The CIA has been taken over by a dissident faction that seeks to undermine President Bush.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra has identified the anti-Bush faction in a letter to the president. Mr. Hoekstra said the faction appears to be led by Mr. Bush's recent appointments to the agency.
"In fact, I have been long concerned that a strong and well-positioned group within the agency intentionally undermined the administration and its policies," Mr. Hoekstra wrote in a May 18 letter to Mr. Bush.
The letter echoed assertions throughout the intelligence community that senior CIA officials sought to undermine the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Sources in the community said the dissident faction joined with colleagues in the State Department to target exiled Iraqi democrats, particularly Ahmad Chalabi.
"There is clearly a faction in the CIA that appears sworn to overturn the president's policies," said a congressional source responsible for monitoring the CIA. "What is amazing is that the president has undermined his loyalists and promoted his enemies."
In his letter, Mr. Hoekstra agreed with this assessment. The House committee chairman said the anti-Bush faction has taken over the CIA with Mr. Bush's appointment of Stephen Kappes to be the agencys deputy director. Mr. Kappes quit the agency in 2004 when he disagreed with then-Director Porter Goss' changes at the CIA. In particular, Mr. Kappes was said to have been angered by Mr. Goss efforts to clamp down on leaks to the media that were unfavorable to the Bush administration.
"I understand that Mr. Kappes is a capable, well-qualified, and well-liked former Directorate of Operations (DO) case officer," Mr. Hoekstra wrote. "I am heartened by the professional qualities he would bring to the job, but concerned by what could be the political problems that he could bring back to the agency."
Mr. Hoekstra said the dissident faction has for years been successful in politicizing the agency. He said Mr. Goss had tried and failed to end this process and was replaced by a leadership that supports an anti-Bush agenda.
The dissident faction, the letter said, was responsible for a number of damaging leaks from the CIA. Mr. Hoekstra said this could have included the criticism by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife is CIA operative Valerie Plame.
In 2002, months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Mr. Wilson was sent by the CIAon the recommendation of Mrs. Plameto Niger to examine reports that Iraq sought to procure uranium ore from the African country.
Later, Mr. Wilson accused the administration of exaggerating the Iraqi threat. In 2003, Mrs. Plame's identity was leaked by the administration to columnist Robert Novak. Mr. Novak said he was informed of Mrs. Plame's identity by an administration source, who he has not named, and that her identity as a CIA operative was confirmed by Mr. Bushs Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
Mr. Kappes is said to be part of a dissident faction that sent Mr. Wilson to Niger to get evidence on the Iraqi connection. This was done without the authority of then-CIA Director George Tenet.
Several conservative Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill charge that the dissident faction within the CIA has been deliberately pursuing an anti-Bush, status-quo agenda, refusing to make the necessary intelligence changes at the agency to deal with the new post-Cold War threats posed by al Qaeda, Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The faction was said to be key in the harassment and near assassination of Mr. Chalabi in 2004 near Baghdad, amid the accusation that he was an Iranian agent. Mr. Chalabi, a pivotal Iraqi exile who supported the administrations campaign to topple Saddam Hussein, challenged the CIAs anti-war and status-quo agenda. Mr. Chalabis opposition sparked major questions in Congress on the agency's knowledge of Iraq, its view of the Saddam regime and the CIAs refusal to include pro-American Iraqis within the interim government in Baghdad.
"In fact, I have long been convinced that a strong and well-positioned group within the Agency intentionally undermined the Administration and its policies," Mr. Hoekstra wrote. "This argument is supported by the Ambassador Wilson/Valerie Plame events, as well as by the string of unauthorized disclosures from an organization that prides itself with being able to keep secrets."
Mr. Hoekstra identified a close associate of Mr. Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, as another anti-Bush suspect. The chairman said Mr. Kappes and Mr. Sulick were bypassing Congress in an effort to promote their personal agendas.
"The fact, Mr. Kappes and his deputy, Mr. Sulick, were developing a communications offensive to bypass the Intelligence Committees and the CIA's own Office of Congressional Affairs," Mr. Hoekstra said. "Every day we suffer from the consequences of individuals promoting their personal agendas. This is clearly a place at which we do not want or need to be." There is a killer argument to be made between "operationally effective" and "politically loyal". It is a hard choice when your enemies are better than your friends, and you really need "better" right now.
#1
This is a result of the rot I told you all about long ago.
CYA behavior, empire building and plitical toadying are how these people got ahead under Bush I and Clinton. They are why wer hit aspririn factories, ineffective cruise missles on empty camps, the Cole, 9/11. The list goes on and on while the ass coverers and political operatives (Democrats) chew up the agency's resoruces in their attempts to trash Bush so they can preserve their jobs and cold-war central-managed top-down risk averse bumbling bullcrap.
Disband the CIA, and parcel its functions to NSA, NRO and DIA, and establish a new HUMINT agency. Break up the cabals in the CIA before they destroy our nation in their selfishness.
#3
OS -- glad you popped in. I do believe this is going on. My question. Why are these people doing this? Is there something about power that I just don't understand? Do they so think the Repub are so wrong, that it is their duty to do this? Or, is it a money issue, or just simply, a power question?
If you can't answer, I do understand. Thanks for staying close to us.. I always feel much better, seeing your name!
#4
What about the SSB and Cambone? CIA is a clearing House now, a phone in a dusty room in a cardboard box. The SSB will be providing the useful intell.
Actionable intell and inside lines are not dependable at CIA. That is just to keep some boys busy. Someone else is doing the real work. CIA is just what's in the window, not the stock.
The Spooks really are spooks. CIA is a dummy in the window.
#5
The DemoLeft will vote for it a'fore voting against it afore voting .... afore voting .... afore voting ........................@ eternal perpetual wafflins. Worse to worse, Lefties are their own biggest [self] justification for Communism, Totalitarianism, and Policratism/Politicism, etal. - can't = won't trust themselves, let alone anyone + everyone else, to get a glass of water or make simple toast bread, etc!? Need a lawyer to see a lawyer, and sworn affidavits to use the restroom, etc.
Bush's problem is that he genuinely believes there is good in everyone, even Democrats. This is demonstrably false, but he believes it anyway. So he trusts them. And they kick his teeth in. And he just keeps trusting them.
#7
You said, it, Iblis. I kinda doubt that the trust is at the same level after getting burned by obvious adversaries. In other cases, such as Norm Mineta, he is the very embodiment of perfect loyalty - for better or worse.
Sometimes it makes me want to scream... then other times, such as believing in and sticking with Bolton, I love the guy.
India said on Friday that Pakistan should arrest the leader of a powerful Kashmiri guerrilla group based there and hand him over to New Delhi if it was serious about fighting terrorism.
The call came after Indian officials said Pakistan-backed Islamists may have carried out or planned last week's bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed more than 180 people.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has offered to help in the investigation into the bombings.
"The self-styled chief of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Syed Salahuddin, who is freely roaming in Pakistan and in PoK ... should be arrested and handed over to India," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters, referring to Pakistan-administered Kashmir as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, led by the Pakistan-based Salahuddin, is the biggest militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, where more than 45,000 people have been killed since 1989.
Sarna said New Delhi also wanted Pakistan to ban another militant group, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which the United States says is a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group Indian officials say probably carried out or planned the Mumbai blasts.
The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen quickly dismissed the Indian demand.
"No one has any right to arrest Syed Salahuddin or any Kashmiri from their homeland," Ehsan Elahi, the group's spokesman told Reuters. "India has occupied our territory and does not have any right to make such demand."
On Thursday, Musharraf urged India not to indulge in a "blame game" after the Mumbai blasts and said the two countries should take the two-and-a-half-year peace process forward.
Sarna said India was committed to the peace process, but urged Pakistan to act against the guerrillas.
"Let me add India remains committed to the dialogue process with Pakistan but this can be sustained or yield results only if Pakistan acts against terrorist groups operating from territories under its control," he added.
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006
20:14 ||
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#1
Pak rejects Indian demand to extradite Dawood, Salahuddin
Rejecting India's demand for deportation of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Hizbul Muhajideen chief Syed Salahuddin, Pakistan on Friday claimed there was nothing to warrant pointing finger at it in the Mumbai train blasts.
A strongly-worded statement by Pakistan Foreign Ministry said the fact that after 10 days of the blasts India had little to say other than to mention Ibrahim and Salahuddin, "demonstrates that there was nothing to warrant the irresponsible act of finger-pointing at Pakistan immediately after the Mumbai attack."
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 20:16
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#2
"The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen quickly dismissed the Indian demand."
TENS of thousands of people are expected to march through the Sydney CBD today calling for an end to Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Palestine.
The protest is expected to start at Town Hall at midday and move along George Street to King Street and into Martin Place.
Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said despite a last-minute change of venue and expected bad weather, up to 20,000 people would turn out for the protest.
"We think there will be anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people," Mr Trad said. "There could be a lot more - if we didn't have these dramas, I would expect maybe 100,000."
Mr Trad said he expected to see many mothers and children taking part in the march after seeing images of the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon.
"One thing that has really been heartbreaking is the number of mothers who have called us to join the rally after seeing the images of all those children dying," he said.
Mr Trad said the message of the protest would be one of peace.
"We just want to give a message that peace is the only solution for the world community," he said.
"It's just a terrible, terrible human catastrophe that's taken place as a result of the bombing. We just have to do what we can to put an end to it."
Mr Trad promised the rally would be a peaceful one.
"We will not tolerate any violence, we will not tolerate any racism, we will not tolerate anything that does not serve the cause of peace."
Police said anti-social or criminal behaviour would not be tolerated and about 400 police would be out in force.
"We have been assured by the organisers that the protest will be peaceful, and we want to facilitate the protest in the same manner," Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin said.
"Our aim is to ensure the protest causes minimal disruption to the city. However, if this changes in any way, our response will be swift and sure."
Police said motorists could expect disruption to traffic in the city, and four streets - King, Pitt, Castlereagh and Elizabeth - would be closed from 6am to 4pm.
Similar protests will be held in Adelaide and Melbourne today.
ISRAEL is massing it's forces along the border with Lebanon amid speculation they are set to mount a massive ground invasion as early as today.
Thousands of Lebanese civilians are fleeing north after Israel warned them to leave border villages and called up 3,000 army reserves in a possible prelude to a major ground offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas.
US television network CNBC said intelligence sources told an affiliate that the ground invasion was "imminent" and likely to start later today.
CNBC said an unidentified Western nation had also told NBC that Israeli troops were expected to enter Lebanon today.
But another military source later said the Israeli army plans to step up pinpoint incursions into southern Lebanon but will stop short of a full-scale ground invasion.
"You should not expect a full-scale incursion into Lebanon," the source told Reuters, adding that brief, targeted incursions would intensify along the border.
"We are already inside Lebanon and troops will continue to operate there because it is the only way to act against the Hizbollah bunkers there," the source said.
The army is also reported to have told 3,000 reserves to report for duty. The call-up came a day after Defence Minister Amir Peretz spoke of a possible land offensive.
The Israeli army could have three to four divisions on the border with Lebanon by the end of the weekend, the YNET news Web site reported. The army would not confirm or deny the report.
Lebanon's defence minister said the army, which has not fought so far despite losing a score of soldiers in Israeli air strikes, would defend the country against invasion.
Amid mounting world alarm at the 10-day-old conflict, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would visit the Middle East next week and attend an Italian-hosted international conference in Rome on Tuesday in a bid to secure lasting peace.
The announcement came as Al Arabiya television reported the Israeli army had found the body of an Israeli soldier who had previously been reported missing.
It later said the body was found in southern Lebanon, but gave no more details.
Earlier on Friday, Israel's army confirmed that four soldiers had been killed and several wounded in fierce clashes with Hizbollah guerrillas just inside Lebanon on Thursday.
Israel has so far failed to stop Hizbollah cross-border rocket attacks, despite 10 days of bombardment which have killed 345 people in Lebanon and forced half a million to leave their homes. About 90 per cent of those killed were civilians.
Australians trapped in southern Lebanon have also reportedly been injured in Israeli attacks on the border town of Aitaroun.
At least 34 Israeli troops and civilians have been killed, almost all in fighting with Hizbollah guerrillas or by rockets fired by the Lebanese group.
The United States, Israel's main ally, has rebuffed Lebanon's appeals for an immediate UN-backed ceasefire, saying this would not last unless Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, is prevented from attacking the Jewish state.
Rice told a news conference in Washington an immediate ceasefire would be a "false promise" if the root causes of the conflict were not addressed. "An immediate ceasefire without political conditions does not make sense," she said.
Border residents flee Families with possessions packed into cars and pickup trucks clogged roads to the north after Israeli planes dropped leaflets warning residents of south Lebanon to flee for safety beyond the Litani river, about 20 km from the border.
An estimated 300,000 mostly Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese normally reside south of the Litani. There was no word on how many have already fled the bombing and fighting of the past few days. Air raids have wrecked many roads and bridges in the region.
Israel began its assault after Hizbollah captured two soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12. It has also waged a military campaign in Gaza since June 28 to recover another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants.
Israelis still overwhelmingly back the military operations, a new opinion poll in the Maariv newspaper showed.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was involved in brokering a 2004 prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbollah, also plans a trip to the Middle East next week.
In Gaza, Palestinian medics said Israeli shelling killed a Hamas militant and four civilians on Friday, as tanks and troops withdrew from a refugee camp after a three-day assault.
#1
Israel: defend yourselves with all means available. Lebanon: you brought this on yourselves by not living up to your agreements to disarm the murdering Shia scum. Tehran and Damascus: I hope there's a nuke with your names on it sitting somewhere in an Israeli bunker just waiting to be loaded on an F-16. It's not one iota less than you deserve.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 22:31
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Hopefully the IDF have a fix on the bunkers now, and can drop something suitably nasty down them.
U.S. and German scientists on Thursday launched a two-year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved.
Neanderthals were a species that lived in Europe and western Asia from more than 200,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up a company in Connecticut to map the genome, or DNA code.
"The Neanderthal is the closest relative to the modern human, and we believe that by sequencing the Neanderthal we can learn a lot," said Michael Egholm, a vice president at 454 Life Sciences Corp. of Branford, Conn., which will use its high-speed sequencing technology in the project.
There are no firm answers yet about how humans picked up key traits such as walking upright and developing complex language. Neanderthals are believed to have been relatively sophisticated, but lacking in humans' higher reasoning functions.
The Neanderthal project follows scientists' achievement last year in deciphering the DNA of the chimpanzee, our closest living relative. That genome map produced a long list of DNA differences between humans and chimps and some hints about which differences might be crucial.
The chimp genome "led to literally too many questions, there were 35 million differences between us and chimpanzees -- that's too much to figure out," Jonathan Rothberg, 454's chairman, said in a telephone interview.
"By having Neanderthal, we'll really be able to home in on the small percentage of differences that gave us higher cognitive abilities," he said. "Neanderthal is going to open the box. It's not going to answer the question, but it's going to tell where to look to understand all of those higher cognitive functions."
Over two years, the scientists aim to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion building blocks of the Neanderthal genome -- working with fossil samples from several individuals.
They face the complication of working with 40,000-year-old samples, and of filtering out microbial DNA that contaminated them after death.
Only about 5 percent of the DNA in the samples is actually Neanderthal DNA, Egholm estimated, but he and Rothberg said pilot experiments had convinced them that the decoding was feasible.
At the Max Planck Institute, the project also involves Svante Paabo, who nine years ago participated in a pioneering, though smaller-scale, DNA test on a Neanderthal sample.
That study suggested that Neanderthals and humans split from a common ancestor a half-million years ago and backed the theory that Neanderthals were an evolutionary dead end.
The new project will help in understanding how characteristics unique to humans evolved and "will also identify those genetic changes that enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world," Paabo said in a statement Thursday.
Protesters have taken over the center of folkloric Oaxaca, making tourists show identification at makeshift checkpoints, smashing the windows of quaint hotels and spray-painting revolutionary slogans. Police are nowhere in sight.
It's not the tranquil cultural gem beloved by tourists from the United States and Europe. A month of protests to try to oust the governor have forced authorities to cancel many events, including the Guelaguetza dance festival.
Most tourists are staying away, costing the city millions of dollars.
The protests follow other eruptions of civil unrest and class conflict that have plagued President Vicente Fox as his term winds to a close.
Supporters of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are holding nationwide demonstrations to demand a ballot-by-ballot recount in the disputed July 2 presidential election. Federal and state police clashed with striking miners in April and farm protesters in May, leaving four people dead.
But the clashes in Oaxaca have paralyzed one of Mexico's top cultural tourist attractions, where visitors normally browse traditional markets for Indian handicrafts, hike ancient pyramids and stroll along cobblestone streets to sample mole dishes.
The protests have reduced tourism by 75 percent, costing the city more than $45 million, according to the Mexican Employers Federation, a business lobby.
"Most of the tourists have been scared off. It doesn't look safe when you have to go through a barricade and everybody is standing there with sticks and stones," said Chris Schroers, a German who manages a restaurant in the central plaza. "The police are not here. They don't dare to come into town."
While there have been no reports of protesters attacking tourists, many visitors, including Lorena Valles, a 43-year-old from El Paso, Texas, have felt intimidated.
Valles and a group of friends went to the city's main theater to see a play last weekend, only to find the event canceled and hundreds of protesters wrecking the auditorium.
"There were people with masks and sticks and slingshots breaking the auditorium windows and setting the building on fire. That was kind of scary," Valles said. "The people here are normally very nice."
The protest leaders, a mix of trade unionists and leftists, say their fight is not with the tourists but with Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom they accuse of rigging the state election in 2004 and using force to repress dissent. Ruiz belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has governed the state since 1929.
The movement exploded in late June when police fired tear gas and attacked a demonstration of striking teachers demanding wage increases of about 20 percent.
"We respect and welcome tourists, but it is important they understand that there is a climate of instability and the government is not meeting the demands of the people," said union leader Enrique Rueda.
However, posters around the city declare the movement is also against the Guelaguetza dance festival because "only the rich and foreigners" can afford the $42 entrance fee.
"We have seen the festival of our people become a circus that is just for whites and gringos and Europeans," said Rosendo Ramirez, 51, a spokesman for the Oaxaca People's Assembly, formed to coordinate the protests.
Ramirez says the checkpoints were set up to weed out agitators. But he concedes the group has no control over many protesters, including some anarchists and communists who have come to Oaxaca to join the movement.
Thousands have camped out in the city center, sleeping under tarpaulins. Speakers declare the revolution has arrived, while dozens hold political debates.
Business leaders have called on the state to intervene, but state Interior Secretary Heliodoro Diaz says authorities have to tread carefully to avoid antagonizing the protesters.
Hotel and restaurant owners are lobbying the Fox administration to help resolve the crisis. They also want the government to declare Oaxaca a disaster area and release federal funds normally reserved for areas hit by earthquakes and hurricanes.
Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, has played down the problem, saying "it is annoying, but no more."
Some analysts say Fox is hesitant to get involved because he himself is under fire from supporters of Lopez Obrador who claim the presidential election was tainted by fraud. Lopez Obrador lost to conservative Felipe Calderon of Fox's National Action Party by less than 0.6 percent, according to official vote tallies.
Some fear the tensions might explode if federal troops are sent in.
"There is rising social conflict in Mexico and the government appears impotent and unable to confront it," historian Lorenzo Meyer said. "If the government doesn't learn how to control these conflicts, they will only get worse as time goes on."
The city on Wednesday recorded its first murder in more than two years when a man stabbed his father to death and attempted suicide, police said. Around 6 p.m., officers from the Kennesaw Police Department responded to a call of a stabbing at a home on Confederate Trail. Upon arrival, the officers found two men lying unconscious on a bedroom floor. The men were father and son, Robert Messina, 62, and Brian Messina, 33. Investigators say the elder Messina had been fatally stabbed several times with a knife.
According to Kennesaw Police Department spokesman Officer Scott Luther, the younger Messina lived at the home with his parents. His mother was at work at the time of the slaying.
Wednesday's stabbing sent shock waves through the quiet residential neighborhood. The motive for the attack is unclear, but what seems clear is that Messina stabbed his father before attempting to overdose on pills and slashing his own wrists.
Wuss. Everyone in town has a firearm and you chose pills?
"It appears they got into an argument of some kind, but we're not sure what it was about," Luther said.
The Messinas moved into their home around late January or early February, according to neighbors in the single-street subdivision. Luther said neighbors reported no problems with the Messinas. They said the Messinas, as well as the rest of the neighborhood, remains relatively quiet.
"He was a quiet man."
There has not been a murder within the city limits of Kennesaw since July 4, 2004, when three roommates got into a fight and two of them beat the third to death. "Any kind of homicide is a shock to us," Luther said. "It is not something we look forward to or plan for."
Kennesaw mayor Leonard Church attributes the city's low murder rate to two things. About 30 years ago, Kennesaw passed an ordinance requiring every head of household to own a firearm. The law is not strictly enforced, but Church said knowing that law is on the books has likely kept many criminals from preying on families there. "That law has absolutely something to do with the low crime," Church said. "It's that and a great police force."
Church said he could not estimate how many Kennesaw residents own a firearm because Cobb County issues firearms permits.
Turkish Political Leaders: If Iraq's Kurds won't deal with the PKK terrorists in their midst, we may go over there and do it for them!
U.S. Embassy: We don't think that's such a good idea. It would be better if the Turks, the Iraqis, and us cooperated on dealing with the PKK.
Turkish political leaders: How dare you tell us what to do! We're a sovereign state, and will do whatever is necessary to protect our citizens!
Turkish press: Hey, yeah, you guys are looking like lapdogs of the Americans. Let's you and him fight! (Alternately, "either shoot or stop talking.")
So now the Turkish government is reaching a point where they have two bad options: 1) Send troops into Iraq to hunt down the PKK, and accept the military and diplomatic consequences; hope that the fog of war doesn't cause some sort of incident between Turkish forces and coalition troops, and hope that the Kurds/Iraqis don't see the incident as an invasion of their country; or, 2) don't send troops over the border after talking about it for a week, and risk getting ripped in their own press for backing down and looking like they took orders from the Americans.
The situation in Israel appears to be a convenient comparison for the Turks. If Israel can cross a national border to deal with terrorists, why can't Turkey?
(Well, there aren't a bunch of coalition troops over the border in Lebanon, for starters...)
If nothing else, Turkish forces entering Northern Iraq would provide us with some bitter humor. "Oh, sure, NOW you guys want to invade. Where was this "can-do" spirit back in 2003?"
By the way, if you want a really bad scenario, imagine if the Turkish forces cross over; the Iraqi Kurds see this as an invasion and call on Iraq's military/militias/Shia and Sunni to help them defend their territory; the answer from non-Kurdish Iraqis is "no, this is your problem;" and then the Kurds respond by saying, "To hell with this, we're declaring independence."
Kurdish independence is the Turkish nightmare scenario; they see it as their Fort Sumter, as they fear an independent Kurdish nation on their border would inspire their own Kurdish populations to aim for independence.
So - maybe all of this is still rhetoric. But maybe I'm mistaking what I hope happens with what is likely to happen...
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006
17:58 ||
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#1
With the OIC meeting and TURKEY/IRAN saying stupid things.. Would Turkey be ready to attack the US in Iraq while Iran attempts nukes?
#2
3dc, who do you think is the Secretary General of the OIC? Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu. A Turk. An AKP Turk, part of the Gülen Gang--Fethullah Gülen, that is.
Old Fethullah got himself in a pickle with the pashas, so he's in self-imposed exile in the US for the time being. It seems that the Gülen Gang (AKP) thought it could take over the system in Turkey but recently it's been a bit of a battle.
So, it's not only EU accession pressure, Kurds, the US regional presence and Iran's lust for nuclear weapons that's the problem for Turkey. The real problem is the internal power struggle from AKP's attempts to take over the system.
I think AKP is trying to create a military situation to cater to the pashas, while at the same time catering to the Islamist crowd in order to give it more prestige with the pashas, and therefore more leverage in their attempt to take over the system.
After reading the most recent interview with Murat Karayılan (leader of Koma Komalên Kurdistan and one of the HPG's senior commanders--also an original founding member of PKK), it seems that he suspects the same thing.
The HPG Headquarters commander has issued a statement this week, saying that if Turkey persists in it's violence (meaning, invasion of South Kurdistan), the gerîla war will extend to the Mediterranean and the Aegean areas.
So far, only TAK has targeted the Mediterranean and Aegean areas.
Posted by: Azad ||
07/21/2006 21:41
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#3
So basically the political party nominally in charge in Turkey thinks military action in Iraq would be a winner because they could keep the anti-Kurdish military and the religious party "base" at least singing from the same songbook?
Posted by: Phil ||
07/21/2006 22:17
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#4
Yes but the tie in with Iran really bothers me. I think the US needs to make sure our bases in Turkey are safe. I smell Turkey and Iran ganging up on the US!
#5
Smell some bad juju if that happens 3dc. NATO will not sit it out if NATO Turks should happen to team up with Iran. Greece would get very nervous and Turkey could catch a cold.
New Delhi is likely to send reinforcements to accelerate the work of constructing a network of roads linking Afghanistan with Iran. They will supplement the Border Roads Organization personnel working there, according to well-placed sources tracking India's involvement in the region.
The reinforcements in significant numbers will go towards an additional section of road that India is expected to build. This will be in addition to some of the projects which the Indian agencies, like the BRO, are already undertaking on the outskirts of Kabul, Asian Age reported here quoting sources.
The decision to despatch engineers and other personnel comes despite New Delhi suffering reversals of the killings of Indian personnel working in Afghanistan.
India, Iran and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding in January 2003 to augment Afghanistan's connectivity and access to the coast.
The BRO is constructing the 218-km road that will link Delaram on the main Kandahar-Herat highway in Afghanistan and Zaranj on the Iran border. The US $850 million project is being funded by India and will provide the landlocked nation a shorter transit route (by about 700 km) to the sea via the Iranian port of Chahbahar than it now has through Pakistan. It was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security on February 4, 2004.
Under this project, Iran is building a new transit route to connect Milak in the southeast of Iran to Zaranj in Afghanistan. The sources said India would be able to use Chahbahar port for transit.
India and Iran have also agreed to build a railroad from Chahbahar to the Iranian Central Railway System to link with the Karachi-Tehran Railway line, which goes further westward, the sources added.
During Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's visit to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged an additional $50 million in assistance to Kabul, bringing the total Indian pledge to $650 million. Several Indian companies are engaged in Afghanistan and undertaking infrastructure projects. The Czars were always very careful to never build good roads from eastern Europe to Russia. You never know who might end up using them.
A coalition of liberal groups this week launched a nationwide campaign to educate Americans on impeachment and encourage them to support impeaching President Bush.
"Since 9/11 it has been clear that the principle enemy of democracy has been in the White House," said Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the group's documentary "How to Impeach a President."
The group claimed that Bush should be impeached because of the warrant-less wiretapping program, alleged torture of Muslim detainees in U.S. custody, and because he "committed fraud on Congress."
In order to promote the video and its goal of impeaching Bush, CCR has teamed with AfterDowningStreet.org, CODE PINK and Iraqi Americans for Peaceful Alternatives to organize "teach-ins" in at least 27 cities around the country.
CCR is a civil rights advocacy group that promotes reparations for descendants of slaves and urges the government to lift the travel and commerce embargos against Cuba, among other causes listed on its website.
David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, told Cybercast News Service that the teach-ins are aimed at "impeaching the president and number two in selling books and they're using the video and the events and the organizing to help sell books."
Melville House published CCR's "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush," an outline of CCR's case against the president that sells for $9.95.
Swanson said most of the people who attend the teach-ins are "99 percent in favor of impeachment so the goal is not exactly to persuade or to win over but it is to make those people aware that they're not some fringe minority, that in fact they're part of a majority and that there is a growing movement."
He said he was optimistic that the efforts to promote impeachment would be successful. "[T]he evidence is there more than it's ever been in U.S. history. It's a question of whether we can make it happen," Swanson said.
Brian Walsh, a senior legal research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he would not give the impeachment efforts much credit "because I think to a large extent what they're doing is couching their policy complaints against this administration in legal and constitutional terminology."
Walsh said CCR's claims against Bush are "based on misrepresentations and many of the 'facts' are based on one-sided and unsubstantiated allegations."
He categorized the impeachment movement as "the war against the war," which he said was led by "people who are frustrated that they weren't able to defeat Bush in 2004 when we basically had a referendum on the war in Iraq and he won convincingly against a candidate who tried to cast great doubt on whether we should have been in Iraq in the first place."
#2
They need to go x10. More commercials, more scenes, more information and dialogue. They could take it viral over the Internet to cut down on bandwidth expense.
It's an investment. Eventually, typical Americans should be able to "invest in Kurdistan" as direct from their home computers as possible.
#4
South Kurdistan made National Geographic in January. There's a video here , and I think it's pretty accurate. But if you can get a copy of the January issue, the article is really good and I don't like journalists.
They even interviewed Mam Rostam Hamid Rahim (Germîyanî tribe--a TRUE warrior). He's a legend. You should read the article for Mam Rostam alone.
Posted by: Azad ||
07/21/2006 21:52
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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a phone talk with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked for the convening of an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to seek a way to end Israeli attacks against Lebanon.
According to the Press Affairs Bureau of the President's Office, President Ahmadinejad considered urgent consultations among OIC member states, particularly the regional countries, a bare necessity under the current conditions.
He added, "The Islamic governments, including the regional countries, must heed their responsibilities by acting more dynamically, since if they would fail to do so the dimensions of aggressions would not be limited to Lebanon."
Continued on Page 49
#1
Democrats are on track to jumble the states in the presidential primary calendar in response to growing criticism that the same predominantly white states hold many of the cards in early voting
You know if you all schedule it on the same day, then it won't make any matter. No one state will then have an edge, if that is what you're worried about. Petty local politics trump common sense. However, the real bottom line is power. Cheat, steal, con your way to power because in the end its self justifying.
#4
cruiser: So much for my favorite Asian carrier.
There's always Cathay Pacific. Or Eva Air. If you're looking for transcontinental Asian flights, that is. Although price is a key concern in this time of skyrocketing fares, I try to fly United, Northwest or Continental whenever I head out to Asia from the states.
I fly transpacific regularly and will replace their aging 747-400's (aging because they were early adopters, just as they are here with the 380s) with these A380s on those routes. Never an empty seat in tourist - so a bigger cattle-car is an obvious boon on those routes - and everyone thinks a ticket is a license to become and importer, LOL. That was the source of my reaction.
Cathay flies a decent mix, but it was all Airbus on the routes I needed over the last year. Eva's OK, I've flown on them maybe a dozen times, but it sure isn't SA in food or "customer care", darnit. SA was, indeed, my favorite Asian carrier - very classy in all respects. But no Airbus flights for me.
I was merely lamenting that I know this purchase will directly affect me - and cause me to switch carriers. I don't know why it elicited such a pointless response from the fool. I'll miss SA and, since I always fly Biz or First, they'll miss me, as well.
#1
Bring the 173rd Airborne and the US Air Force at Aviano home.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 18:19
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#2
We will not honor the extradition request. The Italian prosecutors, if they want to get pissy about this, can explain why there are no American tourists coming to Italy after the US puts a travel advisory out.
We are in a war, Italy, better check out your local armories mosques. They are hornets nests of anti-western activity, and they do not wish you well.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/21/2006 19:14
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#1
A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday.
TEL AVIV Israel's new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel's future operations would be conducted from the air. Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. "bunker buster" munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.
Today, this vision of air power as a panacea has been shattered.
Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel's air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state. "Air power is not the answer here," a senior officer said. 'You have to go from one Hizbullah [weapons] bunker to another. Some of these bunkers are seven meters deep and can't be destroyed by aircraft, even if you could find them."
The air force learned that lesson in Beirut as fighter-jets sought to destroy Hizbullah headquarters, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials acknowledged that 23 tons of munitions failed to penetrate the thick walls of the underground command headquarters constructed by Iran. Indeed, the air force did not even deem the purchase of deep penetration munitions a priority. Earlier this year, Israel decided against purchasing U.S.-origin bunker-buster weapons regarded as a requirement for any air strike against Iran or Syria.
#2
I don't know whether Israel's government has been spending its money wisely or not, but I can't help but think that they're using the wrong metric.
This whole article seems to be written from the premise "Hezbollah hasn't been completely eliminated by the end of the second week, so obviously they've won."
Since Hezbollah has a large unpaid propaganda arm and isn't accountable to anyone the way democratic governments are, it can look like it's winning even when it's losing.
The problem is by building and using their human-shielded artillery park in Lebanon they've done away with all the usual incentives for countries like Israel to pretend there's nothing they can do besides just go along.
Posted by: Phil ||
07/21/2006 17:21
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#3
You can't win a war with airpower (and no, Kosovo was not a win. It was a short term draw and a long term loss) You still need boots on the ground. However, airpower makes the boots life a hell of a lot easier during the fight. I don't think Israel planned to with the war with airplanes. It was a, "Hit them hard and often and see how the international community reacts". The International community, even the arabs said, "Meh, not our problem and it might be nice to get rid of Iran's rabid dog."
So, Israel is gonna invade.
#4
It's strange that I never see these "Disappointed by Results" articles written from the perspective of the bad guys:
Hizbollah Rank and File Chagrined to See Their Leaders Crying Like Little Bitches
I guess their operations always go according to plan.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/21/2006 17:39
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#5
Right you are Matt. Also, it's a very limited analysis and uses extensive mindreading techinques to tease out the pessimism.
I'm still awaiting the first mention of "carpet-bombing" or "napalm". I think I saw some article speculating about WP. That, and nobody is even asking why Israel even has "neighbors", or what would happen if it decided it didn't want "neighbors".
Anyway, the IDF has vast depths of both tactical and strategic resources, and this article simply breezes by them with feckless ignorance.
#7
Earlier this year, Israel decided against purchasing U.S.-origin bunker-buster weapons
Bet the Israeli MoD is regretting that. Actually, I had thought the Israelis had already received the 600 1 and 2.35 ton bombs.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 18:45
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#8
Wait until Lebs --- who let Hezbollah operate without hinder as long as it left them alone --- count the costs of the air campaign.
#11
First off, both Hizbollah and Hezbollah will say they are not the same organz, at least officially, and regardless of how much aid Syria andor Iran gives them. Second, the IDF's curr generation of officers and enlisted men have done what used to be called "police actions" agz Muslim terrorists in Gaza-West Bank - one has to anticipate "teething troubles" wid MilOps for every new generation of [mostly NG/Newbie] warriors. Third, as a matter of joint-combined arms, iff Israeli air power is a "failure" then how has Israel claimed to destroy 40% to 1/2 of HEZBOLLAH'S fighting strength and weapon reserves!? IFF LEBANON CAN'T = WON'T CONTROL THEIR BORDERS OR WON'T GET RID OF THE TERROR ORGS, i.e. STATE(S) WITHIN A STATE, THEN LEBANON AS A POLITY CAN AND SHOULD BE DIVIDED BETWEEN ISRAEL AND OTHER ME STATES. The Radics may be Muslim as are most mainstream Lebanese, but they are also proxies of IRAN - Iran is hell-bent on Radical Islamist-, Shia-, and Iran-centric EMPIRE WHICH NO ME STATE, MUSLIM OR OTHER, DEMOCRATIC OR OTHER, IS INTENDED TO ESCAPE PER SE IRANIAN INFLUENCE AND DOMINATION. Fighting Israel = Lebanon will be a future province of Tehran and Shia-based Radical Islamism.
#12
Article: Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel's air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state. "Air power is not the answer here," a senior officer said. 'You have to go from one Hizbullah [weapons] bunker to another. Some of these bunkers are seven meters deep and can't be destroyed by aircraft, even if you could find them."
This is kind of silly. A week into the campaign and air power is not the answer? Granted, I accept that air power is not the answer. But ground combat isn't the answer either - it'll take a lot more than a week to erase Hezbollah from its prepared positions. And that's if they come out to fight. Remember, they're guerrillas - they can just fade into the woodwork. Three years into Iraq, ground troops haven't eliminated the insurgency. In the long run, ground troops are the answer, but quick incursions aren't going to do the trick. They're going to have to occupy southern Lebanon for decades. It's funny how Israelis lost a dozen dead every year for decades, and Ehud Barak decided to pull out, giving Hezbollah a sanctuary from which to build a state within a state. This year, Israel has lost about 60 people to Hezbollah, not to mentioned incurred tens of millions in infrastructure losses. I think Barak needs to be tarred and feathered and run out of town for his moronic withdrawal and betrayal of Israel's Maronite allies in Lebanon.
I see two differences that I believe will reduce decades to something substantially less.
1) Israel will not be as restrained as you imply, I think. The Lebs have squandered their opportunity thus far Syrian with puppets. They will pay for that - Israel does not want to leave this half-done if they can help it. And Israel will not allow others to dissuade them before they feel they've done major damage to Hezb, I believe.
2) They do not want to hold Lebanon. They want to sweep up as much as they can in a reasonably limited time and create a buffer zone - of a depth to be decided as it proceeds, I think.
The Hezbollah assholes will have trouble skedaddling to Syria - since Israel has already seriously reduced the routes available - at least for vehicles. They may try to blend into the population, but I wonder how successful that will be. Israel has already shifted from counter-battery fire, since the Hezb's are using non-Shia houses and neighborhoods for firing their bottle rockets. Israel has started going directly after the Shia neighborhoods, from what I can gather. So that reduces at least some of the hiding places to rubble.
SPIEGEL: Is the secretary general the main referree?
Annan: He is a sort of referree, but without red and yellow cards. He cannot raise them, but he can raise his moral voice.
SPIEGEL: That is, at best, a yellow card.
Annan: You're right. A united Security Council would be a red card.
SPIEGEL: The biggest team, the United States, likes to play by its own rules.
Annan: There is a certain tendency on the part of some Americans to treat the UN as a multilateralism à la carte where you pick and choose where it suits you and when it doesn't suit you, you pull back. In Iraq, they want us to work closely with the Iraqis and lead an international compact for economic reform. They are within the UN on Iran and they are working closely with us on avian flu. In these cases they are working very closely with us because they have nowhere else to go. You cannot put together a coalition of the willing.
SPIEGEL: Have the Americans changed their behavior as a result of problems in Iraq?
Annan: There has been a very important lesson that everyone has learned from Iraq. Future American administrations will be much more hesitant to embark on a military action. It will also make Congress much more reluctant to appove military action and much more demanding of the justification and rationale for going to war.
SPIEGEL: It seems that every US generation in recent history has had to go through the experience of losing a war.
Annan: Yes, and it is a bit sad to put it that way. One has to learn from history. Quite frankly, it is almost impossible to have a sense of vision without a sense of history. If history is learned, then it doesn't have to repeat itself over generations.
#1
Future American administrations will be much more hesitant to embark on a military action.
Or maybe it's just that future American administrations will be much more hesitant to undertake nation-building.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/21/2006 17:03
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#2
Future administrations will be much more hesitant to go to the UN. Hopefully future administrations pull the US out of the UN and banishes them from our shores.
#3
while i dont much sympathize with Kofis response, the line comes from the interviewer, and his response doesnt quite justify the headline. Obviously the only generations even the interviewer had in mind was this and the last one, and I doubt Kofi had time to consider the implications of his response.
#10
"There has been a very important lesson that everyone has learned from Iraq. Future American administrations will be much more hesitant to embark on a military action."
Many people have learned many different lessons in the nearly five years that have passed since 9/11. And I doubt very many of them dovetail much with "the" lesson Kofi Annan thinks we've learned.
Yes, we've all learned a lot since 9/11.
Suggestion to Kofi: don't be living in an Islamic country, or downwind from one, if and when the United States suffers another mass-casualty terrorist attack.
Your health might be affected.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/21/2006 20:33
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#11
SPIEGEL: It seems that every US generation in recent history has had to go through the experience of losing a war.
Maybe. Or we could just ask the Germans what it's like.
You know what I'd like to know from history? What the fuck has Ghana ever done for the planet? Besides inflict Kofi on it...
#13
This guy is going away... maybe in December? Is that when his term is up? This job is a term limits job. Sad part, Bill Clinton wants his job and the world would love to give it to him. Wonder if that will come up in the new hearings for Bolton?
Some democrat Senator, with his half glasses resting on his somewhat tweaked nose, sniffing, condesentingly, "Will you work to get Bill Clinton as the next US Secretary General?"
#14
We have one of two choices as American conservatives when it comes to the selection of the next head of the United Nations. We can A) push for the guy best qualified for the job. That would probably be the former president (or was it Prime Minister?) of Singapore, a known if I am not mistaken for stiff-necked, brutal honesty. Or we can B) push for the guy most likely to piss off enough of our fellow citizens to allow us to leave the damn thing and kick it out of our territory with 80% plus popular support. That would be the guy from Ceylon who wants to send the BATF to kick down every Americans door.
#15
At least now I know why Ahmadinejad is always glad when the little pygmy shows up. He can con the shit out of him and he doesn't have to use the stool.
Excerpt:
Finally, we have one of the scariest terrorist strategy manuals out there; "The Management of Savagery." This document, which is written is slightly grander Arabic, is meant for jihadi leaders. It basically points out what has worked in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and Algeria (places where Islamic radicals have taken over, or come close to doing so.) The basic strategy is to find Islamic countries with weak governments, go in there and kill lots of people, make lots of terror, and weaken the government as much as possible. Then, when there is chaos all about, the jihadis move in, restore order and take over. How's that for truth in packaging. "The Management of Savagery" is also meant to make it clear to jihadis why they have to be so savage, and to reassure them that God approves.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006
15:58 ||
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2006 15:53
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#2
Blue-green algae are the most efficient photosynthesizers on earth and have very high oil concentrations (50% or more). It makes a heck of a lot more sense than converting corn kernels to oil and alcohol. The process works best when scrubbed smoke stack CO2 is dissolved into the water.
www.greenfuelonline.com/gf_files/GFTCInBusiness.pdf
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 16:28
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#3
But what about the whales? The whales will starve!
#5
It's just a cover. Remember -
"The government dispenses rations of synthetic food substances made by the Soylent Corporation: Soylent Yellow, Soylent Red, and the newest product, Soylent Green, the most popular version derived, according to the firm, from plankton."
#8
Shit, ed, no offence intended but there are SO many problems your pubmed paper is just a glimpse. No offence intended but Please Science it! Yeah! I'ts just an agent that induces cell growth, like cancer
When President Bush announced the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty five years ago, Democrats howled. Pulling out of the treaty to roll out missile defense would, they predicted, lead to a new arms race, undermine American security and in any case was unnecessary. "This premise, that one day Kim Jong Il or someone will wake up one morning and say 'Aha, San Francisco!' is specious," Senator Joe Biden told AP in May 2001.
Apparently no one bothered to translate "specious" into Korean. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has now defied world opinion by test-firing a Taepodong-2 missile capable of hitting San Francisco. The fact that the missile failed is small consolation, since we are also now seeing in Lebanon a further proliferation of missiles from Syria and Iran that can reach deep into Israel. Does anyone doubt that Iran, or some other adversary, will build an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. as soon as it is able?
All of which makes the U.S. political debate over missile defenses worth revisiting, not least because some Democrats are still trying to strangle the program. In the House, John Tierney of Massachusetts this year proposed cutting the Pentagon's missile-defense budget by more than half. His amendment was defeated on the House floor, but it won the support of more than half of his Democratic colleagues, including would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Carl Levin (D., Mich.) offered in June to cut off funds for the ground-based interceptor program that Mr. Bush recently activated in Alaska in anticipation of the North Korean launch. Mr. Levin wants to stop new interceptors from being built, but Senate Republicans wouldn't bring his proposal up for a vote. Mr. Levin has been waging his own private war against missile defenses for a generation, to the point of outflanking Russian objections on the political left.
No missile defense is perfect, but even our current rudimentary shield has proven to be strategically useful these past few weeks. The Navy had at least one ship-based Aegis missile-defense system deployed off the Korean coast, with a potential to shoot down a North Korean missile. The Aegis cruisers have successfully shot down missiles in seven of eight tests in recent years, and could become an important player in protecting allies and U.S. forces against regional missile threats. The U.S. is also dispatching PAC-3s, a more sophisticated version of the Patriot anti-missile system, to Japan. This kind of capability adds to the credibility of the U.S. deterrent, reassures allies and enhances American influence.
Virtually none of this would exist had Democrats succeeded over the years in their many attempts to kill missile defenses. . . .Democrats also made a fetish out of the ABM Treaty, even after the end of the Cold War. Al Gore campaigned to keep it in 2000, promising only to build defenses that would abide by its tight limitations. Senator Biden predicted that dropping out of the treaty to build missile defenses would turn the U.S. into "a kind of bully nation." And Senator John Kerry cautioned that "we must not set aside the logic of deterrence that has kept us safe for 40 years." Neither logic nor deterrence are the first words that come to mind when we think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
When Mr. Bush informed Vladimir Putin that the U.S. intended to exercise its legal right to withdraw from the ABM pact, the world didn't end. The Russians moved on to bigger issues, and much of the rest of the world decided that they'd like to join the missile-defense club. Six nations now participate with the United States in developing new missile-defense technology and nearly a dozen others use some of what's already been developed.
The Pentagon now spends nearly $10 billion a year on missile defense and is developing several promising new technologies. These include sea-based defenses and low-orbit satellites that help track incoming missiles, as well as the Thaad program designed to knock out long-range missiles as they are heading to Earth. Thaad had a successful test over New Mexico last week.
By investing in this capability, the U.S. may even deter the world's rogues from investing heavily in missile technology. Defense dollars are limited, even in terror regimes, and they won't invest their money in weapons that won't work. With the expanding North Korean and Iran missile threats, it'd be nice to think Democrats would acknowledge their mistakes. But we'd gladly forgo any apologies if liberal Democrats would finally admit that missile defenses are a necessary part of America's antiterror state arsenal.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006
13:43 ||
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EUGENE, Ore. -- Three suspects have pleaded guilty to eco-terrorism charges.
Kevin Tubbs, 37, Kendall Tankersley, 29, and Darren Thurston, 36, admitted to arsons at a ranger station, several lumber mills, wild horse corrals and two meat-packing plants.
They admitted to trying to intimidate and coerce federal agencies, private businesses and the public through sabotage and mass destruction.
As part of the plea deal, all three agreed to cooperate in the continuing investigation of 10 others in a series of firebombings around the Northwest from 1996 to 2001. The Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for those acts.
Could be the break the FBI needs to roll up a bunch of these guys. They've been trying to get someone to spill his guts for a long time.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
13:21 ||
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#1
The next thing they will notice burning is their buttholes in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/21/2006 13:53
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#2
Because it's much easier to blow shit up than to win public opinion on the merits of your arguements.
#3
If the Feds got them, they got cell phones and computers, too. And surely this time someone bothered to get a warrent to poke through them (unlike Moussaoui's laptop before 9/11).
While the world's attention shifts toward the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Baghdad, as one popular Iraqi blogger puts it, is burning. Outside the bunker-like Green Zone, the Iraqi capital remains a hotbed of sectarian mayhem. A recent wave of tit-for-tat violence between Sunnis and Shiites has left hundreds dead (LAT). Infrastructure is crumbling and municipal services continue to perform below prewar levels. Foreign journalists rarely roam the streets, for fear of kidnappings or worse. According to a new UN report, civilian deaths have climbed to over 100 per day, and "the overwhelming majority of casualties were reported in Baghdad." This new Backgrounder assesses efforts to stabilize the Iraqi capital.
A much-touted security clampdown in the capital, which coincided with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, "has not produced the results I expected so far," admitted U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad in a recent speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Part of the problem, argues Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution, is the Iraqi government is trying to secure Baghdad with half the number of troops necessary to bring order to a city of six million inhabitants.
Khalilzad has outlined a strategy of "focused stabilization operations" meant to restore order to Iraq's urban areas and root out sectarian militias while building municipal institutions, improving governance, and jump-starting the local economy. Much of that approach was spelled out by Andrew Krepinevichwho famously called it an "oil-spot strategy"last fall in Foreign Affairs. In this recent podcast, Krepinevich assesses the implementation of his strategy one year later and finds it working but requiring more time.
Some of the blame for the recent bloodshed in Baghdad has been placed on Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose militia, the Mahdi Army, has carried out reprisal killings against Sunnis and lures many of its recruits from Sadr City, a Baghdad slum. Yet the so-called Sadrists, despite their spoiler status, "cannot be reduced to an unruly mob, fired up by a populist leader," says Peter Harling, an International Crisis Group senior analyst. "It is a phenomenon with deep roots in contemporary Iraq and expressing a large number of justified grievances." Opposing them is a collection of insurgent fighters and suicide bombers who remain capable of devastating attacks (AP).
#1
The problem is we have never aknowledged that Iran is our main enemy in Iraq. The crackdown was directed at Al Qaeda in Iraq, but now the main enemy is Sadr (financed by Iran). Until the Coalition and ISF focus on Iran's assets in Iraq, there will not be any progress.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/21/2006 17:11
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#2
This article makes it seem like fighting between Sunni and Shiite is a bad thing.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 18:02
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Dutch commandos killed 18 enemy fighters who set up positions in rugged hills overlooking a Dutch camp in southern Afghanistan, the country's military chief said Friday. There were no Dutch casualties during a 10-day mission. "If we had not done something then our soldiers could have come under fire and the construction of our camp could have been hindered," Gen. Dick Berlijn, commander of the Dutch armed forces, told reporters in The Hague.
Berlijn said the Taliban fighters were massing on terrain on both sides of the Baluchi Valley, about 6 miles north of where Dutch troops are building Camp Holland, which will be their base for a reconstruction mission due to start Aug. 1. "The Baluchi Valley is a strategic position and in the end we decided that if we did not do something about it, it would be a major threat for us," he said.
So you wacked them. Good thinking, Dick
There are some 455 Dutch soldiers setting up camp near Tarin Kot, capital of Uruzgan Province, where a 1,400-strong Dutch reconstruction team is due to start work next month. Berlijn said the Dutch mission was carried out independently of a U.S.-led coalition mission in the same region, but added that Dutch and coalition forces coordinated closely. He declined to give any details of the U.S.-led operations.
The Dutch government deliberated for months before finally deciding to send 1,400 soldiers to take part in NATO missions in Afghanistan. While the government insisted the deployment was to rebuild the shattered Uruzgan province, opponents argued that reconstruction is impossible in what is essentially still a war zone. Speaking at a briefing on Dutch operations in Afghanistan, Berlijn said that his country already has more than 1,500 troops in the country and said that number could rise to around 2,000 before settling back to the 1,400-strong force approved by parliament.
In recent months, Dutch troops have killed dozens of Taliban and other enemy fighters without suffering any fatalities.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
12:58 ||
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#1
Thank you Holland. Thank you NATO. We need to note that they are punching above their weight here.
#3
While the government insisted the deployment was to rebuild the shattered Uruzgan province, opponents argued that reconstruction is impossible in what is essentially still a war zone.
Good thinking, the enemy has to be killed before you can "rebuild," (what?).
This coupon is good for cover charge and drinks at both De Bananenbar (Banana Bar) and die Casa Rosso, Amsterdam. Holders must show proof of Texel Commando School completion or Afghanistan deployment orders. Coupon expires Feb 2069.
#8
The Dutch - the adults of Europe. (they've got some company, but across the board they are remarkably less misguided) Afghanistan is a place where even Europeans are allowing their armed forces to fight (the French have been collecting a few scalps, for a while). I fear it's still an SF phenomenon - Euro armies are still generally under-funded and have paltry overall capabilities. But it's a start.
Not, that it was the poor fuckers fault who were outnumbered on the ground you understand, but I'd rather have a gun than a dutch "peacekeeper" protecting me.
From Strategy Page. This is a PowerPoint presentation. Click on the picture to begin
As you scroll through the pictures toward the end of the presentation you will see the damage done by the ball bearings packed in the rocket's nose cone. These Iranian-provided Hizbullah rockets were not aimed at strategic targets. They were packed with ball bearings aimed at civilians with the objective of maximizing death and injury. Imagine what these ball bearings do when a man, woman or child is hit by one of them.
#2
What an approprate pic. Notice how the 'brave lion of islam' is hiding behind the skirt of the mother and child while the other has shielding the woman and child.
As for the ballbearing pic. I'm sure we'll see it on the NYT's front page any dayweekmonth year now....
#3
this is quite funny and since I do not know how to post I hope somebody does it:
Now this is a classic. Hardline cleric Omar Bakri who is barred from Britain for inciting terrorism tried to get onboard of a British warship to flee Beirut but was turned back. Bakri who preached terror in Londistan London for so many years decided to let go of jihad against the "Israeli infidels" and flee the battlefield to return to his previous safe haven.
Bakri, who had lived in Britain for 20 years, said he had shown his British driving licence and his cancelled British passport.
"I know myself I am not welcome in the UK but I have the right like everyone else to safety," he said. "It is better to try and fail."
Britain barred him from returning to the country as part of a government crackdown on Islamic preachers who it says inspires suicide bombers like those who attacked London's transport system last year, killing 52 people.
See, we only preach jihad and encourage others to carry it out, we never actually do it ourselves!!
The funny thing, Bakri stated before that he doesn't want to return to the UK
In an interview with Reuters in Beirut last August, the bearded cleric said he had no intention of returning to Britain because of the way Muslims there were being treated.
Ahh, when things gets tough we cry mama.
Update:
This is how the British tabloid The Sun reported the story:
#4
That's not true Anti-personnel and anti-material bombs, rockets grenades are always with ball beraings or and such. It's not the rockets that make it abominable but to where Hizballah points them.
#5
Israel wants the Lebanese army on the border. The Lebanese army has refused to move into the area but have said they would respond to an Israeli incursion. This might just be a way to get the Lebanese army into the region in a way that is politically acceptable within the Lebanese domestic climate. And the threat is too credible to ignore. Not to move the Lebanese army into the area might actually precipitate an Israeli invasion to move Hezbollah back. Pass the popcorn please.
#10
Yeah, well, my idea was to paint the group what it is, I was purposely not going to the judgement of their religion area, that is where you risk making even more enemies. The point being that if we portray what they do as hirabah and not jihad, we provide an opportunity for other Muslims to hate them too and in terms they themselves understand.
Oh, and I just noted an interesting comment from a Fox presenter in Israel musing aloud about why Israel would be so blatently telegraphing their intentions rather than keeping the callups and buildup quiet.
#12
While the damage agsint vehicles lolo impressive the second vehicle is not touched at all and I observe no vehicle has been set afire as a HE payload would have done. So it confirms my opinion ball bearins is mainly for personel. When you are after vehicls you use HE.
#14
Ball bearings are too expensive to use in most antipersonnel weapons. More often, prenotched large gauge wire or preformed shrapnel sintered together is used. When the device explodes, each notched or sintered piece separates and becomes shrapnel. It sounds like the Syrians don't have the machinery to do this and are using ball bearings because they have to.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 17:31
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#15
I just noted an interesting comment from a Fox presenter in Israel musing aloud about why Israel would be so blatently telegraphing their intentions rather than keeping the callups and buildup quiet
They can't call up their reserves and keep it quiet. No country that size (either physically or in terms of population) could.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 17:56
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#18
Mike: They can't call up their reserves and keep it quiet. No country that size (either physically or in terms of population) could.
I'll say. My understanding is that reserve callups are typically via blanketing the media with notices so that no one can say he missed the callup notice and sit the campaign out. Note that everyone of combat age in Israel is a reservist, which is to say that they are all draftees. Draftees don't always want to be dragged away from their daily lives. I don't know the Israeli practice, but I suspect the only people who don't know of the call-up don't listen to the radio, watch TV, read newspapers or even have telephones.
#19
I wasn't talking about announcing reserve callups. I was talking about the reporting on troop formations South of the Lebanese border to include video. They could very easily censor that information.
#20
Don't think of them as "ball bearings" because yes, bearings are made of expensive steel to exacting tolerances for mechanical operations. Think of it as "steel shot" which is basically nothing more than round drops of cheap steel of various sizes and not of uniform size and shape.
The purpose of missiles with those warheads is to take out formations of troops in the open such as dismounted mechanized infantry or paratroopers. In the traditional use, these are "barrage" rockets. They are designed to be sent via multiple launchers in waves of dozens at a time to saturate an area with dozens of small explosions. Think of these rockets as the orinal cluster bomb in how they were initially designed to be used.
They're not ball bearings per se in US ammo, but just metal balls the same as overshized buckshot. A 40MM AP grenade can do horriffic damage even when body armor is worn.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/21/2006 21:17
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#22
On the issue of destruction, it appears that IAF targeting in Beirut is taking out Shiite support areas, accurately. Check this out:
Email freebie, no link.
The ground war has begun. Several Israeli brigades now appear to be operating between the Lebanese border and the Litani River. According to reports, Hezbollah forces are dispersed in multiple bunker complexes and are launching rockets from these and other locations.
Hezbollah's strategy appears to be threefold. First, force Israel into costly attacks against prepared fortifications. Second, draw Israeli troops as deeply into Lebanon as possible, forcing them to fight on extended supply lines. Third, move into an Iraqi-style insurgency from which Israel -- out of fear of a resumption of rocket attacks -- cannot withdraw, but which the Israelis also cannot endure because of extended long-term casualties. This appears to have been a carefully planned strategy, built around a threat to Israeli cities that Israel can't afford. The war has begun at Hezbollah's time and choosing.
Israel is caught between three strategic imperatives. First, it must end the threat to Israeli cities, which must involve the destruction of Hezbollah's launch capabilities south of the Litani River. Second, it must try to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure, which means it must move into the Bekaa Valley and as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Third, it must do so in such a way that it is not dragged into a long-term, unsustainable occupation against a capable insurgency.
Hezbollah has implemented its strategy by turning southern Lebanon into a military stronghold, consisting of well-designed bunkers that serve both as fire bases and launch facilities for rockets. The militants appear to be armed with anti-tank weapons and probably anti-aircraft weapons, some of which appear to be of American origin, raising the question of how they were acquired. Hezbollah wants to draw Israel into protracted fighting in this area in order to inflict maximum casualties and to change the psychological equation for both military and political reasons.
Israelis historically do not like to fight positional warfare. Their tendency has been to bypass fortified areas, pushing the fight to the rear in order to disrupt logistics, isolate fortifications and wait for capitulation. This has worked in the past. It is not clear that it will work here. The great unknown is the resilience of Hezbollah's fighters. To this point, there is no reason to doubt it. Israel could be fighting the most resilient and well-motivated opposition force in its history. But the truth is that neither Israel nor Hezbollah really knows what performance will be like under pressure.
Simply occupying the border-Litani area will not achieve any of Israel's strategic goals. Hezbollah still would be able to use rockets against Israel. And even if, for Hezbollah, this area is lost, its capabilities in the Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut will remain intact. Therefore, a battle that focuses solely on the south is not an option for Israel, unless the Israelis feel a defeat here will sap Hezbollah's will to resist. We doubt this to be the case.
The key to the campaign is to understand that Hezbollah has made its strategic decisions. It will not be fighting a mobile war. Israel has lost the strategic initiative: It must fight when Hezbollah has chosen and deal with Hezbollah's challenge. However, given this, Israel does have an operational choice. It can move in a sequential fashion, dealing first with southern Lebanon and then with other issues. It can bypass southern Lebanon and move into the rear areas, returning to southern Lebanon when it is ready. It can attempt to deal with southern Lebanon in detail, while mounting mobile operations in the Bekaa Valley, in the coastal regions and toward south Beirut, or both at the same time.
There are resource and logistical issues involved. Moving simultaneously on all three fronts will put substantial strains on Israel's logistical capability. An encirclement westward on the north side of the Litani, followed by a move toward Beirut while the southern side of the Litani is not secured, poses a serious challenge in re-supply. Moving into the Bekaa means leaving a flank open to the Syrians. We doubt Syria will hit that flank, but then, we don't have to live with the consequences of an intelligence failure. Israel will be sending a lot of force on that line if it chooses that method. Again, since many roads in south Lebanon will not be secure, that limits logistics.
Israel is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Hezbollah has created a situation in which Israel must fight the kind of war it likes the least -- attritional, tactical operations against prepared forces -- or go to the war it prefers, mobile operations, with logistical constraints that make these operations more difficult and dangerous. Moreover, if it does this, it increases the time during which Israeli cities remain under threat. Given clear failures in appreciating Hezbollah's capabilities, Israel must take seriously the possibility that Hezbollah has longer-ranged, anti-personnel rockets that it will use while under attack.
Israel has been trying to break the back of Hezbollah resistance in the south through air attack, special operations and probing attacks. This clearly hasn't worked thus far. That does not mean it won't work, as Israel applies more force to the problem and starts to master the architecture of Hezbollah's tactical and operational structure; however, Israel can't count on a rapid resolution of that problem.
The Israelis have by now thought the problem through. They don't like operational compromises -- preferring highly focused solutions at the center of gravity of an enemy. Hezbollah has tried to deny Israel a center of gravity and may have succeeded, forcing Israel into a compromise position. Repeated assaults against prepared positions are simply not something the Israelis can do, because they cannot afford casualties. They always have preferred mobile encirclement or attacks at the center of gravity of a defensive position. But at this moment, viewed from the outside, this is not an option.
An extended engagement in southern Lebanon is the least likely path, in our opinion. More likely -- and this is a guess -- is a five-part strategy:
1. Insert airmobile and airborne forces north of the Litani to seal the rear of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. Apply air power and engineering forces to reduce the fortifications, and infantry to attack forces not in fortified positions. Bottle them up, and systematically reduce the force with limited exposure to the attackers.
2. Secure roads along the eastern flank for an armored thrust deep into the Bekaa Valley to engage the main Hezbollah force and infrastructure there. This would involve a move from Qiryat Shimona north into the Bekaa, bypassing the Litani to the west, and would probably require sending airmobile and special forces to secure the high ground. It also would leave the right flank exposed to Syria.
3. Use air power and special forces to undermine Hezbollah capabilities in the southern Beirut area. The Israelis would consider a move into this area after roads through southern Lebanon are cleared and Bekaa relatively secured, moving into the area, only if absolutely necessary, on two axes of attack.
4. Having defeated Hezbollah in detail, withdraw under a political settlement shifting defense responsibility to the Lebanese government.
5. Do all of this while the United States is still able to provide top cover against diplomatic initiatives that will create an increasingly difficult international environment.
There can be many variations on this theme, but these elements are inevitable:
1. Hezbollah cannot be defeated without entering the Bekaa Valley, at the very least.
2. At some point, resistance in southern Lebanon must be dealt with, regardless of the cost.
3. Rocket attacks against northern Israel and even Tel Aviv must be accepted while the campaign unfolds.
4. The real challenge will come when Israel tries to withdraw.
No. 4 is the real challenge. Destruction of Hezbollah's infrastructure does not mean annihilation of the force. If Israel withdraws, Hezbollah or a successor organization will regroup. If Israel remains, it can wind up in the position the United States is in Iraq. This is exactly what Hezbollah wants. So, Israel can buy time, or Israel can occupy and pay the cost. One or the other.
The other solution is to shift the occupational burden to another power that is motivated to prevent the re-emergence of an anti-Israeli military force -- as that is what Hezbollah has become. The Lebanese government is the only possible alternative, but not a particularly capable one, reflecting the deep rifts in Lebanon.
Israel has one other choice, which is to extend the campaign to defeat Syria as well. Israel can do this, but the successor regime to Syrian President Bashar al Assad likely would be much worse for Israel than al Assad has been. Israel can imagine occupying Syria; it can't do it. Syria is too big and the Arabs have learned from the Iraqis how to deal with an occupation. Israel cannot live with a successor to al Assad and it cannot take control of Syria. It will have to live with al Assad. And that means an occupation of Lebanon would always be hostage to Syrian support for insurgents.
Hezbollah has dealt Israel a difficult hand. It has thought through the battle problem as well as the political dimension carefully. Somewhere in this, there has been either an Israeli intelligence failure or a political failure to listen to intelligence. Hezbollah's capabilities have posed a problem for Israel that allowed Hezbollah to start a war at a time and in a way of its choosing. The inquest will come later in Israel. And Hezbollah will likely be shattered regardless of its planning. The correlation of forces does not favor it. But if it forces Israel not only to defeat its main force but also to occupy, Hezbollah will have achieved its goals.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
#1
Sounds like Hezbollah is setting up much like the nutters did in Fallujah. Anyone at Rantburg remember how that one turned out?
If they hope to set up an insurgency they are batty. Israel only needs to destroy the rockets and humiliate Hezbollah in order to be able to maintain face when they withdraw leaving Hezbollah as the weak horse. Baaka valley can be dealt with using airpower. IF they get rockets with that kind of range that'll be phase two but my guess is the loss of face Hezbollah is facing will cause them to regroup in Syria where they don't have to worry about Lebanese vengence.
#3
All that seems to be missing the 'Heroic Fighters of' and 'undefeatable' in front of the 'Hezbollah'.
Being dug in puts them in static concentration. In warfare this is not always an advantage. It means you can be surrounded, cut off, starved out and destroyed.
The Hizbu'allah or "party of god" name is all one needs to know about the orgaization. Dissassembling it is what needs to be done. Israel is the one doing it. While "experts" carp from the sidelines. Warfare is not fun and it's not easy. It entails risks.
Would these asshats prefer Israel did nothing? I am beging to thinks so.
#4
SPoD, the Japanese dug into bunkers in Iwo Jima were static and quickly became surrounded. They knew they were going to die, and their job was to make the Marines pay. We took the island but we paid in blood.
If Hezbollah is motivated enough they can do something similar in southern Lebanon. Will the Israelis pay sufficient blood? Don't know, but I know they don't particulary want to. And that's the problem.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006 16:45
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#5
(quick words home for a bite then back to work)
Stratfor misses one thing: in terms of reducing fortifications and fixed positons, Israel has some new tricks they have learned from the US actions in Iraq. Startfor is assuming a MOUT model from the 90's, not a modern one. And from there come sthe operational surprise that will coutner Hezbollah's stratigic surprises and attempts to shape the battlefield.
One thing they are right on about is the Bekka. Israel MUST clean it out. And that includes interdiction within about a foot of the Syrian border (i.e over at times).
Operationally speaking if Israel needed to, they could hit the logistics points for Hezbollha in Syria and smash up some Syrian military while thy are at it. Not enough to force an occupation, but enough to smash the C3I apparatus of the Assad regime - and let them know the cost for playing proxy with Hezbollah.
The latter will become neccesary once Israel has gathered enough actionable and exposable intelligence to show Syrian direct complicity with the attacks on Israel.
I believe such evidence can be gathered, and will ultimately be the capstone for strikes on Syria's air defense, airforce and army logistics points, as well as Hama's ammo dumps, headquarters and training areas in Syria. This will happen once they secure the flank of their thrust into the Bekka and seal the area south of the Litani river., cordoning off the fortified zones that Hamas has seled themselves into.
Hezbullah has had 5 years of Iranian and Syrian support and money, and complete negligence by the Lebanses government in which to prepare this war they have initiated.
They must be destroyed, Nasrallah and all his corhorts must be killed, or if captured, summarily executed as war criminals. And their supporters in Syria and fiscal suppoerters elswhere must be made to pay the ultimate price via assasinations by the Mossad. Those rich guys want martyes, Israel will give them martyrs. But not the poor deluded fools they fund and brianwash with hatred - this time, make the money men get their skin in the game whether they like it or not. Bullets, bombs and bankruptcy shoudl be their fate - and the fate of thier families as well (because that s how Arab society works)
#7
It's very difficult to hide, w/o plugging them up, tunnel entrances from infrared optics like those on tanks. The same tanks can then take out the tunnels. If the tunnels are plugged up, a thorough search by airborne ground penetrating radar and infantry will find them.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 17:39
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#8
If Hezbollah is motivated enough they can do something similar in southern Lebanon. Will the Israelis pay sufficient blood? Don't know, but I know they don't particulary want to. And that's the problem.
It was one of your generals who said that the purpose of a soldier is not to die but to help the fellow on the other side die. Just wait a week, or so.
#10
Iff my instincts on Israel's alleged "buffer zone" strategy is correct, Israel will also control the most + best of Lebanon's natural water systems, which in turn will eventually force the terror groups to seek formal supplies from Syria-Iran, which Israel + USA + NATO/Allies will be able to detect vv SATWAR.
Texas City is hard by Galveston.
TEXAS CITY - Bomb experts Thursday used one explosive to destroy another, purposely setting off a blast and a small fire in an apartment unit already damaged after a homemade substance exploded and killed tenant Matthew Robert Rugo, 21.
Just why Rugo and roommate Curtis Jetton, who survived the Wednesday afternoon blast with minor burns, mixed a chemical substance similar to one that FBI experts said has been used by Middle East suicide bombers remained a mystery after the pair's apartment was rendered safe enough to enter, Texas City Police Chief Robert Burby said.
Federal, state and local bomb experts said the mixture Rugo and Jetton created was too dangerous to remove from the pair's Lakeview Apartments unit, so they ordered hundreds of people to evacuate the 304-unit complex and the neighboring 132-unit Oaks apartment complex around 11 a.m. Thursday.
Federal and local officials said they believe the substance was peroxide-based and similar to TATP, organic peroxide and a primary high explosive. It takes the form of a white crystalline powder with a distinctive acrid smell and has been described as a weapon of choice for suicide bombers.
More at the link, plus a picture. Dead guy had been arrested before, for things like robbery. Otherwise there's no known connection to any terrorist or criminal groups. I suggest a certain amount of salt on the nature of the explosive. In previous reports we've seen how initial judgments can be wildly inaccurate.
#3
"He had turned himself around, he was a really good guy," Elizondo said. "He was doing real good."
Since he found Islam.
I just made that last part up but it fits with this and other similar sounding stories so well I thought i'd add it. Not that all Muslims are terrorists but dag nab it the majority of terrorists do seem to be Muslims.
Not that all idiots are muslims but dag nab it the majority of Muslims seem to sound like idiots lately.
#6
Asked about a televised report that Rugo and Jetton may have been part of a four-member local anarchist group, Burby said late Thursday: "I have nothing to substantiate that and I don't know where that came from."
Apartment managers said Rugo's mother leased the unit for her son in January but Jetton was not on the lease.
Whaddya think, Sarge?
What do I think, Muldoon? Notify the Loser Squad. Let them figure it out.
A new Osama bin Laden message from al Qaeda's as-Sahab Institute for Media Production is to be released soon, according to IntelCenter, which monitors extremist websites. Sites have begun to advertise a new message.
In his message, bin Laden will reportedly address events in Gaza and Lebanon. This message has been expected and is consistent with new efforts in 2006 by al Qaeda's senior leadership to be responsive in their messages to current developments.
Trying to stay relevent while Hezbollah gets all the headlines.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
12:40 ||
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#6
This message has been expected and is consistent with new efforts in 2006 by al Qaeda's senior leadership to be responsive in their messages to current developments.
Geez! That sounds almost as lame as some of the corp-speak memos I get at work from the suits. Wonder if Binny'll have a PowerPoint presentation to go with it.
. . . The energetic head of the DNC had this to say:
If you think whats going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldnt, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didnt get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The problem with Moral Authority is its antonym, the Palestinian Authority. Does Dean mean the Oslo accords? President Clinton had been in office less than a year. Theres a reason theyre not the Little Rock Accords: Norwegian diplomats did all the heavy lifting. (Specifically, suspending disbelief about Arafats motives, which can throw your back out if youre not careful.) Does Dean mean the Camp David negotiations, which ended in the bloody second intifada? Details, details. Moral authority, thats what counts. Doesnt stop wars, but it makes the bad guys look extra guilty. Ingrates!
This is not to underestimate President Clintons ability to make other diplomats feel good about themselves or produce impressive pieces of paper. But Mr. Clinton is not running in 2008, and neither Gore nor Kerry had his conspicuous gift for oleaginous empathy. Then again, who knows? Perhaps Al Gore would have Moral Authority gushing out his ear if hed chosen to leave Saddam in power. No question Hezbollah would be impressed - perhaps enough to aim the rockets to the left a little, so they landed on the outskirts of the playgrounds.
But the revelatory moment in Deans assertion was its touching faith in Talk and Work. President Gore or Kerry would have been working day after day after day on the issue. Non stop! Sleeves rolled up, dinner at the desk: make another pot of coffee, Mabel, this Golan Heights dispute wont solve itself. This suggests they believe the difficulties of the Middle East have the weight and consequence of a tariff dispute. This suggests that they dont understand that the Hezbollah definition of Disarm is blowing off the limbs of Israelis. Imagine a typical negotiation:
Fierce-eyed Hezbollah representative: Thank you for the invitation; lovely office. Death to Israel.
Gullible American: Well, thats just rhetoric; we understand.
Hezbollah: It is not rhetoric. It is truth. The Zionist entity is a festering infected splinter in the lip of the Caliphate.
(pause)
GA: So youre saying you want some antibiotics as well? We can do that. But you have to show us youre ready to coexist with Israel.
Hezbollah: We recognize the right of Israel to exist, but only as a footnote in history books.
GA: So we agree on principle, and the rest is just a matter of details. Great! Well draw up the treaty for the signing ceremony. Youre going to love the pens. Theyre Cross. Smoothest pen youve ever used.
Hezbollah: I will save it to plunge into the heart of the last Jew to crawl towards the sea.
GA: Do you need your parking validated?
Repeat until the last accords fall apart, then call for new accords.
Howard Dean is not a stupid man; he knows Iran and Syria are the real actors behind this game. But his words placate the netroots people who think that Bush is stumping the country blaming the Hezbollah attacks on Max Cleland. Fine. If Israel eliminates Hezbollah, humiliates the fascists of Syria and lets Lebanon get on with the Cedar Revolution devoid of murder-gang influence, will that be Bushs doing?
Of course not. He doesnt have the Moral Authority, like a Pope. Or Bill Clinton.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006
12:12 ||
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#1
Goes to show. The best peace process of all time is war.
Israel warned Lebanese civilians to leave border villages on Friday and called up 3,000 reserves in a possible prelude to a ground offensive that would expand its 10-day-old campaign against Hizbollah guerrillas. Thank you. We've been waiting.
Israeli planes dropped leaflets over south Lebanon warning civilians to flee for safety north of the Litani river, about 20 km (13 miles) from the frontier. A good place for a new border, don't you think?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
07/21/2006
11:50 ||
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#1
But Hizb'allah has been blockading them in their villages so as not to lose their meat shield. This needs to be highlighted.
#2
AP is reporting that Israel now has troops and tanks on the border. Probably giving Americans time to get out.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
07/21/2006 12:34
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#3
The call up of reserves puts a great strain on the Istaeli economy. They also needed time to move stuff around. Methinks we may see some serious action soon.
Posted by: DanNY ||
07/21/2006 13:32
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#4
The Hizb'alebanese did not drop leaflets just katushas.
#5
I don't know about most people, but if I had either the Israeli or American army telling me to get out of the way I sure as fuck would do it. Anyone else I would tell to go to hell and fight back.
#2
Many years ago, somebody had a lot of fun with this quiz, in which you had to guess which excerpts came from Al Gore's Earth in the Balance, and which ones came from the Unabomber's "manifesto." Seems to me you could do something similar with a page of quotes from (1) Saddam Hussein (2) Osama bin Laden (3) Cindy Sheehan (4) Pat Buchanan (5) Cynthia McKinney and (6) Howard Dean.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 12:40
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#3
But will they count the write-in votes for Saddam in the New Hampshire Democrat Primary in 2008.
Judging by how the trial is going, he'll still be alive...
by Stephen Spruiell, National Review Media Blog Boldface in the original.
Signs of the apocalypse, perhaps, or just an outbreak of common sense?
We are often very critical of the New York Times, but when its reporters and editors get something right we like to be the first to point it out. Today's coverage of the conflict between Israel and two Middle Eastern terrorist groups merits a few words of praise. At a time when Israel is facing growing criticism from the "international community" for its "disproportionate response," the NYT's story today includes a few helpful reminders about those doing the talking. Take Russia, for example:
Russia, which reduced parts of Chechnya to rubble in its fight against rebels there, also sharply criticized Israel, with the Foreign Ministry calling Israels actions in Lebanon far beyond the boundaries of an antiterrorist operation and urging a cease-fire.
Ouch. I didn't expect to see such a sharp rebuke in the pages of the NYT. Even more surprising was this reminder about the nature of Israel's enemy:
The small force of about 40 marines who landed in Beirut on Thursday were the first American military personnel to be deployed in Lebanon since the withdrawal of forces after a Hezbollah suicide bomb attack killed 241 Americans, mostly marines, in 1983. The marines who landed Thursday were from the same unit as those killed 23 years ago.
Finally, the NYT's account closes with the angry words of Nayla Moawad, the Lebanese minister for social affairs, who tells the world which country truly deserves the wrath of the "international community":
Ms. Moawad blamed Syria for setting off the crisis, saying that she was expressing her personal opinion. The decision of the Hezbollah operation was not taken in Lebanon, she said. Lebanon was taken a hostage, a mailbox of other peoples interests. It has been taken in Damascus, probably with an Iranian coordination.
Ms. Moawad was one of the leaders of the Lebanese revolt last year that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Syria has tried to destabilize Lebanon since her troops pulled out, she said.
The NYT's story today was no whitewash of Israel. The reporters didn't hold back in reporting on the horrible toll Israel's response has taken on civilians in Lebanon. But the reporters did provide essential context by pointing out the hypocrisy of Israel's critics, her enemy's terrorist past and the trail that leads back to Syria and Iran. We'd like to see more of that in the NYT and other news reports.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006
11:21 ||
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#5
Wonder if people with the finger on the NYT advertising revenue would have taken a new look at where they spend their monies if it had been any different? You know, with the paper imploding, downsizing, and all. Not that it would have been considered by the NYT editorial board. No, never, not here.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney was a no-show this week in the U.S. House, as WSB Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree reports that the Georgia Democrat missed all four days of legislative business and every vote on the House floor as well. Can we all agree that a vote without McKinney's input is at least one vote more in favor of America
McKinney's office offered no comment as to why the Congresswoman did not return to Washington after Tuesday's primary election, where she was forced into an August 8th runoff against Hank Johnson. pouting?
Also left unanswered Thursday night was whether McKinney would be back at the U.S. Capitol next week. The House has one more week of work before a scheduled August break.
McKinney missed 19 votes over four days on the House floor, including an attempted override of President Bush's veto of a bill dealing with embryonic stem cell research, a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and a bill designed to prevent federal courts from ruling on the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Georgia Democrat has missed nearly 11 percent of the 393 recorded votes in the U.S. House so far in 2006. that 11% is known as "the productive period"
According to the Congressional Record, McKinney did have official permission to miss votes on Monday and Tuesday of this week, what is known as a "Leave of Absence." There was no notice of any request being granted for Wednesday's session of the House.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006
11:18 ||
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#7
In other Georgia election news, I note that my friend garnered 21% of all votes cast in the GA-6 primary. He ran unopposed in the Dem primary, and he still got nearly 16,000 people to come out and vote for him anyway, and he received about 5,000 more votes than the GOP challenger.
Rough totals:
GOP incumbent: 47,000
GOP challenger: 10,000
Dem unopposed: 16,000
Here are the politicians who voted against Thursdays pro-Israel resolution; the full record is here: Final Vote Results for Roll Call 391. (Hat tip: Mark/tf.)
The arrival of the Ethiopian troops in some regions of Somalia indicates the animosity of the Ethiopian government that it has been unwilling for goodness and nationalism to the Somali society for 16 years, supreme leader of consultative council of Islamic courts Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said in an interview with Mogadishu based Somalia Radio Shabelle on Friday. Sheikh Aweys who is now in Somalia central Galgadud region harshly attacked the Ethiopian intervention as illegal occupation in Somalia territory and declared all out holy war (Jihad) against Ethiopian forces in Bay and Bakol regions in southwest of Somalia.
The world community should know the clear aggression by Ethiopia into Somalia and also Somalis have to understand that Ethiopia never wish bless for them, Sheikh Aweys said. I urge all Somali people to defend their country from Ethiopia and keep their independence existed, The sovereignty is not received by begging but it is reached through struggle and war, he said people should die for their freedom and scarify life and property,
Freedom? Under Islam?
When asked what to do since Ethiopian troops have occupied in Baidoa town to protect the UN backed transitional federal government, Sheikh Aweys quoted an Arabic proverb which says seek the death to get life. There is no other option for Somali people (Muslims) rather than to fight Ethiopian soldiers till to withdraw from their land, Sheikh Dahir Aweys, a prominent cleric and key founder of Islamic Courts said.
He condemned the transitional federal government based in the provincial town of Baidoa for handing over the country into the Christian Ethiopia government which is the only enemy in the region. Is the Baidoa based government Somali or member of Ethiopia? Is it responsible for Somali people and the republic or for Ethiopia? It is surprisingly that Ethiopia is thought to own Somalia, the Sheikh said adding I am certifying that Somalia government is an Ethiopian government,
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys accused by Washington of being in the list of US wanted terrorists but denied that accusation appealed the Somalis interim government in Baidoa 240km southwest of the capital to back out its plan of fueling war or make it clear that they belong to Ethiopians. He also called on international community to act quickly the deliberate aggression by Ethiopian in Somalia otherwise the world will not have to regret what the bad consequence that will result from the Ethiopian intervention.
Bad timing, Sheikh. The rest of the world is busy at the moment. Leave a number and we'll get back to you.
Sheikh Aweys said they are still ready to negotiate with the government officials. but it is misfortune that Ethiopian backed Somali government seemed be prepared to wage war in the country.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
10:45 ||
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#1
Enough with the Jihad crap.
Anytime some mullah utters Jihad a bomb should take him out.
Palov conditioning at it's best.
#2
On a more festive level, one shoudl invente a drinking game based on the Holy Men : declare jihad, three drinks, ask for an international law against "blaspehemy" (of the Master Religion), two drinks, sez allan will shake the ground below and freeze the blood of the Crusaders, one drink, sez jewish wimmen and material goodies are for the taking of the Moderate Muslims, two drinks, warns of deep laid plots against islam, one drink, etc, etc...
Everybody could get wasted in no time! Except muslims, of course, since they're not allowed to drink, theorically...
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 12:03
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people should die for their freedom and scarify life and property
Is that a fruedian slip ?
Posted by: J. D. Lux ||
07/21/2006 12:09
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The Ethioians have been there a month or so, according to Ruggerio. Look at this map I prepared. The Ethiopians are moving to secure the two best roads from their nation to the sea and Mogadishu.
The Ethiopian army has some experience in fighting and they are not at all adverse to hiring mercs, especially for their air force. This could be a one-sided fight.
HEZBOLLAH said Friday it rejects a plan by UN chief Kofi Annan proposing a ceasefire with Israel and calling for the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
#4
I can't imagine how bad i would feel if I was the UN. They have monitors who allow a group of people to ignore a resolution, use the weapons that were the subject of the resolution to start a war. Than ask them to ceasefire, so the bad Israel's will stop killing thier countrymen, and they say, take a hike. I would feel rally bad that I did'nt do my job. These deaths are on the UN.
If this dose'nt show the Lebanesee who side they (Hezbollah)are on , nothing will.
#7
(channeling the "Soup Nazi), Nasrallah is quoted:
"NO PEACE for you, Kofi, NEXT!" (/end channeling)
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 11:56
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Breaking: Syria rejects eUNuch delegation. Now what?
Today's powwow at the UN, that included Bolten, Rice and the eUNuch delegation (just returning from fruitless intense negotiations in the Mideast) was supposed to map out a diplomatic strategy. Rice goes to Egypt, Jordan and Israel. The eUNuch's goes to Syria. Now, it looks like the eUNuch's are all dressed up with no place to go.
July 21, 2006: The May 5 Darfur peace agreement is not working. Violence, in fact, appears to be increasing once again. A tribal leader (Masalit tribe, South Darfur) said the peace agreement has proved to be "just paperwork." South Darfur is reportedly experiencing a new wave of attacks by the Sudan-government backed Janajaweed militia. Many of these reports and claims are fragmentary, but UN humanitarian services have been interrupted by the fighting and ambushes. Despite the fragmentary and often unconfirmed reports, it is clear that the Sudan government has not disarmed the Janjaweed militia. Likewise, African Union (AU) peacekeepers have proved to be very ineffective. The AU peacekeepers complain that they were sent to Darfur to observe a ceasefire. The AU forces lack trained troops. Their firepower has proved to be insufficient firepower and the troops they do have lack mobility.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
10:33 ||
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SNIP...Snarky commentary first.NYE COUNTY, Nev.--"As you can see, Yucca Mountain isn't really a mountain," says our guide as we near the end of an hour-long bus ride, about 100 miles north from Las Vegas. "Those of you who know geology will recognize it's only a ridge."
The Department of Energy gives monthly tours these days, anxious to prove--after almost 25 years--it still intends to open its Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain someday. The trip, however, feels like an expedition into hostile territory. The whole state of Nevada is on the warpath over the project.
"See those buildings off on the left there," says our guide as we pass through the sagebrush. "They're brothels. As you may know, prostitution is legal in certain Nevada counties. The state has no trouble supplying them with water, but for almost a year they wouldn't give us any. We used port-o-potties for quite a long time." As it turns out, though, the brothels have their upside. Anticipating a surge in business from the construction project, they are among the few locals supporting the project. "Supporting", is right!
Now for the "meat" of the argument.
The whole project is now tied down in environmental impact statements. The Environmental Protection Agency set a standard that radiation from the site should not exceed 15 millirems a year (about one chest x-ray) for 10,000 years. Seems reasonable to me.
Environmentalists screamed that wasn't enough. They wanted a million years. A federal court, of course, agreed. (another reason for strong, Constitutional judges)
So the EPA set a standard of 350 millirems for the next million years (about two-thirds of what people in Denver get from natural sources) and environmentalists are screaming that isn't good enough either. (of course, and I bet they screamed all the way from their super-huge homes or out on their mega-yachts off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. NIMBY to the extreme...I guess this matches the lib's "free speech" issues...."1,000 MW for me, but not for thee!")Nobody has suggested how these standards are to be monitored. "Well, that's summin' else we'll just scream about too," GreenPeace activists yelled. I can't believe someone like these gaia-worshippers can be so hypocritical. We must shut down coal-fired power plants, AND not allow nuclear power AND not allow windmills off the NE's coasts. Just where do these moonbats think energy comes from?
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006
10:19 ||
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#1
Sometimes I think that any solution to the nuclear "waste" issue must be opposed by the environmental nutjobs. Because any solution makes nuclear seem a viable option. But even if all of the nuclear plants in the country were shut down today we still have the waste issue to deal with. It is not going to go away.
#2
This site is as good as it gets. We need it to have nuclear power in this country. We need nuclear power to reduce our geostrategic vulnerablity in the middle east and (at least according to some scientists though it is far from settled) to reduce carbon emissions.
Interestingly, the activists who oppose Yucca Mountain are often the same folks who want us out of the middle east and to sign the Kyoto treaty. Their positions are self-contradictory unless we return to the stone age.
For this reason I cannot take the Democrats (clearly the political party holding these positions) seriously on public policy.
#3
The father of one my best friends, a true JFK-style liberal, worked at one of the national nuclear labs. He's fairly left-progressive and dedicated green until you mention nuclear power. Then he goes ballistic -- what we needed, according to him, were fast breeder reactors, recycle all the fuel rods, incinerate the nuclear waste in the breeders, and have a closed loop for plutonium fuel.
Why? Because it's the least polluting of all our options, according to him.
I'd love to get him into the same room as the usual enviro-nnuts.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006 19:07
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Hallelujah Steve. Not only is the waste less radioactive, but the long lived radioactinides are burned in the breeder reactors.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 19:12
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Industrial giant Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) Friday said second-quarter earnings rose, and the company raised its outlook for the full year. The heavy equipment maker reported a profit of $1.046 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $760 million, or $1.08 a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 13 percent to $10.605 billion, the company said.
Rachel Corrie shares remain flat
Analysts, on average, expected the Peoria, Illinois-based company to report earnings of $1.42 a share on sales of $9.74 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. Caterpillar stock has risen about 20 percent this year through Thursday's close, outperforming its peers on the S&P machinery subindex , which are up, on average, about 10 percent. Caterpillar trades at about 11.7 times estimated 2007 earnings, a slight discount to its peers on the index, which trade, on average, closer to 12 times estimated 2007 earnings.
Caterpillar, official bulldozer supplier of Rantburg Heavy Industries. Accept no subsitute.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
10:16 ||
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Dammit Steve...post a no drinking warning before your comments...Rachel Corrie shares remain flat. Now I have to go change my shirt...
#2
Into the battles, making cages rattle
There's a pain that's inside us and we're letting it out
Charge right in, we dare to fail
No one is giving in, always we live to win
A hunger turns and burns inside of all of us
And it will not be denied
Bulldozer feeds upon the weaker as they fall
Bulldozer crushes all
--Machine Head, "The Ballad of Rachel Corrie""Israeli D-9 Fight Song" "Bulldozer"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 12:20
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There's also the Rachel Corrie Memorial iPod Playlist to consider:
Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company, "Caterpillar"
Jennifer Gentle, "Caterpillar Song"
Drive-By Truckers, "Bulldozers and Dirt"
The Scientifics, "My Bulldozer"
Iggy Pop, "Bulldozer"
Mojo Watson, "Run Rachel Run"
Donuts, "Caterpillar Blood"
Dave Matthews Band, "Crush"
Bruce Springsteen, "Crush On You"
Champ, "Squashed"
Badly Drawn Boy, "Rachel's Flat"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 12:29
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PEORIA, Ill. - The Board of Directors of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) today voted to increase the quarterly cash dividend by five cents to thirty cents ($0.30) per share of common stock, payable August 19, 2006, to stockholders of record at the close of business on July 20, 2006. The $0.30 dividend is an increase of 20 percent over the previous rate of $0.25 per share.
"Caterpillar expects 2006 to be its third consecutive year of record results, and today's announcement reflects the Board of Directors' confidence in Caterpillar's long-term outlook," said Caterpillar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens. "Our 6 Sigma process focus is enabling us to leverage our strong leadership position and grow our businesses while creating even greater operating cash flow. We're pleased to be able to reward our stockholders with another significant increase. Our future is bright, and all Caterpillar employees are focused on delivering even better results over the next few years." Including the announcement today, Caterpillar's cash dividend has tripled since 1996.
God I love the smell of diesel fuel and brick/mortar dust in the morning.
Another ESISC .pdf. By Abdelkarim Chankou, Editor of the "Détective Marocain"
In his "newsletter", "Le Détective Marocain (the Moroccan Detective"), the journalist Abdelkarim Chankou signed yesterday a remarkable leading article of courage, clearness and reason. Here is his article in exclusivity for Esisc.
In 1980 one member of the Moslem Brotherhood tried to assassinate the Syrian president Hafez el-Assad. Several Imams are then arrested by the Alawit clan. On February 2, 1982, under the control of 150 Sunnite officers, the town of Hama revolts.
Assad reacts violently by giving the order to besiege the city and to bombard it with heavy artillery. A third of the city - cash of many architectural jewels - will be destroyed and between 10 and 25.000 civil will be massacred during the 27 days of siege. The anti-subversive commandos infiltrated the columns of refugees fleeing the engagements and jail, torture and execute thousands of people. In Occident as in the Middle East, this massacre was approved by the governments. The General Alexander Haig, Secretary of State de Ronald Reagan, even welcomed the "firmness" of Hafez el-Assad: "This guy understands how to tackle the [problem of
the] bearded ones", he said at that time.
Less than one year later, another similar scenario is repeated in November 1983, in Tripoli (northern part of Lebanon), where Yasser Arafat and 11 000 Fedayin are, this time, besieged by their Syrian "brothers". Paris and Washington decide to ensure an exit to Abou Ammar. The French Army escorts him in his exile in Tunis. But right before the departure for Tunisia, a curious fact occurs: an Israeli sniper, posted at 200 meters from the port, sees the chief of the PLO about to embark and announces by radio to its HQ that he is in the right position to shoot him. Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin, which gave its word to the Americans that all the Palestinians would be saved, gives the order not to shoot!
This short historical background is not aimed at giving lessons to anybody or courting anybody, but is aimed at making allowances and learning two lessons:
1) 25.000 Syrian Sunnite civilians knowingly massacred in 27 days and a third of their Hama city destroyed by the Alawit clan, that does not move anybody whereas 327 Lebanese civilians killed involuntarily in 8 days by the Israelis in the tread of their war against Hezbollah, give rise to disgust and general indignation;
2) an Israeli sniper who first asks the permission to his hierarchy before shooting, even when the target is the enemy number one, that proves that Tsahal is a disciplined army.
Would a combatant of Hezbollah have initially called his chief Hassan Nasrallah before shooting Ehud Olmert if he was in position to do so?
#1
"1) 25.000 Syrian Sunnite civilians knowingly massacred in 27 days and a third of their Hama city destroyed by the Alawit clan, that does not move anybody whereas 327 Lebanese civilians killed involuntarily in 8 days by the Israelis in the tread of their war against Hezbollah, give rise to disgust and general indignation ... "
Of course it does "move anybody" because the Syrian massacre does not fit the drive-by Media and Left's template.
Template: West (Israel included) = Evil. Anything coming from oppressed, formerly colonized victims of Western imperialism is a reaction to injustice and therefore "authentic," "pure," "revolutionary," and "good."
by Pamela R. Winnick, Wall Street Journal This story fits in with Dr. Steve's commentary in the discussion thread on the NOLA doctors charged with snuffing patients during Hurricane Katrina.
A medical resident--we called her "Dr. Death"--at the Intensive Care Unit at Long Island's North Shore Hospital chased us down the hallway. "Your husband wants to die," she told my mother, again. Just minutes before I had asked her to leave us alone.
"He can't even talk," I reminded her.
"He motioned with his hands when we tried to put in the feeding tube," she said.
Not exactly informed consent, I pointed out as we turned our backs on her and walked down the hallway, trying to avert our eyes from the other patients in the ICU that night, each of them at various points in the so-called "twilight zone" between life and death.
Afflicted with asbestos-related lung cancer, my father, Louis Winnick, was rushed into the ICU in late May after a blood clot nearly killed him. The next day, my husband and I raced to New York from Pittsburgh. I packed enough work and knitting for what might be an extended stay, but I also put in a suit for what I was certain would be my father's imminent funeral. Still, he wasn't dead yet. And we had no intention of precipitating the inevitable.
"Dr. Death" was just one of several. A new resident appeared the next day, this one a bit more diplomatic but again urging us to allow my father to "die with dignity." And the next day came yet another, who opened with the words, "We're getting mixed messages from your family," before I shut him up. I've written extensively about practice of bioethics--which, for the most part, I do not find especially ethical--but never did I dream that our moral compass had gone this far askew. My father, 85, was heading ineluctably toward death. Though unconscious, his brain, as far as anyone could tell, had not been touched by either the cancer or the blood clot. He was not in a "persistent vegetative state" (itself a phrase subject to broad interpretation), that magic point at which family members are required to pull the plug--or risk the accusation that they are right-wing Christians.
I complained about all the death-with-dignity pressure to my father's doctor, an Orthodox Jew, who said that his religion forbids the termination of care but that he would be perfectly willing to "look the other way" if we wanted my father to die. We didn't. Then a light bulb went off in my head. We could devise a strategy to fend off the death-happy residents: We would tell them we were Orthodox Jews.
My little ruse worked. During the few days after I announced this faux fact, it was as though an invisible fence had been drawn around my mother, my sister and me. No one dared mutter that hateful phrase "death with dignity."
Though my father was born to an Orthodox Jewish family, he is an avowed atheist who long ago had rejected his parents' ways. As I sat in the ICU, blips on the various screens the only proof that my father was alive, the irony struck me: My father, who had long ago rejected Orthodox Judaism, was now under its protection.
As though to confirm this, there came a series of miracles. Just a week after he was rushed to ICU, my father was pronounced well enough to be moved out of the unit into North Shore's long-term respiratory care unit. A day later he was off the respirator, able to breathe on his own. He still mostly slept, but then he began to awaken for minutes at a time, at first groggy, but soon he was as alert (and funny) as ever. A day later, we walked in to find him sitting upright in a chair, reading the New York Times. . . .
On Father's Day, we packed my father's hospital room: his wife, daughters, grandchildren, each of us regaling him with our successes large and small. "Life's not so bad, after all," the atheist said. I wanted to go back to ICU, find Dr. Death, drag her to my father's room and say: "This is the life you wanted to end." But if I'm really to be a person of faith, I'll have to tackle forgiveness.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006
09:32 ||
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#1
A day later, we walked in to find him sitting upright in a chair, reading the New York Times.
#2
I noticed that, too. Irony meter pegged at "off-scale high."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 11:03
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#3
Residents like that wouldn't last very long around me.
Again, there's a difference between euthanasia and hospice care, killing a patient and comfort care. When the situation is truly hopeless, we'll work with families to help make patients comfortable. But that's the families' decision and not ours. It's never ours.
I never, ever want patients and families to worry whether I wear the white coat of a healer or the black hood of an executioner.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006 11:18
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Steve, every profession has its bad apples. If it's any consolation, yours has fewer than most. Given the temptations available to doctors, that is actually quite a compliment.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 11:58
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[...] I have to say, watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit. I surrender my credentials as Bush exposer - from the very beginning - to no man, but on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition. Lots of ethnic peoples, probably most, have at one time or another lost some territory; nobody's ever completely happy with their borders; people move and get moved, which is why the 20th century saw the movement of tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees in countries around the world. There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on -- the way Germans, Czechs, Poles, Chinese and everybody else has, including, of course, the Jews.
But I digress. I really wanted to say that, for all those who accuse the likes of myself and the birthday girl of being unpatriotic, or hating America first, the feeling I've had watching Israel defend herself and a US president defend Israel (a country that is held to a standard for "restraint" that no other country ever is asked to meet, but that's another story) just reminds me how wrong that is. I LOVE being on the side of my president, and mouthing "You go, boy" when he gets it right. He just, outside of this, almost never does.
#3
I would never say Bill Maher is a hate-America first kind of guy. I just think he'll say the shocking thing for a laugh or a headline.
It appears the shocking thing at his point is to support the Prez.
Maybe I'm too cynical. He was funny when his show was on Politically correct back in the day. Then again I knew a lot less about politics so perhaps he wasn't funny I just didn't know enough to know . Who knows.
SRINAGAR, India - Soldiers and police clashed Friday with Islamic terrorists militants in Kashmir, killing three insurgents, police said, as a separate gunbattle raged elsewhere in the divided Himalayan region.
The three terrorists militants were found door knob dead in the village of Sursan, 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, said the areas police chief, S. P. Pani. We had information about the presence of four terrorists militants in this village and accordingly cordoned off the entire village, he said. As troops were zeroing in on the target house, a gunbattle erupted. He could not say what happened to the fourth terrorist militant.
He's still running.
Pani also said a separate gunbattle was being fought in the village Khudwani, also south of Srinagar, and that nine terrorists militants had been killed by security forces in that area in the past three days.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
09:20 ||
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Prior to the rise of the Shia in Iraq, Hezbollah -- as a radical Shiite Islamist organization -- was Iran's main asset in the Arab world. In fact, it likely will continue to be used by Tehran as a key tool for furthering Iranian geopolitical interests in the region, until such time as Shiite power has been consolidated in Baghdad and Iran's interests there secured.
In its earliest days, Hezbollah was a classic militant organization -- the creation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite unit of the Iranian military. It was founded as a way to export the ideals of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's Islamic revolution to the Shiite community of Lebanon, and served as a model for follow-on organizations (some even using the same name) in other Arab states. It did not take long, however, for Hezbollah to emerge in Lebanon as a guerrilla movement, whose fighters were trained in conventional military tactics.
In the mid-1980s, Iran's premier intelligence agency, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), assumed the task of managing Tehran's militant assets -- not just in the Middle East but in other parts of the world as well. This allowed the Iranians, through a special unit within MOIS, to strike at Israeli interests in places as diverse as Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The relationship between MOIS and Hezbollah remains a subject worthy of study in light of the current situation in Lebanon. Of course, Iran has been Hezbollah's chief source of funding and weapons over the years, and the Iranians continue to supply extensive training in weapons, tactics, communications, surveillance and other methods to the militant wing of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The relationship is sufficiently close that the Hezbollah branch in Iran proper recently declared it would unleash militant attacks against Israelis and Americans around the world if given the order by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Tehran insists that Hezbollah is not an arm of official policy.)
Islamabad, 21 July (AKI) - The Pakistani authorities on Thursday ordered the evacuation of a northern area of the country, near the border with China, of tourists and foreigners after receiving intelligence reports of the possible presence of Osama bin Laden in the area. According to Arab daily al-Hayat, the presence of the al-Qaeda leader was reported in the extreme north of Pakistan in an area that borders China and Afghanistan. For this reason hundreds of tourists - most of them European - were made to leave the Chalinji Pass and the Wakhan corridor and the security forces closed all access to the area.
The intelligence reports that had reached Islamabad indicated that bin Laden and his deputy Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri - along with other leading figures of the al-Qaeda terror network - had decided to use the area bordering China as a secure refuge as it is not controlled by the US military. Al-Hayat says the reports were confirmed by Western embassy sources in Islamabad, who indicated that the choice of sticking near the China border was because US military bombers would not attack that area for fear of hitting China.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
09:04 ||
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ISI: "Osama, you were spotted. We have to get you outta here without being seen. Wait til we get the tourists out, then...."
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 9:28
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#2
Quite possibly the Chinese are sending a shipment of new ballistic missile parts and the Pak authorities don't want anyone near the highway area.
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 9:31
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#3
Or the Paks have dismantled and are sending one of their new F-16s to China for study
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 9:37
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#4
The Pakistani authorities sed, Bin Laden Hiding On China Border in SF or Berzerkeley.
#5
We can put a 500 pound bomb in a living room window, and we would worry about hitting China?
Maybe he thinks he's beat us, now on to another great satin, China.
Islamabad, 21 July (AKI/DAWN) - Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf has said that the government was determined to re-establish its control of the restive south-western province of Baluchistan and to "fix" the sardars or tribal rebel chiefs in the Baluchistan.
My cat's are "fixed". Is that what he means?
"We will protect national installations in Baluchistan at all costs and ensure full security to the development activities and to foreign investors there," he said in an address to the nation on Thursday.
In an address to the nation on Thursday, Musharraf paid a glowing tribute to security and intelligence agencies for establishing peace in the province in order to carry out development works. He criticised the media for 'misrepresenting the facts'. "But the bottom line is that the writ of the state will have to be established in Balochistan, Wana, etc. And I assure you that soon there will be peace in that province, he promised.
The president said that for 40 years three Baluch sardars, who were opposed to development and perpetrating atrocities on their tribes, had been pampered unjustifiably in the name of political settlement, "but no more". He insisted that the operation against the 'rebellious' sardars was being conducted by the paramilitary forces and not by the army, though some 1,000 armymen were assisting the security forces.
He said all the Bugti commanders had surrendered and the so-called Nawab Akbar Bugti was on the run, adding that of the total 77 sardars in Baluchistan only three Bugti, Marri and Mengal were opposing the government. Musharraf said over 16,000 sub-tribes of Bugti Rahejas, Kalpars, Masouri had returned to Dera Bugti after years of repression by sardars led by Nawab Bugti. "But I would not call him a Nawab as he is on the run."
He said the government had no option but to take serious action in Baluchistan where militants even possessed surface-to-air missiles and modern rocket launchers. "But I can say with full authority that terrorism and anti-Pakistan activities have been drastically reduced following the government's decision to take action against them." "How could we keep quiet when bomb blasts became a daily routine and people are targeting national installations, like railway tracks and government buildings?" he asked.
He was hopeful that the economic deprivation in Balochistan would subside with the commissioning of over mega development projects there.
Meanwhile the federal government has directed the four provincial governments and the chief commissioner of Islamabad Capital Territory to freeze the bank accounts of 42 suspected members of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an official source told the Pakistani daily Dawn on Thursday. The separatist group was one of two foreign groups that were banned this week in Britain under under laws outlawing the glorification of terrorism.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
08:59 ||
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LOL, Steve, that's the first thing that came to my mind, too. After reading the article, I'm not so sure that isn't his intent.
Vicenza, 21 July (AKI) - Italian police on Friday arrested four Algerian nationals on charges they belonged to a cell of the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat, a militant group based in Algeria which has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda. The arrests took place in a vast anti-terror operation in the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy and the central city of Reggio Emilia. The alleged terror ring was based in Venice and operated across Italy to finance the group and recruit militants to send to Algeria and Iraq. Ring members are also charged with forging identification papers and residence permits for illegal immigrants.
Interior minister Giuliano Amato said the operation was significant as cell members "were ready to reach Algeria and Iraq in an operational role."
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
08:57 ||
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Vicenza, isn't that where the US 173rd Airborne is based? I would read something into it if Italy didn't have islamic terror cells throughout all it's territory.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 11:48
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Baghdad, 21 July (AKI) - Iraqi authorities announced Friday the arrest of 19 terrror suspects who were allegedly preparing to attack a police station. At least one of those arrested may be linked to a series of car hijacking attacks in the city Sabaa al-Bur, west of the capital Baghdad, authorities said. "One of the suspects confessed he hijacked model Kia cars on the road to Najaf after killing the passengers," authorities said.
Last month gunmen took several South Korean-made Kia from pilgrims travelling to a Shiite religious site in Sabaa al-Bur. No trace of the cars' original occupants has been found.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006
08:50 ||
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A lot of people in Pakistan say that the Indo-Pak process of normalisation is at an end because India has not reciprocated Pakistans flexibility on Kashmir. Pakistans foreign minister Mr Khursheed Kasuri has gone so far as to say that Pakistan and India may go back to being hostile towards each other. He actually pointed to the tendency in the bilateral relationship to dip suddenly into the negative, meaning thereby that if it happened this time, it would be nothing new. Musharrafs policy towards India has come under attack because of Indias failure to match Musharrafs flexibility.
It was a tough choice for President Musharraf when he began violating the catechism on Kashmir. He may have started veering away from the traditional stance on Kashmir after the Kargil Operation, but the change came more overtly after 9/11. There was a sharp reaction against him for this, but a number of factors helped him change the hard line on Kashmir. First of course was the factor of the failure of covert war. It was virtually declared terrorism after 9/11, and the world balked at a reference to it after that. The mercenaries, labelled as mujahideen, had been successfully prevented by India from separating Held Kashmir from India and joining it to Pakistan. The second factor was the emergence of the indigenous Kashmiri resistance as the third party to the dispute outside of the UN resolutions.
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Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006
08:41 ||
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#1
I think India's still flexible and willing to deal with you Pakis, right after you cowards get the F**K out of Kashmir. As usual, all problems were instigated and perpetrated by Pakland and can be solved when all Pakis there are terminated or they slink away with their tails between their legs. End of negotiations.
[Some excellent statistics in this media release. This is one mother of a violent country. Jan]
The recent killings of four South African policemen and eight gangsters in a Wild West-type shootout in a Johannesburg suburb made international headlines. It was reported on CNN, BBC and in the world"s press. After a five-hour siege at a house, fourteen members of a crime syndicate eventually surrendered to the police. The area was compared to a war zone, and Johannesburg was "under siege" according to some press reports. The drama started after twenty armed gunmen stormed a supermarket in a western suburb. Both criminal syndicates and the storming of supermarkets have become common phenomena in the new South Africa, and the killings revealed how fragile is the line between life and death for policemen in contemporary South Africa.
It is now well-known throughout the world that South Africa has become its crime capital. Crime has become a scourge, and a corollary of this rise is the dissolution and dissipation of the South African Police Service. Whatever one said about South Africa"s past, there was a reasonable level of law and order. All that has gone. Baby rapes, hijacking, and cash heists are other new phenomena which only appeared as crime categories after the present government took power.
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#4
One other major difference to remembered about South Africa and crime statistics : in the not too distant past, crime was mainly under control and the police were efficient. So there is a social memory of that, and the present can logically be compared with the past. In most if not all of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, there has not been a time in most peoples' lives when crime was not high nor the police uncorrupt or inefficient.
#5
Anyone who thought anything else was going to happen when the white government was replaced by the ANC must have been on serious drugs. If you don't want to end up seriously racist, it's not a good thing to look too closely at South Africa.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 11:43
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#6
Ek dink Bush en Die Boer is aanspreeklik!
(I think Bush and the Dutch farmers are responsible)
#1
DA CALLS FOR THE SUSPENSION OF NATIONAL POLICE COMMISSIONER The DA is extremely concerned by reports alleging that the national Police Commissioner, Mr Jackie Selebi, may be involved with certain individuals linked to illegal activities.
#2
Both Jan Smuts and Winston Churchill have long since been spinning in their graves at 60Hz over what has happened in the countries they gave their lives to.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 11:34
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The difference between SA and Zim is about 5 years I reckon. Beautiful place, such a shame.
Washington - The Israel Project (TIP) today released a poll of American voters which shows growing support for Israel and an overwhelming feeling that Hamas and Hezbollah have gone too far.
Support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians has reached an overwhelmingly high 60 percent, while support for the Palestinians is at only 7 percent. A similar poll of likely voters conducted on behalf of TIP in January of this year, before the election of Hamas, found support for Israel at 45 percent and the Palestinians at 7 percent.
On the question of what is happening currently in the Middle East, Americans are following the situation closely and overwhelmingly believe Hamas and Hezbollah are going too far. When asked if Hezbollah is acting properly or going too far, the survey shows that by a margin of 68 percent to 7 percent, voters believe it is going too far. When the same question was asked about Hamas, the response was virtually the same, 66 percent say Hamas is going too far and 9 percent say it is acting properly.
"Americans clearly understand that in both the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli soldiers were killed and kidnapped. In both cases, rockets have been fired into Israel and Israel is responding in a way that it hopes will reduce the future threat. In both cases, American voters clearly believe that Hezbollah and Hamas have gone too far," said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of TIP.
In both instances, voters believe that Israel's response is justified by more than a two to one ratio. When asked if Israel is justified in what it is doing to Hezbollah in Lebanon, 59 percent believe it is justified and 20 percent say it is unjustified. In the situation in Gaza with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, 56 percent believe Israel's actions are justified, while 24 percent believe its actions are unjustified.
Voters were asked separately, in an open-ended response (where they supply the answer and multiple answers were allowed), who are the main providers of support for Hezbollah and Hamas. In the case of Hezbollah, 38 percent named Iran and 36 percent named Syria. In the case of Hamas, 38 percent said Iran and 32 percent said Syria.
"Americans understand exactly what is happening here and who is behind it. Over 70 percent of Americans name Iran and Syria as the primary supports of groups they label as terror organizations," Mizrahi said.
When asked if Hezbollah and Hamas are terror organizations or legitimate nationalist movements, Americans overwhelmingly believe they are terror organizations. In the case of Hezbollah, 60 percent believe it is a terrorist organization while 7 percent say it is a legitimate nationalist movement. In the case of Hamas, 54 percent believe it is a terrorist organization while 11 percent say it is a legitimate nationalist movement.
Voters are following the issue closely with 29 percent responding that they are following it very closely, 41 percent following it fairly closely while 21 percent are following it not too closely and 8 percent not at all closely.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research from July 16-18. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent. The January 10-12 poll was conducted by the firm Public Opinion Strategies among 800 likely voters. The margin of error was +/- 3.46 percent. Go to the link to read the questions and a breakdown of the responses. I think you'll be favourably impressed, especially if you've been frustrated by Zogby's polling techniques, and those sponsored by the Democratic Party.
#2
[span class=BrerRabbit]
Now is the time for the antiwar movement to ramp up its rhetoric and change people's minds. Let's see Pat Buchanan and Cindy Sheehan and Ned Lamont and Mersham & Walt and Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry get up and tell the truth about the evil Jooooos and their control over the US government and their world domination plans and the 4,000 Jews who didn't go to the WTC and the controlled demolitions and the black helicopters and flouride in the water and everything. Support Hamas, vote Democrat!
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Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 9:30
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I was watching Madeline Halfbright on Greta's show yesterday. Halfbright started with her usual complaints, then Greta blasted one right out the park with this question. Ok, Madame Secretary, "How would you resolve the situation?" Her answer was essentially: Well...well...well...well...well...diplomacy, of course. The two sides must come to an agreement.
Excellent!!Bravo!! The same answer my 6 year old daughter would've given. Good to know that PhD didn't go to waste. Whataputz!
As fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah, both the British government and the United Nations have called for the dispatch of an international peacekeeping mission to southern Lebanon. "The only way we are going to have a cessation of violence is if we have an international force deployed," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan added that such a force is "essential."
But with its long and troubled history in the region, the idea of sending a peacekeeping force should be dead on arrival.
In 1956, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers to separate the Israeli and Egyptian armies. At first the mission was successful. But in May 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sent 80,000 troops and 550 tanks to the Israeli border and demanded peacekeepers withdraw. They did. Less than three weeks later, the Six-Day War erupted. Peacekeepers unwilling to fight an aggressor and win cannot keep peace.
The UN tried again after the Yom Kippur War. In 1974, it sent a Disengagement Observer Force to separate the Israeli and Syrian armies. Butwhile the Golan Heights remained quiet, their mission was no success. Both Damascus and Jerusalem simply shifted the battleground to Lebanon.
After the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the United States, France and Italy sent peacekeepers to Beirut to separate both Israeli and Syrian forces and Lebanon's many militias. All went well initially. But on April 18, 1983, terrorists attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and, on October 23, 1983, a Hezbollah suicide truck bomber blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen. President Ronald Reagan promised to stand firm. "To remove them now," he said of the peacekeepers, "would undermine American credibility throughout the world." True, but he withdrew them anyway.
The Marines' departure from Beirut was a major defeat for peacekeeping. Not only would the Lebanese civil war continue for another six years, but terrorists also came to believe that the Western commitment to peacekeeping was ephemeral. In a 1998 interview, Osama Bin Laden called American soldiers "paper tigers," citing their withdrawal from Beirut as proof. That Annan yanked his staff from Iraq after the August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad underscored Turtle Bay shared the same lack of resolve.
It is not only timidity that undercuts the UN's ability to keep peace, but also its susceptibility to corruption. The July 12 kidnapping that sparked the latest violence was not Hezbollah's first. On Oct. 7, 2000, more than four months after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah guerillas using UN vehicles snatched three Israeli soldiers. After eight months of denying they witnessed the operation, UN peacekeepers in Lebanon acknowledged having a videotape, but balked at sharing it with Israel. To do so, they argued, might "undermine UN neutrality." Hezbollah executed the prisoners. And Israel learned an important lesson about trusting peacekeepers.
There is one exception though to the peacekeeping curse. The Multinational Force and Observers have for 25 years kept peace in the Sinai. Their secret? They came not to end a war, but only after a peace treaty was agreed to. But as long as Hezbollah, Syria and Iran seek to wipe Israel off the map, peacekeeping will fail.
Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
Another Claude Moniquet op-ed. Link is a .pdf. By Claude MONIQUET, President of the ESISC
Not a day, nor an hour goes by without television hitting us with the horrible images of the destruction that Tsahal is inflicting on Lebanon. All this accompanied by the interminable account of dead people. Yes, this war as yet without a name, kills many.
Yes, the hundreds of dead Lebanese include women and children. But first let us ask a question which is not just a mere formality. Hizballah is an army, an insurrectional army that is carrying out an insurrectional war. Now, in this sort of conflict, a civilian is often a militiaman who has just laid down his Kalachnikov or who will take it up a few hours later. This has to be said and has to be kept in mind. As must also be said and be kept in mind that Hizballah is a cynical organisation that feeds on the hatred and revenge spread by each death.
And that is why the army of cowards has its base in the civilian population, that is why it trains adolescents to become militiamen when it doesnt train them to become kamikazes and that is why it conceals its stockpile of weapons in family homes. It must also be kept in mind that the Israeli army forewarns the civilian population before it strikes.
This, of course, doesnt diminish the horror of both the death of innocent women and children.
But, its a fact, that all those who in political circles as well as in the media denounce the disproportion of the Israeli counterattacks are, in the final analysis, happy with the fact that Israel does the job, the hard workas the Russians say. Can there be anyone in Europe or in the Arab world who does not want to see an end to Hizballah, this totalitarian and terrorist organisation that, yesterday, took a democracy as hostage and that today takes hostage the entire Lebanese population? Can there be anyone who doesnt wish to destroy this armed branch of the Republic of mullahs.
Yes, the Israeli offensive upsets because it kills civilians. But, yes, it pleases in fact a lot of people - and many capital cities because at last it provides an opportunity to end with Hizballah (at least on a military level) and to force Teheran to realise that there are red lines that cannot be crossed.
Let us not fool ourselves : a retreat or weakness of the Hebrew State would do no service to the world and we are not referring here only to the western world if the offensive does not reach its logical end, that is, to destroy the Hizballah fighters, eliminate its leaders, break its chain of command and its operational capacity and get rid of the weight that its stock of missiles lay on Israel (not only on Israel but also on the Arab governments which, tomorrow, could upset Teheran, as well as Jordan ), then these dead will not have died in vain. If the military organisation of Hizballah is not destroyed, then, tomorrow, it will be the soldiers of the U.N.O. taking part in an army of intervention who will be the target of their weapons and the hostages who will rot in the caves of Beirut, as in 1985, will be foreigners.
The smart ones will say that it would be enough to apply the 1559 resolution of the U.N.O. Sure, but as it happens the only problem is that the U.N.O. is a giant with feet of clay that never has the willpower to carry out (its) decisions. The international community said it already years ago: the Hizballah has to disarm. But the Hizballah has refused to do it and has plunged Lebanon in tragedy. Who has been there to apply this resolution? Has the Lebanese Army? Certainly not! Besides, Lebanon is now led by a government that includes three Hizballah members one official and two sympathizers and its Prime Minister who asks the organisation to lay down the arms knows for certain that they will not listen. As to the President of Lebanon, Emile Lahoud, this valet who has sold his country to Syria, proclaims urbi and orbi that Hizballah is respected throughout the Arab world. His masters voice
Human nature and that of the world are such that laws without enforcement are useless. If that were not the case, would we really need police to apply penal laws in our democracies? Wouldnt the citizens follow the rules of their own accord? But that is not the case.
Today it is Israel that has to do the dirty job in Lebanon. Theres no reason, here, to crown with laurel-wreaths soldiers of this democracy. But maybe there is one reason to pay attention to the criticisms and the manner in which they are uttered. Today, when the Lebanese government or Europe, condemn the disproportion of the Israeli retaliation, they do it because of their failures, their cowardice and their compromises. These failures, this cowardice and these compromises, as much as the senseless provocation of Hizballah, have plunged Lebanon in mourning. The Israeli army is here only the instrument of destiny. But it is a very heavy weight to be carried by a democracy which, its true, after so many years, has become accustomed to go it alone.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 8:13
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#2
Israel is a front line state. If Iran gets ICBMs we will all be on the line. Could that happen? Condis on the way to Israel next week. I smell a status quo armistice.
#4
Juan Williams was on Fox agz radio babe Laura Ingraham, arguing for a surreal, "stronger US policy" which invols more diplo-talking, the UNO, and participation of local external or neighboring Muslim nations, i.e "the Talk"!?
I know some of you are interested in how you can help Israel as she fights the current battle in her war of survival. Here is an exerpt from an e-mail that arrived in my in-box this morning with some ideas from the Jewish National Fund. (The Jewish National Fund has been planting trees in Israel since the early part of the 1900s, and in latter years has branched out into other projects.) The web page has more information.
Your donations are making a difference! Since our appeal on Friday afternoon, JNF has raised $514,534 for Operation Security Blanket.
With an estimated 100,000 Israeli children currently living in bomb shelters, JNF is working to restore a sense of normalcy and calm for as many as possible by sending them to our summer camps in central Israel, out of range of rocket fire. Unlike the much touted Hamas and PLO/Fatah summer camps (presumably closed this summer) the children will do normal summer camp things, not be trained as soldiers and suicide bombers.
Nes Harim, a JNF camp in Jerusalems American Independence Park, is working at full capacity to accommodate hundreds of children at a time for three-day stays. Israel's top youth movement, Chugei Sayarut, a division of JNF-KKL, is also retrofitting forest sites for summer camps throughout central Israel and the northern Negev for five- to seven-day stays. JNF is providing roundtrip transportation, food and activities, and security.
Donations are going to help build security bypass roads by the Gaza border. Emergency response equipment, including bulletproof vests, helmets and personal safety kits for firefighters, is getting into the hands of rapid response workers. A $100,000 emergency response vehicle/fire truck has already been purchased through this campaign.
In addition to donating online, you can also call your local office at 888-JNF-0099.
On Friday, July 14th, Gideon Meir, Deputy Director General, Media and Public Affairs, Israel Foreign Affairs Ministry, spoke to top leadership of JNF on the current situation in Israel. Click to hear a recording of the conference.
THE Israeli military is calling up several thousand reserve soldiers to reinforce ground units operating on the northern border with Lebanon, a military source said today.
"The army called up several thousand reserves in order to strengthen our forces against Hezbollah," said the source. They said the number called up would be fewer than a brigade, which numbers around 3000 soldiers.
On July 12 the army called a rapid deployment division of 6000 soldiers to the country's northern border hours after two soldiers were snatched by Hezbollah guerrillas, sparking a massive Israeli offensive.
Ethiopian troops were moving closer to the Somali capital Mogadishu amid fears of all-out war in the volatile Horn of Africa nation where Islamists have risen to power, witnesses told Reuters. Ethiopian soldiers were moving beyond the provincial seat of the interim Somali government in Baidoa to the towns of Buur Hakaba and Baledogle, various local residents said.
Addis Ababa denies it has soldiers there, while the Somali government, which has little authority beyond Baidoa, said people were confusing its militia because they were wearing uniforms donated from Ethiopia.
And carrying guns donated from Ethiopia ...
Nominally Christian-led Ethiopia, the main power in the Horn of Africa, correctly views the Islamists as "terrorists" and supports Somalia's interim government. It has not hesitated to send troops in to attack radical Islamic militia in the past.
Some 2,500 Ethiopian soldiers remained camped in Baidoa, protecting government installations like parliament, the presidential palace and the town's airport, the witnesses said. "A few are walking on the streets. Although the town is calm, people fear the presence of Ethiopian troops might trigger a war here," said Ali Hassan, a Baidoa resident.
Another resident said Ethiopians had stationed their heavy equipment and military arsenal near an airport at Eldon town, 18km north of Baidoa.
Somalia's deputy information minister Salad Ali Jelle rubbished reports of an Ethiopian incursion, saying government forces had mobilised because of recent Islamist advances and were being mistaken because they were wearing donated uniforms. "People are confusing the government troops wearing military uniforms donated by Ethiopia," he told Reuters. "There are around 3,000 patrolling Baidoa, and its vicinity, as well as guarding government buildings like the parliament... There are no Ethiopians whatsoever in Baidoa."
"What about all the hard boyz speaking Ethiopian on the street?"
"They're .. bilingual Somalis."
In the Islamists' stronghold of Mogadishu, which they took from US-backed warlords in June, demonstrators were set to protest against the incursion by Ethiopian troops and express support for their new Muslim rulers. The Mogadishu demonstration, organised by civil society groups and businessmen whose money has underpinned the Islamist rise, was to start after Friday prayers, organisers said.
So the new rulers know how to throw a demonstration complete with eye-rolling and face-making ...
The rise of the Islamists has threatened the authority of the transitional administration of President Abdullahi Yusuf, formed in 2004 to steer the nation from anarchy to peace. Western nations back Yusuf's government in principle, but recognise it has little political or military power. UPDATE: On Thursday morning, about 100 Ethiopian armored cars, trucks carrying soldiers, and armed pick-ups drove into Baidoa. Some of the troops moved on to station themselves in the strategic region of Gedo. Agence-France Presse reported that the Ethiopian troops received a triumphant welcome in the town, which had feared an imminent invasion by the Islamists. It is estimated that Ethiopia deployed a limited contingent of 5,500 soldiers to help protect the interim government.
This came to my mind because of the recent jacques myard proposal for France to use its Military Might(Tm) to rein in Israel.
The whole debate is pretty instructive, see for example Überdhimmi anna lindh after whom was named an Eurabia institute (cf. #3), but this paul-marie couteaux gets to be the most outrageous one.
This guy is now with Philippe De Villiers, catholic conservative sovereignty pol, interesting in his denunciation of France islamization and who cannot be suspected of antisemitism (he's pretty popular among french jews), but who is very suspect in my eyes with such companions.
Coûteaux (EDD). (FR) Madam President, the most surprising thing about our debate is our surprise, for Israel's expansionist policy is the inevitable and predictable result of the growing imbalance in the region, the stability for which we bear much of the responsibility. Firstly that is because since 1967 most of our states, with the notable exception of France, have continued to give the State of Israel a state that is growing increasingly self-assured and domineering the impression that it can violate international law and UN resolutions with impunity.
In reality, here as elsewhere we have followed Washington and persist in closing our eyes to the theocratic excesses of this religious state whose governments are under the thumb of fanatical parties and minorities that are just as bad as the other groups of religious fanatics in the region. That is why we should envisage imposing sanctions on Israel.
There is, however, another serious imbalance for which we are in part responsible, namely the imbalance of forces. I have no hesitation in saying that we must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants. That is the policy my country pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a nuclear force. We have now destroyed it. So we will carry on with our policy of imbalance and what is happening today is merely the annoying but inevitable result of our collective blindness and cowardice.
#2
drivers propel tons of mass that can prove fatal in a collision. MPs propel mass quantities of hot air, that while highly pollutive, are rarely fatal.
#3
If it comes down to a fight between the EUropeans and and the Jews I'll side with the Jews. I expect nothing in return. If it is between a nuclear Iran and an civilization in EUrope I will let EUrope slide into barabrism and destroy Iran.
EUrope has evidenced quite enough that it's word is not worth much and it's treaty obligations matter for naught.
This is just how the EUropeana have treated us here in the US. Turn about is fairplay. It's also quite over due.
#4
Rarely fatal? This punk is proposing to give nuclear weapons to people whose ideology is more agressive and expanwsionist than Nazism itself
And while we are at it this guy is proposing to ally with the movement who killed 73 of his compatriots in a single day. France should be napalming Hizbollah instead of whinning about it.
A HARDLINE Muslim cleric barred from Britain for glorifying violence said today he tried to get on board a British warship to flee Beirut but was turned back. "The answer was, 'unless you have a British passport you are not entitled to come on board'," Omar Bakri told Sky News.
Syrian-born Mr Bakri left Britain for Lebanon last August, saying he was going on holiday, after British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to silence Islamists glorifying violence.
Mr Bakri, who had lived in Britain for 20 years, said he had shown his British driving licence and his cancelled British passport. "I know myself I am not welcome in the UK ... but I have the right like everyone else to safety," he said. "It is better to try and fail."
He doesn't feel safe around Hezbollah? Wonder why?
Britain barred him from returning to the country as part of a government crackdown on Islamic preachers who it says inspires suicide bombers like those who attacked London's transport system last year, killing 52 people. The British Home Office said he had been barred because his presence was "not conducive to the public good".
In an interview with Reuters in Beirut last August, the cleric said he had no intention of returning to Britain because of the way Muslims there were being treated.
#2
A documentary on primetime terrestrial TV the other evening implicated this shitbag with both British suicide bombers in Israel and Siddique Khan of 7th July fame. Hand his dwelling's GPS to the IAF. Legitimate target.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
07/21/2006 5:17
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#4
Notice how this Jihad(Tm)-preaching douchebag, who incites young men to commit violence and to go out and fight, is crapping his pants as soon as real violence (and not the worst one, IE the indiscriminate one he advocates) comes a tad near him???
Absolute coward, utter hypocrit.
And these are the sh*theads who tell the whole world they're gonna win because they "love death more than we love life"?
HILARIOUS!
It reminds me of the limousine liberals who can't stop criticize the army and the use of force, but to quote an israeli from one of my ML, "become more militaristic than anybody and ask for harsh measures to be taken as soon as the bombs start coming closer to them"...
#5
Another failed opportunity! ..... "Thats right Omar, all we have remaining for sleeping quarters are these empty torpedo tubes, but they're nice and quiet, very private."
"He had a shuttergun and two cartridges of bullets. Halt! Absconder!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 8:24
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#9
Poor Omar is probably using up his supply of 'Depends' while imagining what would happen to him if he fell into the hands of Israel, or worse - one of its Lebanese allies.
The last of his dole money probably ran out too
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 8:29
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#10
All of the radical's talk about fighting Jew's, and here's one with an oppurtunity, and he wants to leave to live on the dole in England. This is one of your revered your leaders.
In February this year, he told Radio Four that the person(s) responsible for the cartoons of the so-called prophet Mohammed should be killed: 'However, in Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammed said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed. This man should be put on trial and if it is proven to be executed.'
For a man who glorifies violence, terrorism and bombing it is now a delight to hear that he is not too happy about being in Lebanon while Israeli bombs are falling around him. The bravado of a man who supported killing has evaporated and he is now pleading with the British authorities to be allowed to return to Britain, the country he abused and wished to see vanquished.
Reuters reports that earlier today, Bakri had said he tried to get on board a British warship which was evacuating civilians, but was refused permission to board.
The answer was, 'unless you have a British passport you are not entitled to come on board,' he told Sky News. He said that he had shown British officials his UK driving license and his now-cancelled British passport."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 8:37
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#12
Asharq Al Awsat interviewed him ten days ago. Among the highlights...
Q) Do you think about going back to the United Kingdom?
A) No. I do not think about that unless Britain renounces its terror laws through which it is terrorizing Muslims under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It is religiously prohibited for people like me to return to the United Kingdom, because this would fall within the framework of offering oneself as captive. Islam prohibits Muslims from allowing themselves to become captives of nonbelievers.
Oooops. Let turn some pages in the Koran to get me out of that. It's in here somewhere. Oh. Okay. There it is. Phew!
#15
tu3031 shows us a good point. Katie Curic was wondering want we want to hear. How about this interview, then him trying to get on the boat. That's true, hurts them and not us. Oh, answered my own question.
#17
The Ballad of Brave Sir Omar
Bravely bold Sir Omar rode forth from Beiruit.
He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Omar!
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Omar!
He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken;
To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away;
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Omar!
His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
And his pen--
#18
According to Al-Guardian, Omar sez, it's for "the children"...
"I am appealing on behalf of my children who are worried and they want to see their own father. Do you want my little sons or my little family to come now to Lebanon? I don't think you want that."
I'd tie ribbons around them and pack them up on the next boat down, scumbag.
#19
I don't understand why he bothers with a long boat ride back to Britain when his home country is just a few short hours away by car.
Posted by: Azad ||
07/21/2006 11:40
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#20
Thanks tu, I was wondering where the Bakri baby factories and future jihad units were stationed. I'm sure Brave Sir Omar is still on the Brit dole via the blessed infidel invention of Western Union.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 12:00
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#21
Karma's a bitch.
Posted by: Jan ||
07/21/2006 12:16
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#32
Muck, you misunderstood the question. Towing Omar Bakri behind the cruise ship might be nice to him, but not to the people at the ship's destination.
Posted by: Phil ||
07/21/2006 22:18
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#33
ima wuz shure em kids wuld luv em water skiins jihadi show. :)
LEBANESE Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said there was no apparent political settlement to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and has accused the United States of encouraging Israel's offensive on Lebanon. "The United States is allowing Israel to pursue its aggression," he said.
Mr Siniora said the UN delegation in charge of negotiating a ceasefire did not return to Lebanon from Israel because the Jewish state gave a "negative response" to ideas put forward for a halt to hostilities during a visit in Beirut on Monday. "The Israelis are rejecting a ceasefire to continue to exert pressure in order to reach their objectives," he said, without elaborating.
He got one right!
Mr Siniora said the Lebanese government was working for a "ceasefire and a solution to the issue of the (captured) Israeli soldiers and the Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons".
Asked about the fate of the two captured soldiers, Mr Siniora said his government "did not ask Hezbollah" to hand them to Lebanese authorities.
Because he knows better.
He said he has not had "direct contacts" with Hezbollah since the start of the offensive, but that links between the two sides were maintained through parliament speaker Nabih Berri - a Hezbollah ally - for "practical reasons". He did not elaborate.
Nor did he need to.
Mr Siniora said "the government should be the only party to decide important issues such a war and peace" and that "the Lebanese want no state but the state and no arms but those of the state".
"But our priority is to preserve national unity and it is a matter which is not subject to any compromise," he said. "Hezbollah's position is different but we should reach a solution in concert with them," he said.
Mr Siniora said he was determined to extend state sovereignty over all Lebanese territories. However, he said that extending state sovereignty would not be carried out at the expense of national unity and that Hezbollah's disarmament - also a United Nations demand - would not be imposed with force.
Which means it won't happen unless the Israelis squash them.
Mr Siniora said the damage inflicted by Israel's offensive on Lebanon was "enormous" and has "brought back the country dozens of years".
#2
LEBANESE Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said there was no apparent political settlement to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and has accused the United States of encouraging Israel's offensive on Lebanon.
Not the brightest bulb is he?
1. Resolution 1559 - you should have done something about it
2. The endless 'ceasefire/hudna' merry go round is over - deal with it
3. The Israelis are going to kill Hezbollah - don't stand in their way
4. Of course the United States is encouraging Israel's offensive - on Hezbollah
5. At the end of this, you might well get your country back free of Syrian influence, certainly Hezbollah will be lying on it's back spasmodically kicking - a can of raid should help...
Don't Prime Minister's have to take an entrance exam or something; "Basic Geopolotics" or somesuch?
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
07/21/2006 2:17
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#3
Do I understand correctly that this guy is going to sic the Lebanese army on Israeli troops if they invade Lebanon? That's about the only fate worse than attacking Hezballah itself! It must be a political ploy. Any ideas?
#7
Mr Siniora said "the government should be the only party to decide important issues such a war and peace" and that "the Lebanese want no state but the state and no arms but those of the state".
Ms. Seniora cannot even decide if she is a women or a man , how can she decide on issues of State and arms ??
"But our priority is to preserve national unity and it is a matter which is not subject to any compromise," he said.
Ms. Seniora, you may not know it yet but your country has nbeen hijacked by Iran about six years ago - you are bassically the front post of Iran in their war against western civilization.
"Hezbollah's position is different but we should reach a solution in concert with them," he said.
If you are going to reach a solution in concert with the Hizbollah, I am afraid the concert is going to be your Requiem !
Mr Siniora said the damage inflicted by Israel's offensive on Lebanon was "enormous" and has "brought back the country dozens of years".
Don't worry, by the time we're through with you and your Hizbollah friends and colleagues, your country is going back to the stone age !
This is the price you pay for letting the turbans take over your country, so stop whinning, step aside and let us do you the undeserved favor of kicking the Hisbollah's ass out of your country.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
07/21/2006 6:38
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#12
No shit sherlock, we are encouraging and providing ammo for it too. More dead terrorists that aren't gonna hurt us or our friends. Don't look like a terrorist, get it?
#13
Seniora wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror, and says what? "I'm the weak, ineffecive leader of a country held hostage by terrorists, drawn into a devastating war. But I get to wear natty suits, eat good food, and live in a mansion. Man, life is good! Please don't hit me!"
#14
Bush had stated that we will fight terrorism and the countries that support them. Back then, I thought he was urging Israel to stomp on Hamas and Hezbollah. The WOT is ongoing. Israel, India, the UK, the USA, Australia, and a gaggle of other countries are fighting the WOT.
To VICTORY !
CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told.
Skaf and an associate, who can be referred to only as AA, were convicted in the NSW Supreme Court in April over the August 2000 pack rape of a 16-year-old girl in Greenacre's Gosling Park, in Sydney's west.
During the pair's sentencing submissions today, Skaf's lawyer, Peter Zahra SC asked acting Justice Jane Mathews to take into account that his client, already serving a 28-year sentence for other offences, was approaching nearly six years in custody. He said Skaf, who has been convicted twice of the Gosling Park attack, had "no friends" in prison and faced "onerous" and "very dangerous" conditions. "There are prisoners that want to kill him - and they are not from any particular ethnic group," Mr Zahra said.
Ran afoul of the prison pecking order, did he?
AA's lawyer Matthew Johnston said his 22-year-old client should have the opportunity to participate in educational programs inside jail, which would "certainly go to his prospects of rehabilitation".
Acting Justice Mathews said she would sentence the pair within the next two weeks, but did not fix a date.
Skaf, now 24, was convicted in 2002 on two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent in company, while AA was found guilty of being an accessary before the fact. They were among up to 14 men allegedly involved in the attack.
Skaf made NSW legal history when he was sentenced to a record 55 years in jail for leading a string of vicious gang rapes - including the Gosling Park attack - in 2000. But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in 2004 quashed Skaf and AA's convictions over the Gosling Park attack and ordered a retrial after it was revealed that, during the trial, two jurors conducted their own investigations at the scene of the rape.
Skaf remained behind bars while awaiting retrial, with his sentence for other sex offences having been reduced to a maximum 28 years on appeal. AA's overturned conviction and a subsequent appeal resulted in his jail term for the same series of attacks being reduced from 32 to 19 years.
#1
I don't want him to be killed, I just want him to be at the receiving end of a "pack rape".
I'm normally very shocked by sexual predation in jails, since it actually targets the most vulnerable prisoners (most often white teens without real criminal background, who are preyed upon by organized ethnic gangs), but in this case, I'll more than gladly make an exception.
I can't wait to hear he's got aids, or had all his teeth knocked out so he could perform oral sex without risking biting his Master...
Let's all hope for Karmic justice.
Btw, my recollection of that sordid stuff is pretty hazy (there was two separate major strings of gangrapes, one lebanese, and later on, one pakistanese IIRC), but... isn't he the one (him or an associate) who made phony terrorist threats while in jail, claiming that if "all muslim prisoners weren't freed from australian jails", then the country would be brought into submission by bombings?
At the time, it perplexed me, not because of this pathetic threat, but because it was so revealing on the worldview of Moderate Muslims(Tm).
#4
Also what is new here? Rapers have never been popular between "honest thieves" and still less when, like this guy, they raped an underaged girl.
Why should this guy get better protection than any other raper?
#6
Rapers have never been popular between "honest thieves"
In France, rapists are called "pointeurs" and are not liked, BUT, they do constitute a large part of prisoners, especially among the young ones (think "Youths"); I'm not sure at all, but I think that about 40% or more of criminal cases handled by justice are gangrapes or rapes.
So, when you're from the "right" ethnic/religious background and are a rapist, it is really not a big deal, and you're not in danger, I'd venture... you're in good company, and with friends from the 'hood (about 2/3 muslim in french jails, at least over 50%, over 80% in big cities jails; the Economistr had an article saying that there was 9x more convicts in french jail with at least an migrant parent than with "ethnic" french ones).
Of course, it's a different story for child abusers who are put in protected segragated section (but, again, there's a real hypocrisy, as many gangrapes in the projects are made upon teens aged 13, 14, 15 years, and I've seen in my local newspaper 2-3 weeks backs a short story about an attempted rape by a group of 15-16 years old on a 12 years girl, and this was not the first story like that at all).
#7
Well, gee, since he's such a tough little man according to his Wiki, it should be no problem that the other guys don't like him.
He's just torked that he's gonna be the catcher and not the pitcher, that's all. Can't have a Lion of IslamTM in that position, nope, not at all, no way.
Who often have daughters. Another case of artificial justice trying to displace consent justice among the governed. When the elites poo-poo penalties for hideous crimes all in the name of enlightenment without the consent of the govern, the old 'Godfather' means of justice often resurface. The responses already posted observe the value they hold hand slapping punishment for such crimes. Remember vigilantism is often the product of a government/authority that cant or wont carry out its responsibility.
Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday night that the two Arab children who were killed by a Katyusha rocket in Nazareth on Wednesday were "martyrs for the Palestinian cause."
Nasralla offered his condolences to the family of the two brothers in an interview with Al-Jazeera television. Disgusting.
#2
So, YOU kill them Nasrallah, and then call them "Martyrs"? This is prime time. Nevermind that you fire missiles at anyone at all in Israel. I'm not done with you yet.
#3
Hey, it's OK, they're martyrs now! But wait, there's more! The for the destroyed families of the first 100 unwitting martyrs I make under the age of 13, they all get to be martyrs, too! All you have to do is express your overwhelming joy about your kids' hideous death and badmouth Israel on TV! Hurry up and call now, it doesn't get any better than this!
#4
Just like the several hundred Muslims who died at the World Trade Center.
Hey Nasrallah, you dips**t, if they were Druze, are they still martyrs?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/21/2006 8:40
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So does this win the family like a free grenade or a mortar round personally autographed by Naz or something?
The prizes just aren't nearly as good since Sammy got the jug...
KATMANDU, Nepal - A planned peacemaking meeting this week between leaders of Nepals communist rebels and the ruling political alliance will likely be postponed, further delaying attempts to end a decade-old conflict, officials said on Thursday.
The already-delayed meeting - between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, top leaders of the seven-party ruling alliance and Maoist rebel leaders Baburam Bhattarai and Prachanda - had been scheduled for Friday. However, the meeting was likely to be postponed again because the government side has not been able to complete preparations it, said government Minister Ramesh Lekhak, a member of the government peace negotiating team.
The first such meeting was held on June 16, when the leaders decided that within a month an interim constitution would be written and put in place, along with an interim government that would include the rebels. However, there has been little progress in drafting the interim constitution, and no development in the rebels joining an interim government.
Instead, differences are widening between the two sides, who have been blaming each other for the delay in the peace process aimed at ending more than a decade of deadly communist insurgency in the impoverished Himalayan country.
Maoists to resume killing in 5 .. 4 .. 3 ..
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006
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A growing number of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leaders and volunteers are questioning the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in donations collected in the past 15 months, challenging the organization's leadership over financial accountability.
Many of the group's most active members say they have no idea how much money has been collected as part of its effort to stop illegal entry -- primarily along the U.S.-Mexico border, what it has been spent on or why it has been funneled through a Virginia-based charity headed by conservative Alan Keyes. Several of the group's top lieutenants have either quit or are threatening to do so, saying requests to Minuteman President Chris Simcox for a financial accounting have been ignored.
Other Minuteman members said money promised for food, fuel, radios, computers, tents, night-vision scopes, binoculars, porta-potties and other necessary equipment and supplies never reached volunteers who have manned observation posts to spot and report illegal border crossers.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006
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#1
How did Alan Keyes get involved in this ? Is he trying to outdo Jesse ? I thought Simcox was OK, but now I wonder.
There is you answer right there. This really is a scandal because people have donated millons and I'm guessing most of it went to reelct Alan Keyes.
This worm won't have the option of just saying it's his businessbecause the money wasn't donated to him or to Alan. Really a sad situation. And of course, as usual, we won't be able to expect our federal government to help. They'll sit on the sidelines instead of getting involved in this fraud.
#7
I got mail from Simcox et al, the usual funding request. I'm holding off until this shakes out.
My local pro-life charity can have this slug of money - they are using it to pay medical cost (prenatal, post-natal and delivery) for pregnant girls/women who cannot afford to have a child but had the courage to say no to the abortion industry (Planned Parenthood Liars).
#8
FYI: souce of this is the Wash times - a normally right-side paper. So this isnt jsut NYT style posturing.
Questions have been asked - answers must be given.
Simcox is stonewalling, and any time there is a pool of moeny and policiians sniffing around it (Keyes), I get VERY suspicious.
We need an open non-profit organization formed that will openly accoutn for all funds - and have a single mission: the securing of the US Borders against illegal entry.
We want the government to be accountable - and so should the Minutmen, no double or lesser standards allowed. From what I'm reading, Simcox is jacking this up big-time!
Simcox = wrong guy for the part. Right place, right time, right cause - wrong person.
He had no organizaitonal skills but thought that he did. His ego got in the way when the real pros (ex-military) showed up ans started calling him out on all this - and he went running to Keyes, who has an agenda of his own. Now hes hosed.
And no this will not end the movement - the pros will do an end around and set up a proper organization, one that focuses on operatiosn and is properly formed as a non-profit with full and open accounting - and an organizationt hat will do the damn job instead of talking about it.
the labor is there - freely volunteered. so is the organizational skills. All it takes is for some of the old founders to get out in front of a new organization, set up patrols, etc - and be very clear about where the money and supplies go, and demonstrate a linkage between donations and border security.
It can be done - and better now than when it was the only game in town.
#13
OS -- glad you popped in. I do believe this is going on. My question. Why are these people doing this? Is there something about power that I just don't understand? Do they so think the Repub are so wrong, that it is their duty to do this? Or, is it a money issue, or just simply, a power question?
If you can't answer, I do understand. Thanks for staying close to us.. I always feel much better, seeing your name!
HONG KONG - Asian governments struggled on Thursday toevacuate nationals from war-torn Lebanon, with some coming in for criticism, as the Philippine president asked for 30,000 Filipinos trapped by the conflict to be spared.
Guess we're not the only ones a little slow off the mark.
President Gloria Arroyo, facing criticism for failing to do enough for the stranded Filipinos, many of whom are female domestic workers, insisted her government was doing everything it could.
But Filipino officials have conceded they are unable to evacuate thousands of people on their own and have asked foreign governments for help. The Philippines makes a special appeal to all combatant forces to spare Filipino nationals who have no wish other than to be taken out of harms way, the president said in a statement. In the name of humanity, I ask the combatants not to harm them, she added, while appealing for other countries to help us in the evacuation process.
The foreign ministry said a majority of thw workers wanted to stay with their employers and the decision on evacuation was up to them. But Connie Regalado of suppport group Migrante International denied most Filipinos wanted to stay. There is just neglect in the slowness by which the government responded, Regalado said as she led families of workers stuck in Lebanon in a protest outside the ministry.
Criticism of Australias evacuation effort also mounted Thursday. The effort has suffered several setbacks, including the failure of a chartered ferry to arrive at Beiruts port Wednesday because it was double-booked.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said hundreds more Australians were left stranded on the dock after Israel refused to extend a deadline and guarantee a Greek navy rescue ship safe passage. He said six ships were scheduled to arrive in Lebanon from Friday to evacuate around 6,000 Australians, providing the ships could get into Beiruts packed port.
People have the impression that the evacuation is a farce and the government does not care, Keysar Trad, the outspoken founder of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, told AFP. Sections of the Australian press were also critical. Exodus descends into farce, said The Sydney Morning Herald in its front-page headline.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard rejected criticism. The main message I want to convey to distressed relatives in Australia and indeed through them to their loved ones in Lebanon is that we are concerned, we have not abandoned them, he said.
Canberra said there were some 25,000 Australians in Lebanon, although the majority have dual nationality and did not plan to leave.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006
00:39 ||
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#1
If Ameica went in and pulled every filipino out the government would bitch that we did not pull them first. That country sell their people for near slave labor, human services is their #1 export, and then begs for help when trouble arrives. Leave them there, make arroyo responsible for her own. Rememder how they cut and run from Iraq over one hostage.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/21/2006 7:38
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#2
Some Asian governments are evacuating just fine
Foreigners of mainly Indian nationality queue up next to the INS Mumbai, as they wait to be evacuated at the Beirut port
The evacuees are being ferried to Larnaca in Cyprus by INS Mumbai, which reached the Beirut port earlier in the day as part of the mission -- 'Operation Sukoon'. After reaching Larnaca tomorrow morning, they will be airlifted to India by special flights of Air India. Two more warships -- INS Shakti and INS Betwa -- are near the Beirut port and will enter the harbour one by one to rescue about 12,000 Indians living in Lebanon.
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 9:08
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#3
anybody in Lebanon, knowing it was on the frontlines of a war zone, should STFU and quit bitching cuz their ass isn't being pulled from the fire fast enough. Has Hezbollah been a secret? No. Has the Syrian/Lebanese conflict been a secret? No.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 9:24
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#4
and the Toronto Sun lets us hear from the grateful "Canadian" lebanese evacuated yesterday:
LARNACA, Cyprus -- The first group of Canadian evacuees fleeing war-torn Lebanon began the day on a hellish boat ride marked by seasickness, sunstroke and dehydration -- and they ended it aboard the prime minister's plane.
About 260 weary evacuees disembarked yesterday from the Blue Dawn, with passengers describing the trip across the eastern Mediterranean as difficult -- without air conditioning, adequate water and provisions for the ill.
"It was hell,"cried one woman, wheeling her baby away from the boat in a stroller.
"Everybody was vomiting on everybody," said Caroline Nohra of Montreal. "It was very miserable. The kids were scared, screaming, panicking."
But the owners of the boat clear up a few things.. Ian Wilson, engineering consultant to the owner of the ship, denied that the ride was out of the ordinary. He said people get seasick on every ride, especially those who ride boats for the first time.
The Canadian government didn't put enough water on the boat, which has air conditioning, Wilson said, but passengers kept opening the windows.
Whining muslims, right through the rescue. Appalling. Should've left them there. Same whining women flew back to Canada on Harper's plane - still bitchin'.
I say leave the remaining 49,000 in southern Lebanon where they are. Most haven't been in Canada in decades. Canadians of convenience. It's not convenient to come get your Hezb-loving asses.
#5
I don't think we should be responsible for paying for the exit of dual-nationals unless they can prove they have a residence in the USA and were just visiting. People make a choice to keep dual nationality.
#6
It's not just me then, questioning the nationalilty of these "evacuees" the abilty to speak fluent english/hindi/spanish whatever! and a single nationality passport should be a prerequisite.
#1
In belmont club where this map was mentioned you see:
You'll note the area overlooking Avivim, where the IDF found 120-foot deep bunkers and weapons caches plus huge land mines, was near outpost 65-2 of the Ghana Battalion, UNIFIL. UNIFIL was commanded by Major-General Alain Pellegrini of France.
#2
Nostradamus Pellegrine??? Yet another Ollie Stone production of almost a Madonna - dare Angelina Jolie - film, wid soundtrack not by Aerosmith or GNR, and not starring Joe Paterno, a Texas-sized asteroid or the Sun, etc.!?
I've seen the pics before..does anyone have the name and specs on that real short range mortar like missle [good sized] that the IDF uses to clear close in targets/AOs? You can see it in the vid.
"Established to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, to restore international peace and security, and to assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area. UNIFIL has, however, been prevented from fully implementing its mandate. Israel has maintained its occupation of parts of south Lebanon, where the Israeli forces and their local auxiliary continued to be targets of attacks by groups that have proclaimed their resistance to the occupation. UNIFIL does its best to limit the conflict and protect the inhabitants of the area from the fighting. In doing so, it continues to contribute to stability in the area."
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 1:51
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#8
Saw John Bolton on O'Reily last night. He said the only reason we are still in the UN is to look after American interests. He said he was NOT optomistic about the UN doing anything.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/21/2006 7:36
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#9
Nice video, RD. Note that it starts showing an Israeli soldier saying a prayer for peace.
Very interesting bit about Ambassador Bolton, Deacon Blues.
#11
Good for them. Now if the Israeli's would join in then the UN could be cleared quickly and things could get back to Israel stomping on Iran/Syria/Hiz.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
07/21/2006 9:04
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#12
I'd rather see the UN guys join in against Hezbollah. The enemy of my enemy is . . . well, maybe not a friend, exactly, but someone I might be able to do business with.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 9:19
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#13
I would like to see the UN guys join Hezbollah too. All the enemies of the west in one place for a good strike.
Serves them right. Lie down with dogs terrorists, get up with fleas dead.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2006 11:04
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#17
"UNIFIL" - the latest way to spell "worthless."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2006 11:05
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#18
I wondered about that, TW. Heard it on the radio this morning that several Hezz rockets "fell short" and hit some UN "outposts." I found it funny that the next headline they discuss was Kofi saying everyone within 20 miles of the Israel/Lebanon border should GET OUT NOW! Wonder if that goes for the so-called peace-keepers too? I'd assume so, seeing as how quickly they (the UN, not the soldiers) tucked tail and ran in Iraq.
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 11:48
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#19
BA, the Jpost article I linked above (all of four lines long -- *lots* of info there!) said the rockets were aimed at an Israeli post beyond the UNFIL one, but missed. May well be true, but demonstrates -- as graphically as the Hizb'allah habit of shooting those things off from the houses of Shiites and Christians alike -- the fondness Hizb'allah has of using innocents as a meat shield. (What an evocative phrase!).
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush is considering renominating John Bolton as the US ambassador to the United Nations, a year after appointing him to the job over Senate objections, aides said on Thursday.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said White House officials were talking to Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, about renominating Bolton for the position. The job requires Senate confirmation.
Bush gave Bolton a recess appointment last August -- meaning he appointed Bolton to the job when the Senate was in recess -- because many senators opposed the former State Department official for what they called an abrasive style. That appointment will run out at the end of the current congressional session in January.
Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who opposed Boltons nomination a year ago, said on Thursday he would now support him for the job.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006
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#3
So at the end of the day Prez Bush was RIGHT! Bolten was the BEST CHOICE for the job. You will only hear that here at RB and in the White House, certainly not on CNN. Bolten is leading the charge, saw him on FOX last night, what a great sence of humor.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/21/2006 7:42
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#4
No, 49 Pan, Senator Voinovich wrote that Mr. Bolton has done a good job since that recess appointment, and he would be pleased to vote to confirm his nomination. And they say the Age of Miracles has passed!
Those among you who like your skies darkened by black helicopters are invited to mosey on down to the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan which hosts what must be the strangest military installation ever spotted by the Google Earth Community:
Zooming in for a closer look, we have what appears to be a 900x700m scale model of a mountainous landscape...
...complete with lakes, valleys and snow-capped peaks:
Truly bizarre. Google Earth aficionados can examine the evidence for themselves here (.kmz) while wondering what on Earth, or where on Earth for that matter, this remarkable landscaping project is.
Don't, however, spend the next three days scouring the world's mountain ranges trying to find a geographical match: the legwork has already been done for you by this enterprising Google Earth Community member who correctly identified the model as representing this disputed area on the Chinese/Indian border.
Here's a comparison of the Chinese model and the Google Earth image of the region in question...
...while a closer look reveals the meticulous attention to detail:
It's clear that a huge amount of time and resources has been invested in this perplexing scale model, which incidentally represents an area of around 450 by 350 kilometers. The big question is: why?
The only sensible explanation we can come up with is that it's a training aid for pilots - possibly helicopter jockeys - designed to familiarise them with the landscape should military action ever be required.
No doubt you lot can come up with some better suggestions, but while you ponder this mystery keep one eye open for the black helicopters of Huangyangtan.
#1
Chicom ambitions for [East] Asian-Pacific hegemony is being steadily obstructed by US-Allied geopol arrangements-treatises - short of war, the Chicoms have to go south [India-SE/SW Asia-Aussies-Africa]or andor west [Russia-Central Asia]. In any case, the Commies-Maoists have supporting local terror orgs-networks for years and decades before 9-11, and have intensified efforts post 9-11. Theres always the "liberation" of Mother Cindy's Bush- and Fascist-occupied CONUS-NORAM, aka Clintonian sacred Socialist-Communist, Hated Despicable Nazi = Well-meaning but grotesquely defective HalfCommunist-Stalinist, Amerika.
#5
Advocates of India choosing the F-18 Super Hornet for its MRCA fighter tender point out that China is already familiar with the Su-30 Flanker (it has its own versions, though without the French, Indian and Israeli avionics that the Indian versions have) and with the F-16 (courtesy of Pakistan which supplied one to China for an attempt at reverse engineering).
In a conflict with China, the unknown F-18 with its air to ground munitions would be an advantage.
Posted by: john ||
07/21/2006 8:50
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This was probably the pet project of some commie General who wanted to put his idiot artist son to work for the summer on the parties dime.
"I think he's retarded," General Yap said. "But he's my son so I got him the gig. I knew it would impress the Party bosses, if you've ever seen how they get gooey eyed around Kim Jung Il's model train set you'd know what I mean."
#11
Is this like Y2k, when the articles counter hits 100 000 it resets to 00000, and the whole WWW crashes down in flames, depriving everybody (including myself) of their daily dose of PrOn?
Eurosclerosis: For those seeking an elegant and romantic milieu, France has long been a favorite destination. Recently, however, it's become more of a departure point for a certain class of Frenchmen: millionaires.
According to French government data, at least one millionaire on the average leaves France every day. It's not that they're finding other places more charming than their native terroir. No, it's that France punishes its wealthiest with burdensome tax rates that sometimes reach as high as 72%.
Many of those leaving aren't just the nouveau riche. Even some old-line families who have guided French business and industry for decades are also saying au revoir.
In addition to high income, capital gains, inheritance and social security taxes, the wealthy French are hit with a "solidarity tax." Like the U.S.' alternative minimum tax, the solidarity tax is meant to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share for France's out-of-control welfare state. In some cases that levy can actually exceed a person's income, making it one of the great incentive killers of all time.
Of course, the Socialists responsible for these punitive levies say that the wealthy who leave are avoiding their responsibilities.
Someone should tell them the French Revolution and its dream of radical economic egalitarianism has been over for more than two centuries. Or didn't that occur to them as they celebrated Bastille Day last week? True equality, unreachable under any conditions, will never be achieved through a redistributionist system.
At least some Frenchmen recognize this. "This tendency to take from the rich and give to the poor, which is supposed to solve all the problems in France, is ruining the country," said Alain Marchand, a London-based consultant who helps relocate French business executives, in an interview with the The Washington Post.
The Post foreign service reports that Eric Pinchet, who has written a French tax guide, reckons that revenues from the solidarity tax are roughly $2.6 billion a year. That's a trifling amount, especially considering that Pinchet believes the tax has cost France more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.
An economy grows slowly or is ruined, as Marchand, who left France himself six years ago, might say when investment is choked off. To say nothing of the loss of a nation's brightest and hardest-working citizens. Entrepreneur, after all, is a French word.
Both the rich and the not-so-rich who are young, skilled and ambitious are leaving for countries where the labor markets are less regulated by the state and taxes not as burdensome. That exodus might help explain why real GDP in France has grown just 1.5% a year on average since 2000 lagging the rest of Europe.
Unless these trends are reversed soon through labor law reform which was tried and failed this spring and deep tax cuts, France's economy will continue its steady decline.
#2
French are pikers. During the late 70's, a Swedish writer of children's stories managed to position herself to be in a 105% marginal tax bracket. That was too much for even the stoic Swedes and was a national scandal.
#4
They're going to make their revolution work, by gum, even if they have to kill their nation in the process.
A nation of maroons, it would seem.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/21/2006 6:21
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#5
FBR (French Bolshvic Republic) will be the first country in Eurabia to be destroyed by the "advanced" ideas of the lazy lefto-socialist bums that run France.
The economic downfall of france will trigger a bloody internal conflict between the native French and the Islamo-fascist denizens of the Ghetos in a conflagration that would tear down the foundations of Europe.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
07/21/2006 6:52
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#6
Robin hood robbed the sherrif of nottingham of the tax and gave it back to the serfs.
#7
At least some Frenchmen recognize this. "This tendency to take from the rich and give to the poor, which is supposed to solve all the problems in France, is ruining the country," said Alain Marchand, a London-based consultant who helps relocate French business executives, in an interview with the The Washington Post.
Hilderbeast, Kennedy, Kerry, Gore, McCain.... various other donks in Washington, take note.
#8
There's a nice little cottage industry of offshore jurisdictions with no extradition treaties and really nice debtor-friendly trust rules which cater to continental Europeans looking to put the money out of reach of the home government.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 9:22
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#9
Take from the rich and give to the poor? It's more like take from the productive and give to the non productive.
#11
The wealthy create more wealth in the country, especially if they own buisnesses. If they are morons with a trust fund, they spend it all away and it goes into the econonmy.
Strange how such a simple idea can't be grasped by socialists.
#12
"From each, according to what we can get away with; to each according to whatever is "left over" after we buy mansions and luxury cars and hire all our friends-n-relatives. It's For The Children(TM)"
#13
Tax the Rich to feed the Poor until there are no Rich no more. I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/21/2006 10:51
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"Funny" thing is that many middle class (or lower!) people are more more asked to pay the ISF (tax on wealth), which they can't without selling their property, because of the explosion of real estate. Typical case, as shown in the media, is the retired farmer who has land and a family home/farm on a touristical area, say the île de Ré, and whose increased assets value due to specualtion brings him in the ISF tax bracket... of course, he has not enough income to pay it, and he must sell.
I'll agree, this whole tax is insane, but it was invented for purely udeological purpose by the socialists, it was briefly suppressed by the "right" after shiraq's house election victory in 1986-1988, and was restored after the re-election of mitterrand. From then, the "conservatives" never dared to supress it again, as shiraq blamed his 1988 presidential defeat on that.
Anyway, the pattern is always the same : since "right" was treaumatized after the 1945 epuration and the overhelming supremacy of the cultural/metapolitical left, it NEVER dare to undo what the left has done. So, sociaists and their allies do socialism, and the "right" (already statist and centralist thanks to gaullism) does... socialism. It's been going on since 1981, or even 1974, in fact.
Look it up. I recently read a book on taxes (forget the name off the top of my head) and I was astounded over what our forefathers went to battle over, as far as tax rates go. For example, the Boston Tea Party was started over an import (I believe) tarriff on tea of something like only 3%-4%! The colonialists were willing to go to war over that. And yet, today, with Local (sales)/State (income, mostly)/Federal (income) taxes taking up to and over 50% of our paycheck, we do nothing. Add in other "hidden" taxes (taxes on gasoline, medicare/social security witholdings + their employer "match" portions/etc.), and I bet we pay well over 50% of our paycheck to the government. Can't really fathom what French taxes are like, but this article gives me a clue.
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 11:10
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#16
There is something fundamentally wrong with France.
They have a national film program to support French film yet the biggest French directors end up leaving the country and making films in English (Luc Bessan comes to mind).
They have a rich literary history yet they do not make many movies of the works of Dumas and Verne but instead let the British and Americans bastardize these works for the world to watch.
And lastly the Japanese make Samurai flicks, the Yanks make our cowboy flicks and the Britts are in love with Shakespeare and Edwardian periods. The French should be making medieval movies like they were coming out of style but for some reason they can't or won't.
If the French want French culture to be a contender again they should start with how the world views them. That is through whiney politicians and their movies. And French movies have not been there since the 60s.
#17
When has taxing oneself into prosperity ever worked? Can anyone provide example of success?
What a bunch of idiots. The people who are wealthy, are also likely the ones who start, build and run the business that provide jobs. Lose the Rich, and watch everything tank.
I blame the citizens that keep voting these jokers that support this nonsense into office. Probably on the dole.
#18
A nation that tries to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. - Winston Churchill
#19
If the French want French culture to be a contender again they should start with how the world views them. That is through whiney politicians and their movies. And French movies have not been there since the 60s.
Consider how they wail at American culture which appeals the masses. The French culture program was to appeal to the elites. Guess you get what you aim for. The problem for the French elites' ego is they want admiration from the very people they raise the middle index finger to and then bitch when the salute is returned.
#20
America is worse on taxes. We are taxed over and over on our income. The wealthy beat the taxes because they can. They leave or find a way. Big government is a world constant. Middleclass get used to it.
#21
BA, I've read it somewhere, but of course I can't remember anything of it, but french taxes started at a ridicoulously low level in 19th, only as "temporary measures" (imagine people getting all worked over for a 7% income tax!), got-off ground during/after WWI, and went haywire after WWII with the social sytem which drain about 50% of all salaries before any taxation is calculated.
Anyway, in most developed countries, one works about 180 days a year for the State, give or take a few weeks. During Middle Ages, a serf was someone who had to work 40 days a year for his lord...
Big gvt is a leftover of a 20th century marked by world wars, socialism (think keynes & social-democracy) and statism. I hope 21th will revert to less invasive and all-powerful States (think flat taxes).
The highest-earning groups pay a share of taxes much greater than their share of income
The highest-earning 20% of taxpayers earn less than half of all income but pay more than four-fifths of all federal income taxes. The highest-earning one percent bears an even more disproportionate share of the income tax burden, earning 14% of all income but paying 34% of federal income taxes, more than double their income share.
Because the largest share of federal income taxes is paid by the highest earners, lower-earning
households bear a much smaller share of the overall income tax burden, thereby creating progressivity in the federal income tax system. However, it also means that federal revenues devoted to general government operations are particularly sensitive to changes in the income of the top earners.
Source: Congressional Budget Office (http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5324&sequence=0)
(KUNA) -- Israeli warplanes fired three missiles at a Palestinian national security site east of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said Thursday. The missiles crashed into the site located near Gaza International Airport inflicting major damage to buildings surrounding the site, which were shelled three times over the past few years. The attack did not sustain any human losses, the sources said.
In related developments, Israeli forces blew up three tunnels they found south of Rafah last night. The Israeli radio quoted today military sources saying that the Israeli Army blew up two tunnels near Al-Dehniya village in the southern part of the Strip and a third one near Sofa crossing north of Rafah. The tunnels are used by Palestinians to smuggle weapons into Gaza, the source added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Palestinian national security site
Funny that, as they're not a nation and have no security.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
07/21/2006 0:58
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Any Rantburg experts on engineering, rather than combat, aspects of dealing with tunnels? For example, even though tunnels are cleverly hidden to the naked eye, wouldn't technology for oil drilling or mining detect them? What kind of explosives are best for destroying them? Is the damage permanent or is it just a case of sealing off the entrances in which case the enemy can burrow back to them later?
#3
I'm no expect on engineering, but I would have to think that sonar would find these tunnels. As for getting rid of them, I would say punch a hole into them from above every 10 yards, drop an explosive in each hole and bang.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
07/21/2006 10:11
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#4
ground penetrating radar works, especially if te soil is fairly uniform, with little density changes
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 10:39
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#5
With the Mediterranean so close, I'd think some sort of flooding might be feasible. It's fun to think about, at least.
#7
Did a quick look at the geology of Lebanon. Southern part of the country is limestone overlaying sandstone. They have a lot of quarries to extract the limestone for building and to make cement. This means they've got a lot of expertise in-country for digging tunnels in the relatively soft limestone. If the layers are as thick and fine grained as reported, you wouldn't need much shoring for tunnels. Perfect for digging deep bunkers, with the waste rock dumped in quarries where it wouldn't raise any eyebrows.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 12:34
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#8
It's possible to do 'seismic' surveys in which data is collected from an array of deployed sensors ('geophones') while shock waves (from an explosive or even vibration from a nearby highway)propagate through the earth. The data can then be analyzed for tunnel detection, as well as a general understanding of the relative densities of the underlying rock and soil. It is tricky to analyze the data though.
#9
This is gaza though steve, heavier than air immobilising agents, its the only way to be sure.
Posted by: chu chi ||
07/21/2006 13:15
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#10
The Hariri family controls a lot of the cement production in Lebanon. The Syrians are also way involved in cement production. Which may be one reason why Hariri got killed, and one or several reasons why China and Russia won't side against the Baathists.
#11
The Party of Allah (Hezbolla) have lots of tunnels and bunkers since they had plenty of time to prepare. BTW, Lebanon is not a country or state and deserves to be dusted as a terrorist shell, sadly.
#13
Why would Russia and China prefer Baathist cement to Hariri cement
Perhaps Hariri wanted cash while the Baathist's would take weapons in trade? I remember Hariri was supposed to have major connections in the Saudi construction business as well.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 16:15
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#14
This is gaza though steve
Well, the underlying rock strata is pretty much the same in Israel. I was there in 1984 and it all looked like the same rock formations. Went on tour in Jerulsalem and went down in old tunnel under old city. It was all limestone there as well. Same in southern Lebanon when we went to the Beufort Castle with the IDF. Looked a lot like New Mexico and Arizona.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 16:20
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#15
My opinion was the Syrians took out Hariri without consulting the Russians and Chinese and did it solely because he was a rare Lebanese politico no longer willing to be one of their pawns, rather than for any business (cement) reasons. Fortunately, it boomeranged on them because Hariri's patrons, the Saudis, were riled by the assassination enough to team up with us and the French to push them out (like when the mob offs an investigative journalist or prosecutor and only draws more heat). Another factor was that the Iran-Syria alliance put Syria in the Shiite camp (Syria's Alawite minority is quasi-Shia and controls the government and military rather than the Sunni majority) and the Saudis are seeing in Iraq how the Iranian controlled Shiites like to deal with Sunni adversaries.... Thanks to all for the comments on how to detect the tunnels; anything more on optimum permanent destruction methods?
(KUNA) -- Two persons were Thursday injured in a bomb explosion near a US military patrol in Najaf southern Iraq, police said. A source at the police said in a press statement a roadside explosive device went blew up near the US military patrol in the north of Najaf. The source said the explosion, which did not hurt the US soldiers, injured two civilians who happened to be nearby the blast's site.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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(KUNA) -- Israel will enforce a comprehensive blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip upon the directions of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the Israeli radio reported Thursday. Peretz's decision came after Israeli security agencies were tipped that the Palestinian resistance intended to carry out operations inside Israeli towns. The siege was also in light of the deteriorating security situation in northern Israel.
The Israeli police announced yesterday that it arrested a Palestinian who they claimed was on his way to blow himself up in Tel Aviv. Israel raised its alert level to the maximum and its security forces posted many military checkpoints after it received several warnings on the probability of Palestinian suicide operations in Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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(KUNA) -- One person was killed and six others were injured when an Israeli warplane launched at least one missile at a gathering of Palestinians in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. Palestinian sources said the injured were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital and that two of them are in serious conditions. A Palestinian was killed and another was injured Thursday morning after being shot by Israeli forces, which are still penetrating in Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have had the rare opportunity to witness firsthand how the diplomatic process works and, in some cases, how it fails. Recently, despite our nation's best efforts, the world -- and particularly the Middle East -- has become a more dangerous and volatile place.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, and our nation's initial response in Afghanistan, the global war on terrorism has taken many twists and turns.
First, Iraq became the primary focus of our troops and our public attention. Then, the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea reached critical mass, followed by the quickly changing and deteriorating situation with Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the administration nominated John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. At the time, I opposed Bolton's nomination because I truly believed he was not the right person to represent America in the United Nations. And it's in the nomination process that we have the opportunity to find someone who is not just adequate but right for the job.
After countless conversations and hours of research into his professional record, I came to the conclusion that the country could do better, and I announced that I would not support the Bolton nomination.
When Bolton was given a recess appointment to the U.N. post by President Bush in August 2005, I voiced my opposition but told him that I would work tirelessly to help him reform the United Nations. I also told him that his success in his new role would have an impact on our country, the world and the future of the United Nations.
My original concerns about Bolton involved his interpersonal skills. Also of concern was his reputation for straying off message and a tendency to "go it alone" instead of working to build consensus with his colleagues. I have met and spoken regularly with him since his appointment, discussing my hope that the United States would indeed build such a consensus at the United Nations and work with our allies.
My observations are that while Bolton is not perfect, he has demonstrated his ability, especially in recent months, to work with others and follow the president's lead by working multilaterally. In recent weeks I have watched him react to the challenges involving North Korea, Iran and now the Middle East, speaking on behalf of the United States.
I believe Bolton has been tempered and focused on speaking for the administration. He has referred regularly to "my instructions" from Washington, while also displaying his own clear and strong grasp of the issues and the way forward within the Security Council. He has stood many times side by side with his colleagues from Japan, Britain, Canada and other countries, showing a commitment to cooperation within the United Nations.
The deteriorating situation in the Middle East cannot be ignored. The terrorist organization Hezbollah has all but formally declared war on Israel, taking Israeli prisoners and launching more than 1,000 rockets into Israel over the past week.
The United States, along with the rest of the free world, must confront Iran and North Korea and defend Israel and its democracy while working to bring stability to the entire Middle East and Darfur.
Ambassador Bolton's appointment expires this fall when the Senate officially recesses. Should the president choose to renominate him, I cannot imagine a worse message to send to the terrorists -- and to other nations deciding whether to engage in this effort -- than to drag out a possible renomination process or even replace the person our president has entrusted to lead our nation at the United Nations at a time when we are working on these historic objectives.
For me or my colleagues in the Senate to now question a possible renomination would jeopardize our influence in the United Nations and encourage those who oppose the United States to make Bolton the issue, thereby undermining our policies and agenda.
Should the president send his renomination to the Senate, I will vote to confirm him, and I call on my Democratic colleagues to keep in mind the current situation in the Middle East and the rest of the world should the Senate have an opportunity to vote. I do not believe the United States, at this dangerous time, can afford to have a U.N. ambassador who does not have Congress's full support.
For the good of our country, the United Nations and the free world, we must end any ambiguity about whether John Bolton speaks for the United States so that he can work to support our interests at the United Nations during this critical time.
The writer is a Republican senator from Ohio.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Who's crying now
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 0:14
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#4
Give the guy credit for being big enough to admit he was wrong. Not many politicians would do that.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 8:20
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#5
Wow -- I post a comment about Voinovich in the thread above, and here Fred posted his entire statement, hours earlier I must be Nostradamus reincarnated. ;-)
#6
I don't know if he's admitting that he's wrong as much as he is saying Bolton is better than changing U.N. ambassadors.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
07/21/2006 9:07
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#7
Bolton also went out of his way at the press conference to answer a reporters question about this. He said ,dispite their differences, he is in contact with Voin regularly.
Bolton deserves the credit for suffering fools much better than most RBers.
Suddenly trailing in the polls, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman is enlisting the help of former President Clinton, the man he criticized in 1998 for "disgraceful behavior" in a sex scandal with a White House intern. Clinton and Lieberman are scheduled to campaign together in Connecticut on Monday as the three-term lawmaker struggles against challenger Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire businessman who has questioned his rival's Democratic credentials and assailed his support for the Iraq war.
A new poll released Thursday showed that Lieberman has lost ground to Lamont and is narrowly trailing him for the first time in their race. Lamont had support from 51 percent and Lieberman from 47 percent of likely Democratic voters in the latest Quinnipiac University poll a slight Lamont lead given the survey's error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The primary is Aug. 8 summer vacation season when turnout in Connecticut primaries is typically about 25 percent of registered voters. Lieberman is arguably the most vulnerable incumbent senator in a primary.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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On the theory that "confusion to our enemies" is a worthy objective in itself, which of the following scenarios is better?
1. Lieberman beats out Lamont in the primary, coasts to re-election in November. Kossacks fall to fighting among themselves over who's to blame for the loss. Dozens of op-eds appear on how the Kos Kiddies are big hat, no cattle within the Democratic Party.
2. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity, begin whispering not-so-subtle antisemitic whispering campaign. Lieberman stubbornly sticks to his guns, the Republican candidate goes low-profile, Lieberman wins in November and (payback is a Hillary!) tells the Dems to go stuff it, he'll caucus with the Trunks. Dozens of op-eds appear on how there's no place in the Dem Party for moderates now that the Kossacks have taken over.
3. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity. Joe falls on his sword. Republican wins in November as Connecticut voters are repelled by Kossack moonbattery.
Discuss.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 9:09
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no. 3
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 9:15
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#7
Partly number 2, though I think Lieberman will end up caucusing with Dems (he';s still a social liberal after all), while his position on the GWOT is (hopefully) hardened.
3. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity. Joe falls on his sword. Lamont wins in November as Connecticut voters demonstrate how deep their blue streak runs. Before inauguration Lamont demonstrates to any rationsal person what a horses putussi he is. But he goes on to run for the Donk Presidential nomination wiht Kos support. Ends up on ticket as VP nominee. Donks decimated in 2008 election dissolve in bitter recriminations as Republican party splits into libertatrian and conservative parties absorbing donks adrift.
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 10:56
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how about an option 4
the primary is close - loser demands a recount, then a lawsuit, then another recount, then the initial results overturned and another lawsuit followed by another recount, then another recount than another lawsuit
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a Casper man against the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because he did not face any threat of prosecution for wanting his gun rights restored.
Christopher Kegler offered only hypothetical arguments that federal agents would prosecute him if he wanted to own a gun after he had a misdemeanor domestic violence crime deleted from county court records, according to U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson's order on Tuesday.
Kegler's lawsuit, filed in February, deals with issues similar to one filed by Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank in May.
#1
Hmmm...generally policing entities have a law enforcement and crime prevention function. Crime prevention certainly implies an obligation of government disclosure, where a crime can be prevented.
The police agenda has always favored strict gun control, while the informed public recognizes that cops rarely encounter crime in action. It makes sense to enable good citizens to protect themselves.
In America's history, no cop has ever admitted to bearing a private law duty of care to any member of the public. Ergo: buy a gun and protect yourself. The following article has been downloaded numerous times: http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html
The role of police is auxiliary protection while self-defence is a US Code defence, and trumps the self-interested gun control agenda.
Those of you who have yet to be a crime victim, be aware: when you face victimization, cops WILL NOT protect you. Protect yourself; you are all you really have.
A man sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case today moved the Madras High Court to direct the Tamil Nadu government to consider granting him premature release on the ground that he had been held in prison for over 14 years.
Rajiv's not dead anymore, y'know...
When the petition by Robert Payas, a Sri Lankan Tamil, came up for hearing, Justice K Raviraja Pandian ordered notices to be issued to the Tamil Nadu Government and prison officials to seek their response in the matter. Payas, convicted of murder and criminal conspiracy in the assassination case, claimed he was entitled to premature release according to guidelines and policy of the state government as well as under Article 161 of the Constitution. Stating that he had made a representation on December 28, 2004 to the superintendent of the Central Prison in Vellore, where he is being held, seeking premature release, Payas contended his request was not considered on the ground that a report from a probation officer in Sri Lanka was essential for him being released.
Claiming that the requirement of the probation officer's report was "unfair and unreasonable" and "is impossible of compliance", he claimed that he could not be denied premature release only on this ground. The government's failure to release him would violate Article 21 of the Constitution, he said adding that the authorities had to only determine whether there was a possibility of him committing a crime in future, whether a convict had lost his potentiality of committing a crime and whether there would be any fruitful purpose of confining a convict further.
Have you, maybe, thought about keeping him in jug until he's doorknob dead? That's what I'd expect from a "life" sentence.
Posted by: Fred ||
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(KUNA) -- Twelve Iraqis were killed on Thursday by a booby-trapped car blast in northern Baghdad. In a press statement, a police source said the blast took place near an Iraqi police patrol in Baghdad's Salah Al-Din governorate. All 12 dead persons were civilians, added the source.
Posted by: Fred ||
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(KUNA) -- The governor of Mosul Duraide Muhammad Kashmula survived Thursday an assassination attempt after a bomb exploded near his convoy in the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq. A security source told reporters that the explosion occurred in Al-Faisaliya area in Mosul. The source added that the explosion did not cause any damage.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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The top security official of the Islamic CourtsSheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad known as Indha-adde said on Thursday if Ethiopia invades Somalia capital then they would attack Addis Ababa, amid fears of possible confrontation between increasingly powerful Islamic militiamen and Ethiopian forces who entered Baidoa town, to defend the UN-backed Somalia government based there.
A little ambitious, isn't he?
Speaking with the recently defected militiamen from the government, Sheikh Siad Indha-adde emphasized the militiamen to show more patriotism and join honestly to Islamic courts. 130 militiamen originally from Somalia Hiran central region have defected from the military camps outside of Baidoa after they had lacked care from the government. If Ethiopians dont spare a peace to us, we would promise to engage a war with them and we will see then the result of that, Sheikh Indha Adde said adding I would recommend that Ethiopia should peace initiative with its neighbor country and respect its independence. We urge again Ethiopian government to withdraw its troops from Somalia and also we ask the international community to press Ethiopia to abstain from interfering Somalia affairs, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Ethiopian armies are mass armies. Somalia would be razed.
#2
Please Jesus, let the Islamists be this stupid and carry out their threat! The Ethiopian Army has access to good upgraded Soviet tanks and light armour, as well as American military aid. Also, the Israelis have a long-standing relationship with Ethiopia and would be willing to sell just about anything the Ethiopians want to buy. And the Somalian Islamists? They get the castoffs of Eritrea and use "technicals" - Mad Max trucks. This would be a glorious slaughter of Allah's Lice.
#3
Ethiopians would probably inter rather than embed obnoxious journalists and fifth-columnists. I don't think they would be concerned about the use of "disproportionate force" and would, as is befitting an Old Testament country, go Old Testament on the Islamists.
(KUNA) -- Israeli air force carried out 18 raids over central and western, southern Lebanon, according to a security source. The source told KUNA, over 70 villages in Tyre have been hit by the air raids. Israeli tanks have also been firing at most of the border towns especially Kfar Kila and Al-Edaisa. Since this morning Tyre had witnessed 12 air raids targeting residences and infrastructure. As many as 102 bodies of people who have died during the past few days are being held at Tyre's Al-Hakawi Hospital.
Citizens in South Lebanon have been asking relief agencies to evacuate them before a humanitarian crisis takes place. In related news, Aitaroun and Mais Al-Jabal villages have witnessed clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli army troops. Sources have said, the border area has recently been cautiously calm as both sides struck each other. In a statement, Hezbollah had announced that it had shelled a military area in Safad.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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(SomaliNet) Ivory Coast was a center of violence on Wednesday. Supporters of Ivory Coast president, Laurent Gbagbo, caused the chaos. Ivory Coasts capital was center of most of this chaos as youth used violence to express their disappointment of provision of identity cards to unregistered people in Ivory Coast. According to Ivory Coasts police, youthful militants under the umbrella of young patriots were responsible for the Ivory Coast strike. They set up roadblocks and hindered activities in Ivory Coasts capital, Abidjan and elsewhere in Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coasts government does not agree with the identity cards idea claiming that the move by the opposition movement of Ivory Coast is aimed at sneaking some foreigners names onto Ivory Coasts voting lists later this year. However, some diplomats say that the riots were organized to show the power in the hands of the current president of Ivory Coast "They want to show it will be Gbagbo in power after October," a diplomat said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
"ok, World Cup is over. Back to the trenches"
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 16:28
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#2
"C'est un bourbier!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006 19:09
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From the Letters to the Editor of the Pak Frontier Post:
I would like to bring into the kind notice of Mr. Ijazul Haq Federal Minister for Haj and religious affairs an endemic problem in Saudi Arabia. A large number of Umera Visitors from Sindh and Punjab are begging in Madina from dawn to dusk. Among them are women, girls, children and aged men. They are running behind the pilgrims hailing from across the world unless and until they get something from them. This is a curse and bringing extremely bad name to our country and Pakistanis equally.
The Jeddah consulate should play a key role to curb this evil and discourage beggars. I suggest that the Pakistani consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia should form Task Force and apprehend all beggars and deport them immediately. Otherwise, this social problem will continue to bring bad name for Pakistan and hurt sensible Pakistanis here in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Ijazul Haq, I hope you will consider this problem and looking for immediate action.
#2
I can attest, having lived in Jeddah, KSA in Dec 1991 to Jan 1992, and again from June 1992 to Dec 1992, that begging is widespread among non-Saudis. Often ran into Sudanese and Nigeria paupers.
Two men from Atlanta already accused of discussing targets for bomb attacks in the United States have been indicted by a grand jury in Georgia on charges of receiving paramilitary training and plotting a "violent jihad" against civilian and U.S. government targets. The two, 21-year-old Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, are also said to have links to some of the 12 men and five youths arrested in the Toronto area last month and accused of plotting bombings and kidnappings in southern Ontario. Both men are U.S. citizens.
The grand jury indictment says Ahmed and Sadequee went to Washington, D.C. last April and filmed the U.S. Capitol building and the headquarters of the World Bank, allegedly seeing them as potential targets for a bombing campaign. Both men have pleaded not guilty to earlier charges and their lawyers say the government's case against them is "shallow and inconsequential." At the time of the arrests of the 17 suspects in the Toronto area in early June, the FBI said that Ahmed and Sadequee had travelled to Canada earlier in the year to meet with some of those accused in the Toronto case. Sadequee told the FBI that he had an aunt in Toronto, but agents said he was unable to give her full name, or other details about her family.
"She wore a chador most days, I never really got to know her..."
An FBI affidavit obtained by the Canadian Press earlier this year says much of the case against the two men comes from a lengthy interrogation of Ahmed after he was arrested in March. At the time, he had just returned from a trip to Pakistan, which the FBI said was for paramilitary training, but Ahmed's family says was for religious studies.
Which are one and the same, for the most part.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Local reports and others from yesterday stated that they planned/discussed bombing Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta (just NW of downtown ATL). I found it pretty ironic too, that that's where the F-22 is being built (right next door at Lockheed's facility and they test the F-22 from Dobbins). I thought to myself...how young and naive do you have to be to think you can bomb an Air Reserve Base w/ only 2 of you, and then I saw they were from Pakistan, lol!
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 11:38
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"My aunt? She was this big black shadow flitting in and out of the shadows. Never said a word, not even her name. Couldn't even tell you the color of (and I am guessing here) her eyes."
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 11:52
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(KUNA) -- The Ezzuddine Al-Qassam Brigades, military arm of Hamas Movement, on Thursday fired mortar rounds on Israeli forces in Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza Strip. The brigades said in a press release that Palestinian fighters fired three mortar rounds on a gathering of Israeli military vehicles east of the camp, noting that the target received a direct hit.
Also, Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad movement, said it fired a "Quds 3" type missile on the Jewish Sderot settlement in southern Israel. Earlier today, the brigades said that it fired three "Quds 3" type missiles on Sderot, noting that the Israeli army confirmed that the settlement was hit by Palestinian missiles. A spokesperson for the Israeli army told the Israeli radio that two Palestinian missiles hit Sderot this morning. The source said the missiles were fired from northern Gaza Strip, noting that some properties were damaged in the attack, while some residents experienced a shock.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army dropped fliers warning Gaza Strip residents of the consequences of storing weapons and ammunitions in their residences. The fliers, dropped on northern Gaza Strip, warned that the Israeli army will destroy any location or building were weapons are stored, noting that anyone who has weapons or ammunitions in his house is in danger and should evacuate immediately.
Meanwhile, the Israeli tanks stationed on the eastern borders of Gaza Strip fired a score of shells on vacant areas, farm lands, and residential areas in the towns of Beit Lahya and Jabaliya in northern Gaza Strip, said Palestinian security sources. The sources said that the Israeli shelling caused major damages in a number of houses and public properties.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Is it just me, or is it just a little pathetic to issue a press release that you had fired THREE mortar rounds at the enemy?
More than 100 people are dead or missing in North Korea due to floods and landslides, an aid group operating in the communist nation said Wednesday. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said heavy rains last week and this week had caused flash floods that totally or partially destroyed 11,524 houses, leaving more than 9,000 families homeless. The damage has cut off telephone connections, making collecting reliable information difficult, it said. A lot of people have been displaced, they are trying to find out who is actually missing, Jaap Timmer, head of the International Red Cross in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, told The Associated Press by telephone.
South Korea has also suffered from the heavy rains, which have led to at least 25 deaths as of Wednesday, according to the South's Yonhap news agency. The North's official media has reported on the weather affecting the country, but has not mentioned any damage or casualties. The federation said the heavy weather could also affect North Korea's food supply critical to the country that suffered famine in the 1990s believed to have killed as many as 2 million people. Extensive areas of arable fields have been inundated, wiping out much of the anticipated harvest, the federation said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Har-de-har. Couldn't happen in a better place. I'm sure Hu will send you a couple of trains of relief aid. Or did you really stael those trains ?
#9
Anyone care to place bets on how long it will take the NorKors to threaten a couple of missile launches in a attempt to get food aid? Not that it actually worked in the past, but does a great job of getting some free press and jack up peoples blood pressure.
(Interfax) - Three facts of voluntary surrender of weapons and ammunition by Chechen residents have been recorded in the republic in the past 24 hours, Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman Amin Deniyev told Interfax Thursday. A campaign conducted by local authorities and policemen following a call to members of illegal armed groups by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev has prompted not only the surrender of a number of militants but also that of weapons and ammunition, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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(KUNA) -- Five Iraqi civilians were killed and tens of others were injured when a car bomb exploded in Midtown Kirkruk city in Northern Iraq, said a police source Thursday. The source told KUNA that the car exploded near the city hall and added that it caused damage to nearby properties. Violence is still occuring in Kirkuk city despite numerous efforts by the Iraq security forces and Multi-National Force (MNF) to maintain order in the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said today that his decision to travel to Iowa in September was designed to help Democrats in the midterm elections, not to explore his own future political ambitions. Basically, my rule has been that if I can help in the 06 cycle, then I'm going to do it, Obama said in an interview. The only reason not to do it would be the symbolism of Iowa, which probably wasn't a good reason for us not to help out.
Obama will make his Iowa debut at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry. The venue is among the most sought-after platforms in Democratic politics, a rural fairground south of Des Moines that has hosted Bill Clinton three times and a string of prospective presidential hopefuls over the years. I think there is a lot of curiosity about him, Harkin said of his junior colleague in the Senate. "He will excite people and motivate people.
Until now, Obama has taken great care to steer clear of Iowa, the state that traditionally launches the race for the White House. But accepting the invitation to appear on Harkin's high-profile stage Sept. 17 underscores the notion that Obama is not intent on tamping down speculation about his interest in the 2008 campaign.
Obama said no greater significance should be drawn from his trip to Iowa. He said Harkin extended the invitation and he accepted, just as he has done for other Democratic colleagues. "I've already been to 30 states," he said, including the bordering states of Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri and Illinois. "Why not Iowa?"
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said today that his decision to travel to Iowa in September was designed to help Democrats in the midterm elections,
The only thing they could have done to harm their efforts more in Iowa and the midwest would be to have sent Bill Clinton. Go for it donks!
(KUNA) -- Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that Israel will not hesitate to launch a full ground attack to eliminate Hezbollah. He told reporters that the operations will not end until Hezbollah operating centers in northern Israel are demolished. Peretz's statements coincided with the heavy fighting between Hezbollah operatives and Israeli soldiers in southern Lebabanon.
Meanwhile, the Israeli bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut resumed at 9:15 pm local time after the capital witnessed a respite today. Two large explosions were heard in the southern parts of Beirut with no clue if the bombardment came from Israeli Jet fighters or battleships.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Never realized the Israelis possessed "Battleships". Mebbe they raised the "Yamato" from the depths?
#2
Borgboy,
No Yamato !
We dont have destroyers ot other big battleships but ewe have plenty of Saar shipes and other small fast ships with onboard cannons and missile fire power.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
07/21/2006 6:11
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#3
Betcha it's a babelfishism for "gunship". Since the sentence is "Israeli Jet fighters or battleships".
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/21/2006 7:52
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#4
He told reporters that the operations will not end until Hezbollah operating centers in northern Israel are demolished.
The KUNA reporter is a wee bit challenged in the geography department. Or maybe he is predicting future reality...
#5
Israel has not only battlehips but also a whole hidden fleet of aircraft carriers. In the fities an Israeli helicopter made an emrgency landing on an American carrier. When questionned by the Americans (let's remeber that the Eisenhower administartion was not that fond of Israel) the pilot just told: "I thought it was one of our carriers".
#9
I hope the Israelis kill every Muslim male they catch with a weapon in hand. No surrenders, no POWs, just KIA. Don't show any more mercy to them than you would to the Death's Head SS because that example is exactly who these scum seek to emulate. They won't learn until they get hit as hard as the Germans did, so it's long past time to start teaching exactly the same way the Allies taught the Germans. That's what it will take to win this war and the sooner Israel and the West acknowledge it, the fewer casualties we'll take in the fight.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 11:53
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#10
well, I dont know. My initial thought is that they wont go North of the Litani. OTOH I didnt think theyd do a ground offensive (Spec ops aside) at all, so dont go by me.
Or maybe this is part of a political game? The farther north they go, the more pressure for a ceasefire. Maybe this means theyve done most of what they need to do, and are ready for a ceasefire on their terms, one that insists on a UN force that has a mandate to disarm Hezbollah?
#13
I have read history. A lot of it. Like the blowing of the American embassy in Beirut, plus the one of to hundrec marines perpetrated by your pals of Hizbollah.
#15
"the one of to hundrec marines perpetrated by your pals of Hizbollah."
Your understanding of the English language is as pitiful and woeful as your conception of current affairs, you are implying, that friends of hizbollah that are 'somehow' connected to me are procreating US marines. explain your idiocy to the families of the slain, idiot.
#16
The Israelis have no need to go north of the Litani. 20km will put 98-99% of the rockets out of range. The 1-2% can be dealt with aggressive recon and airstrikes. In addition to going to the Litani, I think it is imperative to destroy all buildings and improvements like roads and water systems in the muslim areas to make it as difficult for any of them to return.
If I had my way, I would scrape away any topsoil and turn the area into the world's largest Japanese rock garden.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 17:07
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#17
the Liberty incident occurred precisely because the Israeli navy was weak in 1967. It relied on air alone to deal with offshore threats, and when overtired pilots, whod been busy the previous few days destroying the air forces of several arab nations, and had gotten little rest, saw a warship, outside of normal tradelanes, having been assured the 6th fleet was nowhere nearby, and after what appeared to be naval shelling on the coast, they tragically, mistakenly, fired on what they THOUGHT was an Egyptian destroyer.
Today Israel has a navy that controls the coast of Lebanon, though it consists of destroyers, not battleships. It is participating in the destruction of Hezbollah, the group that killed hundreds of US Marines in Beirut. Not by accident, but deliberately.
#18
The Liberty, as an intelligence ship, is built on a merchant hull, not a destroyer hull. They look nothing alike.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 18:34
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#19
The Liberty, as an intelligence ship, is built on a merchant hull, not a destroyer hull. They look nothing alike.
To a sailor. For pilot who has not been trained at ship identification and is travelling at 300 Mph they look alike. Hey in WWII bomber crews time and again fired on Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Spittfires taking them for Messerchmitts and Focke Wulfs. The only ones who were, more or less, never subject to friendly fire were the Lightnings.
#20
Which reinforces my point. A mustang and Bf109 look similar because they are both fighters. It would be the same as mistaking a Mustang for a C-47.
Posted by: ed ||
07/21/2006 19:17
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#21
The Israelis knew exactly what they were attacking and why. Whether they knew whose, might be debatable, but I doubt it.
#23
Phase 2:
When Israel invades in force, Hizbollah will launch Tel Aviv range missiles from border areas in northern Lebanon. The launchers will then scurry back into Syria, posing a dilemma on Israel. Israeli's will perceive the status quo as unmanageable, and will exercise the "Sampson Option." Anyone who matters will support that default escalation, in that it will prevent Iran from ever possessing Euro-blackmail missiles (if not ICBMs, with warheads).
I wonder: has Condi Rice ever heard the weekly "Death to America" chants at Teheran University? I hope what she is sayingis diversionary, otherwise I don't like what I am hearing from her. But, she could surprise. The term "armistice" is not in the WOT dictionary.
#24
pihkalbadger, I've seen USS Liberty brought up numerous times. I always think of it as evolution in action (play spy in war zone, refuse to identify yourself, ignore signals to go away).
p.s. My little history expert. Eisenhower administration ended 6 years before the Liberty incident.
#25
When I think of the coming envasion, I see a strategy best served by a thrust on the right, off tackle, cut left to the sea and seal off escape to the north. Then go rat hunting. Winning the attrition game is paramont.
Lebanons government, and not Hezbollah, should make all political and military decisions, if the current crisis is to be solved, Samir Geagea, told Asharq al Awsat on Tuesday. The head of the executive committed of the Lebanese Forces also indicated that Lebanon was at the center of a conflict between the United States and the West, on the one hand, and Iran and Syria, on the other.
In an interview with Asharq al Awsat, Geagea declined to hold any party responsible for the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, but indicated the March 14 coalition, of which he is a member, has much to say to Hezbollah, after the violence ends. From a humanitarian point of view we are completely sympathetic to the plight of civilians and we also feel sad at whats happening. But from a strategic point of view, the Lebanese government has to make detailed calculations, in order to understand which measures need to be taken, starting from the facts that have emerged in the last few days, in order to solve the crisis.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
You're only six year late, Geagea.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 0:19
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#2
The West has been saying similar for decades, to which the Lebanese govt. responds only after the terror orgs retreat post-Israeli invasion.
#5
With Resolution 1559, wasn't Leb supposed to do something about Hez? Something like disband them?
And, how do these relatively tame comments comport with news that the Leb army will fight along side Hez should the Israelis come knocking?
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 1:48
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#6
Sung to
"I Am The Walrus"
by Lennon & McCartney
You are Terr'ists, and we are not,
so you and me - we're not together.
See how you run from bombs - our good work done,
see Jehadis fly.
I'm tired.
Sitting on a humvee,
waiting for air strikes to come.
IDF tee-shirt,
stupid bloody Persians.
Mahmood*, you been a naughty boy,
you let your nukes grow fast.
We're the Israleis,
You are Hezbo'llah,
You are in deep shit,
coo coo coochoo
Afghan and coalition soldiers on Wednesday recaptured the second of two towns that had been overrun by the Taliban, Afghan and U.S. officials said. Hundreds of troops battled Taliban fighters and entered the Helmand provincial town of Garmser, which insurgents had captured Sunday, said General Rahmatullah Roufi, the Afghan Army commander in the country's south. "Our troops launched an attack on Garmser and thank God we captured it," Roufi said. He declined to provide details.
A purported Taliban statement threatened "severe" action in the coming days. The operation in Garmser followed an offensive against Taliban militants about 32 kilometers, or 20 miles, to the north in Naway-i-Barakzayi, which the insurgents captured Monday but apparently abandoned.
A spokesman for the U.S. military, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick, said Afghan and coalition forces "skirmished" with Taliban fighters outside Garmser but met no resistance once inside. "The Taliban appears to be bullying their way around some of the smaller towns in remote areas but they have no capability to lay claim to any piece of ground," Fitzpatrick said. Two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the operation, and the deputy governor of Helmand Province said two Taliban were also killed.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Severe beards. Severe action.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
07/21/2006 5:20
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#2
...depends on what the meaning of 'severe', is...
#3
Don't knock slingshots. Slingshots and ball bearings (1/4" size) will put a HURT on someone. It's much worse than being hit at point-blank range with a paintball. It won't kill a deer, but I've knocked squirrels out of trees 50-60 feet up with one. They're also VERY quiet...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/21/2006 15:55
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#4
Blowguns are quiet as well. Used to shoot pigeons off the rafters in the barn with one. Doesn't put a hole in the roof like a .22 if you miss.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 16:08
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#5
Used to sell Whammo on my blowgun design. Round looked like a mini-sabot, used sharped pianowire. Whammo lawyers say go away.
ONCE AGAIN the "international community" is clamoring for the United Nations to fix things in the Middle East. It's reminiscent of an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer is in dire straits. In a panic, he yells heavenward, "I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!" For some fetishists of multilateralism, the U.N. seems to fill this odd space in their brains once reserved for God, providence or even the Man of Steel whatever force of good that can save civilization from evil. If religion is the opiate of the masses, then the United Nations is the opiate of the elites.
Global U.N. worship is based on an odd mix of delusion and realpolitik. To self-described internationalists, the U.N. is supposed to be a counterweight to America's "unipolar" dominance. In the wake of the U.S.-led victory in the Cold War, America greeted an ungrateful world eager to see the remaining superpower counterbalanced by, well, something. And the U.N. was the only viable candidate. As U.N. Undersecretary-General Shashi Tharoor wrote a few years ago, "American power" not AIDS, genocide or global warming "may well be the central issue in world politics today." Of course, there are others who pay lip service to idealistic U.N. globaloney but who really just like to use the place as a grand global rug under which any problem can be swept. If you hear a world leader start out by saying "something must be done," odds are he's going to finish that sentence by saying "and the U.N. should do it."
Now, it would be one thing if the U.N. actually, you know, worked. But the problem is that the history of the U.N. is a history of unrelenting failure. Oh, not in immunizing kids and feeding starving people. The U.N. gets a passing grade there, though certainly not an A.
Continued on Page 49
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(KUNA) -- Up to 10 Iraqis, including six policemen were injured in Iraq Thursday due to the explosion of a booby-trapped car in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police source told the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA). It added that the car bomb targeted a police patrol in the Exhibitions Street, near a public square. The explosion injured six policemen and four civilians. Three other mortar rounds targeted the Northern Oil company on the Kirkuk-Biji Rd near the village of Fakhar. No casualties were reported as a result of the mortar attack, the source said. It added that one more mortar round fell on infrastructure premises on the same road near the Sidi Humaid village. No casualties or damages were reported.
Meanwhile, the authorities caught seven insurgents outside the Rashad area and confiscated three Klashnikov guns from them. The operation was aimed at purging the area from terrorists who were trying to ingnite sectarianism in the area, the source said.
The Iraqi forces, along with the multi-national ones had started, on Thursday, the Blessed Day operation aimed at chasing armed groups in Rashad, west of Kirkuk. A military source said the operation was an extension to a previous purging operation called iron hammer. The earlier operation was launched by the Iraqi forces last week near the Howeija and Zab areas and districts near them in search of armed groups.
On Wednesday, four Iraqis were killed and 16 others injured due a bomb, which exploded in a cafe in Kirkuk. In a related development, the US army announced its soldiers arrested seven armed men, including two who from the Al-Qaeda organization, a statement said. It added that the operation took place "during a raid on the Mahmoudieh village." The two Al-Qaeda members were found to be involved in facilitating the infiltration of foreigners into Iraq and in planting bombs, the US army statement said. The US forces also seized a large quantity of arms and ammunition, the statement added.
In Irbil, unknown gunmen killed an Iraqi police officer in central Mosul, a police source said. The source told KUNA that two civilians were also killed in the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Hundreds of Ethiopian troops in armored vehicles rolled into Somalia on Thursday to protect their allies in this country's virtually powerless government from Islamic militants who control the capital.
The move could give the U.S.-backed Somali government its only chance of curbing the Islamic militia's increasing power. But Ethiopia's incursion could also be just the provocation the militia needs to build public support for a guerrilla war. "We will declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia," a top Islamic official, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
I declare jahad null and void
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 0:07
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#2
We got any Spectre's handy? Be nice to give the Ethiopes a bit of help...
QUETTA: The security forces recovered large quantity of arms and ammunition from Dera Bugti area on Thursday.
And then some:
According to details the Frontier Corps in a search operation against the miscreants recovered 3 Sam missiles, 309 rockets, 104 mortar bombs, 175 land mines, 10250 rounds of anti air craft gun, 27 rifles, 815kg of explosives, 238 detonators and fuses. The FC search team also recovered 85 thousand rounds of different types, 69050 rounds of Dragunov rifle, 1020 rounds of 12.7 mm gun, 4320 rounds of Kalashnikov, 227 fuses of 40 mm rockets, 178 kilograms of explosives, 900 detonators, 250 meters of detonating wire, two 303 rifles and one 32 bore pistol. In another raid the FC personnel recovered 104 mortars, 100 land mines, 40 china rifles and 660 kgs of explosives from Loop Sherani area. The arms and ammunition was dumped to be used for subversive activities.
#3
*Love* the title, Seafarious. But would the RAB really want to acquire that much stuff? Given that each bit needs to be properly stored between uses, and regularly dusted and polished to remove fingerprints and all. I think they're happier continuing in their ultramodern, minimalist way. ;-)
(KUNA) -- Three Iraqi civilians were killed and ten others injured on Thursday when a car bomb blew up in the Shula district, west of Baghdad, Police said. The car blew up in the Sadrain crossing in the Shula district, an Iraqi police source told KUNA, noting that three civilians were instantly killed and ten others received serious wounds. The blast inflicted damages to shops and cars around the scene, the source said.
In a separate development, a total of 38 corpses of gunshot victims had been found in Baghdad over the last 24 hours. According to the Iraqi police, 22 of the corpses were found in the Karkh district of the Iraqi capital, while another sixteen were found in the Rasafa district. The bodies bore evidence of torture, the police sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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BRUSSELS The Israeli military is using chemical weapons during its bombing of Lebanon, a Belgian-Lebanese professor claimed during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. The press conference was organised by the secretary of the Tripoli archbishop, Monsignor Jean Abboud. The Belgian professor of Lebanese origin, Bachir Cham, is the head of a hospital in Lebanon.
"The bodies don't look like they normally do. After an explosion there were no traces of blood loss or subcutaneous haemorrhages [bruises]," Cham said via mobile phone direct from Beirut. The hair and sometimes the beard and the moustache remained intact. I found no traces of the pressure wave by the explosion. The colour of the skin was black like a shoe, but the skin was not carbonised or burnt."
Eight mummy-like bodies were taken to the hospital on Monday and photos taken of the corpses. Two children's bodies showed no indication of wounds resulting from an explosion. "I have the impression that a poisonous product penetrated the body via the skin. Death follows with almost 100 percent certainty," the professor said. A heart specialist, Mohammad Farran, said letters had been sent to the UN and the EU drawing their attention to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Israel in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Arab, Lebanese and Belgian fellow travellers peace activists protested for fourth consecutive day in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels against the Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Placards carried by the protestors read: "Israel today is committing a deliberate crime against Lebanon" and "Stop Israeli terrorism".
#4
I think this is probably misdiagnosis of a case of contageous hemorroids by our Belgian-Lebanese good doctor.
I love the fantasies spewed out by the overactive eastern imagination.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
07/21/2006 6:21
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#7
Take your medicine Hizbullebanese, you did not fight for your country. Maybe some of Saddam's cocktails came from Syria and made it into what was once Lebanon..
#8
If the guy is right...doesn't that indicate the presence of WMD issues?
For a nation like the US, Israel, Russia, China, et cetera, an allegation of chem weapons would be--and is--on its face preposterous. But that doesn't mean their use is tatally unlikely, given the rogue nation status of pre-war Iraq, Syria and Iran.
Usually in someone's words are truth. Maybe not the truth they want to expose, but truth nontheless.
#9
Yeah, just like the NK accusations against the UN forces in the Korean War. Desperation is the soul of deceit. However, it is true that suicide killers would pack caustic and inflammatory materials with their charge.
#10
Perhaps these people were in a bunker or tunnel that got all the oxygen sucked out of it by one of those fuel-air type bombs. Would suffocation lead to the discoloration?
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for an immediate halt to the violence between Israel and Lebanon, saying a cease-fire would be the first step toward ending the escalating war. Israel, backed by the U.S., immediately dismissed calls for a cease-fire and said the military operation _ which was undertaken to free two captured Israeli soldiers but has spread to target all of Hezbollah _ will "take as long as it will take."
"When you operate on a cancerous growth you do not stop in the middle, sew the patient up and tell him keep living with that growth until it kills you," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman said. "You make sure it is totally removed."
Annan went before the council shortly after the return of a three-man U.N. team that met with leaders throughout the region. The team, led by Annan's special political adviser, Vijay Nambiar, came back with a list of proposals to quell the conflict. Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a private two-hour dinner Thursday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ahead of a planned Rice trip to the Middle East. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana had been expected to attend the dinner, but he was still in the region.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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#1
Kofi is the biggest limp dick on earth
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 0:17
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The disproportionate use of force is called total war. It is how wars are won.. Ask Germany ansd Japan. This is a struggle on that scale. This nonsense going around about Israel being given one more week is excreta. It must utterly destroy The self named 'party of god'. To do that will likely destroy what little of Leabanon is left. That is tragic but realistic.
Annan would prefer Israel just quit and be murdered. The man an those around him are useless as well as clueless. Aanan seems to not know When you try and balance or be fair between good and evil parties, the evil party always wins. Hizballah is evil to the core.
#3
Becuz the several 000's already there have been so effective for decades at NOT preventing Radic Terror groups from shelling/rocketing northern Israel.
#4
You made the point, Sock. You cannot be the mediator between good and evil, and this is what the fighting is all about. Hizb'Allah is a death cult proxy of Syria and Iran, mainly the latter. The clinics and the so-called charities are a PR sideshow. Hizb'Allah's and Iran's stated goal is the destruction of Israel and her people. You cannot negotiate between a victim and his avowed murderer. You take out the murderer. The real issue in this war is how to take out the murderer with the least collateral damage.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/21/2006 0:36
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Kofi isn't interested in actually SOLVING anything. Has the U.N. every really solved anything in all of its pathetic existance? To solve something is to remove a reason for the U.N.'s existence.
So Kofi and his buddies don't want peace in the middle east. They are protecting their pathetic jobs and prestige. Peace in the ME would remove one of their jobs.
That is one of the reasons (besides old-fashoned hatred of the Jews) Kofi covertly supports Hezbillah and Hamas all the while publically stiving for 'peace'.
#8
Oh, koffi, if only you had acted so tough when you were the right hand man of boutros-boutros ghali charged to act on Rwanda...
But, of course, none of the parties involved was jooowish (bad!), or muslim (Master Race!), and the USA hadn't a dog in this fight (unlike France who supported and enabled the hutus), so you let 800 000 people get hacked/clubbed to death, or die of hunger and disease.
But that's okay, they weren't important people.
#10
1) Bring forth all the kidnapped soldiers.
2) Immediately evacuate all Hezbollah out of Lebanon back to Iran.
3) Purge all Lebanon of Hizzbi long range weapons
Kofi, you sick son of a bitch, do all these and I promise you we gladly stop the war.
Can't Deliver ?
So Shut the fuck up and let us do the dirty work that you cant.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
07/21/2006 7:02
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He wants the fighting to stop, just long enough so he can send in food and aid, skimming off the top of course making his friends and family rich.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/21/2006 7:46
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I just had this really terrible dream thing. In it, al Qaeda carries out a suicide bombing plot on the UN... Inadvertantly, Bolton discovers the plot and has 20 minutes to alert the Staff of the US, Aus, Israel, Japan, New Europe, and the UK - maybe - and the NYPD cops assigned duty there - and gives instructions to vacate in two's and three's quietly, but quickly.
Imagine how touching the following press conference would be. *wipes tear*
#15
C'mon guys, I think Koffi understands total war better than you give him credit for. I mean after all, he has been sitting back observing the janjaweed do it for years.
#16
collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop
Hmmm...collective punishment, like the German and Japanese people. Mighty peaceful lot they are today I notice.
Collective punishment, you mean like being white and male in America and being punished for something that happened over a hundred years ago be it slavery or suffrage?
Collective punishment for, like, violating international law. International Law? Yep.
The Hague Convention of 1907 which states a neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to used by a belligerent. If the neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction.
Or does international law only apply to Israel and the United States? [Rhetorical question].
#20
He would make a cease fire deal with the martians from "Mars Attacks"...
"a cease-fire would be the first step toward ending the escalating war..."
Ack-ack-ack-ack-ack - PPPFFFT!
#21
It amazes me (but doesnt surprise) that the Islamists idiots decide to pick a fight and once they get one they want to claim victimhood. I remember the 70s and 80s when Egypt, Jordan, and Syria would start a battle and once it was clear they were not going to win they would running crying like Voinovich to the un for a cease fire. When Israel invaded Lebanon the first time Arafish was beaten badly and spent about five days dodging Israeli bombs and making emergency phone calls to the un. Too bad the un (make the U.S.) intervened and allowed Arafish to escape to Tunisia or maybe thing would have been different. IF the PM of Lebanon wants to aid peace, how about he turns his Army (sic) loose on Hezbullah and make that very real problem go away for both sides. I really think they would fare better against Hezbullah than they will against the Jews, but hey maybe they need an ass whoopin to be reminded that they are not in the same league.
Iraq's most prominent Shia cleric, Ali al-Sistani, has called for an end to sectarian "hatred and violence".
Yep. That oughta take care of it...
The grand ayatollah said the violence would only prolong the presence of US forces in the country. His call came as the US military admitted the level of violence was little changed since a large security crackdown in Baghdad last month.
Still too many masterminds at large. And too many money men.
A number of people were killed in fresh violence in the capital and other parts of the country on Thursday.
And, I might add, too many holy men. With Iran driving the violence from one direction and the Saddam remnants from the other — Izzat Ibrahim's still at large, Raghad's still comfy in Jordan, and Assad's still in power in Syria — we're not going to see a significant dropoff. The bad guyz, on the other hand, can't kick us out, so the best they can do is try to make the country uninhabitable.
Correspondents say the ayatollah's comments were his strongest public statements on the issue of sectarian violence in recent months. "I call on all sons of Iraq... to be aware of the danger threatening their nation's future and stand shoulder to shoulder in confronting it by rejecting hatred and violence," he said.
Blah blah... shoulder to shoulder... reject hatred and violence... we should all be nice... Whoopdy doo. Killing Tater would be a lot more to the point...
Ayatollah Sistani said the bombing in February of a Shia shrine in Samarra had unleashed "blind violence".
I'd call it "mindless violence," myself. It's pure destructiveness...
Unless halted the violence would "harm the unity of the people and block their hopes of liberation and independence for a long time", he said.
I think that's been done...
The US military on Wednesday again urged the Sunni and Shia communities to root out militias and death squads.
The bad part about the death squads is that both sides can use them...
But the US military admitted on Thursday the massive security clampdown that followed the killing of al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had achieved only a "slight downtick" in violence.
On the other hand, he is dead. That counts for a lot in my book...
The security plan included up to 50,000 police and soldiers on the streets of Baghdad and more checkpoints and raids on violent areas. US Maj Gen William Caldwell said: "We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world." The US said attacks had risen from an average of 24 a day between 14 June and 13 July to about 34 a day over the past five days.
Has anybody but me noticed that we've got two offensives going between competing death squads? Maybe we should kill the people behind both of them, which'd be Tater and the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Yea, perhaps putting the competing forces in the Roman Coliseum theater of death. Let the lions have the remains
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/21/2006 0:16
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Sistani may not be everything we could hope for but at least he was OK on this issue.
Obviously, 50k police and soldiers can't handle the job if they face both Sunni and Shia terror gangs (partly because some of the police are part time terrorists).
You would think that, at some point, the supply of terrorists would shrink simply because they are killing each other. I also thought that by now the supply of high power explosives would be somewhat constrained.
#3
i was wondering when he would speak out. Im not sure how much influence he has on the street - the continued violence has left plenty bad feeling among the Shiites of Baghdad, and I dont know that they will listen to Sistani any more. OTOH maybe this gives more support to Maliki and others Shiite pols (whose base is the whole Shiite south, not just Baghdad) to push harder against Sadr. We HAVE seen some arrests of Mahdi army figures, though not of Sadr himself.
And yeah, when we look at the civilian death numbers (which ARE really bad) we should take into account that now thats deaths going both ways - the Sunni insurgency may well be weakening, but thats offset by more deaths at the hands of the Sadrists.
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police has charged six people, including four Bangladesh nationals who are absconding, for alleged involvement in the twin bombings at Varanasi this March in which about 20 people were killed. The chargesheets were filed before Varanasi chief judicial magistrate P.N. Srivastava on Wednesday. "The accused have been charged for murder, attempt to murder as well as under the anti-explosives law," said a home department spokesperson.
The twin blasts on March 7 - one at the Varanasi railway station and the other at the popular Sankat Mochan temple - had injured about 100 people in the temple town that draws huge crowds of Hindu devotees as well as a large number of foreign tourists. Of the six key accused, only Wali Ullah, an imam at a local mosque, is in custody. One person was gunned down by police and there is no trace of the four Bangladeshi nationals who might have bravely sneaked back into their country, officials said. "From the leads given by Wali Ullah, we have reason to believe that the four Bangladeshi nationals were activists of a militant organisation based in that country," the spokesperson said.
While the court has yet to give a date for commencing trial, police has submitted a list of 45 witnesses for the station blast. There is another list of 18 witnesses for the blast at the Sankat Mochan temple.
Posted by: Fred ||
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...by giving up Hebrew and yarmulkes, of course...
The Mosaic Religious Community has advised its Jewish members against speaking Hebrew loudly on the streets of Oslo or wearing Jewish emblems. The suggestion has infuriated some in the membership. It comes after a Jewish man wearing a kippah, or yarmulke, was assaulted on an Oslo street Saturday. The Mosaic Religious Community wants its members to be careful.
"We have encouraged our members to avoid speaking Hebrew loudly on the street," Anne Sender of the Jewish organization told newspaper Vårt Land. She also told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that men may want to reconsider wearing the yarmulke. Sender said she wanted to stress that "the situation for Jews in Norway is better than it has been for a long time," despite current tensions caused by the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel that broke out last week.
That's provoked journalist Mona Levin, daughter of the late pianist Robert Levin. "We can't conceal that we're Jews," Levin said, adding that she intended to start wearing her Star of David. "That's letting ourselves down."
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Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/21/2006 8:43
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I'm of partial Norwegian stock. I'm ashamed of this crap. I also wouldn't touch lutefisk if you paid me.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 9:14
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#10
...and don't argue. Just get on the trains when they tell you. It'll be okay. Don't make trouble.
I wonder how many Anne Senders were around in the 1930's?
#11
Norway also sent its sons to patrol the border between Lebanon and Isreal in the 90's. They would have pot shots taken at them on a regular basis, because Norway is regarded by local thugs as being rich. If they responded with force, usually the village would file a grevience and get a make good payoff for damages. Then the UN put rotated in Pakistani troops and the local vilages screamed "bring back the Norwegians". The violence went down immediately when the locals realized they couldn't "sue" for damages anymore.
#12
I have a good friend, Ketil, who was with the Norwegian force in Lebannon. He is very worried about the friends he made there but doesn't think the Israelis should not have retaliated. He was involved in firefights with Hezbollah and still has bad dreams of having to kill people. He wouldn't go back to Norway now for anything. His family all live there but the Islamization of Norway and the Norwegian capitulation to the Muslims gets him depressed very easily. He says most people don't believe they will be affected by the Islamists and he doesn't see any way to change that opinion until something really bad happens.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/21/2006 10:49
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Norway has long been a friend of Israel, and of the Jews generally.
I presume the violence is due to muslim immigrants. I might want Norway to be more effective in clamping down on such violence, but I wouldnt make snide remarks about Norway.
#15
In order to understand the current European stand on Jews, we must first find the root cause of the spreading (like a airborne virus) modern day Jew hatred. The answer is not good news for Jews in Europe.
Everyone knows what happened 60 to 70 years ago. The modern day Jew problem totally different from 60 to 70 years ago. The modern day European Jew hatred is about European existence, not Jew hatred. Of course, there will always be some fringe elements out there.
The root cause is a massive decline in Anglo European birthrates. The Anglo European population is aging rapidly with retirees flooding the socialistic and dependent public sector. With the Anglo birthrate population degradation, Europe is forced into mass immigration. This majority cheap labor immigration influx is from, unfortunately, Islamic states. One can reach the conclusion that this is the reason for all the Jew hatred.
I reach a different conclusion, the problem is not the massive immigration of Muslims alone, the problem is that there was absolutely NO assimilation. The Europeans have made a very dangerous miscalculation in not assimilating the Muslims into the European culture. Well whats the solution? Europe has run into a T intersection. Something has to give. Take care of the aging population or stand with the Jews. Since the Jews are few in number the aging population has the ear of the politicians. It saddens me to say this but the Jews in Europe have no choice but to emigrate to Israel or America. The situation will be very dire in the next 20 to 30 years in Europe. Here is a link with some scary details.
"However appealing the exclusionary impulse of the far right seems, Europeans cannot afford to close their doors to newcomers. Without immigration, the population of most European countries is poised to age and shrink. Europe's fertility rate is well below what's needed to keep the population at its current level. Today, there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers within the European Union. By 2050, current demographic trends would leave Europe with 75 pensioners for every 100 workers, and in countries like Italy and Spain, the ratio would be 1 to 1."
"The European Union is already home to about 15 million Muslims, and this number is expected to double by 2015. About 5 million Muslims live in France alone. Although at least one-half of France's Muslims are French citizens, the community as a whole has been growing more radicalized. A sense of social isolation (many Muslims live in urban ghettos) and of disenfranchisement (there is not a single Muslim in the National Assembly) has been fueling a mounting and angry Islamic fervor."
#22
#21 NS - I've said that for several years now.
It would solve problems for both of us.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2006 21:58
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During WW-II, Norway showed unbelievable bravery in the effort to neutralize NAZI "Ch"erman seapower. Their efforts and sacrifices, still, to this day, go largely unrecognized here.
"So, I lit a fire, isn't it good Norwegian wood"?
Being so Right-wing that I can't even see through my Left eye, I have to admit that we don't treat our friends and allies fairly. We shift with the prevailing breeze...
Posted by: at ||
07/21/2006 22:17
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Democrats are in trouble in Michigan where the re-election chances of Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Debbie Stabenow are slipping in one of the weakest state economies in the nation. Mrs. Granholm is in worse shape than Mrs. Stabenow, but both have fallen below 50 percent in the latest polls in a political environment turned sour for their party, especially among Democratic blue-collar voters who have suffered the most from massive auto industry layoffs and an unemployment rate that has hit 7 percent.
Late last month a Michigan EPIC/MRA poll of likely voters showed Republican gubernatorial challenger Dick DeVos was leading Mrs. Granholm by 48 percent to 40 percent. That not only foreshadows a likely comeback for the GOP in the Statehouse but has raised fears among the Stabenow campaign's high command that she could be caught in the undertow of an anti-incumbent tide in the state.
Mrs. Granholm's deepening economic troubles are bad enough, signaling the GOP may well pick up several Democratic governorships to offset expected losses in New York and elsewhere. But Mrs. Stabenow's race, which has been overlooked by the pundits, could well be the sleeper of the 2006 midterm elections. She won in a squeaker in 2000 but has since been one of the least effective senators in Washington, passing no major legislation of her own and taking no proactive leadership role in behalf of Michigan's failing economy. Mrs. Stabenow has been one of the most invisible Democrats in the Senate. Knowlegis, a government management group that ranks lawmakers' legislative effectiveness, places the senator near the bottom of their Senate list at No. 95. But heading into this year, Republicans seemed unable to find a strong candidate to challenge Mrs. Stabenow. Their hopes seemed centered on the Rev. Keith Butler, a former Detroit city councilman who does not have the political heft needed to finance and run a competitive campaign.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Glad to see the tide finally may be turning in my home state. Unfortunately those of us raised around the auto industry tend to have parents or friends that still believe that job of gov't is to provide jobs, this is one way the democrats have been so successful up til now. That, and Detroit w/a big black population that always votes demmy no matter how much it usually fails to help them.
He was been dubbed the region's Osama bin Laden but he's the terrorist no one wants to talk about. When the 44-year-old Hambali was arrested in August 2003, US President George W. Bush described him as one of the world's most lethal terrorists and Prime Minister John Howard proclaimed his capture as a huge blow against terrorism. Now, though, it's impossible to get the authorities to say anything about the Indonesian-born man who went by the name Riduan Isamuddin and is allegedly one of the masterminds behind the Bali bombings and a string of attacks across Southeast Asia. While his Bali bombing compatriots Dulmatin and Umar Patek are being hunted on the Philippines island Mindanao, Hambali remains hidden in a secret prison known only to a few CIA operatives. No one else knows where he is being held.
All requests from other nations to interview the man named as the linchpin between bin Laden's al-Qa'ida and the Southeast Asian-based terror group Jemaah Islamiah have been refused by the US Government despite assurances three years ago by former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage that Australia would be given access to the captured terrorist mastermind. Nor will the US even comment about when, or if, he will be brought to trial.
Howard's office has similarly refused to comment. But during a recent trip to Indonesia, Howard was questioned as to whether Indonesian politicians had asked for Australia's help to get access to Hambali. The Prime Minister said it had not, "to my recollection, been raised with Australia by Indonesia, so if it were raised then I would think about it".
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Posted by: Fred ||
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#4
This is part of the first surge toward "where are the rest of them" with Guantanamo closing down. There'll be a lot more curiosity over what happened to Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, and the rest of the larger wigs.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006 16:12
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(SomaliNet) The Islamic militiamen who now control the capital city Mogadisho and most of the southern regions, on Wednesday deployed hundreds of militiamen outside Baidoa where the interim government is based. The Islamists said that they planned to seize the town which, if they succeed, will give them uncontested power over Somalia and weaken the government further.
Ethiopia was, however quick to offer support to the government saying should the Islamists attack then it (Ethiopia) would deploy its troops into the country. The government is too weak to defend itself at the moment. However,by nightfall on Wednesday, no attacks had occured. The Islamists are known not to fight at night. This has caused alot of tension in the country especially between the government and the Islamists after the government called off talks that were supposed to take place in Khartoum on Friday,last week.
The US has accused the group of having links with Al-Qaeda operatives after the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Osama bin Laden called Somalia a front in his global war against the US and its allies. The Islamists have denied these accusations saying that they are fighting for one cause and that is to make Somalia a peaceful nation. The Islamists have denied that they are planning to seize control of Baidoa. An official of the group said that the troops were deployed there so that they would convince the president to establish sharia law in the country. "Our aim of going into the region is to convince the people in the region to implement Islamic law and establish Islamic courts," said Mohammed Ibrahim Bilal the head of the militia that seized control of Bur Haqaba region.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006
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Somalinet apparently gets their Seattle and Australian papers a little late.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 8:22
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The guy on the bottom of the pic looks like Chris Rock.
Winonans dont pay $15 to hear politicians speak. They did pay $15 Tuesday night to hear comedian Al Franken at Winona State Universitys Somsen Auditorium. But the former Saturday Night Live performer didnt come to Winona to visit Levee Park. Franken was here to stump for Tim Walz, a teacher turned politician from Mankato, Minn., running against six-term incumbent Rep. Gil Gutknecht in Minnesotas 1st Congressional District.
Dressed in blue jeans and sneakers, Franken got a standing ovation before saying a word. Ive been campaigning for a number of candidates, Franken said. Theres none better than Tim.
Franken quickly segued into the kind of humor that has given him legions of fans as well as detractors. I hate the Republicans, Franken said. I hate the Republicans who think they own the flag.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A coalition of liberal groups this week launched a nationwide campaign to educate Americans on impeachment and encourage them to support impeaching President Bush.
TEL AVIV Israel's new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel's future operations would be conducted from the air. Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. "bunker buster" munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.
While the world's attention shifts toward the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Baghdad, as one popular Iraqi blogger puts it, is 
A new Osama bin Laden message from al Qaeda's as-Sahab Institute for Media Production is to be released soon, according to IntelCenter, which monitors extremist websites. Sites have begun to advertise a new message. 
Israel warned Lebanese civilians to leave border villages on Friday and called up 3,000 reserves in a possible prelude to a ground offensive that would expand its 10-day-old campaign against Hizbollah guerrillas.
We are often very critical of the New York Times, but when its reporters and editors get something right we like to be the first to point it out. 
Rep. Cynthia McKinney was a no-show this week in the U.S. House, as WSB Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree reports that the Georgia Democrat missed all four days of legislative business and every vote on the House floor as well. 
July 21, 2006: The May 5 Darfur peace agreement is not working. Violence, in fact, appears to be increasing once again. A tribal leader (Masalit tribe, South Darfur) said the peace agreement has proved to be "just paperwork." South Darfur is reportedly experiencing a new wave of attacks by the Sudan-government backed Janajaweed militia. Many of these reports and claims are fragmentary, but UN humanitarian services have been interrupted by the fighting and ambushes. Despite the fragmentary and often unconfirmed reports, it is clear that the Sudan government has not disarmed the Janjaweed militia. Likewise, African Union (AU) peacekeepers have proved to be very ineffective. The AU peacekeepers complain that they were sent to Darfur to observe a ceasefire. The AU forces lack trained troops. Their firepower has proved to be insufficient firepower and the troops they do have lack mobility.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Industrial giant Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) Friday said second-quarter earnings rose, and the company raised its outlook for the full year. The heavy equipment maker reported a profit of $1.046 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $760 million, or $1.08 a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 13 percent to $10.605 billion, the company said. 
[...] I have to say, watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit. I surrender my credentials as Bush exposer - from the very beginning - to no man, but on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition. Lots of ethnic peoples, probably most, have at one time or another lost some territory; nobody's ever completely happy with their borders; people move and get moved, which is why the 20th century saw the movement of tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees in countries around the world. There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on -- the way Germans, Czechs, Poles, Chinese and everybody else has, including, of course, the Jews.
SRINAGAR, India - Soldiers and police clashed Friday with Islamic 
Vicenza, 21 July (AKI) - Italian police on Friday arrested four Algerian nationals on charges they belonged to a cell of the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat, a militant group based in Algeria which has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda. The arrests took place in a vast anti-terror operation in the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy and the central city of Reggio Emilia. The alleged terror ring was based in Venice and operated across Italy to finance the group and recruit militants to send to Algeria and Iraq. Ring members are also charged with forging identification papers and residence permits for illegal immigrants. 
A HARDLINE Muslim cleric barred from Britain for glorifying violence said today he tried to get on board a British warship to flee Beirut but was turned back. "The answer was, 'unless you have a British passport you are not entitled to come on board'," 
LEBANESE Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said there was no apparent political settlement to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and has accused the United States of encouraging Israel's offensive on Lebanon. "The United States is allowing Israel to pursue its aggression," he said. 
CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told.
KATMANDU, Nepal - A planned peacemaking meeting this week between leaders of Nepals communist rebels and the ruling political alliance will likely be postponed, further delaying attempts to end a decade-old conflict, officials said on Thursday.
HONG KONG - Asian governments struggled on Thursday toevacuate nationals from war-torn Lebanon, with some coming in for criticism, as the Philippine president asked for 30,000 Filipinos trapped by the conflict to be spared.
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush is considering renominating John Bolton as the US ambassador to the United Nations, a year after appointing him to the job over Senate objections, aides said on Thursday.
(KUNA) -- Israel will enforce a comprehensive blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip upon the directions of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the Israeli radio reported Thursday. Peretz's decision came after Israeli security agencies were tipped that the Palestinian resistance intended to carry out operations inside Israeli towns. The siege was also in light of the deteriorating security situation in northern Israel.
(KUNA) -- One person was killed and six others were injured when an Israeli warplane launched at least one missile at a gathering of Palestinians in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. Palestinian sources said the injured were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital and that two of them are in serious conditions. A Palestinian was killed and another was injured Thursday morning after being shot by Israeli forces, which are still penetrating in Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have had the rare opportunity to witness firsthand how the diplomatic process works and, in some cases, how it fails. Recently, despite our nation's best efforts, the world -- and particularly the Middle East -- has become a more dangerous and volatile place.
Suddenly trailing in the polls, Democratic Sen. 
(KUNA) -- Twelve Iraqis were killed on Thursday by a booby-trapped car blast in northern Baghdad. In a press statement, a police source said the blast took place near an Iraqi police patrol in Baghdad's Salah Al-Din governorate. All 12 dead persons were civilians, added the source.
(KUNA) -- The governor of Mosul Duraide Muhammad Kashmula survived Thursday an assassination attempt after a bomb exploded near his convoy in the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq. A security source told reporters that the explosion occurred in Al-Faisaliya area in Mosul. The source added that the explosion did not cause any damage.
The top security official of the 
(KUNA) -- Israeli air force carried out 18 raids over central and western, southern Lebanon, according to a security source. The source told KUNA, over 70 villages in Tyre have been hit by the air raids. Israeli tanks have also been firing at most of the border towns especially Kfar Kila and Al-Edaisa. Since this morning Tyre had witnessed 12 air raids targeting residences and infrastructure. As many as 102 bodies of people who have died during the past few days are being held at Tyre's Al-Hakawi Hospital.
(SomaliNet) Ivory Coast was a center of violence on Wednesday. Supporters of Ivory Coast president, 
Two men from Atlanta already accused of discussing targets for bomb attacks in the United States have been indicted by a grand jury in Georgia on charges of receiving paramilitary training and plotting a "violent jihad" against civilian and U.S. government targets. The two, 21-year-old Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, are also said to have links to some of the 12 men and five youths arrested in the Toronto area last month and accused of plotting bombings and kidnappings in southern Ontario. Both men are U.S. citizens.
(KUNA) -- The 
More than 100 people are dead or missing in North Korea due to floods and landslides, an aid group operating in the communist nation said Wednesday. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said heavy rains last week and this week had caused flash floods that totally or partially destroyed 11,524 houses, leaving more than 9,000 families homeless. The damage has cut off telephone connections, making collecting reliable information difficult, it said. A lot of people have been displaced, they are trying to find out who is actually missing, Jaap Timmer, head of the International Red Cross in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, told The Associated Press by telephone.
(Interfax) - Three facts of voluntary surrender of weapons and ammunition by Chechen residents have been recorded in the republic in the past 24 hours, Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman Amin Deniyev told Interfax Thursday. A campaign conducted by local authorities and policemen following a call to members of illegal armed groups by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director 
(KUNA) -- Five Iraqi civilians were killed and tens of others were injured when a car bomb exploded in Midtown Kirkruk city in Northern Iraq, said a police source Thursday. The source told KUNA that the car exploded near the city hall and added that it caused damage to nearby properties. Violence is still occuring in Kirkuk city despite numerous efforts by the Iraq security forces and Multi-National Force (MNF) to maintain order in the city.
(KUNA) -- Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that Israel will not hesitate to launch a full ground attack to eliminate Hezbollah. He told reporters that the operations will not end until Hezbollah operating centers in northern Israel are demolished. Peretz's statements coincided with the heavy fighting between Hezbollah operatives and Israeli soldiers in southern Lebabanon.
Afghan and coalition soldiers on Wednesday recaptured the second of two towns that had been overrun by the Taliban, Afghan and U.S. officials said. Hundreds of troops battled Taliban fighters and entered the Helmand provincial town of 
(KUNA) -- Up to 10 Iraqis, including six policemen were injured in Iraq Thursday due to the explosion of a booby-trapped car in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police source told the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA). It added that the car bomb targeted a police patrol in the Exhibitions Street, near a public square. The explosion injured six policemen and four civilians. Three other mortar rounds targeted the Northern Oil company on the Kirkuk-Biji Rd near the village of Fakhar. No casualties were reported as a result of the mortar attack, the source said. It added that one more mortar round fell on infrastructure premises on the same road near the Sidi Humaid village. No casualties or damages were reported.
Hundreds of Ethiopian troops in armored vehicles rolled into Somalia on Thursday to protect their allies in this country's virtually powerless government from Islamic militants who control the capital.
QUETTA: The security forces recovered large quantity of arms and ammunition from Dera Bugti area on Thursday.
(KUNA) -- Three Iraqi civilians were killed and ten others injured on Thursday when a car bomb blew up in the Shula district, west of Baghdad, Police said. The car blew up in the Sadrain crossing in the Shula district, an Iraqi police source told KUNA, noting that three civilians were instantly killed and ten others received serious wounds. The blast inflicted damages to shops and cars around the scene, the source said.
Iraq's most prominent Shia cleric, 
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police has charged six people, including four Bangladesh nationals who are absconding, for alleged involvement in the twin bombings at Varanasi this March in which about 20 people were killed. The chargesheets were filed before Varanasi chief judicial magistrate P.N. Srivastava on Wednesday. "The accused have been charged for murder, attempt to murder as well as under the anti-explosives law," said a home department spokesperson. 
Democrats are in trouble in Michigan where the re-election chances of Gov. 
(SomaliNet) The Islamic militiamen who now control the capital city Mogadisho and most of the southern regions, on Wednesday deployed hundreds of militiamen outside Baidoa where the interim government is based. The Islamists said that they planned to seize the town which, if they succeed, will give them uncontested power over Somalia and weaken the government further. 
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