. Many are angered by heavy-handed but ineffectual attacks against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts, which are thought to have killed hundreds of women, children, puppies, kittens, fluffy bunnies and baby ducks over the last two years. But most are terribly impressed by their own ability to scowl, roll their eyes, and brandish guns.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
They've been trying to subvert Afghanistan so they'd have strategic depth, and now they've ended up truncating their own country while their neighbors laugh at them."
The whole thang should be gilded in gold leaf and nailed to Rantburg's front door. Bravo!
#3
I like this a touch better, since you're quoting the Guardian:
"We'd never have noticed if we hadn't read it in the paper," Abdul Abdullah Abdul, Minister of ISI Territories admitted, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan on Tuesday conducted a second test-fire of its cruise missile Hatf VII (Babur), an army statement said.
"All phases of the planned trajectory were extremely successful and the missile impacted with pinpoint accuracy," the army's Inter-Services Public Relations said. It may be recalled that the Babur cruise missile, which has been indigenously developed, was tested for the first time in August 2005.
"Babur cruise missile, which was tested in the ground-launched version, will also be capable of being placed in submarines and on surface ships," the statement said.
The Babur, which has near stealth capabilities, is a low-flying, terrain-hugging missile with high maneuverability, pinpoint accuracy and radar avoidance features. With a range of 500 kilometers, it can carry all types of warheads.
Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, who witnessed the test-fire, said that the nation was proud of its scientists and engineers, who had once again demonstrated their ability to master rare technologies with ease and professionalism. He said that his government would continue to provide all support to their efforts to fortify national defence.
The strategic program, which had come to symbolize the nation's resolve to achieve maximum security, will continue to go from strength to strength with credible minimum deterrence as its cornerstone, he added.
Hundreds of demonstrators in Belarus are holding a second night of protests against the election victory of President Alexander Lukashenko. Protesters in the centre of the capital Minsk have been joined by two of the candidates who lost out to Mr Lukashenko in the vote on Sunday - Alexander Milinkevich and Alexander Kozulin.
Earlier, the United States backed the Opposition's call for new elections and the European Union said the poll had taken place in a climate of fear. But Sergei Kasyan, a Member of Belarusian Parliament, has dismissed the criticism. "Neither Mr Barroso of the European Commission, nor the European Parliament are in the position to make these kind of pronouncements, let alone the US State Department," he said. "They are baseless. Let them put their own house in order. They're trying to make everyone in the world live according to their norms and principles. Well their principles are not for us Slavs."
"Us Slavs have no principles. We like being ruled with an iron fist."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
State radio in Algeria is reporting that at least four people have been killed, including three children, and 67 people hurt when an earthquake measuring 5.8 hit the country's north-eastern region. The tremor on Monday evening (local time) is said to have triggered the collapse of about 30 buildings in and around the village of Laalam in the province of Bejaia, 300 kilometres east of the capital Algiers. The dead children were aged five, nine, and 13. It is the deadliest tremor to have struck the earthquake-prone North African country since a 2003 quake in Boumerdes killed 2,300 people, injured more than 10,000 and made at least 100,000 homeless.
An investigation into the Boumerdes quake found serious faults in the construction of houses, apartment blocks and high-rise buildings which collapsed. Authorities have since tightened construction rules.
They have a choice: Become Lutherans now, or Unitarians later.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
The British Royal Navy's submarines were being painted navy blue as part of a camouflage experiment aimed at finding out which will be the best colour for the vessels in future, the UK Ministry of Defence announced Tuesday. During their 105 years as part of the Royal Navy's fleet, most submarines have been painted black. Now nuclear submarine "HMS Torbay," based at Devonport, in south-west England, has become the first of the underwater fleet to sport the new blue colour scheme.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said "This is an ongoing process of improvement, and if that means submarines will be less visible to the eye as a result, then all the better." Black paintwork created a "harder outline" and was more easily spotted, he added. Submarines have been painted other colours in the past. Two of the fleet were painted sandy-brown and green-black at the time of the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait in 1991.
Where do we text our votes? Navy blue is so somber! Surely a nice cerulean blue would be a little more calming, more...peaceful even.
I was trying to be cute. (emphasis on "trying," obviously)
;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/22/2006 14:25
Comments ||
Top||
#10
The USAF and the USAAF in WWII experimented with various pastel shades for airplanes, but no self-respecting ascot-wearing aviator would ever think to strap on a pink P-38. Lockheed Martin painted the Have Blue (F-117 demostrators) various shades of pink and light blue also, all in attempts to minimize visual detection.
LOS ANGELES - US authorities have charged a man with trying to illegally export sensors that could allegedly be used to make bombs to Iran in violation of a US trade embargo, officials said. Los Angeles resident Mohammad Fazeli, 27, was arrested on March 16 and arraigned Monday in the West Coast city on charges of trying to ship more than 100 Honeywell sensors to Iran. "According to the manufacturer, the sensors, which detect the pressure of liquid or gas, could potentially be used to detonate explosive devices," the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said in a statement.
Are we eventually going to reach a tipping point on Paks arrested doing nefarious things in our country that'll lead us to assume they're being tasked by Pak intel? Or will we simply come to the (probably well-founded) conclusion that the inhabitants of Pakland are probably the most lawless bunch on the face of the planet, with the possible exception of Yemen, and that they take that characteristic with them when they emigrate? In either case, will we take the next step, to keeping them the hell out of our country?
Seems like he's Iranian: LOS ANGELES A computer technician was charged with attempting to export to Iran more than 100 pressure sensors that could be misused as components in explosive devices, federal authorities said Tuesday. Mohammad Fazeli, 27, pleaded not guilty to the three-count indictment charging him with conspiracy, making false statements, and violating a U.S. embargo prohibiting trade with Iran. Prosecutors allege that Fazeli, a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, ordered 103 Honeywell sensors from an electronics company in St. Paul, Minn., in September 2004.
Damm computer techs, can't trust any of them.
The three-count indictment alleges that in September 2004 Fazeli ordered 103 pressure sensors through a website operated by a US electronics company, despite being warned by the firm that he needed a license in order to export the devices. "Despite that, after receiving the parts, Fazeli allegedly attempted to send them to the United Arab Emirates, with the understanding that the devices would ultimately be shipped to Iran," ICE said. The planned shipment allegedly breached the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which since the late 1970s has barred the shipment of technology to Iran's Islamic regime without the express permission of US authorities. "In the wrong hands, components like these pressure sensors could be used to inflict harm upon America or its allies," said Kevin Kozak, deputy special agent in charge for ICE investigations in Los Angeles.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm going to go out on a limb here: Given that the Iranian media is reporting it, could it be possible the sensors were to go to Iran, but not necessarily to the government?
An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday. The finding leaves to the Defense Department the decision on whether new rules are needed to govern such activities.
The inquiry, which has not yet been made public, was ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, after it was disclosed in November that the military had used the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, to plant articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers while hiding the source of the articles.
The final report was described by officials in Washington and Iraq who have read or been briefed on it and were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was considering new policies for regional commanders to clarify existing doctrine and rules on military communications and information operations.
Officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq said the Lincoln Group's contract remained fully in effect. The group's work, under a contract estimated at several million dollars, has included paying friendly Iraqi journalists stipends for favorable treatment.
...The question for the Pentagon is its proper role in shaping perceptions abroad. Particularly in a modern world connected by satellite television and the Internet, misleading information and lies could easily migrate into American news outlets, as could the perception that false information is being spread by the Pentagon.
The Slimes is the authority on spreading propaganda.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday.
Nothing like the outcry when it was reveled that CNN paid Saddam's henchmen for access and promising to write only 'good' news. Oh, wait there was no outcry. Never mind.
The trial of 27 people suspected of planning terrorist attacks in France opened Monday in a Paris court, following one of the country's biggest anti-terrorism investigations in recent years. They are charged with associating with criminals connected to a terrorist organisation. Some of the suspects have given statements claiming that attacks were planned against French targets including the Eiffel Tower, police stations and a central Paris shopping centre. Others have said the group planned attacks on Russian targets in France to revenge the attack on a Chechen rebel unit in Moscow in October 2002.
Among those on trial are suspects charged with links to al-Qaeda or Chechen rebels, or suspected former members of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and minor operatives recruited in the Paris suburbs. Some of them also face charges of making and carrying false documents and being in the country illegally.
The lawyer of one of the suspects questioned the competence of the French court to try his client for acts he says were committed outside France before his client was extradited there from Syria in September 2004. Sébastien Bono, representing 41-year-old Algerian former army officer and chemicals expert Said Arif, called for the court to reject evidence which he says was obtained from his client under torture in Damascus. He also criticised French authorities for letting Russian agents question Arif in January, after he was referred to the court. The trial is expected to last until May 12.
A Philippines volcano has spewed a column of ash nearly 1.5 kilometres high into the sky, raising fears of a major eruption. Officials say they are considering increasing the alert level after Mount Bulusan in the central Philippines belched ash an hour before midnight local time. The Philippine Institute of Seismology and Vulcanology (Phivolcs) says the ash is unlikely to cause any harm. But researcher Jojo Cordon says more earthquakes have been recorded in the area recently, a possible sign the volcano may be about to erupt more powerfully. He says the ash column may have been created by a reaction between water and hot materials, a "possible sign of rising magma".
A four-kilometre exclusion zone is already in place around the 1,565-metre volcano, which is 600 kilometres south-east of Manila. Phivolcs is considering raising the alert level for Bulusan from level one to level three, indicating "moderate unrest". The highest alert level is level five, indicating an actual eruption of lava.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
A Philippines volcano has spewed a column of ash nearly 1.5 kilometres high into the sky, raising fears of a major eruption.
Has to be Bush's fault[tm] cause Global Warming is Bush's fault[tm] and this type of material being put into the atmosphere is probably greater than what most humans put in a year. Therefore the increased warming caused by this ejection has to be Bush's fault[tm]. /sarcam off
Posted by: bk ||
03/22/2006 12:03
Comments ||
Top||
#3
OK I admit, it's my fault.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/22/2006 13:50
Comments ||
Top||
#4
way to go..
Posted by: bk ||
03/22/2006 14:28
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Mabey Jolo will erupt next or perhaps Basilan
Posted by: bk ||
03/22/2006 14:29
Comments ||
Top||
#6
My fault, really. I'm working on a new chili recipe, and put WAY too much chipotle chile powder in it.
(Too little cumin, too. Weirdest chili I ever had -- not a lot of flavor until about five seconds after you swallow. Then it feels like you've gargled with sulfuric acid.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 14:36
Comments ||
Top||
#7
how DO you say that ? : chipotle
Posted by: bk ||
03/22/2006 15:10
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Chee-pot-lay (long o)
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/22/2006 15:21
Comments ||
Top||
A new investigative report in a leading American magazine claims that the Pakistan Army and its intelligence service are critical sponsors in the resurging Taliban activity in Afghanistan.
Reeeeeaaaally? Golly. Gosh. Who'da ever thunkit?
Sebastian Junger, author of the bestseller The Perfect Storm, which was also made into a movie starring George Clooney, writes in the April issue of the Vanity Fair monthly that while Pakistan has captured and turned over key Al Qaeda operatives, it hasnt turned over a single mid- or high-ranking Taliban official to the US since the 9/11 attacks.
Except for Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
Junger says he talked with a former Taliban government official with current knowledge of the situation. According to that, some Pakistani military personnel are training Taliban recruits.
Comes as a surprise, doesn't it? I know. Floored me, too.
The Taliban official gave the American reporter the name and phone number of an ISI agent who supposedly brings recruits from a region in Afghanistan, inserts them into training camps in western Pakistan, and then sends them back to fight. Junger also writes that the an ex-Taliban member told him that the Pakistanis are receiving as much money from Osama bin Laden to not capture him as they are taking from the United States to catch him. If true, this claim indicates both a level of duplicity that must start near the top of the Pakistani government, and a level of resources available to bin Laden that is extremely high, he observes.
I'd call the source of the information negligable if it wasn't for the fact that what he says jibes so seamlessly with what we've been seeing.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Pakistanis are receiving as much money from Osama bin Laden to not capture him as they are taking from the United States to catch him
Pervs Ponzi Palace
Nigerian money transfer fraud, check
Three card Monte, check
Rocks in the Box, check
Bank Examiner, check
the Pigeon Drop, check
#4
Osama bin Laden would have several widows, a5089. I shouldn't take the request for help seriously unless they all sign it, else you could be in serious trouble when the ladies in question fight over the contents of your bank account. ;-)
#5
Sebastian Junger, author of the bestseller The Perfect Storm, which was also made into a movie starring George Clooney,writes in the April issue of the Vanity Fair monthly
Well shit, we've lost then. Best to take a few with us.
#7
Junger is a great journalist who happened to be working on the Northern Alliance on 9/11. I recall him being interviewed after Kabul fell and he said everything was going to move to West Pakland. He followed it there while the rest of the journalistic community stayed in the green room as arm chair generals.
An attorney for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel said Tuesday she would appeal his murder conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Connecticut Supreme Court refused to reconsider the case. Skakel, 45, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life for his 2002 conviction in the 1975 beating death of his Greenwich neighbor, Martha Moxley, when the two were teenagers.
Skakel's not a teenager anymore, but Martha never made it out of her teens.
Skakel appealed his conviction to the Connecticut Supreme Court last year, arguing among other things that the statute of limitations had expired when he was charged in 2000. The court unanimously rejected that appeal in January. The motion for reconsideration had asked the court to review its decision, which overturned a 1983 precedent. The court denied the motion last week.
"Bailiff! Throw them out!"
Attorney Hope Seeley said Tuesday she would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court within three months. Seeley said the appeal would likely focus on the statute of limitations; evidence not turned over during the trial; and the decision to try Skakel in adult court even though he was 15 at the time of the crime.
He grew out of being a child, so they can't charge him as a juvenile, and the statute of limitations has expired (really? for murder?) so they can't charge him regardless. That's his defense, folks -- wouldn't you like to go through life like that? I bet Mikey doesn't care.
"Michael Skakel is innocent, and we will fight his wrongful conviction and incarceration," she said.
... "until the money runs out."
Seeley also said she will argue in state court that Skakel had ineffective counsel at his 2002 trial.
'cause he got convicted.
"Yer honor, my client's previous counsel was a stalk of broccoli! Not only was he not sentient, he didn't even have a law degree!"
Prosecutor Susann Gill said the Connecticut Supreme Court's decision was well-reasoned, and she expressed skepticism that the U.S. Supreme Court would agree to hear the case. Statutes of limitations chiefly involve interpretations of state laws, rather than federal constitutional issues, added William Dunlap, a criminal law professor at Quinnipiac University. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, also has a petition for a new trial pending in Superior Court in Stamford. That petition is based on a claim by Gitano "Tony" Bryant implicating two of his friends in Moxley's murder. Bryant is a cousin of basketball star Kobe Bryant. Here's hoping the scumball serves the max.
A controversial civilian border patrol group is planning a return to Arizona in two weeks to again confront the problem of illegal immigration. Some say the original Minuteman Project conducted in April 2005 in Cochise County and a subsequent patrol in October brought increased national attention to the Arizona stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. "I think we've clearly been the catalyst that has sparked the national debate," said Minuteman president Chris Simcox. "That's been our goal, to bring national attention to the fact that the government has failed miserably to bring control to the southern border."
However many Hispanic groups and advocates for immigrant rights still call the Minuteman group racist or vigilantes. "The thing we objected to here is it brought out a lot of nativist sentiment and that's not America at its best," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders.
Simcox said his group will continue to plan monthlong patrols every six months until the federal government gains control of the border. "If the Senate does not pass a border security bill soon, you are going to see our numbers double probably by the end of the summer," he said. "People are frustrated and I think this political process of coming to the border and setting up a lawn chair and saying, `We have the will to do it,' sends a strong message to Washington, D.C."
Simcox said he is expecting about 1,000 Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers in Arizona for the next patrol, expected to start April 1 and last for one month. He said the group counts 6,500 volunteers in 31 chapters, although the number is unsubstantiated. Each volunteer passes a criminal background check, interview and training, according to Simcox. He said the group chose to patrol the Altar Valley this time because it is the most heavily trafficked corridor this fiscal year. The group will also conduct patrols in New Mexico, Texas and California on the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Washington state, New York and Vermont on the U.S.-Canada border, Simcox added.
Border Patrol spokesman Johnny Bernal said Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers have not broken laws or violated civil rights in their past patrols. President George W. Bush has expressed opposition to what he called border "vigilantes." Simcox called the claims that his group represents a threat to illegal immigrants "outrageous" and said none of the group's members has attacked anyone. But Hoover said the group's patrols are unrealistic and ineffective. He would like to see them set up camp in remote areas rather than close to highways and towns. "We have 300 miles (480 kilometers) of border down here and they are playing around on five miles (eight kilometers)," Hoover said.
Really? So if the issue is really humanitarian and concern for the poor obrero how about ....
annexing Mexico and making it a Commonwealth like Puerto Rico. Just think free flow of people, capital, stable economy, ruthless pursuit of corrupt government personnel and agencies, etc. It would help exactly the people you are concerned about. Ah, but that would violate the national sovereignty of that country. So being a Mexican nativist is OK, but an American nativist is a epithet.
#2
Hoover's argument is bogus. The vast majority of the illegals come through the few major, narrow corridors that the Minutemen watch. If those corridors are blocked, the terrain elsewhere is harsh, so a lot fewer illegals will try and penetrate. Huge sections of the border have zero crossings, because the terrain is essentially impassable on vehicle or foot.
A simple but effective effort is now underway to drop boulders on the dirt roads in the less traveled parts of the border more often used by drug smugglers. Even a simplistic approach like this is impressively effective as a deterrent.
Any technique that stops even a little of the illegal crossings helps a lot, because it frees up assets in other areas.
The prominent leadership locally, regionally and statewide reeks of elitism and lacking grassroots appeal... I suggested that the March be organized and headed by a charismatic, youthful leader. No one listened, it is being headed by the old vanguard of the 60's 70's, who are totally out of touch with real issues.
#4
my favourite: Honestly, I just plain forgot. I have so many things going on with trying to find a new job and settling back in to Fresno, that I simply ran out of steam and forgot.
#6
"Well, it wasn't a bright, sunny day....and you didn't provide me with free transportation.....and a snack.....ooh, my back hurts, too....and well, the turnout was low, so I guess that means we're the majority viewpoint, so that's a success.....and my Che shirt has a mustard stain right on his beret....plus the dog ate my kaffiyeh instead of his vegetarian special diet....besides, why weren't those damn college kids hanging around the campus all weekend? Ok, *I* never did back in the day, but damn these spoiled kids!! Don't they realize there's a draft coming????"
#7
On topic (more or less)... Already known by many RBers, but worth relinking : http://www.zombietime.com/
It's like going to a virtual online freakshow, it's both exciting and sickening, I like that. Conservative, dignified people who didn't know this fine site, beware of your blood pressure browsing through this!
#8
I am telling you this low turnout smacks right in the face of polls (sic) supposedly showing an waning support for the war an Bush. If the polls were correct we should have seen a marked INCREASE of participation. Maybe I am seeing things through the wrong prism but something aint right with those polls.
Syrias President Bashar al-Assad has consolidated his grip on security forces and delayed political reforms in anticipation of a long standoff with the United States, diplomats and Baath Party sources say. They predict that the United States will keep pressing Syria to change its policy rather than try to topple Assad, citing the weakness of the Syrian opposition and US aversion to any more regional instability after the upheaval in Iraq.
Their views contrast markedly with speculation that abounded last year of a US-engineered regime change following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which a UN inquiry linked to Syrian officials. Syria denied involvement, but came under intense international pressure and was forced to end its 29-year military presence in neighbouring Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2006
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
We can at least try. From Michelle Malkin's readers:
Reader Daniel H. e-mails:
After reading your post I got off my duff and made a call to the Afghan embassy in Washington: (202) 483-6410. After being put on hold for 3 minutes an embassy staffer got on. I explained to him that I think that the prosecution and threats against Abdul Rahman's life are outrageous and that if he is executed this will have severe consequences for Afghan-U.S. relations.
Maybe believeing that I am someone important, someone with clout he was very apologetic, agreeing with my point, dismayed over what is happening, insisting that this is not the EMBASSY's policy, that freedom of conscience and religion ought to be respected. Now this is where it gets interesting/scary/encouraging: he said that he had been on the phone with Kabul, with someone in their foreign ministry, about this and that this person said something to the effect of "What is wrong with you? Aren't you a good Muslim. The man deserves it (meaning death)."
The embassy staffer said that he tried to reason with the Kabul official, and he once again asserted his own opinion that this prosecution is unjust and barbaric. I thanked him for his time and suggested he contact the American media about this and make his efforts known.
Now this conversation with the embassy staffer tells me a few things: 1)there are people in Kabul who are serious about prosecuting and executing Rahman, 2) this probably is not the opinion of the people in the Washington embassy, 3) the people in the Washington embassy are sensitive to pressure and will get the message through to people in Kabul (even if our own president and state department won't), 4) that concerned people should call the Afghan embassy in Washington and let it be known, without ambiguity, that if this man, Abdul Rahman, is harmed then the caller will do all that is possible to see the end of U.S. involvment in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and we will let the chips fall as they will. So, the short of it: Abdul Rahman's life is in serious danger.
You and everybody else can do something by calling the Afghan embassy - here is the phone number (202) 483-6410, please post it on your site; be polite but let them know that if Rahman is not freed and his life secured then this will be the end of your, the caller's, support for U.S. involvment with Afghanistan and you the caller will do everything possible to bring the end of this support about.
Oh, and when I called the White House and the State Department all I could
get was a recording. I suggest that callers contact their Senators (particularly Democratic ones; they will delight in making Bush and Rice squirm, but, hey, a life is at stake so I don't care about their, the Democratic Senator's, motives. Saving the life of Rahman and others like him is what counts.)
Debbie Schlussel e-mails:
After reading the letter from your reader, I, too, called the Afghani Embassy. The man I spoke with said that they got 50 calls about this today, and that they have no authority to save the man. They said there are only two people who can stop this: Mr. Shinwari, the Chief Justice, who is an old man and an intolerant Taliban remnant; or President Karzai, who can--but has not--removed him. Nice to know that all our soldiers' efforts and U.S. funds are being negated by a powerful remnant of the Taliban, not (why not?) replaced by Karzai.
#3
Mr. Shinwari, the Chief Justice, who is an old man and an intolerant Taliban remnant; or President Karzai, who can--but has not--removed him.
This is not good.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/21/2006 18:54
Comments ||
Top||
#4
In an attempt to inform citizens of this man's plight I've written to several local and regional newspapers advising them of the Rahman trial. To date nothing has been published or reported on Rahman's case in these papers, though it is still early. I've written to several congressmen and both senators from my state (Ohio). I've written to the Afghan Ambassador, Said T. Jawad. I've written to my president, the Commander in Chief. I've asked for this man's unconditional freedom.
In the event this man is executed a line will have been crossed from which there will be no turning back. Believe me when I say the cartoon jihad of a few weeks ago pales in comparison to the importance of the outcome of the trial of Abdul Rahman.
I await the response of so called moderate Muslims within the USA on the fate of Mr. Rahman. I say this with all sincerity: the fate of all Muslims in the USA is directly tied to the fate of Abdul Rahman.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
03/21/2006 19:05
Comments ||
Top||
#5
I fail to see why this case isn't being used as an international bellwether for showing how Islam is incompatible with all other religions.
The White House should be letting Americans know that this is why we are fighting theocratic regimes like the Taliban. If Karzai allows Rahman to be executed it will certainly be biting the hand that freed his country.
Again, I am forced to wonder just why it is that Bush finds himself so incapable of challenging another fundamentalist religion when it is clearly off of the rails. This reeks of moral relativism. I'd welcome any other rationalizations for this conspicuous inaction.
The cartoon jihad made it plenty clear that we are being confronted with an irrational and extremely violent religion in the form of Islam. Yet one more button could be stitched on the coat by connecting the dots between the cartoonists' death fatwahs and this death sentence for apostasy. What will it take for our government to finally begin painting Islamism with the tar brush it so richly deserves?
#6
I wrote the ambassador, too, and let him know in no uncertain terms that Americans are outraged and are going to be putting heavy pressure on our government to stop all aid to Afghanistan if they execute a man for changing from Muslim to Christian. Email chains are already starting.
And I'm not even a card-carrying Christian.
No aid to radical muslim governments-if our fight is to make any sense, this must be at the foundation.
#7
sent an email to the ambassador - to my surprise, no reply
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 20:06
Comments ||
Top||
#8
The problem is - the Afghan elements who want to execute this guy DO NOT CARE if the west cuts off aid - or pulls out completely. That is EXACTLY what they want.
They couldn't care less about outraged infidels.
The ONLY way to address this is to successfully influence removal of the medieval judicial authority - prosecute him for GENOCIDE (it seems to me that genocide laws would apply - even if it is a population of just one individual - "last of the Mohicans").
Execution for apostacy needs to be declared an international crime - 'stuff the goddamn Muslim extremists back into their slime pits.
It is a short jump between executing apostates and executing non-believers in Islam. Muslims are advocating polygamy, and various other Sharia practices. The west needs to PROSECUTE such barbaric practices RUTHLESSLY.
Execution for apostacy needs to be declared an international crime - 'stuff the goddamn Muslim extremists back into their slime pits.
Never happen. I expect trials -- either in European courts or in some transnational forum -- for blasphemy in the next five to ten years. The idea of treating sharia's penalty for apostasy as a crime against humanity is a non-starter.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/21/2006 21:51
Comments ||
Top||
#13
Well, we're not shocked, Darrell-more like disgusted, and tired of providing blood, muscle and money to free a country run by Islamic murderers, only to have the new government prepared to execute a man for being a Christian. We hoped there was such a thing possible as a moderate Muslim country. My hope was apparently misplaced.
I suppose you have a point-maybe Karzai's government has been doing this all along and we didn't get outraged because the apostate didn't have a name, an identity. But now our imagination gap has been filled-we are introduced to a real, live, breathing apostate, and we want to fight to stop his execution.
#14
We suffer the delusion that installing a fragile democracy is the alchemy necessary to turn semi-literate 7th century barbarians into pseudo 21st century Judeo-Christian-values Americans. I would love to see the man spared, but that will not change the culture that would kill him. "Islam" is "submission" and he refuses to submit. We should not be tolerating Islam working its way into these governments and constitutions -- it is a major blunder.
#15
Compare Islam's place in Afghanistan to the Emperor's place in Japan. The Constitution of Japan, Article 1:
"The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power."
#16
It's no delusion, it's the American Way. It had to be tried. I know, hindsight is nigh unto perfect, but we had to try. They may even figure it out, someday, but in many respects that is immaterial, here and now. Regardless, we had to do what we believe is right, to be who we are, and we have.
#18
AS 2266 nails it. We had to try - it's who we are and what we believe. However, being right doesn't mean you win. In regards to Iraq, we will most likely have to take solice in that we tried, and in so doing demonstrated that Islamic principles and democracy are completely incompatible. The truth will be laid bare, and the enemy finally disrobed....only the willfully blind will be unaware. Unfortunately, much of our govt. is so afflicted.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/22/2006 1:12
Comments ||
Top||
#19
I expect trials -- either in European courts or in some transnational forum -- for blasphemy in the next five to ten years.
The Euros backed themselves into a corner on this because they have laws against blasphemy and certain nuts, on both sides, will be screaming that these laws should be enforced. Don't forget that the Church in Europe is as much under attack as is Islam here. It's unfortunate, but such are the times.
As for Mr. Rahman, some took notice, but it's probably not enough.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 1:46
Comments ||
Top||
#20
From the above link: One German official promised to intervene if necessary. Another, Development Minister Heide Wieczorek-Zeul, said, "We will do everything possible to save the life of Abdul Rahman," according to Reuters.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 1:48
Comments ||
Top||
#21
"...it's probably not enough..."
Let's not give up yet on Mr. Rahman, Rafael. I understand, I think, where you're coming from, but the fight for his life isn't over yet.
#23
maybe Karzai's government has been doing this all along and we didn't get outraged because the apostate didn't have a name, an identity
Or maybe this is part of a renewed push by the Taliban to undermine and bring down the Karzai elected government. By attacking Karzai, it's quite possible you are playing into the Taliban's hands.
I'm not convinced of this, but it's plausible and worth keeping in mind as a possibility.
#24
He must be crazy to convert from Islam to Christianity.
That's not me, that's an Afghan State Prosecutor. See the story. The trial has been "suspended" and he is to be examined. No dates or anything, just this sudden announcement as the rats scurry for cover.
Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.
"Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."
Perfect exit for Karzai & Co: He's crazy.
Seems to me that he definitely must insane. I mean, just ask yourself, "Who would actually choose to leave glorious Islam?"
#25
If that's the fig leaf he needs, then let Karzai call him crazy. That should qualify him for Yale. Maybe he and the Taliban can swap stories at Skull and Bones.
#26
Probably the govt will use the insanity defense to put off the death penalty. The insanity defense has been used in a few other cases to prevent death sentences from being carried out where the west was watching.
However, I think at some point the Salafist elements will not buy into this defense. The fact that there are multiple 'death to apostate' verses in the koran and if there are no insanity defense for apostates in the hadiths or sunna, it will make them really seeth.
#27
I said "We suffer the delusion that installing a fragile democracy is the alchemy necessary to turn semi-literate 7th century barbarians into pseudo 21st century Judeo-Christian-values Americans." I did not mean to imply that we should not have installed the fragile democracy -- only that cultures are extremely slow to change and that we are expecting miracles. In the grand scheme of things, it is not all that long ago that Western religions were putting people to death for their beliefs.
#29
The ability to think or to believe something is a normal human function, and therefore, what we would consider a 'God given right'.
Therefore, I move that we banish Islam from the face of the earth if it kills this man for practicing his God given right to choose a belief.
We can start by killing pointing a finger at any muslim we may encounter.
Faster please.
#30
"The idea of treating sharia's penalty for apostasy as a crime against humanity is a non-starter." No, the ancient Islamic "death for apostacy" and the related "submit or die" policies are more like the ideas of "Ubermenschen" and the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere", something that world wars are fought over.
#31
"By attacking Karzai, it's quite possible you are playing into the Taliban's hands."
That doesn't mean we lighten up; it means that other, "inhuman" tactics on our part are now to be considered. Let's not imitate our more nuanced cousins and sacrifice what we value for fear of offending. This is a part of what we have been fighting for-destruction of the idea that you can kill a man for not being a Muslim. We all know that what you say is a possibility, but let's not get distracted.
#32
The ONLY way to address this is to successfully influence removal of the medieval judicial authority - prosecute him for GENOCIDE (it seems to me that genocide laws would apply - even if it is a population of just one individual - "last of the Mohicans").
Great starting point, Lone Ranger, irrespective of RC's (albeit justifiable) cynicism. I have railed long and hard about the coming Global Cultural Genocide awaiting us if Islam is not contained or vanquished.
It is a short jump between executing apostates and executing non-believers in Islam. Muslims are advocating polygamy, and various other Sharia practices. The west needs to PROSECUTE such barbaric practices RUTHLESSLY.
Yup, just like the British suppressed suttee in India. Sir Charles Napier had it about right when he said:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
To He|| with moral relativism.
I'm still curious as to why nobody here has a single good explanation for why the White House is so thunderously silent on this matter. As I mentioned before, this is a golden opportunity to begin connecting up all of dots with respect to Islam's violent behavior. Were it not for the GWoT it would seem as though our government is, literally, giving tacit approval to all of these barbaric practices. I'd sure as he|| like to know why.
#33
The wrong question. The real question is: Who will save Afganistan?
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/22/2006 11:35
Comments ||
Top||
#34
Zenster - Lol, what makes you think the President didn't have a heart to heart with Karzai? Nimble Spemble in #25 probably hit the mark.
Afghanistan is part of the experiment. It is a work in progress. Pronouncements may make you happy, but they are nothing compared to deeds. You seem to seek confrontation, while W seeks problem resolution. Here's a bone for you - be happy he has done the right thing with Musharraf. The splashy bits are of their own making, W was rather subtle there, too. Slowly the rhetoric and public pronouncements will evolve. It's already underway in bilateral arrangements (i.e. Pakistan) and at the UN (think Bolton) and in "Palestine" (funding to Hamas). I don't doubt for a second that W knows all we know, and much much more, and would like nothing better than to be plain spoken at all times. That is his natural style. But...
#36
Zenster - Lol, what makes you think the President didn't have a heart to heart with Karzai?
Mebbe he did, but this is a glorious opportunity to rip the mask off of Islam. Bush has a thousand different mouthpieces that could do this. Instead, all we've been treated to was a mealy-mouthed State Department condemnation of the cartoons instead of flaying alive the cartoon jihad and its intention of eliminating free speech.
Rahman is a golden chance for Bush to promote his own Christianity in a more proper light than he has in the past. He can do it without all the "crusader" trappings he mistakenly donned at the outset of this mess. This is the exact time to push for religious freedom in all Islamic countries. The Pope has summoned forth the moral courage to do so and Bush should find it within himself as well. There is no better avenue towards justifiably banning Islam than to show its genocidal and mono-cultural intentions for all to see. That is not what is happening.
I do not believe that I am being too impatient, either. As with Iran, numerous crises are hitting a tipping point and to ignore the impact value, as these critical levers are thrown, simply wastes vital moments of clarity much needed by the average public regarding their own ability to understand what they are confronted with.
#37
I get an Afghanistan Newsletter every morning through a Yahoo group. I didn't subscribe, but there have been a couple of interesting things in it, so I haven't unsubscribed, either. Here's one of today's articles:
Afghan Convert May Be Unfit for Trial
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday.
Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.
But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about his mental fitness. "We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.
Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination. "Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."
It was not immediately clear when he would be examined or when the trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see Rahman and he is not believed to have a lawyer. A Western diplomat in Kabul and a human rights advocate both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said the government was desperately searching for a way to drop the case because of the reaction it has caused.
The United States, Britain and other countries that have troops in Afghanistan have voiced concern about Rahman's fate. The Bush administration Tuesday issued a subdued appeal to Kabul to let Rahman practice his faith in safety. German Roman Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann said the trial sent an "alarming signal" about freedom of worship in Afghanistan.
The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam should take there four years after the ouster of the fundamentalist Taliban regime. Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death. The state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for Rahman to be punished, arguing he clearly violated Islamic law.
The case has received widespread attention in Afghanistan where many people are demanding Rahman be severely punished. "For 30 years, we have fought religious wars in this country and there is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian," said Mohammed Jan, 38, who lives opposite Rahman's father, Abdul Manan, in Kabul. "This has brought so much shame."
Rahman is believed to have converted from Islam to Christianity while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. He then moved to Germany for nine years before returning to Kabul in 2002, after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime. Police arrested him last month after discovering him in possession of a Bible during questioning over a dispute for custody of his two daughters. Prosecutors have offered to drop the charges if Rahman converts back to Islam, but he has refused.
___
Associated Press correspondent Amir Shah contributed to this report.
I also wrote to the Afghani Ambassador. I offered the suggestion that Mr. Rahman be expelled from Afghanistan and never allowed to return, and that his family, if willing, leave with him. I would encourag the US and any other nation with religious freedom to open their doors to this obviously good man.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/22/2006 12:04
Comments ||
Top||
#38
OK, folks, let's say the "court" declares Abdul Rahman insane and allows him to live.
What happens next time someone declares their apostasy in Afghanistan?
Are we going to have to raise a furor everytime? When the West stops paying attention, what happens? The killing will start right back up, that's what.
OK, this fellow's life may have been saved. That's good. But it's still a death-penalty offense to leave Islam, and sooner than we like to think, that sentence will be imposed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 12:05
Comments ||
Top||
#39
Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.
"Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."
I would be very interested in the Afghani's DSM. Must be one hell of a document. Aside from that, the Afghans learned from the Soviets about taking so-called troublemakers out of circulation by declaring them insane.
A democratic government requires a relatively sophistocated populace. The majority rules, but respects the rights of the minority. Heck, we in the US have had a great deal of difficulty making it work for these last 200+ years.
These backward places, like Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc are ideal breeding grounds and safe bases for the likes of Al Q because they are easily manipulated by Islam, tribalism and some money thrown in to get one's way.
Transforming them into something better for all is a major major social project. And there are very few helping us.
Our main goal is to make us more secure from the likes of these terrorists. It keeps coming back to resources, and the main resource is money. And that leads us back to Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are spreading it around. We are using all our treasure to fight those who receive much of our treasure from oil.
The case of Abdul Rahman is similar to one I posted somewhere on RB near the beginning. There was a newspaper editor in the NWFP who spoke his mind and pointed out the errors of the ways of the jihadis. For this deed he was murdered. Mr. Rahman's plight is a wake-up call for all of us, esp. in Europe. You will not get anywhere using reason with these Islamic nutcases, but they do understand power.
Sorry for the rambling rant. People who are given the gift of freedom and use it as a tool to destroy who they consider infidels really upset me.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/22/2006 12:17
Comments ||
Top||
#40
What RC said. A one time deal to look the other way is useless.
#41
Exactly, RC, which is why I am howling for some sort of substantive position being taken with respect to this subtle sort of genocide.
Islamic dominated nations need to be read the riot act and have it known that freedom of religion is the order of the day if they wish to participate on the world stage. The Pope has got it right and Bush, et al, should follow his lead. The Rahman case is made to order for the sequence of events needed in highlighting death sentences for apostasy, the burning of Christian churches overseas and the beheading of Christian schoolgirls.
#42
All good points, Zenster, OP, and RC. What I'm saying is that it is easy to sit here in the cradle of freedom and criticize when we don't know 1% of what W does. Who knows what's in play there at his very minute?
I suspect that this situation actually means that Afghanistan is lost, as far as Freedom is concerned. The non-Taleban Afghans appreciate the help in getting rid of the Taleban, trading one lot of obvious psychopaths for a lesser lot -- but deep down they're all Taleban at heart, just a little squishier about it.
The "shame" comment in OP's post is what tipped it for me. I was holding out hope, but that sorta drove a spike through it.
#43
Yale, in all fairness, should accept this guy as a student. Then they can deport him to Yale, and he can room with the Taliban student. Then they would get a balanced view of Afghanistan
#44
What I'm saying is that it is easy to sit here in the cradle of freedom and criticize when we don't know 1% of what W does.
I'll grant there's a lot we don't know, and much we don't need to know, but W's losing his base by not standing up for what he claims to be doing.
How can we be bringing freedom to people when we turn around and let them kill someone for changing religions? How can we honestly say we believe in liberty and then issue whining statements like the State Department's on the cartoons?
Heinlein wrote, "You can't enslave a free man. Only person can do that to a man is himself. The most you can do to a free man is to kill him." Well, we're learning a corollary: "You can't free a slave. Only person that can do that for a man is himself. The most you can do for a slave is break his chains."
Islam means submission; Muslims count themselves as slaves to Allah (when a western-educated, self-described moderate Muslim describes herself thus, I believe her). They're willing slaves. We can't free them; we can only break their chains. As soon as we stop breaking their chains, they'll forge a new set.
They have to want to be free, and while there are quite a few who do, there appear to be many, many more who don't.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 12:53
Comments ||
Top||
#45
I agree with CC3500, the shame comment is an eye opener. I don't know how they beat this lunacy into the people, but Islam is totally illogical, and the end game is only all muslim, but all muslim what ? All muslim pre-historic tribe ?
It's almost like 'when there is no other belief, then Islam will be the true belief' WTF ?
Where does believing in this lunacy, Islam, get us ? Obviously, all scientific research and development comes to an end. Pottery making may be big.
#46
Understand, RC, and I agree with you all. Today is turning out to be kinda rotten because it's hard to give up on something you really hoped against hope would prove worthwhile. I surrender my hopes for Islam. Two golden opportunities and all we get is shit, death, hate, spew - Islam, in other words. Day after day, story after story, it's endless and defies logic or sympathy. I don't know if I even feel pity when I encounter things like the shame comment. Nation-building is out and breaking bad regimes is in, for me, now. Live and learn. I'm learning. Excellent commentary, BTW. Thanks folks.
#47
What I'm saying is that it is easy to sit here in the cradle of freedom and criticize when we don't know 1% of what W does. Who knows what's in play there at his very minute?
With all due respect, it's simply not enough. We've got the perfect examples of everything that is wrong with Islam staring us in the face. World leadership has begun to understand the threat, yet it does eff-all to broadcast this knowledge and begin rallying non-Muslims to the cause of ensuring that Islam must reform itself.
This is not acceptable. If harsh measures are not taken now, they will be of little, if any, use further downstream. As with RC's capable argument against the insanity figleaf being given to the Afghans, all camouflage that Islam uses to cloak its barbarous "honor killings", "suicide murders", "female circumcision" and hideous abuse of women in general must be ripped away, now!
The cartoons did a splendid job of this and yet many Western leaders merely caved over the issue, even though it was a no-brainer to stand up for our freedom of speech. This must not happen again. "Behind the scenes" diplomacy is nice, but does nothing to educate the public on how to identify the enemy and comprehend the dangerous threat that Islam presents to all non-Muslim people.
For how much I rail against Bush's over-emphasis upon religiosity it is simply astonishing that, now that Christianity is appropriately cast as victim in the international spotlight, there is still almost stupifying inaction with respect to condemnation of Islam's complete and total disallowal regarding religious freedom. What gives?
This is Bush's singular opportunity to finally shed the mantle of "crusader" that he so idiotically adopted at the outset of this new World War and instead assume a righteous posture as defender of all other world faiths against absurd Muslim intransigence. He is nothing short of stupid not to.
#48
Zenster, the moment Bush takes on the Muslims to defend a Christian is when his identity as a Crusader IS ESTABLISHED.
How the Crusades were conducted was a damn shame and a dishonor, but the original motives and the original call for the Crusades (protect fellow believers in practicing their religion and defending the West) were noble and right: Islam was, AND CONTINUES TO BE, a religious and a political threat to the West because it embodies both religion AND politics.
Rahman is getting the attention because he's a Christian. I'm a Christian, but we (and that includes me) should be screaming equally loudly if he was facing the death penalty because he had converted to Bhuddism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, or Disconcordianism.
#49
I agree with CC3500, the shame comment is an eye opener.
Please remember, all, that this is a culture which views shame or humiliation as something worse than death.
Zenster, the moment Bush takes on the Muslims to defend a Christian is when his identity as a Crusader IS ESTABLISHED.
I disagree, Ptah. By initially adopting the notion of a "Crusade Against Terrorism", Bush made a blunder of monumental proportions. However speedily he attempted to shed that nomenclature, its negative resonance stuck like epoxy with all of the hostile Arabic cultures. Bush's continuing portrayal of America as a Christian nation and his own propulsion of Christian agendas (i.e., gay marriage prohibition, Intelligent Design) only served to further entrench this admittedly wrong perception.
Rahman is getting the attention because he's a Christian. I'm a Christian, but we (and that includes me) should be screaming equally loudly if he was facing the death penalty because he had converted to Bhuddism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, or Disconcordianism.
I could not agree with you more and continue to admire the exceptionally level-headed views you espouse as a Christian, Ptah.
I feel this is a prime opportunity for Bush to discard any stigma of being a Crusader. By touting the importance of religious pluralism and emphasizing its role as a qualifying criteria for all nations wishing to play upon the world stage, Bush could adopt the mantle of one who defends the right to exist of all tolerance-based religions and correctly downplay his own fundamentalist Christian tenets which he has overemphasized for way too long.
I do not foresee many other chances like this, coming as it does on the tail of the cartoon jihad. For once, amongst its incessant perfidy, Islam has ripped its own mask off in a starkly public manner over the cartoons. This is just one more button on the straightjacket coat of all-consuming antipathy that Islam is donning before our watching eyes.
It is time to call a spade a spade. Any further dallying or pandering only weakens our moral resolve and basis in fact for action against these cretins.
#50
Zenster, the jihadis were calling us "Crusaders" before Bush came to office. It's not about how religious he is, it's that we come from a Christian culture.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/22/2006 15:29
Comments ||
Top||
#51
I'll not argue too loudly with you, RC. Incidentally, have you grown more cynical of late or is it just that recent events finally tipped the scales for you?
I happen to feel that Bush has this vital chance to espouse the value of religious pluralism and his silence is denuding him of moral authority.
#52
Gosh, the long-winded guys on cable with the perfect hair have nothing on you, Zenster. Your last 5 or 6 posts are the same - a litanty - originally a religious term. You're rather religious, in that give me a break zealous way, do you realize that? Point, taken, Every time.
#53
The only reason I tend to reiterate my point is that very few of the people who routinely bash me for supposedly hating Bush (which I do not) are amazingly silent in the face of his inaction over this issue. If this is not due to his overemphasis upon religiosity, what is it due to? Please know that I have no intention of flogging a particular subject to death. This board is sufficiently intelligent to deserve better. I'm just sort of curious how so few who normally defend Bush at the drop of a hat are conspicuously silent right now. I'll refrain from any further inquiries in this thread.
Perhaps they are like me - unhappy with the situation and waiting to see what is actually going on rather than editorializing in a vacuum. Perhaps they know you're often insufferable. I've been reading Rantburg for quite awhile, I've read hundreds of your posts. They evolve and you NEVER EVER admit to it, a trait I cannot abide. I think you're just pining for the opportunity to say "neener neener" in 35,000 words or more.
#55
Robert, I just want to note that the Heinlein quote and your modification make this thread for me. Well said.
This is actually a situation where I'm glad us peepul are taking the lead in expressing outrage over this situation in Afghanistan. The Muslim world needs to understand that their problem with the West is not going to go away when Mr. Bush leaves office, and non-Muslims need to realize the problem is not of Bush's making. I saw stories this morning in the Washington Times, Fox News, and USA Today, all on the front page above the fold (ok, not on the front page of Fox, but still). Also at Instapundit, with a link (as I recall) to CNN. CNN and USA Today mean the story is getting international play.
I haven't had a chance to check today, but I really wonder what the international media are saying about this. The threat by some NATO countries to pull out of Afghanistan if this man is executed quite shocks me, considering how indulgent Germany and France, et al, have been with Muslims in general. They may well have been looking for an excuse to disengage, but even so.
And it is interesting that this poor Afghani converted to Christianity many years since, but it only became an issue when he sought to regain custody of the two daughters he left behind when he'd gone to find work.
#57
I really wonder what the international media are saying about this.
Polish newspaper reports that Rahman's life will be saved, be declaring him insane. Whatever works I guess. The pressure came from the US, Canada, Italy, the UK and Germany.
It seems German press is all over this, others probably as well.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 16:50
Comments ||
Top||
#58
...by declaring him insane. It seems he will also be spared any punishment whatsoever.
Woohoo! I like being wrong in cases like this. I didn't think the pressure would work.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 16:52
Comments ||
Top||
#59
seems as if the good guys are currently winning this round (which is pretty important because, among other things a life is at stake).
Michelle Malkin reports that CAIR is on the side of saving Abdul Rahman's life (although I can't find it on CAIR's website). This issue will haunt the next Org of Islamic States conference even though most of the potentates will do their best to avoid the issue.
If Abdul R does win it may blowback into the cartoon case because blasphemy and apostacy are so closely related.
Ever see the inside of an Islamic insane asylum? Probably makes Olde Bedlam of yore look like a four star Hilton.
As RC so amply pointed out. This is not a useful solution. Worst of all, I can this poor sap being turned loose from jail and getting stoned to death by an angry mob waiting outside the prison gates. I can just hear the police inspector saying; "How could we know they'd do that?"
#61
I think you're just pining for the opportunity to say "neener neener" in 35,000 words or more.
Ah, yes. The so-called "hidden agenda" theory some of the whiners put forward hereabouts. How novel.
This certainly explains how I've cast my support behind Bush to fight any charges of impeachment should he have the wisdom to unilaterally (with or without congressional approval) initiate an attack upon Iran's nuclear facilities. Yup, it all makes sense now.
Slow process looking this stuff up. Rantburg doesn't help very much in this regard, so I was forced to use Google.
There's your first appearance where you referred to President Bush as "shrub". I saw that link posted a short while back and must admit I got a kick out of it. Seems you were pegged the minute you crawled in the door and you eventually revealed your Bush hatred in all its raging glory.
Oooh, this one was fun, too. Again about Bush - laden with your peculiar brand of secularist hyperbole and the ever-popular "selected not elected" meme. Lol, I hadn't seen this one before, but it's a classic.
All I felt like looking up for you. They suffice.
Both of these are far far different than what you post nowadays. I agree with much of what you post now, in fact. Is that evolution? I thought so and was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Why you wouldn't admit to it is beyond me - everyone else I've ever met who sentient evolves as the circumstances change.
I did, in this thread, in fact. Hurt like a bitch, too, lol. Low tolerance for pain?
#63
Where have I ever denied that my mode of thought has not evolved? Ever notice the public thanks I've given to Rantburg for solid insights as to how the MSM is so biased? Ever notice how I cheerfully gave Bush his due once he won an undisputed election? Ever notice how I said that "the better man" won the 2004 election? Ever notice how, in my interactions with .com I have been obliged to abandon my previous support for any existence of the Mythical Moderate Muslim? Yes, my position has evolved. My disgust at how both sides of the aisle conduct themselves hasn't nearly as much, but that's another matter.
As to throwing my first posts up, nice try, but my repeated expressions of appreciation for Rantburg and Fred's admirable support for freedom of speech should be self-explanatory. If you are so opaque as to remain ignorant of this, the problem may be located at your end of the keyboard.
#65
The email, fax, phone campaign, may be making an impact. If successful for this man, our efforts could help establish a precedent in Afghanistan for future (and, hopefully, more positive) treatment for those who convert. I received the following response to an email I sent to the embassy:
RESPONSE TO PUBLIC INQUIRIES ABOUT MR. ABDUL RAHMAN
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Embassy of Afghanistan greatly appreciates public concern about Mr. Abdul Rahman. We have received a significant number of inquiries about Mr. Rahmans case, which initially involved a civil lawsuit in child custody filed by his family.
Please note that the Government of Afghanistan is fully aware of and pursuing the best ways to resolve Mr. Rahmans case judicially. It is too early to draw any conclusion about the punishment, and we appreciate public understanding of the sensitivity of religious issues.
Afghanistans judicial system is currently evaluating questions raised about the mental fitness of Mr. Rahman, the results of which may end the proceedings. Hence we kindly request that the judicial process be given time to resolve Mr. Rahmans case.
The Constitution of Afghanistan provides protection for freedom of religion. The Government of Afghanistan will ensure that the constitutional rights of its citizens, international principles, and the due judicial process are respected and implemented.
#67
Article II, section 2 of the Afghani Constitution:
"(2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law."
#68
Yeah but if you're already a follower of Islam, you're SOL.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 21:31
Comments ||
Top||
#69
...if you're already a follower of Islam, and want to convert to some other religion...
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/22/2006 21:32
Comments ||
Top||
#70
Off topic:
Hey, Creater Crater3500, would you be so kind as to google me, too? I've been trying to find my first post -- just for giggles and sentimentality -- and while I just moments ago discovered that "trailing wife" is actually a term of art (apparently they are all decorative, thick as two short planks, and diplomatic wives with household staff problems... one of whom wrote a book about it. Had I known that, I would've called myself something else, since I merely followed Mr. Wife halfway round the world and back again), I can't find any of my posts the way you did Zenster's. Feel free to send the results to my email address, instead of wasting everyone's precious reading time here.
Iraqi police said on Tuesday it has arrested the leader of the Jamat Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad west of the the northern city of Kirkuk. Police director of Kirkuk Brigadier Sarhid Qader said his forces carried out the arrest west of Kirkuk adding that questioning is underway.
"Mahmoud! My pliers, please!"
He said that Katyusha missiles were fired in agriculture areas south of city causing only damage to buildings. Meanwhile, leakages were spotted in oil pipelines in the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul and emergency forces were sent to the area.
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.
A judge has indicted 32 suspected Islamic extremists in a failed plot to attack the National Court in Madrid, which tries terrorism cases. The suspects allegedly planned to pack a lorry with explosives and drive it into the building. The indictments were issued last week, but were only made public on Tuesday to coincide with a hearing for eight of the 32 suspects at the court. The rest will be formally notified of the indictments later this week.
London's mayor has become embroiled in a new row after criticising two Jewish businessmen involved in building a key facility for the 2012 Olympics. Ken Livingstone attacked David and Simon Reuben for their role in an ongoing dispute about the Stratford City development in east London. He suggested the brothers "go back (to their own country) and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs".
President George W. Bush said he was opposed to amnesty or automatic citizenship for the some 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. 
An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday. Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed. 
An international audit concluded there are tens of thousands of dead voters listed on Venezuela's voter rolls, but the country's top electoral official said Tuesday that those errors are being fixed and do not amount to significant flaws.
Suspected militants blew up a gas pipeline in Balochistan on Tuesday, officials said. The pipeline is owned by Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) and feeds gas to the Punjab province. Officials at the company said supplies to consumers remained unaffected. One of our 30-inch diameter pipeline was damaged in the attack, which took place at around 1:30 am and some 11 km away from the Sui fields, said Naeem Ahmad Khan, a spokesman for SNGPL. Khan said the repair work on the damaged pipeline was likely to be completed within 24 hours. 
Nawab 
LONDON: The Anglican Church in Wales said Tuesday it was recalling all copies of its Welsh-languAge Y Llan (Church) magazine that features a French cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad (
London, Mar. 21 The European Union has warned Iran that it may face diplomatic reprisals if it continues to defy the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its nuclear pursuit. The EU said that it had deep concern at Tehrans continuing failure to cooperate fully with the IAEA, in a statement issued on Monday.
A world summit between rabbis, imams and other religious leaders was threatened with an early end after a row over the Mohammed cartoons broke out.
ISLAMABAD - Stung by US President George Bushs refusal to grant access to American nuclear know-how, Pakistan accused the United States of discriminating against it and of upsetting the balance of power in South Asia.
Two youths have revealed how they escaped from the 
Taiwan has started to dismantle statues of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to shed vestiges of an authoriatarian past. The decision to remove statues of the leader from military bases on the independent island, which is still claimed by China, has sparked an outcry of public anger, the Financial Times reports.
The government claims many illegal aliens deported from South Africa are not Zimbabwean citizens - but from other African countries. Zimbabwe is now taking steps to prevent fake Zimbabweans entering the country after deportation. The Zimbabwe High Commissioner to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo has embarked on a vetting excercise to ascertain whether illegal immigrants awaiting deportation in Lindela Holding Centre were true Zimbabweans.
Interior Minister 
A third case of a Molotov cocktail attack has occurred in four days. This time, four Molotov cocktails were hurled at the house of a 46-year-old Australian computer consultant in Damansara early Tuesday, and two of them exploded. No one was injured, according to police sources. However, the wooden door of the terrace house caught fire and burn marks were found on the front and back of a Kia Sephia car in the compound.
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council on Tuesday postponed a scheduled meeting on the Iranian nuclear crisis to a later date, to allow France and Britain to draft a new text to take into account Russian objections, a Western diplomat said.
Miranshah (Rantburg News Service): Locally-grown Taliban have taken control of most of North and South 
Hundreds of demonstrators in Belarus are holding a second night of protests against the election victory of President 
State radio in Algeria is reporting that at least four people have been killed, including three children, and 67 people hurt when an earthquake measuring 5.8 hit the country's north-eastern region. The tremor on Monday evening (local time) is said to have triggered the collapse of about 30 buildings in and around the village of Laalam in the province of Bejaia, 300 kilometres east of the capital Algiers. The dead children were aged five, nine, and 13. It is the deadliest tremor to have struck the earthquake-prone North African country since a 2003 quake in Boumerdes killed 2,300 people, injured more than 10,000 and made at least 100,000 homeless. 
The British Royal Navy's submarines were being painted navy blue as part of a camouflage experiment aimed at finding out which will be the best colour for the vessels in future, the UK Ministry of Defence announced Tuesday. During their 105 years as part of the Royal Navy's fleet, most submarines have been painted black. Now nuclear submarine "HMS Torbay," based at Devonport, in south-west England, has become the first of the underwater fleet to sport the new blue colour scheme.
The trial of 27 people suspected of planning terrorist attacks in France opened Monday in a Paris court, following one of the country's biggest anti-terrorism investigations in recent years. They are charged with associating with criminals connected to a terrorist organisation. Some of the suspects have given statements claiming that attacks were planned against French targets including the Eiffel Tower, police stations and a central Paris shopping centre. Others have said the group planned attacks on Russian targets in France to revenge the attack on a Chechen rebel unit in Moscow in October 2002.
A Philippines volcano has spewed a column of ash nearly 1.5 kilometres high into the sky, raising fears of a major eruption. Officials say they are considering increasing the alert level after Mount Bulusan in the central Philippines belched ash an hour before midnight local time. The Philippine Institute of Seismology and Vulcanology (Phivolcs) says the ash is unlikely to cause any harm. But researcher Jojo Cordon says more earthquakes have been recorded in the area recently, a possible sign the volcano may be about to erupt more powerfully. He says the ash column may have been created by a reaction between water and hot materials, a "possible sign of rising magma". 
A new investigative report in a leading American magazine claims that the Pakistan Army and its intelligence service are critical sponsors in the resurging Taliban activity in Afghanistan. 
An attorney for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel said Tuesday she would appeal his murder conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Connecticut Supreme Court refused to reconsider the case. Skakel, 45, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life for his 2002 conviction in the 1975 beating death of his Greenwich neighbor, Martha Moxley, when the two were teenagers.
A controversial civilian border patrol group is planning a return to Arizona in two weeks to again confront the problem of illegal immigration. Some say the original 
Syrias President Bashar al-Assad has consolidated his grip on security forces and delayed political reforms in anticipation of a long standoff with the United States, diplomats and Baath Party sources say. They predict that the United States will keep pressing Syria to change its policy rather than try to topple Assad, citing the weakness of the Syrian opposition and US aversion to any more regional instability after the upheaval in Iraq. 
Iraqi police said on Tuesday it has arrested the leader of the 
