US requests to send two more planes carrying bombs and missiles to Israel via Britain in the next fortnight would probably be approved, The Times newspaper reported in London today.
The story follows criticism by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett of reported stopovers in Scotland of US planes carrying munitions for Israel.
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes laden with GBU-28 bombs landed at Scotland's Prestwick airport over the weekend for refuelling and a crew rest on the way to Israel.
Ms Beckett said that she had raised the report with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and would issue a formal complaint to Washington if the report was found to be true.
The planes that landed at Prestwick had been designated "civilian flights" and US officials had failed to notify British authorities of their hazardous contents, The Times said.
It said that the diplomatic row was more about procedure than principle, and quoted an unnamed senior government official saying flights through Prestwick "will be allowed to continue".
"It is a right we have always granted."
The White House, too, has dismissed British concerns about the allegations, with spokesman Tony Snow yesterday calling it "a paperwork question".
The report came as British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared to fly to the US today for a five-day trip.
He is not expected to raise the issue with US President George W. Bush.
In recent months Prestwick has also been the subject of claims that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used it for so-called "extraordinary rendition" flights to transport security suspects to third countries where torture might be used.
ISRAEL'S Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu today compared the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon to the Hollywood movie Alien.
The 1979 science-fiction thriller starring Sigourney Weaver depicted "alien ferocious bodies that plant themselves in a host and lurch out, burst through the chest, and attack the person next to the host and in doing so, kills the host", Mr Netanyahu told Canadian broadcaster CTV from Tel Aviv.
"Hezbollah is the alien body and Lebanon is the host," he said.
"And the mother alien, if you will, producing these poisoned eggs, is Iran, with its way station to Syria."
Israel would be the bystander struck by the alien monster, he implied.
"If we're going to have a future of peace and good neighbours, a future of tranquility, then this alien ... it's got to go," he said.
#6
You know that was the only movie that I've seen besides Full Metal Jacket that accurately captured the patter of an infantry platoon (at least the ones that I hung out around).
NANCY PELOSI bared fangs to show that the Democratic Party no longer has toothless gums. On national security, she said, ``When you think of women and defense and security, think of a lioness. You come anywhere near our cubs, you're dead."
As Al Qaeda quivers...
On mid term election strategy, she sounded like she was warming up for the old World Wrestling Federation. ``You cannot go head to head with the president until you take him down. Take him down, make him pay, and then we can have a conversation."
On party unity, she sounded like she had what the Republicans have had for President Bush's term and a half: ``the full backing of our entire caucus . . . geographically, philosophically, generationally."
The House minority leader said, ``This is our moment. I can't answer for how anybody did it before. This is how we're doing it."
Pelosi said this, knowing how the party's dentures dropped out in 2000 and 2004. Speaking last week to members of the Trotter Group of African-American newspaper columnists, the San Francisco congresswoman said Bush's crumbling record on the economy and Iraq gives Democrats a chance to go on the attack in a way they did not during the overly cautious presidential runs of Al Gore and John Kerry. Every major poll taken this month and last shows that respondents generically favor Democrats in House races by anywhere from 7 to 16 percentage points.
``The way they've come at us in the past has been gays, guns, and God: abortion, gay marriage, and guns, and they've had some success with that with people whose personal interests are served by voting Democratic," Pelosi said. ``I maintain that's because they've not heard a Democratic economic message that addresses their needs. They haven't heard anything with the clarity that they need . . . With no criticism of the presidential candidates, I don't know if the message they had reached these same people whose interests are served by a Democratic agenda but voted Republican for president."
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006
18:13 ||
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#1
The headline made me think she was going to unveil her new bust.
#2
they've had some success with that with people whose personal interests are served by voting Democratic,"
Personally, if she articulates where the Democrat Party stands on subsidies for molybdenum production and initiatives to cure dandruff, I might, just might vote Democratic.
#4
Wrong. My personal interest has never been served by voting Democratic or having them in power. They have controled my state for much of my adult life and have ruined it. All I have to do is take a look at the highways in my state for a starter. What is collected in fuel taxes gets spent on teaching basket weaving and otehr nonsense not fixing the roads. Diesel fuel costs the same as regular unleaded fuel due to over taxation. There are no living wage jobs for folks like me to be had. I have less real liberty and freedom than the day I was born. This is the 'progressive' vision of Democrats. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.
When Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers two weeks ago, provoking the current conflagration, the Shiite terrorist outfit apparently intended to use them as bargaining chips to demand the release of prisoners. Press reports often discuss this as if there were an equivalence between the Israeli soldiers, who committed no crimes but were simply defending their own country within its borders, and Arab terrorists. So it's worth pointing out just who the "prisoners" in Israeli hands are.
According to the BBC "the prisoner Hezbollah wants most" is Samir Qantar. On April 22, 1979, Qantar murdered 28-year-old Danny Haran and his 4-year-old daughter and caused the death of another Haran daughter, age 2. Haran's widow, Smadar Haran Kaiser, describes the crime (she transliterates the murderer's name as "Kuntar"):
It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border.
Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer.
As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.
Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.
They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.
As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.
The BBC gives a rather more sanitized account of the crime: "Qantar . . . attacked a block of flats in Nahariha in 1979, killing a father and his daughter."
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006
17:44 ||
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#1
I've got a "wish list" too.
It involves LOTS of dead Mikey Moore's "minutemen" terrorists.
In lots of different hell-holes countries.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 18:00
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#2
Oh my god. What monsters.
And they MSM protrays these 'prisoners' as 'innocent civilains being held by the Israeli's'. That makes the MSM just as monsterous in my eyes.
#3
What I don't get is why Israel doesn't have the death penalty (the exception for Nazi war criminals is pretty much moot at this point). If they feel justified in helizapping murderous thugs and their "spiritual leaders" - which I fully support - why can't they execute these same murderous thugs when they're captured alive? That would keep these monsters from becoming bargaining chips.
#4
Israel is too infected with Trans-National-Socialism to be sensible and have a death penalty.
Look at the Dean look-a-like they have has defense minister.
Beijing: Denouncing the Dalai Lama as a "splittist," China has accused him of collaborating with the CIA and Indian military to establish the "Indian Tibetan special border troops" to reclaim authority in his Himalayan homeland from Beijing.
In the name of "organising armed troops to fight their way back into Tibet", the Dalai Lama collaborated with the Indian military and American CIA to organise the "Indian Tibetan special border troops", the state-run 'China Daily' reported on its website, quoting a lengthy report appearing in an official Tibetan publication.
It is not clear whether the report was alluding to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, a para-military unit of India.
The report noted that the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has been setting up "representative offices" in some countries, organising the "Tibet youth congress", "Tibet national democratic party" and "Tibet women's federation." "All these organisations have engaged in separatist activities overseas," the report said.
Moreover, the Dalai Lama set up his "government in exile" overseas and worked out a "Tibetan constitution" and setting up a rebel army in Nepal for border harassments, it said.
Despite his frequent statements of not seeking 'Tibetan independence,' the article accused him of pursuing his agenda of seeking independence under the guise of seeking 'real autonomy' for the remote Himalayan region.
"People who know Tibetan history well know that the Dalai Lama stands for the "independence of Tibet" when he has fled to India in 1959," it said.
The article also rejected his demand for implementing the "one country, two systems" formula in Tibet, similar to Hong Kong and Macau as also his bid for an "enlarged Tibet" including the Tibetan-inhabited areas in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006
17:23 ||
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#1
For being such a pleasant fellow that Dalai Lama sure seems to get under alot of Chicom skin.
In the name of "organising armed troops to fight their way back into Tibet", the Dalai Lama collaborated with the Indian military and American CIA to organise the "Indian Tibetan special border troops"
What? So the Chinese hired Kimmie's foaming propogandist to write copy? Interesting development
#2
Rather bizarre... didn't the Dalai Lama make some conciliatory speeches recently? The Indian defence minister also tried to gloss over some of the irritants, reopening a border pass to trade.
Why this propaganda now?
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006 19:56
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Email freebie, no linkie.
After a long night of debate, the Israeli security Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided the military campaign in south Lebanon would not be expanded, and that any modifications to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation, such as deploying more troops, would require Cabinet approval.
Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire. This might not be true to Israeli thinking, but it is certainly a message they are trying to send to Hezbollah's chain of command. Which then raises the question: Why?
Israel is likely exaggerating the extent to which the military and Cabinet are divided over how to continue in this military campaign, but a real disagreement exists between those promoting a sustained air campaign and those pushing for a ground offensive because IDF forces are getting restive. A compromise might have been reached in the July 27 Cabinet meeting to bolster the air campaign but prepare ground forces for an invasion if it becomes apparent that the Israeli air force will be unable to deliver on its own.
There could be some faith within Israel's defense circles that an air campaign will eventually pan out and succeed in undermining Hezbollah's capabilities, but such an operation takes time and costs an exorbitant amount of money, since ground troops are standing by. As support for a continued air campaign is weakening by the day, something else must be factoring into Israel's war strategy.
The thought of Israel even considering scaling down its military operation at this point -- though golden news for Hezbollah -- carries devastating consequences for Israel. If the fighting were to come to a halt over the next few days, Hezbollah would claim victory and present itself as the only Arab force capable of standing up to Israeli aggression. Merely resisting and surviving a fight against Israel represents a major win for the Islamist militant movement and its sponsors in Iran and Syria -- something Israel, the United States and even the surrounding Arab regimes are unable to cope with. Moreover, an imminent cease-fire would allow Hezbollah to retain the capability to carry out attacks against Israel whenever the need arises.
Israel, therefore, cannot agree to a cease-fire. At the same time, the current operational tempo has not yet yielded a satisfactory outcome for Israel. Katyusha rockets continue to rain down over the northern part of the country as Israel continues its attempts to take out Hezbollah's rocket launch sites. Though Israel's massive air campaign could gradually wear down Hezbollah's offensive capabilities, it will take several weeks before any definitive results will come to light. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is locked in its own military strategy. Hezbollah commanders have long been preparing for this battle and are ready to stand their ground for an extended period of time and draw the Israelis into bloody insurgent combat.
And time does not appear to be on Israel's side. Israel has already incurred a steady barrage of rocket attacks over the past two weeks, and the IDF experienced one of its deadliest days in ground fighting July 26, when nine soldiers were killed in a battle against Hezbollah fighters in the village of Bent Jbail. The numbers of Lebanese civilian deaths are also escalating by the day, fueling worldwide criticism of the extensive Israeli air campaign. The United States is carefully buying Israel time to carry out its military objectives by postponing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but political pressure on the U.S. government will mount over the next few days, following the argument that Israel cannot be given a blank check for a permanent air campaign against Lebanon. An end to the war in the next few weeks, without a dramatic improvement in effectiveness from the Israeli perspective, would leave Hezbollah in a prime position.
With this in mind, it strikes us as exceedingly peculiar that Israel, a country with a heavy track record of fighting experience despite its youth, is so intent on promoting the idea that its defense and political figures are running in circles trying to revise their military strategy while Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is brimming with confidence in his regular video appearances. It is simply not intelligent war strategy to expose your weaknesses in the midst of a major war campaign -- unless your objective is to spread disinformation to prepare for a larger surprise.
In making the decision to restrict the ground operation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli Cabinet carefully inserted a statement that said any future decisions regarding the IDF strategy would take into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments." This nuance becomes especially critical in light of Israel's decision to call up three additional divisions of reservists July 27. The reservists are ostensibly being called up to "refresh" troops in Lebanon who have been on the battlefield for a short time, but will not be deployed until further notice. It is difficult to see how IDF troops on the front can be relieved if the additional forces have not even been deployed, unless Israel is quietly building up its ground forces for a major assault to clear Hezbollah positions south of the Litani River.
The Israeli Cabinet also agreed to send forces up to the Aouali River -- just north of Sidon in Lebanon -- as a necessary move to destroy Hezbollah's rocket-launching platforms, according to Israeli radio. This is an extensive reach into Lebanon that would place the IDF within striking distance of the Bekaa Valley -- Hezbollah's main base of operations. We also have received indications that reserves belonging to Israel's elite fighting force, the Golani Brigade, have already moved north up to the Bekaa Valley. Fighting on Hezbollah's turf in the Bekaa Valley will undoubtedly be the most difficult stage of Israel's military campaign. At the same time, moving ground forces into the Bekaa is also necessary for Israel to meet its objective of sterilizing Hezbollah's military capabilities.
Moving into the Bekaa Valley also complicates matters with Syria, which could very well view an Israeli push into the Bekaa as a trigger for a Syrian military response. Major smuggling routes for heroin and opium run through the Bekaa and provide a major source of income for Hezbollah forces and Alawite businessmen. Though Israel is not too worried about its ability to defeat Syrian forces, it is not interested in expanding its military campaign across Lebanon's western border into Syria for fear of the aftermath of such an attack. The crumbling of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime would create a new set of problems that Israel is not prepared to deal with, especially while a major upset is occurring in Lebanon. At the same time, al Assad wants to get out of this conflict unscathed and in a prime negotiating position so he can demonstrate his worth in brokering a cease-fire with Hezbollah while putting the issue of the Golan Heights back on the table. With these considerations in mind, the issue of keeping Syria in check will heavily factor into the timing of Israel's push into the Bekaa.
The Bekaa is crucial to Israel's ground campaign, but will have to be dealt with carefully and will likely require more time for major ground combat. In the meantime, Israel is carefully regaining the element of tactical surprise by reducing the war to routine and strongly suggesting that its forces are getting bogged down. Each day Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, but no developments have dramatically changed the course of the war. While Israel may be developing an atmosphere of complacency around Hezbollah, it will launch its ground offensive when everyone least expects it.
The fact that a major ground offensive is the last thing on anyone's mind does not necessarily decrease the possibility -- it increases it. The movement of troops, rather than the public statements, will only tell if we are right.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
#1
"Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire."
As of late this afternoon, the cabinet just approved an additional 30,000 troops for military expansion.
So now, let's rephrase: "Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are united over the current operation, including expansion, and that it might have no choice but to destroy the terrorists"
#1
I'm always prepared to be surprised by novel out-of-the-box solutions, but I very much doubt this will produce one, the problem (of getting a vehicle from A to B) is just too well understood.
An apparent discrepancy in the portrayal of events surrounding the deaths of four unarmed U.N. observers in Lebanon threatens to unravel Secretary-General Annan's initial accusation that Israel "deliberately" targeted the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
A Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam on Tuesday, sent an e-mail to his former commander, a Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, in which he wrote that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, Mr. MacKenzie said. Hezbollah troops, not the United Nations, were Israel's target, the deceased observer wrote. . . .
Based on reporting by the U.N.'s peacekeeping chief, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Mr. Annan alleged in Rome Tuesday that the incident was an apparent "deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon." Although Mr. Annan began to backtrack yesterday, his spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said he stood by the accusation.
Mr. MacKenzie, who after retiring from the Canadian military became a politician, had a very different interpretation. "I happen to know" the now-deceased Canadian U.N. observer, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, Mr. MacKenzie told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in a radio interview yesterday.
"We've received e-mails from him a few days ago and he was describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position for tactical necessity not being targeted,'" Mr. MacKenzie said he wrote.
In one such e-mail, obtained by The New York Sun, Hess-von Kruedener wrote about heavy IDF artillery and aerial bombardment "within 2 meters of our position." The Israeli shooting, he added, "has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
The correspondence between the trooper and former commander amounted to "veiled speech in the military," Mr. MacKenzie, who once commanded the U.N. troops in Bosnia, told the CBC. "What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them, and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the U.N. They use the U.N. as shields knowing that they cannot be punished for it."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006
15:01 ||
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#1
Just how aware of this was Kofi? Is this part of the Bribes for Blood program?
#5
In my mind, I don't think Kofi cares as much about the truth of a situation as much as he cares about positioning himself to keep his job. The thing that makes most sense would be he has other scams going to divert $$$ into his interests' pockets. The guy is incompetant at running the UN and drags his feet when it comes to investigating and prosecuting scandal. The only thing he manages to accomplish is to survive in his position. Obviously there is an accountability problem. The time is long overdue to replace him with someone less corrupt, but there doesn't seem to be a mechanism. As far as I'm concerned, one good-sized screwup at the UN and you're out. This guy has had several.
#6
The investigation being asked for by the Canadian PM is why were these UN assets in the middle of the battlefield in the first place, in light of the fact that it is well known tactic to dare the other side to shoot at you while hiding behind the UN.
#7
He was voted in for one reason and one reason only, he can be controlled like a trained dog. You can bet your bottom dollar that Bush&Co. already have few choices ready to go for January. Vacation time for the Islamic countries at the U.N. is over, after January.
Clinton in a political hack move, today stated from Canada "It's important for us to get some kind of ceasefire now." He says that he would pick a rifle and die for Israel, but he doesn't want to allow Israel to pick up a rifle to defend themselves. Like a dog on a bone, he wants that top U.N. job. Now, that he is undermining Bush, on foreign soil of all places, on Bush's Israel policy, he can forget about that U.N. job.
#8
A diplomatic bomb dropped on Turtle Bay. If Kofi cannot depend on Canada to protect the UN's left flank, then they are in real trouble.
Immediate response is to shoot the messenger. MONTREAL (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper's reaction to the death of a Canadian peacekeeper in Lebanon was irresponsible and risks making Canada irrelevant in the region, interim Liberal leader Bill Graham said Thursday. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/07/27/1705461-cp.html
Sorry Bill. Your UN centered approach has been irrelevant for years.
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006 19:00
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#9
Commanders are responsible for their troopps. Kofi is the commander of these UN troops.
(1)Why were they there when their is no peace to be kept?
(2)The officers in charge on the ground knew what was going on yet still sent these fellow out of be "observers." What in the world is up with that? The should have been in barracks packing to leave for a safe location.
The Kofi, the UN, and Hizb'allah have much to answer for but don't hold your breath.
#10
SPOD: Why were they there when their is no peace to be kept?
Funny how UN troops always get out of the way when Arab countries are preparing to invade Israel, but never when Israel is preparing to invade an Arab country.
#12
Kofi is the mouthpiece of the same ole communism, he is at the center of the Internationals center, which post saddam, has moved to the u n. Why is any one surprised. hugo is kissing putins ring, gleeful in all his glory as dictator moving up the charts....what a sham world government is. the cold war is back in all its regalia, vlad the impaler with all that looted oil money is running the show....he's got the cabal of the u n in his pocket.
Meanwhile democrat and republicanss stonewall and cajole the public; committed as they are to the hegemony of servitude...
We need a New N...not the same ole u n where apointed socialist hacks find no microphones at the tables of thier largess.
#13
Kofi Annan has constantly been lying, and, as says JohnQC, getting people killed.
In 1993, Kofi Annan was the Head of the UN peacekeepers; he received a fax from Rwanda, sent to him by the belgian general who was leading the UN troops in this country, telling him that a source in the Hutus had just describe to him how the Hutus were training death squads to exterminate the Tutsis, and that this genocide was planned to begin before two months. The brave Kofi phoned the Hutus, asking if this was true (and probably getting the source killed), and then asked the UN to take away the peacekeepers; the UN troops began to leave, and the genocide started: 1.100.000 Tutsis were exterminated by the Hutus. Great job, Mr Kofi Annan.
It was made public (in march or april 1993) by an anonymous worker of the UN who had read it and had been disgusted by Kofi Annan decision to keep it secret.
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - War protester Cindy Sheehan has purchased a 5-acre plot in Crawford with some of the insurance money she received after her son was killed in Iraq. The group she helps lead, Gold Star Families for Peace, says on its Web site that it will return next month to protest the war in Iraq in the small town near Waco where President Bush has a ranch. Like last year, Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, will again demand to meet with the president.
``We decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George's resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world,'' Sheehan said in a newsletter set to be sent to supporters Thursday. ``I can't think of a better way to use Casey's insurance money than for peace, and I am sure that Casey approves.''
Her anti-war gathering in Crawford is scheduled for Aug. 16 through Sept. 2. But Bush is scheduled to be at his ranch mainly during the first two weeks of August. Sheehan, from California, reinvigorated the anti-war movement last summer with her peace vigil, which started in ditches off the road to Bush's ranch. As it grew, the group also set up its protests on a private, 1-acre lot closer to the ranch.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
14:55 ||
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#1
Thanks, Casey! You're the gift that keeps on giving!
Well Cin, I'm sure that Casey DOESN'T approve. My evidence is his repeated statements, attested to by everyone who knew him, that he supported the mission, believed in it, and was proud to serve. On the day he was killed, as you know, he VOLUNTEERED to go on a rescue mission to help some trapped comrades, only to be ambushed and killed himself. What's YOUR evidence, Cin? You're not worthy to drink your hero son's bathwater, you shameless wench.
#13
I could be wrong, but I believe you would have to a license to operate a Renaissance Festival in Texas. Couldn't you just picture Sheehan in chain mail? Deeeeelicious!
Appearently, from her son's Servicemans Group Life Insurance. The military insurance the servicemembers and [now finally] the government contributes to. They take a deduction from the monthly pay. Guess her son either actually wrote her on the paper or left it open to 'By Law' which meant she probably got a part.
WASHINGTON - Igbal Asghar reached across the counter at Super Halal Meat market and passed two butchered chickens to the man with the familiar face. Then he ducked into the walk-in freezer to fetch the customer's second order, goat meat.
Yummy! Goat meat! The very thought makes me want to...
When the butcher stepped out seconds later, the customer's severed left hand lay on the floor by the meat saw, Asghar said.
"'Scuse me, Mahmoud! Is that your hand?"
The customer ran down the Springfield store's center aisle and into the front parking lot, leaving a trail of blood and yelling repeatedly that he was "not a terrorist."
"I am not a terrorist! I am a nut! I'm a nut in pain... I'm a nut with significant blood loss... And shock... And no goat meat..."
Outside, another witness said, the man announced that he had used the meat saw to cut off his hand "for Allah."
Really. That sort of sentiment only seems to occur to people who bonk their heads on the floor five times a day, 365 days a year. I think it's accumulated minor traumas adding up to a major loss of coherence...
Rescue workers arrived minutes after the incident Saturday evening and took the man -- and his detached hand -- to Inova Fairfax Hospital. Fairfax County police declined to comment or release the man's name yesterday, saying no charges would be filed.
"Muldoon! See if there's any laws against slicing off your own hand with a meat saw!"
#5
Close. That's Fred Gwynne (aka Herman Munster).
Posted by: ed ||
07/27/2006 17:01
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#6
Hand must have offended him. No one at Mike's American Grill gave a damn, all continued to dine and party. Just another "off hand" day in lovely Springfield.
#8
Really. That sort of sentiment only seems to occur to people who bonk their heads on the floor five times a day, 365 days a year. I think it's accumulated minor traumas adding up to a major loss of coherence...
And all this time they blamed Muhammed Ali's condition on all those boxing bouts.
The international effort to get to grips with the world's worst nuclear proliferation racket suffered a serious setback yesterday when the first criminal trial of an alleged top figure collapsed. A judge in the south-west German town of Mannheim threw out the prosecution case against Gotthard Lerch, a German engineer, four months into his trial on charges of helping Libya clandestinely build a nuclear bomb. Judge Peter Seidling said there was a danger of Mr Lerch not receiving a fair trial as the prosecution had withheld evidence.
The collapse of the proceedings is a major setback to the international attempt to close down the proliferation network of disgraced Pakistani metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was exposed in 2003-4 as the supplier of nuclear technology, bomb blueprints and scientific expertise to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The outcome is a disaster for the German prosecution service, and came as the climax to a series of prosecution blunders.
Mr Lerch, 63, had been charged with violations of Germany's arms and exports laws for allegedly trafficking components for centrifuges for enriching uranium to Libya for Muammar Gadafy's since abandoned nuclear bomb programme. The prosecution alleged Mr Lerch was paid 28m (£19m) for the contracts. He faced up to 15 years' prison if found guilty.
The state prosecutor, Peter Lintz, said that Mr Lerch was among Mr Khan's four main associates, also said to have included British businessman Peter Griffin - who testified in May against Mr Lerch. Mr Griffin has denied any witting role in the scheme to turn Libya into a nuclear power. Mr Lerch also denied the charges.
Judge Seidling has yet to rule on whether there will be a retrial. The accused has been in German custody for more than a year and his defence team, which maintains that he was a fall guy for a western intelligence plot, is demanding his release. The defence team has regularly complained it was denied access to evidence, including German intelligence material.
The Lerch case was being closely monitored by international investigators since it was the first time that any suspect from the Khan network had been put on trial. Mr Khan admitted running the nuclear racket in February 2004 and was instantly pardoned by the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
14:46 ||
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As time goes by, world protest against the IDF offensive operation in Lebanon becomes more widespread. Not all protesters do so on ethical grounds, but most use ethical arguments. Yet further exploration of these arguments might show most of them to be mostly empty, or at least they don't come to terms with what we learn from war ethics literature. Following are four of these arguments.
Hezbollah's provocation constituted a reasonable use of force. Untrue.
The shooting on the patrol and the kidnapping were aimed at military forces, but this act was not executed in a fighting context. After IDF forces withdrew behind the international border as part of a settlement validated by UN resolutions, all use of force against them, including the killing and kidnapping of soldiers, is not legitimate.
Also, there is no doubt the Katyusha firings along the border prior to the kidnapping where illegitimate, since they were aimed at a civilian population, an act that is prohibited also in a time of war. The fact that it was a limited action does not make it reasonable. Hezbollah's interest is to keep the conflict on a low level, since in that sort of warfare it has a relative advantage. Furthermore, since the act took place as part of an ongoing attrition strategy, Israel holds the right to respond not only to that one act, but to all acts that result from practicing such a strategy.
IDF reaction is not a measured one. Untrue.
It is a common error to assume the principle of proportionality relates to the proportion between the scale of damage and the scale of retribution. This argument might have been in order if it regarded a scuffle of two sides that agree to do so within known rules of engagement. But war is seldom like that. War is fought to try and obtain an objective. When the objective is legitimate it is referred to as a necessity. The principle of proportionality relates to the proportion between the amount of force used to the amount required to achieve the same necessity. When one side routinely attacks the other with no legitimate cause over years, and the other side has an interest to stop the aggression, it is allowed to use the required force to achieve that objective. In our case, we can see that a little force will not be enough, since all the force used so far is not sure to be enough.
Harming the civilian population in Lebanon constitutes a war crime. Untrue.
War ethics calls for abstention from an intentional harm of non-combatant populations, and to prevent as much as possible unintentional harm to those populations. But it is not always possible to prevent all unintentional harm. It is much harder when enemy troops systematically use the cover of a civilian population, in order to put the opposing side in a cruel dilemma between the achievement of its goals and an attempt to abstain as much as possible from violating war ethics. In our case, Hezbollah intentionally operates from within a civilian population, often from house terraces and mosque courts. Furthermore, most of the civilians used for these ends do so in full consent and thus they cross the line from non-combatant to combatant.
Aiming for civilian infrastructure is a war crime as it is intentional. Untrue.
When a sovereign state makes no attempt to enforce its rule, and knowingly permits an armed force to operate from it against another state, responsibility lies on it. The government of Lebanon holds responsibility, since for the last six years it has done nothing to maintain the UN 1559 resolution that obligates it to practice its sovereignty also over Hezbollah.
Its weakness is no excuse since it is a result of a conscious decision not to maintain a force that can enforce a rule. An attempt to force it to follow its duties is therefore not unreasonable. In view of this, a measured attack on infrastructure is not illegitimate, more so when it is known that Hezbollah makes use of this infrastructure (i.e transportation routes to the south) for its hostile operations; the only option is to attack these infrastructures in the required measure. It therefore seems that while the wisdom and effectiveness of IDF operations is debatable, the "ethical fervor" should be chilled.
The writer is a professor of psychology at the Haifa University.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has publicly criticised the United States over reports that a Scottish airport was used as a stop-off for flights carrying arms to Israel. Mrs Beckett accused the US of not following the right procedures over arms flights and threatened a formal protest after raising the matter with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
With Tony Blair due to visit to Washington for talks with President Bush on Israel and Lebanon, Downing Street is keen to play down any possible rift with the US.
Mrs Beckett said she was not happy about reports Prestwick airport had been used for refuelling and crew rest for two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU28 laser-guided bombs, adding she had "already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault".
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell seized on the news as evidence Britain was being "taken for granted".
Mrs Beckett's comments came as she resisted calls for the British government to back an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon after a crisis summit failed to agree action.
al-Guardian: Aviation chiefs are expected to decide later on Thursday whether the US broke international rules when using a British airport as a staging post for transporting weapons to Israel. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said it was responsible for policing international regulations governing transport of hazardous material in Britain. "We're looking into the issue at the moment," he said. "We expect to make a decision later today."
Flights such as that by the two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes - which were carrying GBU28 laser-guided bombs - usually require "specific exemptions" from hazardous material rules, according to the spokesman.
Times Online: The United States has denied it contravened British air transport procedures by allowing two cargo aircraft loaded with bunker-busting bombs bound for Israel to stop over in Scotland. The US Defence Department said Washington had double-checked its records of all flights since the reports emerged and found it has not broken any regulations in Britain or anywhere else.
British defence sources have alleged that the Airbus jets stopped to refuel at Glasgows Prestwick airport last weekend during a flight to transport GBU28 laser-guided bombs to Israel. A US Defence Department spokesman, Joe Carpenter, said: "Its our policy that US military flights and those contracted on our behalf comply with existing bilateral agreements. "There have been no recent deviations from those procedures."
BBC: The White House has dismissed UK concerns about the use of Prestwick Airport, in Scotland, by US planes carrying bombs to Israel. "Apparently, the British foreign minister thinks the paperwork was not in order," said spokesman Tony Snow. "The Department of Defense does," he added. "We'll get it straightened out."
Opposition parties reacted angrily, with Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond claiming the UK government should decide whether to "be an aircraft carrier" for the US. Mr Salmond said that "with an escalating Middle East conflict", it was ill-advised to send bombs "to arm one side in that conflict to the teeth".
The UK's Civil Aviation Authority said it followed a series of procedures set out by the International Civil Aviation Organisation "to facilitate the international movement of civil aircraft". These "apply to everyone who may be involved in putting or taking dangerous goods on an aircraft", its website stated. Countries must "hold permission to carry dangerous goods" and submit to "audit-style inspections" to "check for compliance".
If insufficient information was supplied then all available evidence would be gathered to try to inform the originating state "so that action can be taken there", it said. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority was unable to confirm whether it had been informed of the contents of the flight to which Mrs Beckett referred.
Prestwick has supplied logistical aid for military flights since the Second World War in "moving troops and cargo", an airport spokesperson said. "That support involves allowing crew to rest, refuelling aircraft and providing food and water. "The airport is obliged to allow aircraft from any CAA-registered country to land here."
#1
I can't remember where I read it but this airport is designated as able to handle aircraft with "hazardous goods." This airport is used by the RAF the CAF and the US to transport "hazardous goods" everyday. Margaret Beckett is just an uninformed twerp. That or a typical leftist anti-semite.
#2
Got yer codpiece in a wad Margaret my dear? It was actually a bit south of you at RAF Brize Norton. Big phueching planes you know, chocked full of missiles and such. The bog is to shallow in the highlands... maybe next time dear.
#4
SPOD: Margaret Beckett is just an uninformed twerp. That or a typical leftist anti-semite.
Labor needs that Muslim vote. If they had their druthers, they'd lock in their electoral advantage by making Britain majority Muslim via open immigration to Muslim countries.
#5
"taken for granted".
Ya filthy foreighners flying your deadly, lazerguided, garlicovered, snidey, nasty, pokey,*effective* evil bombs. There are fluffy ducks, fuffy ducks in "the lebernorn" ya could be savin did ya think of that! Naw naw , ya heathen sasanach's never daey, yer all a bunch av war monggering savages, wheres ma claymore I'll sort these c*nts reet out.
The « Farms of Cheeba » comprise a little territory of 25km2 that Hezbollah uses as pretext to continue the fight despite the Israeli retreat of May 24, 2000 and which continues to be claimed by Beirut. This zone consists of two large villages : Cheeba and Kfar-Chouba. These two villages with a population of about 4000 inhabitants (Sunnite Moslems and some Christians) who live essentially of harvesting agricultural products were conquered by Israel at the same time as the Golan Heights during the Six-day war in 1967.
It is nevertheless necessary to go back to a much earlier date to understand how difficult it is to define the sovereignty of this territory. Indeed, this zone was badly defined from the start of the Franco-British mandate, between the two wars. During the second world war the French and British administrations decided, nevertheless, to grant the area of the farms of Cheeba to Syria. In 1949, the day after the start of the first Israeli-Arab war, the official border between Lebanon and Israel was fixed on the base of that which had been defined between Palestine, Syria and Lebanon by Great-Britain and France in 1923, and didnt therefore include the Farms of Sheba in the Lebanese territory. In 1964, a mix Lebanese-Syrian Commission decided to allot the said sector to Lebanon but it is Syria that, de facto, controls it administratively. We must note that when the third Israeli-Arab war broke out in 1967 the Territory was truly under the thump of Damascus.
When the Israeli forces invaded South Lebanon in 1978, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 425 which called for the withdrawal of the Hebrew State from all the Lebanese territory to the border that prevailed before the invasion. Clearly, the demarcation line of 1949. The position of the Lebanese government regarding these borders with Israel was until 1999 based on that of the United Nations. It is only when Israel began to prepare its withdrawal from south Lebanon that the authorities in Beirut under Syrian pressure changed their minds and began to claim sovereignty over the territory of the Farms of Cheeba.
The Israel position is clear. The farms of Cheeba are part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel in 1981 (this annexation was condemned by Security Council resolution 497) and should, in case of need, return to Syria. Indeed, for the Hebrew State, their eventual retrocession will only be done in terms of a bilateral agreement with the authorities in Damascus. This interpretation is confirmed by the official reports of the United Nations.
Beirut claims since 1999 sovereignty over this territory that would have been ceded to it by Syria. A United Nations report explains that the Lebanese government has informed the UN of its new position concerning the demarcation of its territory. For the Lebanese authorities the hypothetical withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Farms of Cheeba follows resolution 242 relating to the territories occupied in 1967 and no longer resolution 425. Before 1999, not a single official statement of the Lebanese government had taken into account any claim to this territory.
Damascus, which has very little interest in this small territory except as a means of pressure to support the attacks of Hezbollah maintains that it belongs to Lebanon. On the other hand Syria claims that Hezbollah is an independent unit that receives no instructions from anyone. For the Syrian authorities the conditions to relaunch negotiations with the Jewish State are clear : "the negotiations must pickup where they were stopped that is to say with the commitment of Israel to withdraw from the entire Syrian territory occupied in 1967 (also including the territory of the Farms of Cheeba).
The position of the United Nations is, also, extremely clear. After the retreat of the Tsahal from South Lebanon in May 2000, the United Nations sent land-surveyors to establish clearly the borders of the territory of the Farms of Cheeba and to avoid any further dispute. The conclusions of the United Nations are clear : the retreat of Israel from South-Lebanon is completed (in accordance to resolution 425) and the area of the Farms of Cheeba is Syrian. Consequently, the Lebanese claims over this territory are illegitimate, it is up to Israel and Syria to negotiate the future status of this territory.
Finally, Hezbollah claims to pursue its combat to get back the Farms of Cheeba, which, according to Hezbollah, belong to Lebanon. Besides, it is the main justification of this organisation to continue its attacks as explained by Hassan Nasrallah: We will take back, by blood, by the djihad (holy war) and the resistance the Farms of Cheeba (declaration published by AFP, June 10, 2001).
In conclusion, the plan to end the crisis presented by Condoleeza Rice these last few days foresees in the first phase the transfer of the zone to Lebanon after having placed it under the responsibility of the United Nations. This option will deprive Beirut of the eternal excuse of the occupation of the Farms of Cheeba by the Israeli army to justify its inability to recover its authority over south-Lebanon. As a result this alternative will also deprive Hezbollah of its cause.
#2
Can someone explain why a country who doesn't condemn the kidnapping of two soldiers and the killing of 8 soldiers should be entitled to anything other than their annihilation?
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:30
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#3
DepotGuy: Can someone explain the why Israel feels the need to hang onto this 25k of scrub land?
Can someone explain why the US feels the need to hang on to New Jersey? It's only 0.08% of American territory. Whereas the Shebaa farms are 0.3% of Israeli territory. It's 1.5% of the part of Israel that isn't a desert.
The Belgian daily newspaper « Le Soir » reported this morning that a complaint will be lodged today in Brussels, against Israël for war crimes. Belgian law, and especially the Law of Universal competence adopted in 1993 and since then amended several times, does in fact allow the lodging of complaints for crimes against humanity as long as there is link with Belgium (victims or perpetrators or Belgian residents, etc ). This is precisely the case because the two plaintiffs, Mr Ali Abdul-Sater and his wife Mrs Farkad El Husseini are both Belgian nationals of Lebanese origin who were on holidays in Beirut when the war broke out. Their apartment was destroyed and they had to flee the country via Syria under particularly traumatic circumstances. The complaint lodged mentions by name MM. Ehud Olmert, Prime minister, Amir Pertz, minister of Defense, and Dan Halutz, Chief of Staff.
Without questioning the suffering, certainly very real of the plaintiffs, we cannot but wonder about the climate of political manipulation that seems to surround this complaint.
But lets for a moment consider this famous Law of universal competence : this law allowing the pursue of criminals who, without it, could benefit of impunity would do honour to any democracy. In Belgium, unfortunately, it would rather raise smiles. This country has reached a level of corruption rarely equalled in the industrialised world (for months now, presumed corrupt practices within the socialist Party, principal party in government, multiply, the average person involved in legal actions waits for years for his case to be dealt with by the tribunals, which in many judicial districts do not pursue even minor offences because of judicial backlogs. Finally, many very interesting files have never been cleared, starting by those of the killers of Brabant that killed some 30 people in the eighties. And, is it this justice that we will say (in order to be polite to the magistrates who are in the first place the victims of the system) is a little slow, inefficient and politicised, that is going to throw light on the possible war crimes committed at the other end of the world? Absurd
But let us get down to the complaint itself. The barrister lodging it, Maître George-Henri Beauthier, is a well-known and respected figure of the Bar. He is also a man well-known to be leftist, which is entirely his right and, concerning Israel, this is not his first case. Some years ago he already lodged a complaint, always under the same Universal competence Law, against Ariel Sharon for the Sabra and Shatila massacres which, (it will be remembered, were committed by a Lebanese Christian militia, not by the Israeli army). So, today he takes on the cause of Mr. Ali Abdul-Sater and others, because he tells that others will follow. In passing he tells us that his client is Vice-President of the Association for a Laic Lebanon regrouping moderate citizens of all confessions worried about the future of Lebanon. It is not at all a question of a pro-Syrian or extremist movement.
We will point out that the association « for a Laic Lebanon seems to be a very recent creation which of course does not make it less pertinent . In Google we find only three or four references to this group and all of them date from the last few days. As for the internet site of the association it is only a blog created on July 2006 and on which the oldest messages go back only to July 23.
An association born perhaps merely of the circumstances, a slanted complaint, a militant barrister and something to make the front page of newspapers : it seems to us that there is more politics than thirst for justice in this affair.
#1
Let's remember that this country who feels itself qulifying for judging the world is the one where a pedophilic ring has been able to operate for years and who, for a previous offence, released its leader Marc Durtroux, with surprising celerity.
An Israel Defense Forces analysis of the messages transmitted by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah to his men during the fighting in Lebanon reveals a slightly different tone from the one he took in three public television interviews in the same period and in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper A-Safir. A senior officer said Nasrallah took a less bellicose position when engaging in his internal dialogue in his organization, than in his appearances in the Arab media - but he remained aggressive.
Nasrallah's tone is apologetic in his messages and he explains that Israel escalated the confrontation by striking deep inside Lebanon after the soldiers were abducted, the officer said. Nasrallah admits that his organization is having morale problems and says his group will receive support and encouragement. He adds that not only Hezbollah, but also Israel, has been badly hit. He also complains frequently that the Arab states have deserted Hezbollah and the Lebanese and are not helping them against Israel.
The army admits that Nasrallah is prepared to continue fighting for a long time and that its military strength has not been broken in a way that will prevent it from carrying out its objectives. Nasrallah is continuing to function although he is underground.
All the media interviews came at his initiative and his men dictated the terms to the journalists to ensure his safety.
Israel is sparing no effort to try and assassinate him.
Hezbollah is believed to be planning additional surprises, as Nasrallah said, and these could include detonating a drone carrying explosives over Israel or firing Iranian Zilzal rockets at Tel Aviv. It is possible that Nasrallah will want to send such a missile as a last move before a cease-fire is set in motion, in order to serve as a deterrent in future rounds of fighting with Israel, the officer said.
Since the start of the fighting, the officer added, Hezbollah has suffered two significant hits: The bombing of its rocket alignment particularly the long-range rockets, and the losses of fighters which, after the latest ground battles, are estimated at around 100.
The officer said that, among those killed were senior activists.
This isn't much of a surprise, except for the speed in which Israel has tapped into Hezbollah's internal communications. Nasrallah admitted that he didn't anticipate the overwhelming Israeli response, a miscalculation that certainly has contributed to the declining morale in his organization. After all, Nasrallah made this sound like a milk run, and now the jihadis have another Israeli invasion on their hands.
It also sounds like Nasrallah had to make an accounting of his actions in order to convince his men to continue their fight. Having a commander communicate an apology of this sort indicates a growing dissatisfaction with leadership in the ranks. Nasrallah so far has done nothing to convince anyone that he has a grasp of either strategy or tactics. He has proven that he has no understanding of his enemy, nor much of his putative allies in the region, almost all of whom have declined to rush to his side in this fight.
Nasrallah had better have a victory to show them soon, or he may find himself replaced with wiser counsel.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 13:05
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#2
Why would Israel release this information?
This seems to make the NYTimes security leaks look trivial.
2. Israel wants to use the intercept to undermine pan-Arab support for Hezbollah and the morale of Hezbollah and its sponsors (Iran & Syria), and judges this political objective worth the possible loss of a source of intercepts. (Could be.) With respect to that latter point, it's possible that:
a. Israel has a mole in Hezbollah who provided the intercept, and wants Hezbollah to think their code is broken so as to defect suspicion from the mole; hence, the sourcing to "IDF intercepts." (Possible.)
b. Israel is reading Hezbollah's mail and wants Hezbollah to think there's a mole in its ranks, thereby sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) and maybe provoking fratricide. (Possible.)
c. The whole thing is a fabrication, aimed at FUD-ing the Iranians and Syrians and their meeting with Nasrallah. (Lost less likely than (a) and (b) above, but if it's true, oh my, are these Mossad boys good or what?)
d. Mike has read his Tom Clancy novels and his copy of David Kahn's The Codebreakers too many times. (Definitely!)
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 13:41
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#4
"IDF: Nasrallah talk less bellicose"
He'll be even less bellicose when he's hanging by the neck at the end of a rope. Hunt the fucker down and kill him.
#7
While shouting 'Death to Israel' for years to his followers, Mr. Nasrallh forgot to mention that an attack on Israel would be no 'cake walk'. Now reality is setting in as Israel continues to kick their asses.
Posted by: Master Chef ||
07/27/2006 14:18
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#8
gorb
nope - I don't work for the NYTimes.
I never have.
In fact, I've never worked for any daily, weekly or monthly news pub
#9
"I'm not so sure about that. My understanidng, it is supposed to be pretty liberal and anti-government. Anybody from Israel able to comment?"
Theyre definitely on the dovish side, no friends to West Bank settlers, perpetually hopeful about Abbas, etc, etc. But this war even the doves (like Yossi Beilin) are supporting. I doubt theyd leak something they thought would harm national security. Note its sourced to a senior officer.
Any American lawyer could fix that problem easily:
"This terrorgram contains information that is intended only for the recipient named and may be confidential and subject to the terrorist communications privilege. Inshallah, if you are not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering this communication to the intended recipient, or worse yet, if you are a Zionist occupier of Palestine, you are hereby notified that you have received this terrorgram by error, and that any review, dissemination, or distribution of this terrorgram is strictly prohibited by several suras of the Q'uran. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by telephone at 1-800-BOMB and delete the original without forwarding it to the Mossad. Thank you, infidel pig."
Posted by: Matt ||
07/27/2006 15:45
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#13
Far too much handwringing, he "sounds" less bellicose.
Meantime, the missiles keep flying into Israel killing and wounding innocence, there are still two soldiers kidnapped, there were 8 soldiers who loved ones wish were still alive.
Nasal's best sounds will be his last.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 16:37
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#14
Several commenters at The Cap't's are reporting It seems that among the treasures the IDF uncovered, was the information on the BUNKER SYSTEM. Which contained deeply buried reserves of missiles, launchers, food, and water. That's why there's been more bombing around and in Beirut.
I can find no other source about this. Anyone know if this is true? Thanks
#15
Blame Giulio Douhet! Italian military officer and early advocate of airpower. He was an early supporter of strategic bombing and the military superiority of air forces. He served in World War I, organizing Italy's bombing campaign, but was court-martialed for criticizing the Italian high command by publicly declaiming Italy's aerial weakness. He was released when his theories were proven true by the defeat of Italian arms by the Austrian Air Force at Caporetto. He was later recalled and was promoted (1921) to general. In 1922 he was appointed head of Italy's aviation program by Benito Mussolini. His book Command of the Air (1921) was very influential, especially in Great Britain and the United States and was regarded as a classic by early airpower theorists. He argued that command of an enemy's air space and subsequent bombing of industrialized centers would be so disruptive and destructive that the pressure for peace would be overwhelming. He maintained that control of the air could win a war regardless of land or sea power. Douhet's theories remain very popular, especially among military aviators. He is known as the father of airpower.
#16
Ha'aretz thinks it is the NYT of Israel, and so does the NYT, which links to it as one of the international newspapers it recommends. That said, I think Ha'aretz is thinking in terms of "the newspaper of record" and not "on the other side." Whatever Ha'aretz's conceits, when my father moved to the US, he got a mail subscription to the Jerusalem Post, despite being so Labour that he was the #2 man in Israel's OSHA for a number of years after independence (hwas responsible for the northern half of the country including the Haifa docks, where he instituted the wearing of hard hats and steel-toed shoes, cutting deaths from 1 per thousand man-hours to less than 1/year (yes, I'm very proud of him -- subsequently he went into the biochemistry professor shtick)).
#17
I think wretchard may have hit the nail on the head.
His hypothesis that the bombing in Beirut as well as the attacks on the border can only be understood as an attempt to disorientate the Hezbollah leadership (head) from the cadre (body). Releasing this statement would fit into that strategy of severing the head from the body by intimating that they are able to hack into the communication between both at will, in order to disorientate the group.
#18
I've always found the JP to be much more to my liking than Haaretz. Haaretz still believes in Oslo. Yes, on reflection I would think they probably do see themselves as Israel's NYT while they see the JP as Israel's New York Post. They're wrong in that assessment but none are so blind...(just like the NYT).
Posted by: mac ||
07/27/2006 17:33
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#19
hearatz is a mouthpiece for socialist hegemony.
forget islamofascism, thats the appendage used by the brain trust at the top to cultivate armies of useful idiots, all the leaders of the opposition are socialists....surprised?
the cold war is on and the useful idiots are the religious fanatics. Every movement needs to coesxist within an economic system....guess which system they have all coallessed around! the one and only ....socialism; disease of the pseudo elite.
SERGEANT Asaf Namer's mother, Ava, begged her son not to fight but the 26-year-old's duty to his second home, Israel, drove him to volunteer for increasingly dangerous missions.
The Bondi personal trainer yesterday became the first Australian to die in the war in Lebanon after he and seven others in his unit were killed in a Hezbollah ambush in the southern town of Bent Jbail late on Wednesday night (AEST).
Still in shock yesterday, Ava Namer told The Australian that her son's death was not yet real to her.
"I still can't believe it, and he wants to go into combat," she said, almost to herself as she packed to fly to Israel yesterday afternoon.
"I'm just in shock, it's not true. It's horrible.
"I said, 'Stay here, don't go'. No, he wants to go fighting for his country. He's 25 (sic), he should stay here, he shouldn't go."
Ms Namer fled Israel during the 1991 Gulf War after it was targeted with Scud missiles, bringing Asaf and his older sister, Karin, now 29, to Australia.
She learned of his death at 3am yesterday morning, six hours after the ambush in the Hezbollah stronghold, when local Israeli embassy staff phoned her and described what happened.
"In Bent Jbail, they were in the mosque, all the Israelis were in the mosque, when they came out of the mosque they got ambushed," she said.
She said that at the time of the phone call the officials said her son's body had not been recovered from the scene because of the fighting.
Sergeant Namer had served as an Israeli soldier for just under two years, and planned to leave the service next month. Ms Namer pored over photos of her only son in uniform with his gun, and then pictures of an obviously happy young man with his girlfriend, Revital Bronstein, 29 - one of them lying on a bed together and another, arm in arm, by the sea in the Israeli city of Haifa.
He had only just talked to his mother about marrying Ms Bronstein.
"Maybe they get married, she was in the United States and when they came back they were going to live together," she said.
"Next month he's finished then they were going to live together.
"He said to me, everything's good, she loves him, he loves her, it was a big love."
She said her son enjoyed military life. "He would have liked more, he wants more combat, in the dangerous ones," she said.
Sergeant Namer's childhood friend Yael Mosesom told how the young soldier felt obligated to fight. She said he was a caring, headstrong young man. "He was such a unique kind of guy," she said.
"He wasn't your average type of male, I can tell you that now."
After graduating from Sydney's Moriah College with his HSC in 1997, Sergeant Namer began working as a personal trainer in Sydney, doing gigs at night as a DJ.
"He was doing it because he loved music, like he was big on fitness just because he loved it," his best friend, Danny Senecky, 26, said.
"It's an ideal for Jewish people. Going back to serve in the army is something that a lot of people aspire to but not many people actually do. Asaf was rare."
In Israel, Sergeant Namer had been living with his grandmother in the town on Kiryat Yam, near Haifa. He had returned to his birth country to be with his father.
Sergeant Namer had been serving with the Israel Defence Force's Golani 51 brigade when he was killed.
#1
I didn't see discussion on which assets are protecting their eastern border - they have Turkish border covered, and Lebanon, and Israel/Golan, but not the back door. Presumably an obsolete article?
#4
While it is still largely true that the Syrian military remains one of the largest and best-trained forces in the Arab world[...]
"Best-trained"? Where the hell did that brainfart come from? The Syrian Army was, and probably is, the worst-trained major Arab armed force in existence, if you class the Libyan & Lebanese armies as "minor", which I'm inclined to do. The Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian armies are US-trained, in part or in whole, and while they may still be typically rubbishy Arab laughingstocks with deeply ingrained cultural military incompetence bred into their bones, they are still ahead of the Syrians, who are still organized & semi-trained to sadly obsolete Soviet standards.
The author of the article himself notes that the Syrian army has badly lost every single war, every single encounter it's ever fought with anyone other than the Jordanians. It only managed to occupy Lebanon after fifteen grinding, exhausting years of civil war, and that with the connivance of Hezbollah.
In fact, I suspect that Hezbollah could out-fight the entire Syrian Army itself, despite the ten-to-one numerical disparity.
Hmm. I wonder whether such a thing might occur, Black September-style, if Hezbollah was driven out of Lebanon into Syrian exile for any particular length of time.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/27/2006 17:28
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#5
"the Syrian military remains one of the largest and best-trained forces in the Arab world"
But any Texas high-school girls' cheerleading squad could kick the crap out of them in 15 minutes. On a slow day.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 17:50
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#6
Goodness, another thing for poor Mr. Levant to worry about, being as he posts via Syria (according to our clever moderators who read IP addresses like I read English).
#7
that the Syrian army has badly lost every single war, every single encounter it's ever fought with anyone other than the Jordanians.
Oh I get it, so while we trained Egypt, Soddies, and Jordan, the French must have trained Syria?
Sorry it was just too easy.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 18:17
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#8
Oh come on Barbara, use a more realistic comparison.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/27/2006 18:33
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#9
Mitch-
FWIW, my experience with the Saudis was that although the Israelis could kick their asses up around their ears if it came down to it, the Army and AF was fairly professional and capable - IF there was an American standing close by.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/27/2006 19:36
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#10
OK, #8 Matt - any Texas grade school girls' cheerleading squad.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 19:43
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#11
LOL -- that's more like it.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/27/2006 20:29
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#12
"Goodness, another thing for poor Mr. Levant to worry about, being as he posts via Syria"
Yes, I suppose the poor thing has been called up by now. Imagine being a second-rate commentor in a third-rate army.
ONE of the men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia had enough military-style ammunition to launch a continuous 35-hour barrage of gunfire. The evidence, from a ballistics expert, was quoted in court documents revealed yesterday as part of the case against nine Sydney men accused of planning an attack last year. The prosecution case against the group is so large it has been broken into 93 parts.
Court documents allege that as well as planning to construct improvised explosive devices, a massive arsenal was part of the group's plans for an attack. They show that a search in June last year of the home of one of the accused, Mohamed Ali Elomar, unearthed a cache of 12 rifles and pistols and 28,198 rounds of ammunition including 11,765 rounds of 7.62-calibre ammunition. "A ballistics expert has stated it would take approximately 34 hours and 48 minutes to fire all the 7.6239mm rounds in the possession of Elomar with the 7.62 rifle owned by Elomar which was seized by police," the court documents said.
Sigh, leaving out the obvious fact all that ammo was for a large group of terrorists with more than one gun.
When he was arrested in November, two pistols were found under his pillow.
Two more of the accused, Bradley Umar Baladjam and Mazen Touma were observed in June last year loading 7500 rounds of the same 7.62-calibre ammuni tion into a truck, which police later seized. "This type of ammunition is used in SKS or AK-47 type semi-automatic weapons," the documents say. Baladjam also tried to purchase a further 20,000 rounds of the 7.62 ammunition between July and August last year. The evidence includes dozens of statements from gun dealers about visits to gun shops and shooting ranges. Police and intelligence agencies watched the nine men's every move for more than a year before arresting them, even allowing them to take a "controlled delivery" of some chemicals that could be used in a bomb.
An index of evidence tabled in court includes 205 statements that have not been made available to the defence because they were awaiting an "undertaking". The top-secret evidence raised concerns yesterday that some defence lawyers were deliberately being excluded from the case. Among the statements not served were details of Moustafa Cheikho's alleged training with Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001.
Speaking on behalf of the eight defence lawyers representing the nine accused, Greg Walsh, who is representing Baladjam, said he was concerned security clearances were being required for legal aid payments to exclude certain lawyers from the case. "I think it's a genuine agenda and I think it's a hidden agenda here and I think lawyers like me have a duty to speak out," he said. The eight lawyers have agreed not to submit themselves to security clearances. Prosecutor Wendy Abraham said two of the defence lawyers had been given the material after the prosecution had accepted assurances about its contents.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
11:21 ||
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#1
Mebbe he was unaware that lawful Aussies are prohibited from owning firearms.
#2
Funny how the talk was about how much ammo he has and all the guns. But not much talk on his terrorist ties and plans. I guess the shock of owning a gun draws more press than a planned terrorist attack.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 18:10
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#3
To leftists, the fact that he was in the country planning to kill you all isn't very exciting. But the thought that he had a GUN! Shocking!!!
A top Iranian envoy was in Syria on Thursday for talks on the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict in a meeting that brought together the guerrilla organization's two key sponsors, according to Iranian news reports. A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was taking part in the session.
Kuwait's Al-Siyassah newspaper, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with "Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories." Al-Siyassah said it learned of the meeting from "well-informed Syrian sources" it did not identify. According to the newspaper, Nasrallah was moving through Damascus with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal clerical garb.
The Mehr news agency in Iran said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was in Damascus for meetings on the crisis, but gave no other details. Similar reports were carried by the Iranian Labor News Agency and the Fars agency. Al-Siyassah said Larijani would meet Syrian President Hafez Assad and Nasrallah. There was no mention of Larijani's travels in Iranian state-run media. None of the reports could be independently confirmed.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
11:12 ||
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#1
Nasrallah to his handlers: We ain't gonna last until Augst 22nd when your missiles are ready to fly.
#4
"You guys stay here and resist the Zionist incursion. Remember, if you die, you die as a glorious martyr to Islam."
"Where are you going, Sheik?"
"Damascus."
"But the Zionists are here."
"I'm going to, uh, get reinforcements and supplies and, uh, bring them back here 'cause, uh, you see, I'm not . . . not . . . not worthy of glorious martyrdom like you. Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket. Seeyagottagobye!"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 12:25
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#5
If we know Baby Asshole, Nasrallah, and Iranian military is meeting in Damascus, I think US should hit it with massive attacks for 24 hours , leveling everything around the suspect area. They might be in bunkers, but it would provide a nice wake up call. It's time to provide real time assistance to Israel.
#7
Brave Nasrallah ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Nasrallah turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Nasrallah!
If you know where to look, its easy to find evidence of Spains Islamic past: You can see it in Spanish architecture and in the faces of the people. You can hear it in Spanish music, especially flamenco, and in the Spanish language itself.
Despite these undeniable historical links between Spain and the Islamic world, Spaniards have no interest in turning back the clock, not after their ancestors spent seven centuries expelling the Muslim invaders who forced themselves on Spain. However, there is one group that remains committed to such a reunion: Islamist radicals.
A few weeks ago, the FBI arrested eight men in charge of plotting to blow up the underground rail tunnels that link New Jersey and New York. The suspects included members of al-Qaeda living both in and outside of the United States.
An overlooked detail in the story was the name of one of the alleged masterminds of the plot: Emir Andalusi. As with many terrorists, thats not his real name but, instead, what the French call a nom de guerre, a war-time alias. And as with most such aliases, it provides an insight into his and other jihadist motivations and aspirations.
Andalusi comes from Al Andalus, the Arabic name for southern Spain, the part known as Andalusia today. As one Israeli writer has pointed out, references to old Muslim Spain are . . . [increasingly] common among jihadists who have set themselves against the Western world.
The best-known such reference is Osama bin Ladens 2001 video message that declared that al-Qaeda would not permit the repeat of the tragedy of Andalusia in Palestine. The tragedy he was referring to was the expulsion of the Muslim invaders by Spanish Christian forces.
In case the Western world didnt get the point, al-Zawahiri, al-Qaedas number two, later swore that the tragedy of Al Andalus must not be repeated.
It isnt just al-Qaeda that wants to force this. Hamas isnt just interested in Israel. It has demanded the return of the city of Seville to Islam and what it calls the lost paradise of Al Andalus.
These dreams of Al Andalus make Spain a target as the Spanish have already learned the hard way. And Spain isnt a target because of its policies toward the United States or the Middle East, but because its existence is regarded as a tragedy by the jihadists. As former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar put it, the problem with al-Qaeda has been 1,300 years in the making.
Unfortunately, the current Spanish Prime Minister, Zapatero, seems to share the same sense of denial that the British elites do as described in Melanie Phillipss book Londonistan, which I have talked about on BreakPoint. He has demonstrated open contempt for Spains Catholic heritage while increasingly accommodating Islamic interests. Some five hundred years after the fall of the last Islamic stronghold in Spain, his government is financing the teaching of Islam in public schools.
Whats it going to take for the West to wake up? There is a real clash of worldviews, and its deadly. And just like between the two great World Wars, Europe is asleep.
#1
Whats it going to take for the West to wake up? There is a real clash of worldviews, and its deadly. And just like between the two great World Wars, Europe is asleep.
Yup, what is it going to take? Are people waiting for another 911? We have already had the bombings in Spain and London. You would think, people would connect the dots by this time. Damn, it feels like 1939 with all the appeasement mongers.
#2
Spanish people have few is any Moorish blood. First because as teh Chrtisnas were driving South and dislodging Moors they repopulated the deserted lands with either people from other parts of Europe, christaions of north Spain or those who had not left Christian faith. At one point Muslims were expelled and later (because they were suspecyted to be still Muslims in secret and of helping Turks and Moorish pirates) the converted Muslims were expelled too.
Now when Romans arrived to Spauin they found Celts in the North and Iberians in the South. The iberians came from North Africa in prehistoric times. Now the guy sees Iberians and thinks he is seeing Moors. Idiot.
Spanish architecture? Look at cathedrals from medieval Christian Spain or post-renaissance and try to find elements of Muslim architecture. There are none. TRhe only common point is the taste for intrincate carvings in the Plateresco style but Pleteresco doesn't look like Muslim architecture.
Also while Spanish has a number of words of Arab origin specially in the South (eg aljibe instead of pozo for a well) they are not thet numerous. The French haven't been ocupppiing Germany for eight centuries and you have at least as many French words in German than Arab words in Spanish.
Alos some of these French words are "fundamental" in German (eg equal is egal) while in Spanish they are limited to wome names of things.
LONDON (AP) -- Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site. The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour.
And the statement came just four days after Landis stood on the victory podium on the Champs-Elysees, succeeding seven-time winner Lance Armstrong as an American winner in Paris.
The Swiss-based Phonak team said it was notified by the UCI on Wednesday that Landis' sample showed "an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17 of the race last Thursday.
Landis made a remarkable comeback in that Alpine stage, racing far ahead of the field for a solo win that moved him from 11th to third in the overall standings. He regained the leader's yellow jersey two days later. Landis rode the Tour with a degenerative hip condition that he has said will require surgery in the coming weeks or months.
Arlene Landis, his mother, said Thursday that she wouldn't blame her son if he was taking medication to treat the pain in his injured hip, but "if it's something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win." "I didn't talk to him since that hit the fan, but I'm keeping things even keel until I know what the facts are," she said in a phone interview from her home in Farmersville, Pa. "I know that this is a temptation to every rider but I'm not going to jump to conclusions ... It disappoints me."
Phonak said Landis would ask for an analysis of his backup "B" sample "to prove either that this result is coming from a natural process or that this is resulting from a mistake." "The team management and the rider were both totally surprised of this physiological result," the Phonak statement said.
Landis has been suspended by his team pending the results. If the second sample confirms the initial finding, he will be fired from the team, Phonak said.
Landis wrapped up his Tour de France win on Sunday, keeping the title in U.S. hands for the eighth straight year. Armstrong, long dogged by doping whispers and allegations, won the previous seven. Armstrong never has tested positive for drugs and vehemently has denied doping.
Speculation that Landis had tested positive spread earlier Thursday after he failed to show up for a one-day race in Denmark on Thursday. A day earlier, he missed a scheduled event in the Netherlands.
On the eve of the Tour's start, nine riders - including pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso - were ousted, implicated in a Spanish doping investigation. The names of Ullrich and Basso turned up on a list of 56 cyclists who allegedly had contact with Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who's at the center of the Spanish doping probe.
#1
You're kidding. I'm amazed, doesn't sound in character with what I know of Floyd Landis.
He certainly was pumped up for that stage! Given that his nuts were in a vice, do or die, I'm not surprised there was a high level of hormone in his system! He was an angry man even at the finish, from what I could see. So, under natural conditions, what happens to the testosterone level in, say, a warrior in the heat of battle?
Wrap up on OLN Sunday. 7 PM, I believe. Could be interesting.
#2
John Lelangue, the head of the Phonak team, said in a telephone interview that the squad had been notified of the test result. He denied that Landis had failed a doping test.
Patrick Schamasch, the International Olympic Committee's medical director, said in a separate telephone interview that the high testosterone level ``could potentially lead to an anti- doping violation.''
News media, including Reuters, said Landis had failed a doping test.Bloomberg
#3
Officials from the Tour de Phrance also announced that Floyd Landis was also found to have banned substances on his body in the form of soap residue, de-odorant, shampoo, toothpaste and mouthwash.
#4
I hope there's a valid explanation for this. This is not the way to continue Armstrong's legacy and is an embarassment to all American athletes on the international stage if proven to be a true positive.
Posted by: Dar ||
07/27/2006 12:50
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Five Astaná riders who were forced out of the 2006 Tour de France because of alleged links to a blood doping investigation have been formally cleared by Spanish courts.
Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal, Sergio Paulinho, Allan Davis and Alberto Contador have all received a written document officially clearing them of any links to the ongoing "Operación Puerto," the Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco reported Wednesday.
The five riders received a legal document signed by Manuel Sánchez Martín, secretary for the Spanish court heading up the "Operación Puerto" investigation, stating, "there are not any type of charges against them nor have there been adopted any type of legal action against them."
The five were among nine riders from four teams who were forced out of the 2006 Tour because of alleged links to controversial Spanish doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes.
Other riders forced out were pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC) and Francisco Mancebo (Ag2r). Comunidad Valenciana lost its wild-card bid after one of its assistant sport directors was among five people detained in May.
oops. Guess Team Astana (including Vinokurov) should not have been banned from the Tour. Oh well, sorry guys, try again next year.
According to El Diario Vasco, the riders can now make legal claims in Spanish courts against damages caused to them or their team.
The news circulated among the peloton before the Clásica de Ordizia in Spain on Tuesday. Astaná riders were not participating in the one-day race because of complaints from ex-sponsor Würth, which didn't want its name on team jerseys after it pulled out of its sponsorship deal in the wake of the Tour expulsions.
Actually, the teams and officials are showing perhaps an overabundance of caution, which will come back to bite them. But they are definitely coming down hard on offenders, and that's good for the sport.
A few days before the Tour started, Landis and Lim were training in a small town high in the Pyrenees of northern Spain. The training had gone longer than originally planned, and Landis awoke the last morning looking at a stormy forecast and a hellacious travel day. In order to make it to a pre-Tour Phonak team meeting in Tours, France, they were scheduled to drive two hours south to Barcelona, catch a plane for the two-hour flight to Paris, get picked up, then drive an additional two hours to Tours. Not a big deal under most circumstances, but on this morning, Landis didn't want to hopscotch all over Europe like some business traveler. He wanted one last, hard ride.
Lim awoke to the sight of Landis pulling on his biking gear. The trainer was confused. Didn't he have to pack up? Didn't he have a plane to catch?
And so Landis did. He pointed his front wheel north toward France and started pedaling. He rode up and over the Pyrenees and down the mountain roads, into the vineyards of Limoux, following the road signs north. Landis rode for six hours, covering 130 miles, then got off his bike, stripped off his mud-soaked jersey and shorts, and hurled them off a nearby cliff. Donning dry clothes, he climbed in the car to drive the rest of the way with Lim. "You know how I got to the Tour last year?" Landis asked. When Lim shook his head, Landis grinned. "Lance's private jet," he said.
#8
I "tried it" on a Schwinn unitl I was old enuf to buy a 57 Chevy. I pitched newspapers and delivered groceries, pulled a lawnmower, went to baseball practice. Raised a family, paid taxes, and kept a job until retirement. Never pulled on spandex, never will. The concept is brokesprocket in my book. Just my two cents worth.
#10
I became a fan when OLN started carrying the races. I TiVo 'em all. Best virtual tourism ever. Course I'd be hard pressed to do 20 miles on the flat, much less climb.
#11
Can we say that Americans naturally produce more testosterone than the French are used to seeing?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/27/2006 14:20
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#12
Never pulled on spandex, never will.
And there's no reason to, unless you ride at 35 mph, which is three times as fast as most people can manage. Downhill, they hit 50 mph. These guys train in windtunnels and slippery clothing is essential. Wind resistance goes as velocity squared, so they see nine times the resistance at 36 mph and sixteen times at 48 mph. One of the main team tactics is drafting, which allows the guys in back to rest while the guy in front 'breaks trail'.
Besides, spandex makes a better billboard for professional sponsorship than cotton shorts. Notice how they zip up before they cross the finish so the logos won't be obstructed by folds.
For the rest of us, there's Rivendell, no spandex in sight (mostly wool, the other extreme).
#13
Wasn't Lance Armstrong accused of something similar? Didn't he just win a big lawsuit over the issue of doping or saying he was doped or chemotherapy or something?
On hearing the news that a United Nations observation post manned by four unarmed peacekeepers at the nexus of the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders was struck by an Israeli bomb, an uncharacteristically forceful Kofi Annan bolted out of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to proclaim his shock at the "apparently deliberate targeting" by Israel Defence Forces of the post. The UN Secretary-General went on to say the UN would conduct a full investigation. A curious statement, considering his comment that the IDF intentionally targeted the observers. Case closed, n'est-ce pas? Not quite.
The blast on Tuesday claimed the lives of Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organization mission in southern Lebanon, and three other UN soldiers. On July 18, Major Hess-von Kruedener had sent a number of his colleagues, including regimental officers such as myself, an e-mail describing what the situation was like at his location since the Israeli attacks began against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Based on the intensity and volatility of this current situation and the unpredictability of both sides (Hezbollah and Israel), and given the operational tempo of the Hezbollah and the IDF, we are not safe to venture out to conduct our normal patrol activities. We have now switched to Observation Post Duties and are observing any and all violations as they occur."
UNTSO was established in 1948 and is the UN's oldest mission. Canada has participated since its inception, and one of its current roles has been to monitor the ceasefire in the Golan Heights after the 1967 Six-Day War. When there had been a semblance of peace, UN monitoring made considerable sense, so minor violations could be dealt with quickly. But to leave the observers in place with a war under way stretches the credibility of the UN's operational judgment close to the breaking point.
The penultimate paragraph of Major Hess-von Kruedener's e-mail is prophetic, to say the least:
"The closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position and the closest 1,000-pound aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
This is what we call "veiled speech" in military jargon. It means hiding the truth in lingo that outsiders would not necessarily understand. What he is saying translates roughly as: "We have Hezbollah fighters all over our position engaging the IDF and using us as shields. They will probably stay, hoping that the IDF won't target them for fear of hitting us."
Surprising? Not really.
I have served in another mission where one side constantly set up its weapon systems, including mortars, in and around hospitals, medical clinics, mosques and, yes, UN positions, knowing full well that, when it engaged its enemies and received return fire, it would make for compelling TV as the networks covered the civilian carnage. (When they took up positions around my soldiers, I advised their leaders that I would authorize my soldiers to kill them within the hour if they didn't withdraw. Fortunately, as I was not an unarmed observer, I was in a position to do that.) In many cases, the weapon systems were moved immediately after firing, and their positions around civilians were abandoned before innocents paid the price for their despicable techniques. You have to admit this technique helps to win the PR war, which often is as important as the fighting one.
Certainly, the Secretary-General is familiar with this technique, having been the UN undersecretary of peacekeeping in the horrific 1990s, when the UN was floundering in the Balkans, Somalia and Rwanda.
For that reason alone -- and despite his soft-pedalling yesterday that the Israeli Prime Minister "definitely believes [the bombing was] a mistake" -- Mr. Annan should not have been so quick to pass judgment on an event that quite likely was not as it seemed in the hours following the tragedy.
Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
10:26 ||
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#1
People react under stress without pretense. IOW, Kofi is an innate anti-Semitic.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:27
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This might be the jawdropper of the day, as todays report from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon shows that the United Nations is busily repairing damaged roads in Hizballah-controlled areasroads the IAF bombed specifically to impede Hizballah movementright in the middle of the war. (Hat tip: mich-again.)(.pdf file)
UNIFIL is still facing serious restrictions in its freedom of movement due to the ongoing hostilities and the extensive destruction of roads and bridges throughout the area of operation. Yesterday, a UNIFIL engineering contingent from China managed to do some repairs on a key road artery between Tyre and Naqoura, and the road is now usable for traffic. However, more road destruction was reported in various areas in the south.
I have long suspected that UNIFIL has been providing Hezbollah with all sorts of combat support and combat service support. Much, like road repair, they would claim is "dual-use" for both UNIFIL and Hezbollah, so it's not their fault if they "aid" a belligerent. This is no defense.
#4
Well I wasn't so much concerned with the equipment, but the operators. Blow up a few Caterpillars and the occupation will lose it's luster. But I get your drift.
WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Navy said Thursday that it has identified a sunken shipwreck in the Baltic Sea as almost certainly being Nazi Germany's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin a find that promises to shed light on a 59-year-old mystery surrounding the ship's fate.
The Polish oil company Petrobaltic discovered the shipwreck earlier this month on the sea floor about 38 miles north of the northern port city of Gdansk. Suspecting it could be the wreckage of the Graf Zeppelin, the Polish Navy sent out a hydrographic survey vessel on Tuesday, said Lt. Cmdr. Bartosz Zajda, a spokesman for the Polish Navy.
"We are 99 percent sure even 99.9 percent that these details point unambiguously to the Graf Zeppelin," said Dariusz Beczek, the Navy commander of the vessel, the ORP Arctowski, said soon after returning to port Thursday morning after the two-day expedition.
During their time at sea, naval experts used a remote-controlled underwater robot and sonar photographic and video equipment to gather digital images of the 850-foot-long ship, Zajda said. "The analyses of the sonar pictures and the comparison to historical documents show that it is the Graf Zeppelin," Zajda told The Associated Press.
Zajda said a number of characteristics of the shipwreck exactly matched those of the Graf Zeppelin, including the ship's measurements and a special device that lifted aircraft onto the launch deck from a lower deck. I think they called that...ummmmmmm...the elevator. Write that down AP reporter...
The naval experts were still waiting to find the name "Graf Zeppelin" on one the ship's sides before declaring with absolute certainty that it is the German carrier, Zajda said.
The Graf Zeppelin was Germany's only aircraft carrier during World War II. It was launched on Dec. 8, 1938, but never saw action. After Germany's defeat in 1945, the Soviet Union took control of the ship, but it was last seen in 1947 and since then the ship's fate has been shrouded in mystery.
Navy researchers plan to continue to examine the material they gathered during their two days at sea, but the analysis of the shipwreck will then fall to historians and other researchers, Zajda said. The Graf Zeppelin will almost certain remain on the sea bed, he said. "Technically it's impossible to pull it out of the water," Zajda said.
#1
The Graf Zeppelin will almost certain remain on the sea bed, he said.
No shit?????
"Technically it's impossible to pull it out of the water," Zajda said.
Now, I have to ask: did he volunteer this tidbit of information spontaneous, or did some flatheaded, drooling submoron of a "journalist" ask him something like, "Sir, do you have any plans to raise the Graf Zeppelin?"
#4
Graf Zeppelin was a pretty suboptimal design. If the Poles really need a carrier, we can always sell them one of our old conventional-powered jobs, or even dust off the plans for the Kennedy and build 'em a new one.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 13:45
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July 27, 2006: There was a major embarrassment at the CIA when it was discovered that Italian detectives had been able to identify and track some CIA agents because the agents had used a frequent flyer card to travel around Europe. That card provided enough information for the Italians to identify the CIA men as CIA employees. All this was going on because the Italian agents were trying to find out if the CIA was involved in the abduction of a Kurdish terrorist from Italy in 2003. Although this was done with the cooperation of Italian counter-terrorism officials, it was also done without the permission of the Italian government. That has turned into a major scandal in Italy, where fear of terrorists and anti-Americanism both compete for media attention.
The CIA is conducting an investigation to find out how widespread this sort of sloppiness is among its field agents. One thing that will probably come out of this is that the CIA agents thought that, since they were operating in an allied country, and with obviously cooperative Italian counter-terrorism agents, they did not have to use the kind of precautions meant to keep them safe in a hostile environment.
While European counter-terrorism organizations have been diligent at tracking, and fighting, Islamic terrorism in Europe, their political bosses are faced with media and public attitudes driven more by fear (of terrorist attack) and a desire to blame someone else (like the U.S.) This creates some strange situations. Like Italian courts trying to track down and arrest American CIA employees.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
10:10 ||
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#1
Well the problem is the CIA is no longer a clandestine field agent agency. It lost that ability years ago when it snuggled up to satellite and phone intercepts.
#2
"It lost that ability years ago when it snuggled up to satellite and phone intercepts." That would be great but that business is done by NSA. The problem is still need good field agents to puts eyes and ears on intelligence targets or you get a distorted picture. The LLL Mo0nb@+5 that took control of the CIA are too PC to do actual field work without a sandwich board proclaiming "Spy at Work". Wouldnt want to upset anybody with our spying would we?
#6
They are there to do SUPER SECRET work with deep undercover agents that drive from their luxury homes in Virginia to the CIA HQs in Langley. Real good tradecraft Valarie "Clouseau" Plame! BTW does she have the CIA parking stickers on her car too? Just betting she does.
#8
I know why this is. Late in Clinton's term, he signed an Executive Order (I believe) that said you could use Freq. Flyer miles you accumulate for Federal Gov't jobs for your own PERSONAL use. Before that, you could still accumulate miles, but then you could only use them on gov't travel. You had to keep a separate personal FF miles account for your personal trips.
Unintended consequences. Of course, any "real" CIA agent would've thought...I can't put my real name on the account, duh!
Posted by: BA ||
07/27/2006 14:05
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July 27, 2006: Since many more countries have declared the Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger (LTTE) organization terrorists, they have been investigating local LTTE activity more intensively. As in earlier experiences with groups like Hamas, the IRA and Hizbollah, it was discovered that the fund raising front organizations hid terrorists, and often plans for local terrorist activity. Canada recently announced that, on closer examination, it had found that the LTTE was not only ready for running terrorism operations, but was already doing so. And more might be on the way.
One reason the LTTE got into trouble in Canada was because of its use of terror against its own supporters. To raise money, the LTTE basically holds hostage family members of expatriates. The overseas Tamils want to return to Sri Lanka to visit, but can only do so if they have paid all their "LTTE taxes" (officially, charitable contributions). If they don't make such visits, their kin are still in danger if the expatriates are not sufficiently generous to the cause. Canada, after numerous reports of illegal activity, recently declared the LTTE a terrorist organization, and made fund raising for them illegal. This came after years of complaints about LTTE terrorism, and use of strong-arm methods to get Canadian Tamils to contribute. The LTTE managed to stave off the terrorist designation for so long because the Tamil community voted heavily for the Liberal party, which, until recently, held a majority in parliament and ran the government.
The LTTE dominated Tamil community pushed all of the Liberal party's guilt buttons to great effect. This is a favorite tactic with other terrorist organizations. Islamic terrorists often get away, literally, with murder, by claiming they are victims of Western imperialism and that their terrorism is a legitimate response. Many Western politicians and special interest groups go along with this, to the great benefit of terrorist fund raising among expatriate populations. While the Tamil fund raising racket is one of the best organized, those that support Islamic terrorism also do very well. For decades, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorists depended heavily on money raised among Irish-Americans in the United States.
The war on terror investigations have made it much more clear that this type of fund raising is extensive, and a critical factor for keeping terrorist organizations active. Take away the money, and you still have angry people, including many willing to kill for the cause, and risk their lives doing it. But without the money, you are left mainly with smoke, not fire. The Soviet Union was well aware of this, and funded many terrorist organizations, keeping them going and causing much death, destruction and unease in the West and Middle East. When the Soviet Union disappeared, so did a lot of active terrorists.
For many years, countries in Europe and North America had been generous in their acceptance of foreigners coming (often illegally) and asking for political asylum. Many of these asylum seekers were accused of terrorist activity back home, but human rights groups in the West had taken sides, and declared the terrorists as oppressed and worthy of asylum. Worse, everyone looked the other way as these terrorists/asylum seekers set up shop, raised money, and planned terrorist operations. Usually these attacks were to be carried out back in the old country, but eventually they were carried out against their host countries. Even the human rights activists (many of them, anyway) recoiled at this, and the bans began to appear.
Canada now fears that LTTE might launch attacks against Canadian targets. There are still LTTE terrorists living in Canada, and going after them has to deal with public attacks from human rights groups. Terrorists have rights, too, and they should be protected.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
10:08 ||
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July 27, 2006: The already complex situation in Somalia is becoming even more so. The virtually powerless "Transitional Government" remains based in Baidoa, and is growing weaker as some sub-clans that formerly supported it, have made their peace with the Islamic Courts. The Islamic Courts have been consolidating control of much of southern and central Somalia, and its militiamen were threatening Baidoa. Then several thousand Ethiopian troops entered the country. The Ethiopians now appear to be providing security for the Transitional Government, and there is evidence that they are bringing in more troops and heavy equipment. As a result, despite its calls for "jihad" to oust the Ethiopians, the Islamic Courts have pulled their militiamen back from the vicinity of Baidoa.
Ethiopia's opposition to the Islamic Courts stems partially from traditional Christian-Moslem hostilities (despite centuries of Islamic pressure, most Ethiopians remain stoutly Christian), and also from long-standing Somali claims to the Ogaden region, which has long been in dispute between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the Al Qaeda influenced Islamic Courts are pressing for the imposition of Sharia law on the parts of Somalia that it controls. People have been harassed, arrested, and reportedly even executed for various "vices," such as watching the World Cup. As in much of Africa, however, the Somali brand of Islam is blended with many old customs. In addition, Somali Islam is strongly influenced by Sufism. That can be a problem for Sunni hard liners, as Sufi has some elements of Shia Islam, plus a strong mystical streak and a tradition of poetry, music, and spiritual dance. This is quite at variance with the hard-line Sunni version of the faith being pushed by the Islamic Courts. While the Islamic Courts has garnered popular support, the support is primarily derived from the desperate desire of most Somali for some order in their lives, after over 15 years of almost total chaos. As a result, many of the smaller clans, tired of being pushed around by the larger ones, committed themselves to the ICU. If the ICU pushes its agenda too hard, that support could begin to melt away.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
10:02 ||
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PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Hundreds of hours of videotape seized by deputies in their 2003 search of "Girls Gone Wild" producer Joseph Francis' condominium cannot be used in court, a judge ruled. Circuit Judge Dedee Costello suppressed all evidence Tuesday gathered during the searches. Defense attorneys argued the search warrants were not specific about what deputies were looking for in the condominium.
They're looking for videos of hot naked girls, and no, I'd don't have a link. Dammit.
Francis was arrested after two 17-year-old girls claimed a "Girls Gone Wild" cameraman videotaped them in sexual situations. Authorities say Francis targeted underage girls for his videos.
Let me guess, they were all 'college students'.
Deputies seized 700 items that formed the basis for most of the 42 charges against Francis and his company. The case is set for trial this year, and Francis, 33, could face decades in prison if convicted. State Attorney Steve Meadows said he would have to wait until the order is finalized to know how badly it would damage his case. "The obvious strength of this case is that much of the illegal conduct alleged is caught on videotape," he said.
"We're still reviewing the tapes. Luckily, we've got plenty of officers who offered to help."
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
09:54 ||
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#1
Darn. This guy is a total scumbag. He provided free alcohol to any attractive girl, and then taped them. We call those types sex offenders.
#2
Return the film and just buy a copy when its released. Then its just an administrative effort to follow the paperwork for all those pieces of paper that have to filed by the maker IAW US Code that everyone is an adult. Boring, time consuming, but appearently the DA had better follow through or this is just a case of making headlines for some reelection bid. Can we say Duke Lacrosse?
#3
Yes, if it wasn't for this guy, those virginal 17-year-olds would have lived chaste and upright lives, never straying from the path of virtue and purity.
Goooooooooooood morning, Gaza!
GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli voice interrupted a Palestinian radio broadcast in Gaza on Thursday with a stern message in Arabic.
"The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) call on residents near the agriculture college to leave. Army forces will target it because terrorists use the place to fire rockets against the state of Israel," the voice said.
The message from the army was the latest to warn of an impending strike in what Israel says is an attempt to avoid civilian casualties, and the Palestinian government, led by the Hamas Islamist militant group, calls a "psychological war." Okay. So don't warn them. Wouldn't want to piss off, Hamas, would they?
"Many people left their houses near the agriculture college following the Israeli message on the radio," said Yamen Hamad, a local journalist from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
"People take these threats very seriously and they live in panic awaiting the hour of destruction," he told Reuters.
The agriculture college had not been bombed by 1230 GMT, two hours after the broadcast.
The Information Ministry accused Israel of trying to spread panic in an offensive, launched a month ago, which has so far failed to achieve its goals of recovering a captured soldier and ending cross-border rocket fire.
At least 148 Palestinians have been killed in the campaign, which has not slackened despite being overshadowed by Israel's war with Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Three people were killed on Thursday.
The army confirmed the practice of issuing warnings in Gaza by breaking into radio and television broadcasts as well as through phone calls, flyers and loudspeakers.
"It is not a psychological war," an Israeli army spokesman said. "It's only due to the fact that Palestinian terrorists are operating from these civilian areas."
At least six Palestinian houses have been bombed, hours after receiving warning calls from Israeli army officers.
When Omar al-Mamlouk got a call two days ago, he thought at first it was a cruel joke by an acquaintance.
"What IDF? Are you joking me?" Mamlouk asked, but the firm voice replied: "The IDF does not joke with anybody."
Mamlouk hurried to alert his family. As soon as they left, abandoning all their furniture, the place was bombed.
"Let the house be destroyed for the sake of Palestine," Mamlouk said, denying army allegations the house was used to store arms for the Islamic Jihad militant group. No, no. Doesn't sound like somebody who'd support Islaminc Jihad...
Concerned that some Palestinians might imitate the Israeli warnings as pranks, the Palestinian attorney general has decided to stop callers hiding their number. Mahmoud Al-Beavis and Achmed Al-Butthead...
Many government officials, militants and some ordinary Palestinians had used the service, enabling them to conceal their phone numbers for security as well as social reasons.
The lone Palestinian Mobile phone company, Jawwal, circulated a text message to subscribers on Wednesday telling them they would no long be allowed to conceal their numbers. The IDF thanks you.
#4
This Gaza offensive is still using the old and outdated techniques, guaranteed that in long run to return everything to the status quo. The Israelis have got to cut that crap out.
Everything they do has to have *some*, *any*, permanent gain attached to it, otherwise it is ultimately futile. And the only gain that can be made against the Paleos is land.
And don't allow an Israeli civilian so much as to set a foot on that confiscated land, either, under threat of spending the next few years in prison. It is to remain a neutral zone, empty of people, and of buildings, and plowed flat without cover or concealment. Kept as a "military training area".
And thereafter, each and every time an offensive act is made by the Paleos, they lose another 100 acres. Without judicial review or appeal to the Israeli courts.
If necessary, using eminent domain to buy the land from its owner, whether or not he wants to sell. The fair market value of empty desert.
#5
Omar: Hey .Mahmoud, whats with all the long pipes yer stuffin under your house? Mahmoud: Ahh um er just fixing my plumbing. Omar: Really no shit, whered ya get the dough to do that? [Click Click] Hang on Mahmoud damn call-waiting! [Click Click] Yellohh. IDF what IDF? Are you joking me? [Click Click] Yeah Mahmoud ya there? Just some frikkin pranksters. Now, where were we [Click crackle hummmmmmmmm] Mahmoud: Omar? Omar can ya hear me know? Omar: [hummmmmmmmm .crackle hummmmmmmmm]
#6
Oh, there's a permanent gain by the thunder runs through Gaza. Its a demonstration that Hamas, elected to fight and conquer Isreal, is impotent when push comes to shove. Its a punishment for the attacks and for electing a confrontational government. And its protective by destroying whatever stores Hamas has accumulated.
The Paleos wanted a state. Ok, they have one, states that attack other states that are stronger get their teeth smashed in. Welcome to the real world, buddy.
A powerful earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Thursday but there was no reports of any casualties and damage while meteorologists played down the risk of tsunami. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered 6.0 on the Richter scale. Indonesian meteorologists put the magnitude at 6.1, centered closed to Nias island off the coast of Sumatra.
There were some reports of panic on Nias, where hundreds of people were killed by another strong quake in March 2005. Senior Indonesian seismologist Fauzi told Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta the earthquake appeared too small to trigger a tsunami, Reuters said. A seismologist in North Sumatra province told Reuters that no damage had been reported from the closest areas to the epicentre.
"It happened near Nias island but we have not received reports of any damage from there. It has been an hour so I think there has been no indication of a coming tsunami," said Buha Simanjuntak. A government official on Nias told Reuters there was no indication of damage or casualties, but people fled homes and buildings after feeling the tremor.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
09:49 ||
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#1
Allan is really sending them a message, and they're not gettin' it so far....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 16:14
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#2
Like with Afghanistan, their mullahs sez they haven't been holely enough. So before they know it a volcano was blowing through a crater.
Leaders of the country's Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities are urging the FBI to use sensitivity if it investigates possible activities by the Islamic militant group Hezbollah on U.S. soil.
Twenty-five groups, including the Islamic Society of North America and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, urged FBI Director Robert Mueller in a letter Wednesday to issue instructions to field offices and agents to avoid unwarranted profiling and respect the legal protections of people they may question.
"We want the FBI, not so obviously, to protect our nation from those who do us harm, but we want them to focus on smoke and mirrors actual credible evidence of wrongdoing and not target people based on their ethnicity or religion or based on First Amendment political expression," said Farhana Khera, head of Muslim Advocates, the lead drafter of the letter. "We want to avert any kind of raw fishing expedition-type initiative."
Khera, whose group is the charitable arm of the 500-plus-member National Association of Muslim Lawyers, said activists decided to send the letter after learning in recent days that the FBI has increased its focus on the worldwide activities of Hezbollah in light of the most recent fighting in the Middle East.
The letter says that since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI has launched a number of interview programs that targeted Arab and Muslim men in particular. Some agents engaged in "harassing, unduly burdensome and improper questioning," it states.
On Wednesday, Mueller told reporters at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., that the agency's efforts continued. But when asked if there was any indication Hezbollah is planning an attack in the United States or on U.S. interests abroad, he said, "At this juncture, no."
FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said the agency plans to reach out to the groups that sent the letter. He said there are no plans for large-scale interviews regarding Hezbollah.
"We are sensitive to the cultural differences in dealing with the Muslim community," Kodak said, adding that the agency already has guidance about how to deal with the various groups. "Whether or not there's going to be special, additional guidance, that I don't know at this time."
#2
YJCMTSU. And that includes the FBI actually tip-toeing around. Moron Mueller's just as PC as that dipshit Freeh. Sometimes I think the only thing between us and being hit again with huge loss of life is that our enemy is dumber than dirt.
#3
Don't forget the port guys and regular policing guys. They are really the ones sniffing out some plots. Not the PC boneheads up top.
Goddamn FBI and government.
#5
Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Some day, unless we get REAL lucky, one of our cities is going to take a Big Hot One up the ass because of this "sensitivity" bullshit.
#7
Yeah, I'll 'reach out to the groups who sent the letter'. Seems to me they need to answer a few pointed (and very, very, insensitive) questions themselves. Time to reach out and grab them by the throat.
#9
Bullshit! Treat them just like any other terrorist criminal. When McVeigh was being investigate not one farmer bitched about the FBI being sensitive! The FBI needs to find these guys and capture or kill them.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 11:14
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#10
This scum is beyond any words. They are an internal fifth column. They should be bitch slapped, humiliated verbally and any other way possible, and simply told to pack their rat asses back to the shitholes they came from if there is any part of the inquiry they don't like. Quit coddling these Muzzie F**kers !
#11
How about the Muslim/Arab/Asian community pointing out some of the people whom they feel might embrace Islamic Fanaticism a little too much? They live among them, should know their community, and proclaim to the Religion of Piece how about stepping up. Every time they Capture/Kill one of the fanatics EVERY leader in the perps Muslim community is quick to point out that they fell in with a bad crowd. How about they tell the FBI who the bad crowd is TODAY and skip the CNN/MSNBC sound byte about how you Deep down support America.
Chinese investigators say activist Fu Xiancai, who was paralysed after a severe beating, inflicted the blows himself, according to a rights body. Mr Fu, who campaigned for people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam, was beaten up returning home after he was summoned by police in Hubei province. The June beating was so severe he is not expected to walk again, according to Human Rights in China (HRIC).
But an official investigation has ruled the attack was fabricated. Officials told Mr Fu's son, Fu Bing, that investigators had failed to find anyone else's footprints at the scene of the attack, and had concluded that he must have hit himself.
Right. And all those guys in Bangladesh are really killed in "crossfires"
The blow to the back of his neck was so severe that three of his vertebrae were broken, HRIC said.
Must have thrown himself down several flights of stairs
HRIC said it was strongly concerned about the independence of the investigation, which was carried out by the same public security bureau that had a record of harassing Mr Fu.
Mr Fu has highlighted the plight of people moved to make way for the Three Gorges dam. He had been subject to a series of threats, attacks and harassment in the past year, the group said. China says the dam, which will be the world's largest hydro-electric project, will provide electricity for its booming economy and help control flooding on the Yangtze River. But it comes at the expense of villagers, who in many cases have been resettled on inferior land and been deprived of compensation by corrupt local officials, the rights group said.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
08:48 ||
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#1
It's like the old Soviet dissidents who committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head...twice.
#5
Then he shot himself in the back of the head. Twice.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/27/2006 11:01
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#6
Why, didn't that happen to Hillary's close associate. Seems that he was head shot, then managed to levitate several hundred yards just to find a soft, grassy resting spot. Just goes to show, amazing things happen every day.
At least 10 Muslim guerillas have been killed in the town of Guindulungan, Maguindanao province as fighting between members of two warring Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) groups entered its fourth day on Thursday, a spokesman for the group said.
Eid Kabalu, citing a report from MILF field commanders, said both sides had suffered casualties in sporadic clashes triggered by a land dispute. He said the MILF leadership had sought the help of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team but asked the military not to intervene as the MILFs efforts were underway to prevent the escalation of conflict.
Guindulungan Mayor Antao Midtimbang has sent emissaries to separate the warring Mulslim guerillas and convince them to settle their land dispute through peaceful means. Midtimbang said the fighting was confined to the hinterlands of Guindulungan, about 30 kilometers away from the highway.
What is the most important component of Hezbollah's power in the south? It is the Hezbollah cadres themselves. Hezbollah's most precious possession isn't Katyushas, long-range rockets, night vision goggles or antitank missiles or electronic equipment. It is the trained core of its military force. Equipment can be replaced but Hezbollah's cadres represent an expensive, almost irreplaceable investment. In them resides the organizational knowledge of Nasrallah's organization. It embodies man-decades of operational experience against Israel. Rockets can be replaced. The stars of Hezbollah's operational force are less expendable.
From this observation I'm going to say that despite the received wisdom of the newspapers to the contrary, the fighting at Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil have been and continue to be an unmitigated defeat for the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. Oh, I know that this will be justified in terms of "inflicting casualties" on the Israelis. But the Hez are probably losing 10 for every Israeli lost. A bad bargain for Israel you say? No. A bad bargain for Hezbollah to trade their terrorist elite for highly trained but nevertheless conventional infantry. Guerillas should trade 1 for 10, not 10 for 1.
Reduced to its essentials, the IDF strategy may be ridiculously simple: fix the Hezbollah force in Southern Lebanon while detaching its command structure from the field by simultaneously striking Beirut. One of the great mysteries, upon which newpaper accounts shed no light, is why the IDF should so furiously pulverize Hezbollah's enclaves in southern Beirut, blockade the port and disable the airport. The object isn't to shut down Lebanon. It is to momentarily disorient the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, so that in a moment of absentmindedness, the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon will do what comes most naturally: commit themselves against the IDF.
Whether accidental or not, the IDF attack on Kiyam raises the specter that it will operate eastward against the Bekaa valley and perhaps eventually against the Beirut-Damascus highway. That would cut off supplies from Syria to his men in the south and to his command element in Damascus. Then where would Nasrallah's influence over Lebanese politics be? And how should he fare against his former adversaries in the recently concluded Civil War? With the onus of all the ruination he has visited upon Lebanon upon him and his forces in stuck in a southern front against the IDF he may find it hard to cut the swath he once did in government circles.
#1
What is the most important component of Hezbollah's power in the south? It is the Hezbollah cadres themselves. Hezbollah's most precious possession isn't Katyushas, long-range rockets, night vision goggles or antitank missiles or electronic equipment.
#2
The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. . . . in a moment of absentmindedness, the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon will do what comes most naturally: commit themselves against the IDF.
By God, I think he's got it!
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 13:02
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#3
I sure hope he does. I don't know what to make of all this...
#5
The weakness of the Hezzies is fanaticism and over zealousness.
While great recruitment tools, irrationality comes with the fanaticism and zeal.
Let's pour more Hezzies into the meat grinder.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:38
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#6
Hesb'allah's weakness is also the Arab military mindset and their training from certain muslim countries and Iran (and likely a few ex-Red Army veterans as well). Neither is exactly strong on initiative. Hence the fanaticism and over zealousness as a substitute.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Iranian Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezai, which aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on July 25, 2006.
Deploying NATO in Lebanon is Occupation; NATO is an Army That Attacks and Conquers
Mohsen Rezai: "Israel and America want NATO to be deployed [in South Lebanon]. NATO is, in fact, a military force. Deploying NATO means the occupation of Lebanon, this time not by Israel, but by Israel's partner. If NATO is deployed in South Lebanon, it will be an explicit and clear occupation, albeit with a diplomatic tone and language, and a peaceful appearance. In fact, it is a type of occupation. After all, NATO is not a peacekeeping force. NATO is an army. It is the kind of army that attacks and conquers. It is an interested party in this matter. It faces Syria, and it has problems with China and the Islamic world. Therefore, NATO is different from the U.N. forces and the Lebanese army."
[...]
"Can they drive Hizbullah north beyond the Litani River, deploy NATO forces there, and then ask... Disarm Hizbullah? Who would dare? Who has the power to disarm Hizbullah? Today Lebanon is in the hands of Hizbullah. The security of Lebanon - even the security of the streets and alleys in Lebanon - is run by Hizbullah. The border and the sea are in the hands of Hizbullah."
[...] "If Hizbullah's Patience Runs Out... The War Will Change Dramatically... There Will Be Chaos in Tel Aviv"
Mohsen Rezai: "If Hizbullah's patience runs out and it enters a new phase, the war will change dramatically. First of all, there will be chaos in Tel Aviv, as well as in many cities between Haifa and Tel Aviv. There are atomic and chemical arsenals right between Haifa and Tel Aviv, and there might be problems there. An unexpected situation might develop. So far, Hizbullah has demonstrated manliness, restraint, and humanitarianism. But as of yesterday, they began attacking the towns and villages south of the Litani like madmen, and I don't know what will happen in the days to come."
[...]
Interviewer: "So if they push Hizbullah to the Litani, Haifa may still get hit?"
Mohsen Rezai: "Haifa goes without saying..."
Interviewer: "Tel Aviv as well?"
Mohsen Rezai: "Hizbullah has trump cards, but Israel has exploited Hizbullah's humanitarianism. The Israelis think that since the Hizbullah men have not carried out their initial threats, they have nothing up their sleeves. This has made these [Israeli] gentlemen somewhat audacious."
[...] "The Legal Experts of the Islamic World [Should Take]... Legal Action Against Ms. Rice"
Mohsen Rezai: "In my opinion, it would be best if the legal experts of the Islamic world prepare some kind of legal action against Ms. Rice. I think this lady is the first ever female war criminal, and she should be brought to trial. She has explicitly declared - and I think this was a political mistake by her - that she is giving Israel a free hand to attack Lebanon. This in itself is enough to prepare a case against her as a war criminal."
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006
08:40 ||
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After nearly a year on the job and under the watchful eye of Congress, John Bolton is inching toward Senate confirmation of his post as U.N. ambassador. Bolton has the green light from Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who last year sided with Democrats in opposing the president's nomination. While Democrats are still expected to oppose the confirmation, Bolton also has retained the support of other key GOP senators.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee planned to conduct a hearing Thursday to reconsider Bolton's nomination. By resubmitting Bolton's nomination to the Senate, the president has made clear "that Ambassador Bolton is important to the implementation of U.S. policies at the United Nations and to broader U.S. goals on the global stage," Sen. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in prepared remarks. Lugar, R-Ind., noted in his remarks that the Senate has already conducted an "exhaustive review" of Bolton's credentials.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the Foreign Relations Committee's top Democrat, has said Bolton should not get a confirmation vote until the White House turns over documents Biden requested when Bolton was nominated last year.
Voinovich announced last week he would support Bolton.
"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," Voinovich said in a statement. The senator insisted he had not been pressured into his decision by the White House and that he believed Bolton's personality had been "tempered" in recent months.
#2
Sen. Dayton (D-MN) also signaled he may give the thumbs up. Now that he's not running for re-election he can speak his mind ("Fiengold is a grandstander")and now maybe he will vote on principle.
#3
The dumos promised a fillabuster of the nomination. However, Jewish groups across the U.S. support the Bolton nomination because of his position on Israel. The dumos are now handwringing about what to do. Election time is coming up. Don't want to piss off any potential voters. Don't you just love it.
A Russian rocket that was to put 18 satellites in orbit crashed shortly after liftoff early Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported.
The Dnepr rocket crashed about 15 miles south of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan but caused no injuries or damage on the ground, Interfax quoted Russian space agency deputy chief Yuri Nosenko as saying.
The rocket was carrying a Russian satellite and 17 from other countries, including the United States and Italy, Russian news agencies reported.
Interfax, citing an unidentified Mission Control official, reported preliminary information indicated a problem occurred when the rocket's third stage detached. RIA-Novosti and ITAR-Tass, also citing unnamed officials, said the engine shut off 86 seconds into the flight.
Russia's space program has recently suffered several embarrassing failures, jeopardizing its hopes of earning more revenue from commercial launches of foreign satellites.
The launch of a rocket carrying a European weather satellite was postponed indefinitely last week because of a problem discovered minutes before liftoff.
#1
That sucks. Russian commercial satellite delivery was looking like a real bright spot for space systems. Maybe we should build the first space elevator in Russia.
The RB news service bringing you all the animal stories fit to print (and some that shouldn't be).
A MAN was bruised but alive after a Saint Bernard dog thrown out a two-storey window landed on him as he was walking down the street in the southern-Polish city of Sosnowiec.
The 50kg dog was pushed out of the window by its drunken owner on Monday, police said. "The dog had a soft landing because it fell on a man," said police spokesman Grzegorz Wierzbicki. "The dog escaped with just a few scratches."
"The man was also more in a psychological state of shock than physically hurt."
The one-year-old dog, named Oskar, was placed in an animal shelter while police investigate its owners for animal abuse.
During his three-day tour to Russia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez went to the countrys world-known armory center, Izhevsk (Udmurtia). In Izhevsk, Chavez announced the intention to rearm Venezuelan army with the help of Moscow and lashed out at the United States, contrasting it with Russia. The Bush administration that is attentively eyeing the visit called on Moscow not to sell the innovative weapons to Caracas, including Su-30 fighters. But the Kremlin made clear the military cooperation with Venezuela breaches neither the international agreements nor the laws of Russia.
As a former colonel of Venezuelas army, Chavez obviously enjoyed the yesterdays trip to Udmurtia. Straight from the airport, the president went to the firing range of Izhmash works, where he spent an hour watching the demonstrational shooting from innovative Kalashnikov sub-machine guns and new types of rifles. He was also shown TOP-M1 and Osa (Wasp) air defense systems. The president didnt bother to conceal his admiration.
After the firing range, Chavez headed for Izhmash weapons maker, Kalashnikov museum of small-arms weapons and had a personal meeting with Mikhail Kalashnikov, the legendary armourer of Russia. The Kalashnikov sub-machine gun is the banner of Venezuelan armed power, Chavez said after receiving an autobiographical book by Kalashnikov.
And the presidents rhetoric was well-justified. Venezuela has acquired 100,000 Kalashnikov AK-103s of the latest model and Chavez is in to mood to stop at what has been accomplished. Chavez vowed that on Thursday he will seal an agreement in Moscow to construct a Kalashnikov works and an ammunition maker in Venezuela. Whats more, Chavez promised to conclude one more agreement on the same day. It will set forth buying Su-30 fighters with the first planes to be delivered to Venezuela already this year.
#3
Buying lots of arms is a dictator's Viagra. It's a fair bet that he's seriously math-challenged - stupid, actually - and tolerates no one around him saying "No"... So I figure he's going to burn through his declining income until he can no longer buy off his peasant base. Then the fun will begin in earnest. And they'll be armed, LOL.
#5
Venezuela's oil model: Is production rising or falling? The state oil company, PDVSA, reports production of 3.3 million barrels a day. There is no way to independently confirm this, and most outside analysts, including the International Energy Agency, say PDVSA's numbers are inflated and production is closer to 2.6 million barrels per day. The Financial Times reported this month that Venezuela's shortfall in production is such that it was actually forced to strike a $2 billion deal to buy about 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Russia to avoid defaulting on contracts - a claim the Chávez government says is false.
But whatever the real output, Venezuela - because of the high price of oil - is raking in more petrodollars than ever before. When Chávez came into office in 1999, the country reported production of 3.5 millionbarrels per day and, with oil selling at about $15 per barrel, was making just over $18 billion a year. This month, with oil at about $70 a barrel, PDVSA Finance Director Eudomario Carruyo told Reuters he expects revenue to top $85 billion this year. PDVSA officials have reportedly said that oil production will increase to 4 million barrels per day by 2012.
Chavez isn't hurting for money when he has 5 times as much to play with. That money can buy a lot of friends and destabilize surrounding governments.
Again, when the US and the west refuses to produce it's own energy, it only funds those who wish to weaken or destroy us. Of course if that ever happens, their oil will be worthless in a non-market economy.
Posted by: ed ||
07/27/2006 13:26
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Actually the more Hugo spends on an air force the better it is. An air force is very expensive and makes for lovely pictures when it hits the giant buzzsaw that is the USAF. The more millions he pours into an Air Force, the bigger a money sink it becomes for him. If he really does plan on fighting the US, having an Air Force is honestly just flushing money down the toilet. He simply can't spend enough on an Air Force to really make a threat to ours.
Thailand and Australia dismissed concerns Thursday that violence-stricken southern Thailand might become a breeding ground for regional terrorists, saying Muslim insurgents there have shown little desire to tie up with foreign militant networks.
"As far as the situation in the southern part of Thailand is concerned, there is no relationship with any international linkages of any sort,'' Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said after a meeting with his Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, on the sidelines of an Asian security conference.
Some counterterrorism experts have warned the conflict could worsen if Islamic militant networks in Southeast Asia, such as the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, get involved in providing external assistance.
Kantathi rejected speculation that southern Thailand could become like Mindanao province in the southern Philippines, which has been wracked by decades of Muslim separatist violence.
Downer, whose country has boosted counterterrorism cooperation with Southeast Asia in recent years, said the southern Thai conflict was being contained so that it was "not seen as something relevant to international terrorism.''
"There's very limited evidence of any contact with any broader jihadist movement,'' Downer said. "I suspect some of the jihadists have endeavored to link up, but have failed to do so with those in southern Thailand.''
Downer declined to say whether Australia supports Thailand's use of emergency rule in the south, which lets the government impose curfews, prohibit public gatherings, censor and ban publications, detain suspects without charge, confiscate property and tap telephones. "I don't try to micromanage Thailand from Australia,'' Downer said. "It's a sensitive and difficult issue. ... The main thing is that the international community gets behind the Thai government's efforts to try to solve the problem.''
Kantathi said the current situation in southern Thailand was "very stable,'' stressing that authorities were working to settle the issue through education, equal opportunities and oragami, lots of oragami helping people of different religions accept each other.
Muslim students were being encouraged to further their education in countries where they could live among and learn from moderate Muslim communities, including Australia, Kantathi said
In a special meeting Thursday on the IDF's operations in Lebanon, most of the members of the security cabinet expressed their opposition to expanding ground missions, as per the army's request, and it appeared unlikely that IDF plans would be approved. Olmert needs to make sure his cabinet doesn't go wobbly.
Meanwhile, no heavy fighting was reported Thursday morning as IDF troops headed towards the center of Bint Jbail, where on Wednesday a well-planned Hizbullah ambush on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village devastated Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, leaving eight soldiers, including three officers, dead and 24 wounded. Israel is getting too skittish about accepting any casualties. It is one thing not to lose the Army. It is another to not accept the inevitable casualties of war.
Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen led by Lt.-Col. Yaniv Asor, commander of Battalion 51. At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Asor and his men asked the Golani command center for permission to enter an area of the outskirts of Bint Jbail. Col. Tamir Yidai, commander of the brigade, gave the green light for the operation.
Asor and his men moved quickly through approximately 15 one-story homes. But as the troops moved through the narrow alleyways, a strong Hizbullah force sent a wave of gunfire and missiles at the force, killing and wounding several soldiers in the first moments of the fight. As Asor and his men fought to regain control of the situation, other Hizbullah cells outflanked them and opened fire on the force as well as other IDF positions in the town.
The battle lasted for several hours during which Asor and his men sustained heavy casualties and killed at least 40 Hizbullah guerrillas, some in gunbattles at point-blank range. Then the evacuation of the wounded began, which lasted six hours due to incessant enemy fire. Four IAF helicopter pilots risked their lives by landing in enemy territory.
Men from the Golani's elite reconnaissance unit and from Battalion 51 carried stretchers with their wounded comrades for three kilometers to the helicopters, which landed for just under one minute at a time beneath a cover of smoke grenades and massive artillery fire before taking off to evacuate the wounded to Israeli hospitals.
Meanwhile at the Golani Brigade's command center, emotions ran high as word came in of the fierce gunbattle and the heavy casualties. Soldiers ran back and forth with maps and officers screamed into encrypted cellular phones coordinating the evacuation of the wounded.
At one point, Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsh, commander of Division 91, stepped out of the command center to update Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. "We can't land the helicopters," he said. "The fighting is too intense."
On Tuesday, things in the town had looked entirely different. The IDF, senior officers announced matter-of-factly, had it surrounded and were in control of the town. "The town is in our control," Hirsh said Tuesday. "The work is almost completed and the terrorists are fleeing." Some terrorists, however, seem to have remained, with deadly results.
The Golani's fight didn't end the combat Bint Jbail. Wednesday evening, after the IDF had once again declared it had secured the town, a Paratrooper force nearby was hit by a Sagger antitank missile. One officer was killed and three soldiers were wounded in the attack and in the gunfight that ensued.
A high-ranking source in the Northern Command told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Bint Jbail could not be attacked by air since there were still several hundred civilians there. The officer said that the fighting in the town would continue at least for a day or two. Israel has to get tougher. Civilians should have been long gone and given Hezb'Allah's composition, it is quesionable whether anyone still in town was really a civilian or Hezb'Allah support.
OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said that the war in Lebanon would continue for several more weeks. "There will unfortunately be more days like this," Adam told reporters. "We need to achieve our goal to completely overcome Hizbullah."
A senior Hizbullah official, Mahmoud Komati, told The Associated Press Wednesday that IDF forces had managed to seize a few points inside Bint Jbail, but had not yet taken the town center. The IDF said several Hizbullah fighters had taken cover in a mosque. Why is it so hard to just let the IAF to drop the mosque. It's not like they will get worse publicity from the MSM.
Komati denied fighters were taking cover in a mosque and suggested the people involved may be civilians. "Fighters don't take shelter in mosques. They fight on the battlefield. If they can't, they retreat, but not to mosques," said.
Rahhal, a Hizbullah spokesman, angrily responded to a question about the mosque refuge. "What's the Israelis business that our fighters were in the mosque? Maybe they were praying at the time!" he said. Or replenishing their ammo. What difference does it make, spiritual resupply or physical resupply?
#1
"Meanwhile, no heavy fighting was reported Thursday morning as IDF troops headed towards the center of Bint Jbail, ".
They are waiting for the IDF to say they have control, then they will attack. Get more press that way.
#2
Rahhal, a Hizbullah spokesman, angrily responded to a question about the mosque refuge. "What's the Israelis business that our fighters were in the mosque? Maybe they were praying at the time!" he said.
#3
Israel should not have started going into Lebanon if they were not willing to do what it takes to destroy Hezbollah. Looks like they did not think this through and, if they go for some sort of hudna, it is going to result in further humiliation for Israel and aggrandizement of Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor. Not good.
Posted by: DanNY ||
07/27/2006
07:54 ||
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#1
Mohammed at ITM is one smart Iraqi. The fact that such men exist in the ME gives hope. Unfortunately, the number of lunatics in the ME tilts the balance toward hopelessness.
#2
He exhibits what could be called constructive paranoia. In this case, he is not alone, and many Iraqis on the street know that there is one, and only one, troublemaker in their neighborhood--Iran.
The thing about being a little paranoid is that you are a lot harder to sneak up on. And when the Iraqis finally reach their threshold of tolerance for Iranian hanky-panky, there is going to be a lot of dead Iranian agents and symps.
Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader warned in a new videotape released Thursday that the terrorist group would not stand idly by while Israeli bombardments "burn our brothers" in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaida now saw "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."
The Egyptian-born physician said the Hezbollah and Palestinian battles against Israel would not be ended with "cease-fires or agreements." The fighting began last month following a Palestinian cross-border raid in which an Israeli soldier was captured, then expanded to Lebanon after Hezbollah militants captured two other soldiers in a raid earlier this month. "The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires. ... It is a Jihad for God's sake and will last until (our) religion prevails," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."
This AP story left out an important line. The full quote is; "It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere."
Al-Zawahri wore a gray robe and white turban. A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with pictures of two other militants. The Arab satellite station appeared not to have transmitted the entire tape, using instead selected quotes interspersed with commentary from an anchor.
"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," al-Zawahri said.
Including; He also said that Arab regimes were complicit in Israeli fighting against Hezbollah and the Palestinians. "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit ... and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies ... make yourselves martyrs."
#2
BTW, I saw a bit of the video. He's in a professional studio , framed by a black drape, and large professionally made posters of Osama...and the World Trade Center in flames.
#3
I saw a bit of the video. He's in a professional studio..
He's upgraded their video production department:
Al Qaeda's media production wing, Al-Sahab, had announced the al-Zawahiri tape would be ready soon in a message earlier Thursday on an Islamic Web site.
I need to look at the video a little closer, the short piece I saw almost looked like he was superemposed over the back drop. That kind of production can be done on a laptop these days with commercial software.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006 12:59
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#4
Ok, looked at what is available of the video. It looks like he was chromakeyed in front of a "virtual set". The lighting on him was flat and he looked kind of washed out compared with the backdrop. I'd say the cameraman shot him in front of a single color backdrop, lighting him directly from the front to remove any shadows. Then by using the same techniques they use to put your TV weatherman in front of the map, placed him in a virtual set. Lot's of TV stations are doing this now for their newscasts.
The pictures and framing holding them in the al-Zawahri look too perfect compared to him. You can see an example of a set here.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006 13:27
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#5
Dude...looks like AQ is already past the SeethingTM stage and is moving quickly through Dire RevengeTM!!!
Before we get to the uplifting substance of today's column, let me briefly skirmish with the innumerable correspondents who have filled my inbox with outrage against my justifications for Israel's attacks. They parrot what they have heard in the "liberal" media. The errors of fact I'm about to correct are beneath the elementary. But it is necessary to correct big lies as well as small.
Item: Israel has attacked Lebanon, which is too weak to defend itself.
This is a lie. The Israelis have made it abundantly clear they are not attacking Lebanon, but Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanese soil. Israelis, as anyone with any decency, feel sorry for innocent Lebanese caught in the crossfire. But as Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, put it to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel: "Whether weak or strong, a government carries the responsibility for whatever happens within its country." She went on to hint the obvious: that Israel would prefer a Lebanon strong enough to disarm Hezbollah without Israeli help.
Item: The Israeli military operations are "excessive", and include unnecessary strikes against Lebanon's infrastructure and capital city.
This is a damned lie. Israel has been attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, which necessarily includes infrastructure that Hezbollah uses. Even the attacks on the Beirut airport were to a purpose openly stated, and advertised in extensive leafleting and broadcasting before the airport's runways were cratered, and fuel depots taken out. From hard past experience, the Israelis knew Hezbollah would be using that airport not only to whisk their prisoners to safekeeping in Iran, but as a conduit to bring Iranian and Syrian advisers, and crucial supplies, in and out of the country. The strikes elsewhere in Beirut are overwhelmingly on the southern, Shia part of the city, where Hezbollah's masters have their command. Lebanese television and radio have themselves been broadcasting Israeli communiqués, clearly warning what they will hit, when, and why. The overwrought charge that Israel is "trying to destroy Lebanon" is an imposture. If the Israelis actually wanted to destroy all of Lebanon, they could carpetbomb the place.
Item: There is a huge civilian toll.
Statistics. And given the scale of the conflict, the number of deaths is not abnormally high. Our media have been giving running totals of civilian deaths in Lebanon that they should know are both wrong and misleading. They cannot know how many have been killed in Hezbollah's "hidey holes". Foreign reporters are in no position to distinguish between real civilians, and the Hezbollah fighters who blend among them. Even the United Nation's humanitarian point-man, Jan Egeland -- no friend of Israel -- has noted actual boasts from Hezbollah that their "human shield" strategy has got so many women and children killed, and so few of their own fighters. They cache their weapons in schools, hospitals, houses, apartment buildings. They hold civilians at gunpoint who are trying to flee. In light of all this, the stress on specific casualties -- for instance the poor little boy who was suffering hideously in a hospital in Tyre, that CNN went to town on, Monday night -- is a flagrant appeal to emotionalism, calculated to enflame misinformed audiences against Israel, throughout the West and the Arab world.
But now we come to the paradox. Despite some of the best efforts I've seen, by our liberal media, to spread poison, there is a growing understanding of what is taking place. Better yet, the response of the Arab world is increasingly directed against Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran; and even against Iran's other client, Hamas in Gaza (now suing for peace). This is unprecedented.
In a partly incoherent, rambling, and apocalyptic address on official Iranian TV, Sunday, President Ahmadinejad said, "Lebanon is the scene of an historic test, which will determine the future of humanity." Then, after condemning the unnamed leaders of various Arab regimes that had failed to align with Iran and Hezbollah, "This is 'the Day that all things secret will be tested'."
Iran unquestionably ordered the rocket and kidnapping attacks with which Hezbollah and Hamas provoked the current Israeli reaction (though it may have been greater than they expected). The ayatollahs are probably also behind the current terror spike within Iraq. Their motive is quite obvious: to change the subject from the Western and growing Arab alarm about Iran's own emergence as a bellicose nuclear power. The ayatollahs are, further, trying to cement their claim to be the managing directors of the international Jihad.
Ahmadinejad is right: this is "an historic test". But it does not follow that he is winning it. Instead, it appears, by pushing too hard and fast, Iran has opened a civil breach across the Muslim world between Shia and Sunni. The ayatollahs have thus created a new opportunity for the West to form alliances with Sunni Muslim states against Iran's aspiring regional hegemony, which the Bush administration is now rightly trying to exploit. Ahmadinejad has, in short, given us an unexpected reason to hope -- as Hitler did, when he began to make too many enemies.
#1
"This is 'the Day that all things secret will be tested'."
This makes me a little nervous.
Whack this turkey and make the world a safer place.
Posted by: DanNY ||
07/27/2006 8:00
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#2
Open telegram to Ahmadinnerwhatever;
Can't make it this week stop
Big cosmic event, must attend stop
Keep up the good work against Jooos stop
Expect to be there in 2007 stop
Imam 12 out
We Americans don't seem to worry that we owe billions of dollars to the Chinese, or that our oil hunger is enriching hostile rogue regimes, or that our annual budget deficit keeps adding to our national debt.
Why fret now? For nearly a quarter-century, Americans have come to expect the good life. Unemployment should never go above 5 percent. Interest rates are expected to be always around the same low percentages, inflation even lower - and all this accompanied by steady growth in the economy and expanding government entitlements. Double-digit rates of interest, unemployment and inflation - the stagflation that characterized the Nixon and Carter administrations - are apparently ancient history.
Along with the amazing performance of the post Cold-War economy, technology has made the basics of life far more enjoyable - cell phones, the Internet, high-definition cable television, iPods and the like. The entrance of 2 billion workers in China and India into the global capitalist system, along with easy credit, makes material goods more accessible to the consumer than ever.
Luxury is now available to the middle class. Magazines are devoted to remodeling kitchens with granite tops and tony stainless steel appliances. Suburban tract houses often have both hot tubs and gardeners. Garages now appear in new developments with not one but two garage doors - and on occasion three or even four.
What are the consequences of this affluence?
For starters, a certain lack of appreciation of our bounty. No one praises Reagan, Clinton or Bush for the past amazing performance of the U.S. economy. Instead, it's taken as America's new birthright.
We expect almost instantaneous success in everything we do. Most in the media are thus tired of the present wars in the Middle East and think the enormous human cost is not worth the goal of offering freedom to millions, even though we have suffered far fewer fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan than a generation sacrificed in Vietnam.
As we near the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, most have forgotten the dangers of a terrorist attack. Often the public appears to worry more over the Patriot Act and wiretaps, as if our own leaders pose a greater threat to the United States than do mass-murdering Islamist terrorists.
But could our good life really sometime come to an end - as the histories of past affluent societies suggest it will? Imagine al-Qaida attacking the New York Stock Exchange or an unexpected North Korean missile taking out a West Coast city. What if Beijing suddenly had to sell off billions of its accumulated American dollars? Or how about a good old 1970s-style recession in which interest rates hit 20 percent, with inflation and unemployment each hovering near 10 percent? What would millions of younger Americans do - people who have known only the prosperity, material surfeit and mostly peace and security of the 1980s and 1990s?
Prosperity can also be deceiving. Many Americans, despite superficial affluence, are in debt and often a paycheck away from insolvency. By historical standards, they are pretty helpless. Most of us can't grow our own food, don't know how cars work and have no clue where or how electricity is generated. In short, few have the smarts to survive if the thin veneer of civilization were to be lost, as it has been from time to time in places like downtown New Orleans.
Think back to the Roman era of the "Five Good Emperors" - between A.D. 96-180 under the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonious Pius and Marcus Aurelius - when all problems of the turbulent past at last seemed to have been solved. There was a general peace, ever more prosperity from Mediterranean-wide trade, and a certain boredom and occasional cynicism among the Roman elite. Few then had any idea that three centuries of war, revolution, poverty and scary emperors like Commodus and Caracalla awaited their descendants - all a prelude to a later general collapse of Roman society itself.
In our own new age of war, terrorism, huge debt, high-priced gas and frightful weapons and viruses that we try to ignore, we should remember that civilization's progress is not always linear. The human condition does not inevitably evolve from good to better to best, but always remains precarious, its advances cyclical.
The good life sometimes can be lost quite unexpectedly and abruptly when people demand rights more than they accept responsibilities, or live for present consumption rather than sacrifice for future investment, or feel their own culture is not particularly exceptional and therefore in no need of constant support and defense.
We should tread carefully in these challenging days of our greatest wealth - and even greater vulnerability.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author.
#1
In short, few have the smarts to survive if the thin veneer of civilization were to be lost, as it has been from time to time in places like downtown New Orleans.
Piss poor example of Americana I'd say. Don't know quite how I'll sleep tonight with all of this Victor Hanson gloom. Depression appears to be setting in as I type!
During his trip to Washington earlier this week, the Iraqi prime minister again failed to condemn Hezbollah and instead focused exclusively on the "destruction that happened to the Lebanese people as a result of the military air and ground attacks." Following Nouri al-Maliki's initial one-sided and even blunter criticism of Israel 10 days ago, a demoralized friend from Jerusalem emailed me:
"Iraqis need to understand that they must not jump on the anti-Israel Arab bandwagon; not for Israel's sake, but for themselves. The Arab obsession with Israel has been debilitating for the Arab world and has been the primary excuse for tolerating dictatorships and terrorism. Some brave Arabs have said this. Also, why should Iraq line up with Syria and the hardliners when even the Saudis are criticizing Hezbollah?"
He's right. And it wasn't supposed to be this way. We had thought that a post-Saddam Iraqi government would be less susceptible to Arab League pressure; Israel as the old whipping-boy was to find little resonance there. This change of tone was to be a model for the region. Wasn't the road to Arab-Israeli peace supposed to go through Baghdad?
Mr. Maliki--who is competent, tough and genuinely committed to a democratic Iraq--is not responding to pressure from the Arab League. The pressure is coming instead from some radical Shiites in his own country. Moqtada al-Sadr and his Sadrists, the Sadriyyun, are as powerful and destructive as ever, forcing the prime minister's hand on Israel and other issues.
There's a long discussion in the article on the origins, organization, and objectives of the Sadrists, who are a lot like Hezbollah.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the vast majority of Iraqis do not share the obsession with Israel that has consumed many in the region. The Iraqi political parties that have run on a Nasserite pan-Arab agenda have performed dismally. Iraqis are preoccupied with the lack of security, jobs and electricity, none of which they connect to the old pan-Arab scapegoat.
When an Iraqi cab driver is waiting in a six-hour line at the gas station--under 112-degree heat--or a family is forced to endure Baghdad's sweltering summer with only seven hours of electricity in a day, they would be hard pressed to believe that the breakdown in basic services is the fault of the "Zionists." When Iraqis are victimized in a wave of sectarian violence that has claimed sometimes a hundred lives per day, they now have access to enough free information to know that their war is with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia--stoked by foreign jihadis--and not a result of "the Mossad." It would be impossible in Iraq today for a democratically elected prime minister to send Iraqi national revenues to fund suicide bombers in Israel--as Saddam had done with regularity--or mobilize the country to fight a reckless war.
So, my Israeli friend should not be overly concerned about the anti-Israel rhetoric coming from Iraq's government. But Iraqis and Americans should be deeply concerned by what this rhetoric is symptomatic of: Moqtada al-Sadr's strength in Iraq today. We must address his potential to wreak havoc and capitalize on a weak state, much as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006
07:28 ||
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Steve called this yesterday. He's a politician talking to his constuency.
Among the largest stars are the red giants, ten times or more the size of our sun. Over billions of years, as they burn themselves out and start to die, these stars begin to shine more brightly. Some, called miras, periodically brighten and dim before they - like the rest - collapse on themselves and then explode into nothingness. In that, the stars of the universe most closely resemble the stars of the mainstream media. The miras of the media, those such as the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post, are collapsing into themselves. And while they do, every two years they burn with a sudden intensity that still dazzles those who take them at their word.
As the fervency of the media's liberalism increases, the number of people who comprise their audience shrinks. The NYT, for example, lost about 20 per cent of its home town readers between 2001 and 2004. MSNBC - whose liberalism is beyond parody - is experimenting frantically with various reincarnations to bestir higher ratings without doing anything about its core liberal biases. Even the AP, once among the best sources of political news, has a tattered reputation. The rips and tears are self-inflicted, created by fabulously-biased Iraq coverage and stories such as its bizarre feature about then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' childhood, "...during the racially turbulent 1960s and '70s [in a neighborhood that] once banned the sale of homes to nonwhites and Jews."
Businesses with shrinking customer bases usually move heaven and earth to stop the hemorrhaging. But the media are so self-absorbed they think the problem is with their audience, not with them. Instead of news editors imposing more discipline on themselves and reporters, instead of editorial page editors recalibrating the shrieks that they substitute for op-eds, audience shrinkage has had the opposite effect. The wider audiences have been abandoned and the few constraints that existed as late as 2004 are gone. Conservatives sense something wrong in the media, but haven't really formulated either the disease or the cure. Michael Barone calls it an effort to delegitimize the administration. I think it's a disease called Bush Derangement Syndrome.
On July 16th, the Washington Post's lead editorial spoke to all the world's conflicts by, as usual, displaying its disgust with the Bush administration. It wrote, "But in the press of cascading crises, it is crucial that the administration not lose focus on the two wars it started and has yet to win." It started? The WaPo news editors as well as the editorial page, suffering a terminal case of BDS, have reached an Orwellian state of grace. In WaPo Newspeak, George W. Bush has replaced Usama bin Laden and the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Lincoln has replaced the fallen Twin Towers as the reason we are at war.
We spoke with a group of soldiers returning from 48 hours of intense fighting, including the rescue of soldiers from a tank destroyed in the fighting.
"They are attacking us in a very organized position," one soldier said. "They know where we are coming from. They know everything. They shoot us wherever they like. It's their country." He added they are "very well armed."
Now more Israeli soldiers are on the way, including an armored unit being transferred from Gaza to Lebanon. They have been told civilians have left the region where they will fight. "Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing."
Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see."
#1
""They know where we are coming from. They know everything."
Get a clue IDF, the UN observation posts are passing intelligence to the Hezbollah. Give a 10 minute warning and destroy every UN post.
"They are attacking us in a very organized position,"
This is what happens when you fight a war where appeasing the MSM is the primary goal. FAE the strongholds and be done with it. I know Rumsfeld would've done it. Maybe they could borrow Rumsfeld for a couple of days.
#5
Why are the un posts still manned? They were put in place to prevent Hezbollah from moving arms into south Lebanon and prevent hostilities. Since that mission was a resounding failure (one more onto the un history) there is absolutely no reason for the peace keepers to stay put.
#7
The only reason the UN troops are still there is what is known as passive resistance. That is to delay or slow down in a crowded intersection to screw those behind you. Asshole drivers do it all the time. In this case the asshole is Kofi Annon.
This is just another proof that the UN is not serious about it's duties. Kofi and most of the other UN delegates are playing VIP.
I'm not anybody important, but I play a VIP at the UN. They're just not serious.
#8
The UN is providing info to the Hezzies--you know it. IDF tell the UN outpost that you are bombing in 10 minutes (if you are feeling charitable). Or better yet, wait until the UN investigation team arrives and then bomb again. Solves a couple of problems. Seldom do you get a two-fer.
#10
there is absolutely no reason for the peace keepers to stay put.
"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," Annan said.
#11
The UN is providing info to the Hezzies--you know it. IDF tell the UN outpost that you are bombing in 10 minutes (if you are feeling charitable). Or better yet, wait until the UN investigation team arrives and then bomb again. Solves a couple of problems. Seldom do you get a two-fer.
The straw in your shoes is beginning to show. The UN peacekeepers are composed of soldiers from all over the globe, many of them allies. A Canadian soldier died in that attack. I know the US doesn't participate in these missions, so you don't give a shit about who you kill, but I do. So fuck you.
Amir Peretz (Hebrew: עמיר פרץ; born March 9, 1952) is an Israeli politician and Defense Minister of Israel. He also is the current leader of the Labour Party of Israel. Peretz is the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation and defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labour leadership in November 9, 2005. He led the Labour Party to a second place showing in the 2006 Israeli elections. He was sworn in as Defense Minister[1] along with the rest of the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on May 4, 2006.
[..]
Views and beliefs
Peretz is strongly committed to social issues and to the strengthening of the welfare state. He has declared that "within two years of taking office I will have eradicated child poverty in Israel". Notwithstanding, he has also reiterated his commitment to a market economy. For his movement in latter years towards "third way" positions, as well as for his earthy and warm personality, Peretz has been compared to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In matters concerning relations with the Palestinians and the Arab world, Peretz holds dovish positions. He was an early member of the Peace Now movement. He was also, in the 1980s, a member of a group of eight Labour party Knesset members, dubbed "the Eight" and led by Yossi Beilin, who tried to set a liberal agenda for the party in matters concerning the peace process with the Palestinians. Peretz connects between the peace process and internal Israeli social issues. He believes that the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians has also been a hindrance to the solution of some of Israel's most pressing social ills, such as rising inequality. He sees the resources allotted to the settlements in the West Bank as having diverted funds that could have helped to solve these problems. He has described the conflict as having mutated Israeli politics, so that the traditional left-right distinctions do not hold: Instead of supporting a social-democratic left which would advance their cause, the lower classes, mostly of Middle Eastern Jewish origins, were diverted to the right by the fanning of nationalist tendencies. Concurrently the left in Israel was usurped by the well-to-do, so that the Labour party had ironically become elitist. That is why Peretz sees an intrinsic connection between a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resolving of Israel's internal social tensions (see Interview in Ha'aretz).
#13
I'm a bit more optimistic here than most about IDF tactics.
Of course, if Israel decided to play really ugly hard ball, and it might if the current tactics fail, then towns like Bint Jbeil will be reduced to dust.
#17
"The straw in your shoes is beginning to show. The UN peacekeepers are composed of soldiers from all over the globe, many of them allies. A Canadian soldier died in that attack. I know the US doesn't participate in these missions, so you don't give a shit about who you kill, but I do. So fuck you. "
Um... , I'd like to call your attention to the following quote...
"A Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam on Tuesday, sent an e-mail to his former commander, a Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, in which he wrote that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, Mr. MacKenzie said. Hezbollah troops, not the United Nations, were Israel's target, the deceased observer wrote. . . ."
Oh, and fuck you too.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
07/27/2006 15:17
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#18
Ummm, what's with the F-bomb being tossed around here?
#19
Hey Celsius, have you seen the photos of Hezzie flags flying right along side UN flags at these 'UN posts'? I have. Try Michelle Malkin's website, or dozens of others. Then take a good long hard look at the info provided by Mark and others about what the Canadian observer reported. 'F*ck you' is not an argument. Tell me, Mr. Articulate, should Israel hold up just because the Hezzies fire rockets, then duck inside UN positions like the dirty stinking cowards they are? "Olle Ollie Oxen Free" is not a recognized battle strategy.
#20
"The UN peacekeepers are composed of soldiers from all over the globe, many of them allies."
Celsius,
Allies to whom. Kofi, EU, China, Iran, or perhaps Syria. The fact that he is Canadian doesn't mean jack. Ever heard of the American Taliban. If you think all Canadian soldiers working for Kofi denounces terrorism, give me some of what you're smoking. Your loose immigration laws allow Canada to be one of the biggest hubs for terrorists in the West. You don't believe me read this.
Canadas Asylum System. Here is a list terrorist Muslim terrorist groups. What are the chances that 80% of these have a presence in Canada? The facts show, the chances are very good.
Abu Sayyaf
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
Armed Islamic Group
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Ansar al-Islam
Al-Qaeda
Asbat al-Ansar
Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'al-Jihad/Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Hamas
Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM)
Hezbollah
Hizbul Mujahideen
Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain
Islamic Movement of Central Asia
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish Ansar al-Sunna
Jemaah Islamiyah
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Lashkar-e-Toiba
Lord's Resistance Army Christian/Pagan/Muslim terrorist group
Maktab al-Khadamat
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
Muslim Brotherhood
Palestinian Islamic Jihad
People Against Gangsterism and Drugs
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
Takfir wal-Hijra
Kurdish-Hizbullah
Hofstad Network
#21
celcius , no fuck you and you say we don't support these missions we just pay for them and if we are in them they are at least mildly succesful.So with that said take your ass over there and meet a IAF bomb
#22
Lancasters Over Dresden, interesting post, I'll forward it. Hope you're right.
OT : why refer to Israel as a "she"? France is a feminine word in french (yes, countries have genders, in french, often feminine), and the bare-chested marianne is the emblem of the republic, so I don't mind France being called a "she"... but this is real weird for Israel, which really hasn't a feminine tone, especially from etymology IIRC. Am I missing a linguistic habit?
#23
Regrettably, Israel has been reduced to telegraphing every freakin movement they make.
They send candygrams to everyone warning them to evacuate. And, what the Hezzies don't know, they get by watching the tube.
All this transparency is getting Israeli soldiers shot up and killed.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 16:50
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#24
A5089, in English all countries are referred to as 'she' or 'it', never as 'he'. The use of 'she' (rather than 'it') implies familiarity or affection.
#25
Hebrew is actually a gendered language, a5089. Most democratic countries are "she", welcoming and nurturing, most militaristic and/or totalitarian countries "he," testosterone-raddled and overendowed (or so they hope!). Israel was founded by true-believing labour socialists, in the hope that the Jews had would be able to live in peace and freedom, and make the desert bloom.
#26
TW, not too long ago I studied the Peel Commission plan for the partition of what Britain referred to as Palestine (sans Transjordan, which had already been hived off.)
The British made the mistaken assumption that the few poor, downtrodden, socially and culturally backward Arab residents of that unhappy place would be glad to have smart, hardworking, moneyed people come and improve their lot by the injection of knowledge and capital to the country. The British erred in believing that but not for any obvious reason; it's certainly reasonable to think that way. The problem lay in the minds of the people they were working with on the Arab side.
In reading the Commission's report, I was repeatedly struck by the idea that if the British and Palestine's Jewish inhabitants had been dealing with ANYONE other than Muslim Arabs, that root assumption would probably have held true. However, Islam's shame/honor culture kicked in and every good thing the returning Jews did was held against them as being an affront to Arab pride. Even drastically lowering the country's infant mortality rate through the provision of better medical care and the draining of malarial swamps was not appreciated.
One of the most telling lines in that report's conclusion noted that in Palestine by 1936 the mutual distrust and dislike between Jews and Arabs was worse than the similar relationship existing between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. For a man like Reginald Coupland, who truly knew his British history, to have written such a thing after having closely witnessed the events of 1916-1936 speaks volumes about the situation. If anything, it's worse now than it was then. I pray every day that we'll find something to replace oil quickly so we can take away the weapons it gives Muslims. That's the only way, short of killing them all first, that I can see to stop them from eventually destroying Israel.
Posted by: mac ||
07/27/2006 18:04
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#27
"The fact that he is Canadian doesn't mean jack. Ever heard of the American Taliban. If you think all Canadian soldiers working for Kofi denounces terrorism, give me some of what you're smoking. Your loose immigration laws allow Canada to be one of the biggest hubs for terrorists in the West. You don't believe me read this.
"
I find this attitude disrespectful to Major Hess von Krudner and his family. Why insinuate terrorist allegiance? He is from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the same unit that plugged more than a few Taliban during Operation Anaconda and still holds the world's longest sniper kill. Weak assylum system is a problem indeed, but your comments are way out of line. While Hess von Krudner didn't serve in Afghanistan, there is nothing to indicate that he was anything less than a dedicated soldier.
"The officer, nicknamed Wolf by his colleagues and believed to be in his mid-40s, participated in peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a member of the storied Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
Regimental Warrant Officer Pete Palmer, based with the Princess Pats in Edmonton, recalled Major Hess-von Kruedener as "one of the most fit, gung-ho types of soldiers."
"He was demanding of both professionalism and knowing your job, and also being able to lead by example. He was in excellent physical condition."
#28
I judge people by their actions not their nationality. If this soldier is as you say, I highly salute his service not only to Canada but also, the great job in behalf of America in Afghanistan.
However, I still stand by my statements as an overall comment. If he is going to be posted in a station where you have the U.N. flag and Hezbollah flag next to each other, then be ready to accept the consequences. Frankly, Canada should've worked a little harder to get this great soldier out of the war zone. This war has nothing to do with him or Canada. If you feel otherwise, then Canada needs to provide direct military support to Israel or Hezbollah. If not, then leave. Pick a side, don't stand in the middle. The U.S. gives direct military support to Israel, so we stick around.
#33
Welcome to the country of Rantburg, King David Leroi. :-D
Where do you hail from when you're not dropping by here (if you don't mind my asking)?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 23:20
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#34
I am writing from Paris, where there is no Hezbollah terrorist (yet) but where there are a lot of Hezbollah-minded media, as anti-American as Al-Manar (I sometimes would like to FAE those rabid anti-American and anti-Israeli french media).
#35
I am not going to blame the soldiers that died, but Kofi Anus he is the one that is to blame the SOB left them their to die and it is on his head the POS.
The conservative pundit/religious right hater, Andrew Sullivan, sees a WOT hardline forming, and misreads it as a Party coup against Neo-Cons. No way! The hardline has always been there. Sullivan mentions unsettling facts such as Iraqi Parliamentary support for Hizbollah, but says nothing of potential Arab re-alignment against Shiite Iranians. And who says that President Bush won't defer to hard-liners? Newt Gingrich recently declared that our current military-political position was "World War III." But Bush said that in a May interview with AFP (France). Maybe a pre-emptive war climate isn't best suited for advancing democracy. A consensus is building on WOT revamping.
by Andrew Sullivan
...To be fair, some neoconservatives long expected this potential irony. Their ultimate analysis of the Middle East was, to my mind, a largely persuasive one. It was that decades of propping up Arab dictatorships and kleptocracies in return for cheap oil was no longer a viable foreign policy.
The repression in the region had given life and legitimacy to radical Islamism, spawned terror, and eventually cost the lives of thousands of Americans.
The only way to tackle this problem at its roots was to shift American policy towards favouring democracy in the Muslim and Arab world - even if this meant instability and an Islamist explosion in the short term. In the medium and long run, neocons hoped, democratically elected governments would behave more rationally towards the West and Israel - and to their own citizens.
In theory, this makes a good deal of sense - and neocons are, of all people, adept at theory. The trouble, of course, is that theory always melts when it meets something called reality. And non-neoconservatism has always been defined as a political temperament acutely aware of the discrepancy between theory and practice.
It is, from Edmund Burke through to Michael Oakeshott, a tradition that grasps that imperfection, doubt and complexity are the only reliable guides to navigating politics - and life as a whole. Conservatives are not averse to theory or argument - they just understood that it is never, ever enough in the world of practical life...
#4
It's no wonder why this flame thrower was chosen to be the Time Mag. blogger. He is just using the word "Civil War" as an attention getter. If he used word "debate," he wouldn't be invited to the MSM talk shows.
There is a debate among neoconservative and conservatives and the neoconservative theory of spreading democracy in the ME and open borders is no longer in play. The Iraq experiment is over, but WoT, without spreading democracy, continues forever. No matter what the "debate" among conservatives, the Democrats can forget about the Presidency, for a long time. The conservatives have already come the conclusion that problem is, religion not oppression. A religion that teaches hate and martydom against Jews and Christians, as the only way to achieve forgiveness of sins. Here is a quote from today's Zawahiri tape.
"It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," [sic] "We will attack everywhere."
The sheeple better wake up and take him at his word. Unfortunately, the only way, is to destroy the radical gene pool starting at the top. The US policy makers need to realize that forcing Israel into land for peace, significantly weakens American WoT. Land for peace only results in Jew and Christian pieces.
#7
I've been torturing neocons in my basement all morning, and I have come to the realization that they are not organized into cells that take orders from Karl Rove, but just clear thinkers.
Another wasted day.
#9
Sea, I think it's the "Vietnam" of intra-party debate. We may very well see our own My Lai here soon, too, lol!
And, I take deep dispute with his "neocons are only good at theory" crack. In fact, I'd argue that Repubs are the ONLY ones looking at reality dead in the face, not liking what they see, and changing TACTICS to fit the situation. Yeah, maybe we "democratized Palestine" to get Hamas as a result, or we democratize Iraq to get nutcases like al-Sadr in power, but hey, let's completely ignore the (not so minor) changes in Saudi, Kuwait (women voting and running for positions), Egypt (yeah, we got Muslim Brotherhood there too), Libya dropping its nuke program, Afghanistan settling down after thousands of years of civil war, etc.
Posted by: BA ||
07/27/2006 13:19
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#10
Andrew, you bore me
Carefull, or he jus might "bore" you
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:25
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Wonder how much CNN has yielded to the Mad Mullahs to have access in Teheran.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.
The group -- ranging from teenagers to grandfathers -- plans to join about 200 other volunteers on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross Thursday. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria on the weekend. Organizers said the volunteers are carrying no weapons, and it was not clear whether Turkey would allow them to pass.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not say Wednesday if Turkey would allow them to cross. Iranians, however, can enter Turkey without a visa and stay for three months.
Wonder if the Kurds get the same deal.
Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop dupes volunteer guerrillas. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah's main sponsors. "We are just the first wave of Islamic warriors from Iran," said Amir Jalilinejad, chairman of the Student Justice Movement, a nongovernment group that helped recruit the fighters. "More will come from here and other Muslim nations around the world. Hezbollah needs our help."
Yasss, lotsa blood to be spilled on the ground in the fight against the Zionists, and yours is as good as any.
Military service is mandatory in Iran, and nearly every man has at least some basic training. Some hard-liners have more extensive drills as members of the Basiji corps, a paramilitary network linked to the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Other volunteers, such as 72-year-old Hasan Honavi, have combat experience from the 1980-88 war with Iraq. "God made this decision for me," said Honavi, a grandfather and one of the oldest volunteers. "I still have fight left in me for a holy war."
The group, chanting and marching in military-style formation, assembled Wednesday in a part of Tehran's main cemetery that is reserved for war dead and other "martyrs." They prayed on Persian carpets and linked hands, with their shoes and bags piled alongside. Few had any battle-type gear and some arrived in dress shoes or plastic sandals.
Pathetic, but that doesn't stop the Mad Mullahs from using them, or CNN from covering them.
Some bowed before a memorial to Hezbollah-linked suicide bombers who carried out the 1983 blast at Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. An almost simultaneous bombing killed 56 French peacekeepers.
Speakers praised Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and laid scorn on Muslim leaders -- including their own government -- for not sending battlefield assistance to Hezbollah since the battles erupted two weeks ago. Even if the volunteers fail to reach Lebanon, their mobilization is an example of how Iranians are rallying to Hezbollah through organizations outside official circles.
Iran insists it is not directly involved in the conflict on the military side, but it remains the group's key pipeline for money. Iran has dismissed Israel's claims that Hezbollah has been supplied with upgraded Iranian missiles that have reached Haifa and other points across northern Israel.
#1
260 volunteers out of a population of how many tens of millions? Not very impressive -- they got more volunteers a some months ago, when this war was only a gleam in Ahmadenihad's eye. And they are seeking volunteers, they aren't overwhelmed by large numbers spontaneously seeking martyrdom, there is no Children's/Mothers'/Grandpas' Jihad flowing unstoppably toward Lebanon.
(Weeks old, but interesting). The Haditha incident may have been the result of WWII-style house-clearing techniques, where instead of knocking first - and giving the enemy the chance to kill the point man - Marines detected shots coming from a house and grenaded and shot it up after noticing movement within the house. These aggressive rules of engagement make sense given that there was just over a squad of marines in a four-humvee convoy, one of which had been knocked out.
New evidence continues to emerge that U.S. Marines did not wantonly kill Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November - and the soldiers' accounts of what happened are backed up by videotape shot by an ultralight vehicle, NewsMax has learned.
According to media reports, last Nov. 19 members of a Marine Corps company killed some 24 innocent civilian Iraqis in Haditha, a town 140 miles northwest of Baghdad and near the Syrian border.
In the ensuing media firestorm that broke out after the story was revealed, many news reports here and abroad compared the Haditha deaths to the infamous My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.
Michael Sallah, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his My Lai reporting, has said: "You would have difficulties finding a single newspaper in Germany or elsewhere in Europe which does not deal with My Lai."
But the facts and accounts from Marines and others on the ground tell another story.
#1
I look forward to this being resolved according to the truth, not politics. If they're innocent, I want Murtha tarred and feathered - after being forced to resign from the House.
Gee, I wonder what will become of his political tour for House candidates if it turns out that he's a cocksucking liar... Think Nancy will still want to send her boy out to rouse the base(less)?
#2
Murtha's tour is to the 'true believers'. They've never cared a wit about truth, it's all about how they feel. The tour is to raise money. They will. Cause in the end for them, its not about truth, justice, or 'the American Way', its about power.
#3
I've got a couple of old feather pillows around here. Who has the tar? Also, we need a large rail, to ride him out of Washington on. I think I can supply that, also...
On second thought, I think I'll DONATE that to all the other non-active Marines, so they can do it "to one of their own". The Marines not only take care of their own, they also clense their ranks. This is definitely one case where that's needed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/27/2006 21:14
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A thousand year-old Irish psalmbook has been dug out of the ground after a construction worker spotted it. Here's the freaky highlight:
The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.
Posted by: Tibor ||
07/27/2006
02:30 ||
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#1
Beats the hell out of 'Allan' in Arabic on the side of a fish.
A Canadian-Israeli professor has been held by Israeli authorities for 18 days without access to a lawyer, on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence agents.
A gag order on the case was lifted Wednesday after Haaretz appealed to Nazareth Magistrates Court.
Professor Ghazi Falah was arrested while touring the Rosh Hanikra area, on July 8, four days before the outbreak of the current conflict in Lebanon.
He was approached by individuals who identified themselves as security officials, and who instructed him to stop photographing. Falah refused, and after an argument, was arrested.
Falah, a professor of geography at the University of Akron, said he had taken the pictures as part of his acadmic research.
Before Wednesday, Falah had not been permitted to speak to his lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein. The police and the Shin Bet security service repeatedly refused to lift the gag order placed on this case, despite wide publicity in media sources in Canada, U.S., and Britain.
According to security officials, Falah is suspected of "spying for hostile sources, with the goal of harming state security," apparently in reference to his alleged connections with Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence.
They hinted that Falah was allegedly sent by these sources to photograph various locations, and to report where rockets have landed in Israel.
Security officials said Falah was photographing a military antenna in Rosh Hanikra. He recently took a trip to Beirut, and two years before visited Iran.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006
02:19 ||
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#1
Article: Professor Ghazi Falah was arrested while touring the Rosh Hanikra area, on July 8, four days before the outbreak of the current conflict in Lebanon.
Ghazis are, of course, the warriors who won an empire for Muhammad back in the day. Soldiers fight for pay - warriors fight for loot, ransoms and slaves.
#2
The Western countries had over 250,000 Lebanese citizens who hold Western passports of convenience. Simple demographics indicates that many/most are Hizbollah supporters. Presumedly some are under Iranian Basiji direction to attack Western infrastructure, if the conflict expands. As I write, 27 US Muslim groups are pressuring the FBI to cease investigation of Muslims with Hizbollah connections, because that is: "profiling."
#3
I dont know what the Israelis are thinking here. Everyone knows that Professors dont have to abide by any laws or morals like commoners. Before long the entire world will rise up and demand his release. Oh wait you said he was Canadian? Hes a spy take him out back and shoot him.
Browse through 55 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible. Keyword searching is not currently supported.
Lots of links from pages also don't work, but you should be able to waste a few hours here
#4
3dc - I laughed out loud at my company's first web site! I couldn't even remember what we had done, and that it looks sooooo bad! But, it was done with the first version of HTML.
REUVEN Zelinkovsky was a colonel in the Israeli army, but now he has renounced military might to join a squadron of yogic flyers at the Sea of Galilee to throw a "shield of invincibility" around the Jewish state.
As Hezbollah rockets fired from nearby Lebanon boomed in the background, he explained that the solution to the latest conflict to engulf the Middle East was "not to kill the enemy but to kill enmity." This can be done through the "technology" of yogic flying which, for those trained in the technique, is the spontaneous result of transcendental meditation, said Zelinkovsky as he emerged from the first of two daily four-hour sessions.
The bespectacled electronics engineer, who served in the army from 1966 until 1982, is part of a worldwide movement led by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the former guru to The Beatles. The movement's Natural Law Party has unsuccessfully fielded candidates in US presidential and British general elections, touting yogic flying as a solution to the world's ills.
Yogic flying, derided by critics as glorified bum-hopping, is the purported ability to levitate through the advanced practice of transcendental meditation, or TM. Proponents of the art say world peace can be achieved by thousands of simultaneous yogic flyers spread across the globe.
Here in Israel, according to a formula that says the square root of 1 per cent of a country's population is the number needed to tap into a collective consciousness robust enough to create a "shield of invincibility", 265 people are needed. But Zelinkovsky's squadron, which includes architects, health workers and pensioners, many of whom are also teachers of TM, now numbers only about 20 after falling from a peak of 65 last week.
This, he explained with the conviction of the converted, is why Israel's war with Hezbollah, which has already left hundreds dead, has not stopped. "All my life I've been looking for scientific solutions to problems," Zelinkovsky said.
He slowly came to realise that his belief in the power of TM and military life were not compatible. "I went to my commander and presented this solution. It was like talking to the wall so I left. In my mind I continue to be an army man. But now I use a new technology to serve the nation."
Alex Kutai, the leader of the yogic flying movement in Israel who titles himself the Prime Minister of the Peace Government of Israel, was leading the squadron at the lakeside Nof Ginnosar Hotel from where all other guests have fled for fear of being hit by rockets. He has called on the elected Israeli government to recruit the required number of yogic flyers instead of wasting millions of dollars on military equipment.
As Zelinkovsky put it, "if you take the cost of the just the tail of an F-16 fighter jet you could have peace in the Middle East for a year. We can do what no army can do".
Across the border in Lebanon, another yogic flying group is believed to be at work but the group here in the Galilee is not in contact with them, said Zelinkovsky, who worked in telecoms after the army before becoming a full-time TM teacher.
An hour after he spoke to AFP, a rocket fired from Lebanon landed in the town of Mghar, just a few kilometres from the hotel, and killed a 15-year-old Arab Israeli girl.
#6
How long are they supposed to bounce on their butts to bring about world peace, anyway? Maybe the other 45 just got sore, or hit their tailbones hard?
#13
First, they have to levitate to about 4 feet up, then spin clockwise on an axis perpandicular to both gravity and magnetic north at a speed so fast as to become unseen, then a vortex of ions will form which can stop motion within a mile or so, and this lasts until the levitator needs to take a dump, which is often. This can also interfere with electronic devices and slow clocks and cause uncontrolled giggling and drueling.
#15
Speaking of Transcendental Meditation and other similar things: Back in the 60s in Berkeley, my buddy and I went to a lecture on Transcendental Meditation as told by the Maharishi Yogi himself. It was all smiles, generalities, and flowers. Basically it was a pitch speech for a later series of courses that cost money. There were a number of students asking him honest and pointed questions, but the Maharishi kept smiling and talking generalizations. Well, the mood started getting tense and angry. Then, as if on cue, some stray dogs wandered into the lecture hall and eventally got on stage. The Maharish kept talking and smiling amid the flowers. Two dogs started copulating on stage, and the place eruped in hilarious laughter. After that, everyone left. Totally entertaining evening.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/27/2006 12:30
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Every morning, visiting journalists gather at a bombed-out roadside cafe in southern Beirut to be escorted by Hezbollah operatives through a bewildering wasteland that used to house 50,000 people.
Mountains of rubble that once were shops and apartment buildings -- including the home of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah -- line the streets of the Dahiyah neighborhood. This was also the headquarters of Hezbollah's Al Manar television, which is now broadcasting from a secret location.
A week after Israeli F-16s dropped 23 tons of explosives on the neighborhood -- which was hit by another 20 Israeli rockets late yesterday -- the ruins have become a familiar backdrop for photographers and television cameras.
The photogenic skeletons of nine-story apartment buildings strung with dangling electrical wires have given the world the image of a shattered city, and Hezbollah is making the most of it.
Indeed, across the Hezbollah-dominated Shi'ite regions of southern Lebanon, whole villages have been flattened, almost 400 people killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced.
But just north of Beirut, business remains strong in the lush resorts of the nearby Shouf Mountains. Nightclubs in the Christian suburb of Jounieh still rock to '80s disco and '90s Eurobeat, and Lebanese who weathered the country's horrific 15-year civil war still sip arrack and eat hummus late into the night.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006
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#1
The Chouf Mounatins are southeast of Beirut and there aren't Christians left there. Walid Jumblatt's Druze cleared them all out, killing thousands in the process.
#2
Article: Indeed, across the Hezbollah-dominated Shi'ite regions of southern Lebanon, whole villages have been flattened, almost 400 people killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced.
Whole villages flattened and only 400 dead? These must be tiny villages.
#4
Hey, dude, cut me some slack... I have already sent those same tired photos of bombed out Hezi apartments back like 3 days ago. That prick editor has me on a deadline and I went clubbin' last night. I had to submit something with my expense report.
#6
The obvious point in this article, albeit the geography is bad, is that 100 percent of the Western news coverage encompasses a very small fraction of Beirut and the northern environs.
This will probably change as the Hezzies start shootin and scootin from the northern sectors of Lebanon.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 16:57
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#7
Actually, Walid and his Druze faction have been allowing Christians to move back to the Shouf. Indeed, in some towns they never left. Are there areas where they did leave and haven't returned? You bet.
KUALA LUMPUR: The best-kept secret in global diplomacy is out US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will perform a piano recital at the annual gala of Asias top security meeting, diplomats and reports said.
The ASEAN Regional Forum this year has a heavy agenda with conflict raging in the Middle East, a missile crisis on the Korean peninsula, and fury over Myanmars refusal to embrace democratic reforms.
But foreign ministers from the 26-nation grouping will have some light relief at the traditional gala dinner during which the world's top diplomats put aside protocol and perform hilarious skits and musical routines.
US secretaries have been particularly keen to poke fun at themselves, with Colin Powell belting out YMCA two years ago and Madeleine Albright donning bowler hat and tuxedo in a show-biz turn that brought the house down in 2000. Rice however a trained pianist with a famously serious demeanour is expected to perform a work from one of her favourite composers, who include Brahms and Shostakovich, the New Straits Times said.
Diplomats based in Kuala Lumpur said they were all expecting a Rice recital, but that the delegations were anxious to keep their acts under wraps after months of planning and rehearsals.
Im sworn to secrecy on this one, one diplomat said. Were all keeping each other in suspense about this. Its all under wraps for everyone, people dont like to reveal their performance and its all a sensitive issue.
#1
In honor of HB, Ms. Rice's selection will be that famous Welsh muzzie hymn by Adamsachmad... "Nearer, my Allan to Thee." Please ignore the incoming IDF incoming and ....sing along.
Nearer, my Allan, to Thee, nearer to thee!
Even though it be a cross, That raiseth me
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my Allan, to thee
Nearer, my Allan, to Thee, nearer to thee!
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone,
Yet in my dreams I'd be, nearer, my Allan, to thee
Nearer, my Allan, to Thee, nearer to thee!
There let the way appear, steps unto heaven
All that Thou sendest me, in mercy given
Angels to beckon me, nearer, my Allan, to thee
Nearer, my Allan, to Thee, nearer to thee!
Then with my walking thoughts bright with Thy praise
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise
So by my woes to be, nearer, my Allan, to thee
Nearer, my Allan, to Thee, nearer to thee!
Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I fly
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my Allan, to thee
Bangladesh - Chittagong Anchorage Tally: Twenty three incidents have been reported since January 28 2006.
Recently reported incidents
July 24 2006 at 0200 LT, 1.5 nm off breakwater, Pointe Noir, Congo. Robbers boarded a bulk carrier at anchor by using hooks. They stole ship's stores and escaped.
July 23 2006 at 0015 LT at Chittagong Alfa anchorage, Bangladesh. 10 robbers armed with long knives boarded a tanker at forecastle. They attacked shore watchmen and tied them up. Deck Officer raised alarm, crew mustered and robbers jumped into water and escaped with one lifebuoy. Port control and coast guard informed.
July 20 2006 at 0205 LT in posn: 08:45.9S - 013:16.6E, Luanda bay Anchorage, Angola. One robber boarded a container ship. He broke forward store padlock and stole ship's stores. Ship's motion sensors sent signal to Deck Officer and he raised alarm and crew mustered. Robber jumped into a waiting boat and escaped. Master was unable to contact port control.
Big surprise there...
July 18 2006 at 0345 LT at Telok Banten, Merak, Indonesia. Four armed robbers boarded a tug at anchor. Alert crew mustered and robbers left empty handed.
MUMBAI: The name of Azim Chima has emerged as a common link between many of the arrests and detentions that have followed Terror Tuesday. Officials say Chima, whom they suspect of having played a significant role in the serial blasts of 11 July, was also responsible for training the bombers for 28 days before they were "prepared" for their mission. Chima, a key commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and in charge of the agency's anti-India operations, is based in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and runs a militant-training centre in Bhawalpur.
Officials, who have been tracking Chima's terror career, say he is known for imparting various types of training depending on the module to which an operative is attached. If a trainee, for instance, is attached to a module involved in making bombs, he is told about various improvised explosive devices, the ingredients used in making them, their availability in the market (the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil used in the 11/7 blasts were easily available in the market) and given real-time demonstration on how a plastic explosive is detonated. Chima, officials say, also gives training on how to operate rocket launchers, Stinger missiles, AK-56 assault rifles and throw hand grenades. "He is a key planner in the Lashkar camp and trains people on how to strategise. He also trains the operatives on how to take advantage of weaknesses in the internal security system," a senior officer said.
Chima communicates with militants across the border in Kashmir on a regular basis. The Intelligence Bureau has nabbed a few terrorists in the recent past by keeping tabs on these conversations. Officials say Chima also arranges for funds for LeT operations; he sends this through the hawala network. In the recent past, Chima has turned his attention to directing LeT operatives in Maharashtra to recruit young men who can avenge the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force, an offshoot of LeT, is one such example, say officials.
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Israel's two-front conflict saw its heaviest day of fighting on Wednesday, claiming 9 Israeli soldiers, dozens of Hezbollah fighters and at least 23 Palestinians in Gaza. The death toll on Wednesday was Israels highest since fighting began on July 12 after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during a raid into Israel. The most intense ground combat came around the hilltop town of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold just a few miles from the Israeli border.
Two days ago, Israeli military officials on the border confidently announced that first the village of Maroun al-Ras and then the larger town of Bint Jbail had been subdued. But renewed fighting erupted in the region around daybreak on Wednesday and by the afternoon military officers were being more circumspect about their progress. In Maroun al-Ras, one Israeli soldier was killed and three more were wounded on Wednesday, the Israeli military said. Hezbollah fighters fired an antitank rocket that hit the soldiers in a building, it said.
When asked what the Israeli military had achieved after two weeks of fighting, General Gantz replied: I would suggest asking what Hezbollah has achieved. They came as defenders of Lebanon but basically have destroyed the country.
General Gantz, a lean, graying man who is famous for having been the last Israeli to leave southern Lebanon in the pullout six years ago after an 18-year Israeli presence there, insisted that the fight, though long, would ultimately go Israels way. Yet he showed glimmers of frustration with the political pressures that are shaping the battle plan. When asked if he thought Israels response to the initial Hezbollah raid was disproportionate, as many critics have charged, he minced no words. I dont think it was disproportionate, he said. It should have been much stronger and thats what were going to do.
We have a long way to go and a lot to achieve, he said, although he would not talk about how many villages needed to be cleared of Hezbollah fighters or what geographic area Israel need to occupy in order to create a credible buffer zone. Israeli Army officers are saying it is probably unrealistic to expect that the military can wipe out Hezbollahs well-hidden and widespread arsenal, which was believed to have contained more than 10,000 missiles when the fighting began. General Gantz conceded that it would be difficult to stop the rockets that have menaced northern Israel with purely military means, noting that the launchers are mobile and easily hidden and can be fired remotely or with timers.
Another officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, noted that even if Israel managed to destroy 50 or 60 percent of those rockets, there would still be enough left to keep up the current pace of roughly 100 rockets a day for weeks. All Hezbollah has to do to win is not lose, another officer said.
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#1
SPECIAL POST (Perhaps my final one)
The Etiquettes of Yawning.
As you guys will be yawning a lot upon repeatedly hearing "sissy pant" and "puppy shame" casualties, I will give you some religious guidelines on yawning. Try to stop the yawn. If you can't, place the back of the palm to cover it. You must not yawn openly as this is a state of weakness and the mouth becomes one of the entry points of Satan and subsequent possession (though mild). Ofcourse, yawning loudly also looks disgusting.
I would also like to update the casualty figures from last night-not 13 dead but 19 dead and over twenty sent to the vegetable ward. Remember, this was the "Israels" Golani special unit, the cream of their army-all slaughtered and sent to hell. Hardy Har Har!
Watch on as Hezbollah now empties the rest of the "Israeli" cities-Netenya and then Tel-Aviv. Hardy Har Har! Watch the shock victims. Watch the terror. Watch the fear. "Israel" must return to it's true owners-the Palestinians. You can still change sides. Become Muslim now-this may be your last chance.
I also would like to reply to "trailing wife" who said that my Mom didn't teach me any manners. I know why you are so upset at me. You are scared that we Muslims upon victory will put a burqa (Afghani head dress) on your head. I would like to assure you that we won't do any such thing. According to the Sharia, a burqa is not to be worn by elderly women, girls under puberty and unattractive women. From various posts at the Rantburg, I have learnt that you sport nose and facial hair and a light beard. So don't worry. With your great political/historical knowledge and unique looks, we can use you for dispersing mixed gatherings. I wish the Taliban knew you. We could have improved their image to the West-no need for whips.
I am very interested in watching your Halloween ball with your strange writers. (Sorry, Trailing Wife. I can't be on your dance card as you requested on an earlier post-even though you'll look normal that day).
We will also be holding the "Elephant Man" ball upon Ariel Sharon's death. Watch our joy at the party. We hope to invite OUR Michael Jackson from Bahrain. Yeahhhhh! Should be happening in about a week's time. I wish we can all see both parties by tele-conferencing.
Final note-Remember, in the end WE WILL WIN. DON"T TELL ME I DIDN"T WARN YOU.
1 Rajab 1427 Muslim era
27 July 2006 Christian era
The Levant
Posted by: the Levant. ||
07/27/2006 15:14
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#2
yoo kan keep mikal jaxson. he kan make a good baby sitter for ya
#6
Become Muslim now-this may be your last chance.
You could be right, we'll be hanging a "Going out of business" sign on your front door real soon now.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006 17:16
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#7
Sooner or later we're going to get tired of trying to civilize you filthy savages, Levant. And when we do, a simple calculus will emerge:
No more ummah = no more Islamic bullshit.
Have a nice day, Shithead.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/27/2006 17:24
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#8
See the sole of my shoe, Mr. Levant. Oh, and I wiped my left hand upon your handkerchief when I yawned -- you fail to amuse with your talk of burqas. What say you, Rantburger ladies and gentlemen: is Mr. Levant an ibn Alawite? possibly even el Assad? What must his papa do to gain him internet access from within Ba'athist Syria's totalitarian controls, that allowed him to learn English?
(KUNA) -- The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it "hardly" evacuated 33 soldiers, four with critical injuries on the outskirts of the town of Bint Jbiel in southern Lebanon. "The army has finally managed to evacuate injured soldiers, despite heavy and continuing military encounters," a military source told Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, reporting through its website.
The army acknowledged that one of its well-trained units was ambushed by Hezbollah while progressing into Bint Jbeil. The army has not declared any losses of lives among its soldiers, yet media reports say that at least 13 soldiers were killed as a result of the ambush. Meanwhile, Israeli medical sources said that 55 Israeli soldiers were injured this morning due to missiles launched by Hezbollah on northern Israel. The sources told Ha'artez that 119 missiles hit several Jewish settlements in Haifa, Safad and Tabariya.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Time for Sherman's march, stop the nicey-nicey, it's costing good soldiers
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:46
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The leftist contesting Mexico's July 2 election on the grounds of vote-rigging declared himself president on Wednesday and said his supporters would step up a campaign of civil disobedience next week. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the vote count to conservative rival Felipe Calderon by a tiny margin, said in a television interview that a rally on Sunday in Mexico City would show his backers have the energy to keep up protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Viva la Gore Calderon
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 1:01
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The Mexican army will start busting heads soon I see.
#3
Lopez Obrador begins filming his new anti-global-warming documentary, working title ¡Somos todos que van a morir y es la avería de George Bush!, next week.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 7:39
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I suppose Mexico should be grateful that this commie clown is just declaring, protesting, and calling for "civil disobedience" - instead of what the sore loser usually does down there.
Tourist: "What's Mexico's favorite sport?"
Tour guide: "Bullfighting."
Tourist: "Isn't it revolting?"
Tour guide: "No, that's our second favorite sport."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 20:59
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In a visit of support to the north on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "the IDF operation won't last for months and, even if it lasts for longer than we planned, we'll know how to match the solution to the citizens."
"I don't intend on announcing an end to the operation. They (Hizbullah) will figure it out on their own, the hard way," he continued. Olmert met with 20 heads of local authorities in the north and spoke to them about their distress. "Our strength is what you give us and I hope that next year if you invite me I will be able to formally kick off the Klezmer Festival," added the prime minister.
Pursuant to difficult reports of the fighting in Bint Jbeil, Olmert toured in Safed and met the mayor, members of the local council, defense establishment representatives, and rescue forces. He also visited the Ziv Medical Center in the city, where several civilians and soldiers, wounded as a result of the current crisis, are hospitalized. Olmert spoke to various sources about activities, both military and civilian, being undertaken in the city to protect its residents. He also expressed support for Safed Mayor Yishai Maimon, stating that "this visit gives me spiritual strength."
"We are running a different kind of war than the wars in the past. It wasn't planned, but, two weeks in and during the fighting, the nation is trying to help, as best it can, those parts of the home front that have turned into a battlefront," he said.
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Ima likin' this guy.
Posted by: Scott R ||
07/27/2006 0:45
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He actually amazes me. I thought he was going to give away the store. Suddenly he's grown a massive pair and is daily telling the Muzzies just where to go.
#4
Beware mission creep, Ehud. I presume the mission objectives were identified weeks ago. Allocate all of the resources per the advice of your military experts and allow them to execute the mission without interference. If they want it, give it to them. Say the Churchillian things and make no apologies - to anyone.
#5
Maybe he's okay, but I'm not a believer yet.
I hear concerns in Israel about the incoming rockets and such bullshit. It's like only northern Israel is at war. I don't think he will destroy Hizbolla, only scatter them and kiss the UN. I hope I'm wrong.
#6
#5 Maybe he's okay, but I'm not a believer yet.
I hear concerns in Israel about the incoming rockets and such bullshit. It's like only northern Israel is at war. I don't think he will destroy Hizbolla, only scatter them and kiss the UN. I hope I'm wrong.
wxjames:
Cheer up buddy! You're sounding like me on a bad day when I see the progress or lack thereof in WOT. Israel's busted Hezbollah's banking system, cut off its resupply route, and has hundreds of its best fighter trapped in Bint Jbeil where they will die in the rubble. Just watch.
#7
The latest war that has been imposed upon Israel by the Arab Muslim Nazi terrorists gives the Jewish state so many golden opportunities to do so many vital things. But the traitor Israeli government, army, news media, and establishment are predictably squandering every single one of these opportunities.
Immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, little Israel could have easily expelled all of the Arab Muslim Nazis who lived in the Holy Land.
The world was sympathetic to Israel as never before. The whole world witnessed the Arab Muslim Nazi dictators all publicly promising "to push the Jews into the sea" and "to finish Hitler's job."
When the tiny Jewish state, which then had a population of only 2.5 million Jews, beat back the Arab Muslim attackers, who came from nations that then had a combined population of 160 million, it was the ultimate reenactment of David versus Goliath.
Only 22 years after the Nazi Holocaust, when memories of what happened to over six million innocent Jews were still fresh, the Arab Muslim vow to carry out another Holocaust stunned the world.
The world bore witness to the purest example of a war between good and evil. The children of the Holocaust survivors rose from the ashes of Auschwitz with iron fists and blazing guns to beat back the heirs to the legacy of Nazism, the Muslims, in a miraculous and breathtaking victory.
In the atmosphere of June 1967, Israel could have expelled all of the Arab Muslim Nazis in the Holy Land with only minimal protest from the world.
This was a tragic lost opportunity, which Israel has paid a very heavy price for.
Now, in this latest war, Israel has new historic opportunities which she once again is squandering.
The first opportunity involves the Arab Muslim Nazis who live in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza District.
If Israel would hermetically cut off all electricity, water, food shipments, foreign aid, and other assistance to the Arabs, it would cause instant starvation and desperation that would force the Arabs to leave these Jewish Biblical areas.
It would certainly be an understandable act of war to cut off supplies to the enemy. Although the European Jew-haters and the news media Jew-haters would criticize Israel, the criticism would not be very harsh as even the critics would know deep down that Israel is simply doing what every normal nation must do in a time of war.
Israel would not even have to lift a finger to expel the Arabs. The Arabs would leave en masse on their own. Israel would open the borders to enable the Arabs to leave as a humanitarian gesture, since allowing them to leave the war zone is the most humane solution.
Afterwards, there would be demands that the Arabs be permitted to return. Israel would reject those demands just as she has rejected the demands of Arabs who fled the 1948 War of Independence to return.
If only JTF and its heroic Israeli allies were in power in Israel, this golden opportunity would have been exploited already.
A second golden opportunity for Israel in the current war involves Muslim Nazi Iran and its program to develop nuclear bombs.
This is the perfect time for the Israeli air force to destroy all Iranian Muslim Nazi nuclear reactors, factories, and laboratories.
Even the Jew-hating world would have to understand that Israel is retaliating against the Iranian missile attacks on Israeli cities. And that tiny Israel cannot afford to allow the maniacal Iranian terrorist regime to create nuclear bombs, so that the fanatic ayatollahs and mullahs could carry out their promise to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth."
If the world complained about Israel's actions, so what? The world is complaining about Israel's hopelessly wimpy actions now.
This from jtf.org, yes, a rightwing activist Jewish site. Agree or not, their predictions have come true from the second WTC blast to the consequence of unilateral withdrawal. And this fantasy of arabs capable of a two-state solution.
PESHAWAR: The brother of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Maulana Ziaur Rehman, has been reappointed to the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees after his first appointment was declared void by the Peshawar High Court.
Rehman was appointed additional commissioner for administration on July 1, officials at the commissionerate said on Wednesday. The officials said that Rehman's reappointment had been opposed by NWFP Chief Secretary Ejaz Qureshi but Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani ignored the chief secretary's objections and ordered the Establishment Department to notify Rehman's appointment. The officials claimed that Rehman had acquired four government vehicles for his use, adding that the additional commissioner's attendance at the office was irregular. The Peshawar High Court had cancelled Rehman's first appointment on an appeal filed by a retired army officer.
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(KUNA) -- Unknown gunmen Wednesday shot dead principal of a cadet college in Southwestern Baluchistan province, said an official. Mian Maqbool Ahmed was gunned down near his residence in Mastung district, 50 kilometers southwest of Quetta, the provincial capital, District Police Officer (DPO) Hamid Shaukat told KUNA. He said it was not immediately clear who carried out the attack but authorities suspected nationalist militants hand behind the killing.
Posted by: Fred ||
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An Uzbek national arrested in Pakistan has told interrogators that Al Qaeda organised this year's deadly suicide attack on the United States consulate in Karachi, a security official said on Wednesday. Five people, including an American diplomat, were killed in the suicide bombing outside the US mission on March 2, the eve of a visit to Islamabad by US President George W Bush.
The security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Uzbek Al Qaeda suspect had been picked up a few weeks ago in Wana, South Waziristan. The official said the suspect had revealed that the attack had been planned by a Qaeda unit and executed by local militants. "He said he brought the plan to Karachi from Wana and handed it over to local militants for execution," the official said. "The whole plan to bomb the consulate before President Bush's arrival was conceived by Al Qaeda in the tribal territory of Waziristan," he added. "We are very close to resolving the case and we believe that most of those who planned the attack were Uzbeks."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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CHINIOT: Five people were killed and 12 others injured in a firing incident some 30 kilometres from Chiniot on Wednesday. According to police, a panchayat was convened at Mohallah Mochian Wala, in the jurisdiction of Bhowana police station, to settle a property dispute between the Chaddhar and Jappa clans.
The meeting was going on when a proclaimed offender, Gulzar Ahmed, alias Gulzari Jappa, along with accomplices opened fire on his rivals and later escaped the scene. Gulzar Ahmed was wanted by the police in several cases of dacoity, robbery, murder and attempted murder. Five people died at the scene and 12 were injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Australian-led international forces have detained an East Timorese rebel leader along with 20 others for illegal possession of guns, a spokesman for the forces says. Major Alfredo Reinado, who led a rebel group of sacked soldiers, was arrested by Australian troops, Australian Brigadier Gus Gilmore said on Wednesday. The arrest came the day after a gun amnesty designed to contain recent violence expired.
"Major Reinado, together with a group of 21 other people, was identified as being in possession of weapons without authorisation and was detained," Gilmore said. He said 11 handguns and a "significant amount of ammunition" were confiscated from them. "Major Reinado and those detained with him will now be dealt with by the Timorese authorities," he said. Longuinhos Monteiro, East Timor's prosecutor-general, confirmed the arrest, saying Reinado had "to account for" the guns and ammunition.
Posted by: Fred ||
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MUMBAI: Two Indian Muslims, one of them a chemical engineer, have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in this month's Mumbai train bombings that killed more than 180 people, police said yesterday. "Two men were arrested on Tuesday night for their role in the blast incidents," K P Raghuvanshi, chief of Mumbai Police's anti-terrorism squad, said.
Jamir Sheikh, 31, and Sohail Sheikh, 38, were arrested after being questioned for several days over the blasts. Police suspect the two provided logistics support to the bombers, and they may have visited Pakistan to receive training. Jamir, who ran a key-cutting shop in Mumbai, and engineer Sohail were allegedly trained on how to make bombs in Pakistan in 2004-05, additional commissioner of police Jayjit Singh said. "They are from the core group that gave support to the terrorists," he alleged. "They had training in 2004-05. They told us and we have evidence for it. There will be more arrests," Singh added.
Police further said that the train bombers had probably left the country after the number of arrests in the inquiry rose to six. DNA newspaper said the duo had allegedly confessed to being members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a pro-Pakistan militant group. Police have said that the seven co-ordinated blasts that ripped through packed first-class train carriages on July 11 bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba but have stopped short of directly blaming the group. "We don't have conclusive proof but we believe it's true that the people who have done it are out of the country," said Singh.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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one of them a chemical engineer
Obviously an oppressed fellow, denied educational opportunity by the wicked kafir hindoos...
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006 16:30
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(SANA) - Hundreds demonstrated in Washington last night near the Israeli embassy to protest the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Agence France Press correspondent in Washington said the demonstrators who belong to ten NGO organizations asserted that the "US government is involved in this war because it helps Israel in a " dishonest mediator form." A demonstrator said the" US ought to actually interfere as to reach to a ceasefire." Another marcher "said what is happening in Lebanon should not take place and the aggression was financed by the United States."
Participants raised the Lebanese flags while others carried coffins covered with black cloth symbolizing victims of the fight. Three lorries carrying medicines and blankets from the Turkish al-Manara Association accompanied by a delegation from the Organization of Islamic Conference OIC Wednesday arrived at the border point with Lebanon Arida. Representative of the higher body for relief was handed the aid to be later moved to the Lebanese Erman Army barrack to be distributed by the delegation that will head to Beirut for this purpose.
In Amman, the Arab Legal Committee to Defend Syria showed total solidarity with every resisting Arab effort in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq voicing great appreciation for martyrs blood. In a statement, the committee appealed "every free Arab to announced unlimited support to the Arab nation right to resist and self-defense before this international attack" calling western governments to confront and put pressure against this campaign to oblige them to play their role in a way that goes with masses aspirations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Did they have permits for a demonstration and march ? I thought not. Gas these assholes with a real potent dose. When they're down on their knees puking their guts out, bring on the water cannons and clear the street of the refuse.
Government soldiers killed at least four suspected Islamic militants yesterday, three of them after they had illegally entered the Indian portion of Kashmir from Pakistani territory, an army spokesman said. The army recovered the bodies of three suspected insurgents after an exchange of gunfire in the Gurez sector along the Line of Control, said Col. H. Juneja, the army spokesman.
The intruders opened fire when challenged by the army on the Indian side of Kashmir, Juneja told The Associated Press. Another suspected Islamic guerrilla died in a gunbattle early yesterday in Handwara, a densely forested region north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. The operation lasted more than four hours, Juneja said. Separately, suspected rebels hurled a grenade at a bus stand in Narbal, a village about 15 kilometres (10 miles) north of Srinagar, wounding five civilians, said Farooq Ahmed, a top police official in Kashmir. No group has claimed responsibility for the grenade attack.
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(KUNA) -- Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and 22 injured, three seriously, in fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army confirmed Wednesday. Haaretz newspaper, through its website, quoted military sources as saying the casualties among the Israeli forces took place in Maroun Al-Ras village and Bint Jbeil town in the middle sector of southern Lebanon.
The source said the fighting in these two areas "were the most difficult facing the Israeli army for long years." An elite unit in the Israeli army was advacing and found itself in a landmine field which was followed by a fierce attack by Hezbollah fighters who were using light weapons and mortar shells, said the sources.
When the landmines exploded, "scores of terrorists appeared suddenly and launched a face-to-face attack with our soldiers. It was a tough battle, the toughest we have faced in years," they added. Three of the injured are in "very critical conditions," the sources added.
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The Russian Prosecutor Generals Office has launched a new criminal case against Chechen separatist envoy Akhmed Zakayev on charges of instigating ethnic enmity, Interfax news agency reports. In June-July 2006, Zakayev, who resides in the United Kingdom, gave several interviews, allowing himself to use such phrases as to oust Russians from Chechnya, to throw Russians away, the Russian aggressors inhuman methods and so on, the Prosecutor Generals Office said in a release. These phrases convey an intention to instigate hatred and enmity with regards to ethnic Russians, and to shape a negative ethnic image of Russian people. Zakayev ascribes hostile actions and dangerous plans against residents of the Chechen Republic to Russians and, in fact, issues a threat of the use of force against ethnic Russians, the Prosecutor Generals Office said.
Prosecutors claim that Zakaevs actions come under the British law on terrorism, which envisages criminal responsibility for spurring terrorist activity. In particular the law restricts calling for committing or preparation of terrorist acts. Prosecutors informed Britain about their position. Earlier Zakaev was charged with armed rebellion, forming of criminal bands and an attempt to kill a police officer. Russian authorities think Zakaev could have been involved in the terrorist seizure of a theater on Dubrovka Street in Moscow. Earlier a British court refused to hand over Zakaev to Russia, Gazeta.ru online daily reports.
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Three militants on death row for the Bali bombings will file a final appeal against their convictions, forcing prosecutors to delay plans to execute them next month, a lawyer and a prosecutor said Wednesday. The three men were among more than 30 people convicted in the nightclub bombings, which officials say were carried by the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group. The attack killed 202people, mostly foreign tourists.
One of the men's lawyers said he planned to file a final appeal - known as a judicial review - to the Supreme Court soon."The attorney general has to be careful," Wiranan Adnan said. "We are going to file a judicial review." Wiranan did not reveal the basis of the appeal, but others lawyers defending the men have said they plan to challenge the verdict on the grounds that the men were convicted of violating a law passed after the attacks. Indonesia's Constitution does not allow retroactiveprosecutions.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Southeast Asian countries have privately sent a "very strong message" to Myanmar's military rulers to accept democratic reforms, the Malaysian foreign minister said Wednesday.
"How strong was it?"
"Very strong."
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters that a statement issued Tuesday by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Myanmar may have appeared weak because it had to reflect "a compromised position in order to be acceptable to all."
Ummm... It didn't seem very strong...
But "we have sent a very strong message during our meeting," Syed Hamid said, referring to the annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers that took place Tuesday. Myanmar's Nyan Win also attended.
"It was very strong. It only looked weak and ineffectual."
"Individually when we were having discussions, we sent a very strong signal that unless they change, the pressure is going to continue and this is not good for ASEAN," he said.
What kind of pressure?
"Strong pressure."
Asked if ASEAN has given Myanmar a deadline to restore democracy, Syed Hamid said "we want it as soon as possible." Tuesday's joint statement by ASEAN called on the Myanmar junta to show "tangible progress" on democratic reforms, and urged it to free political detainees - an apparent reference to Nobellaureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
That sounds like carrots to me. Where's the stick ?
#2
Dictators like these, to include North Korea and Cuba, are immune to anything other than the utter destruction of their embedded regimes like Saddam's. 'Strong Signal' is UN/International speak for 'we will glare at you'.
#3
The Asean has been arse-seen for too long to be taken at its words. Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar is a mealy mouth spudhead, not particularly impressive or bright.
#3
Glorious Doris is holding a shower cap. Rocky being an "ambitious" homosexual, it's amazing she could do so many romantic scenes with him.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 16:31
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Doris is holding a swim cap, Captain America. To keep her hair dry while in the pool -- girls wore them through the 1960's, to keep the pool filters from getting clogged up. Racers still wear them, to reduce drag.
(KUNA) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, saying that the biggest challenge Iraq faces is the threat of terror. Speaking before Senators, Representatives of the House and members of the White House Cabinet, the newly appointed prime minister vowed that terrorists who kill civilians would face the same fate as the former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi who was killed by US fire.
His address to Congress came one day after he met for the first time at the White House with US President George W. Bush, although the two leaders met last month when Bush made an unannounced visit to Iraq. Bush and Al-Maliki announced after their meeting that the number of US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad would be bolstered beyond the nearly 44,000 already there. But they stopped short of saying how many forces would be relocated from other parts of the country to Baghdad in the coming weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Kill Tater and tots
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:51
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Hey, this democracy thing is starting to work!
And no, he's not going to blame Hezballah just yet because he doesn't want to die. Wait until they get neutered before you ask those kinds of questions. The disrespectful congressmen who walked out or boycotted him should understand that. They don't represent me.
#4
Yes Nimble. I believe how their Parliment system works is the people vote for the party they want, the party with the most votes appoints a PM. I could be wrong, since Parlimentry systems give me a headache (Worst form of democracy EVER).
#5
I agree about the parliamentary thing, but I would think the Members of Parliament elect him as opposed to him beiong appointed; but maybe it is a leftover of the King appointing his Prime Minister.
#6
It's Muzzy Democracy. Here's how I think it works.
By agreement, they divvy up the positions. The Shia get the PM, IM, etc, the Sunnis the DM, etc, The Kurds the Pres, etc. - it's a bullshit formula based upon the usual irrelevant things.
They form alliances - based upon sect or "racial" group. The Shia banded together into a block to maximize their seat count and to squabble over candidates for their allotted positions in private. The Kurds did too. The Sunni aren't quite so cohesive. The remainder end up with little except the ability to vote for / against nominees.
The party block within each group that has the most seats, per election results in each district, chooses the candidates for the posts that are available to their group.
The PM, as with all other national positions, must be approved by a majority of the Parliament. Then he puts forward the nominees for each post allotted to his group. Same for the other groups who won enough seats in the elections.
That's the game as I understand it. It sucks since its party slates put forward after the fact, the public doesn't get to vote for individuals.
As for his support for Hezbollah, anyone raised within a Muslim country is thoroughly conditioned to hate Jooos. I wouldn't doubt that, out of the supposed Muslim population of 1.2 Bn, the number of Muslims who aren't Jooo-haters would number in the tens of thousands world-wide, if that many. It passes for "normal" among Muslims and everyone should expect it, not act like it's an aberration. It's silly to think otherwise, in fact. Those jackasses who "boycotted" his speech are morons who know far less than the average Rantburger.
Twenty-three Palestinians, including a baby and two toddlers, were killed yesterday as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery on the deadliest day in the territory for two weeks.At least 137 Palestinians have now been killed in the four-week assault that has been increasingly sidelined as the world focuses on a deadlier conflict in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of two soldiers by Hizbollah.
While world diplomats in Rome tried but failed to agree on calls for a ceasefire in Israel's war on Hizbolla, 23 Palestinians were killed in multiple Israeli attacks east and north of Gaza City, medics said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called "unacceptable acts" and charged that "Israel is clearly violating the Geneva convention" in attacking civilian areas. Only hours earlier, he demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories following talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
At least seven of the dead were militants but a seven-month-old Palestinian baby girl was also killed, along with two three-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy. Gunfire erupted on the ground as Israel stepped up its offensive after a relative lull.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called "unacceptable acts" and charged that "Israel is clearly violating the Geneva convention" in attacking civilian areas."
Here we go again with the Geneva convention nonsense again. First, Geneva convention concerns standing armies NOT terrorists. Second, Geneva convention states that you can't deliberately target civilian areas but, if the army/terrorists use the civilian area as command and control, then the civilian area is considered a military target. Therefore, the Paleo deaths are justified, by law.
#2
It's time Israel took out Abbas and his "PLO" "government", along with all their support and infrastructure. They should also broadcast on all frequencies that "if you're going to be stupid and continue to play these types of games, we're going to kill you, whoever you are". There is nothing worthwhile about keeping the "palestinian" question going another minute. Clean out this cesspool, all the way to the bottom.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/27/2006 22:06
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Thousands of protesters have clashed with riot police and burned election posters of President Joseph Kabila ahead of a historic poll in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators who threw molotov cocktails and chunks of masonry. They ripped Kabila's campaign posters from signposts and set fire to banners in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa. The country is tense ahead of Sunday's vote - the first free, multiparty elections for presidential and parliamentary positions for more than 40 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Sri Lanka's Air Force bombed Tamil Tiger territory in the island's restive east yesterday, officials said, just hours after UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited the area. The air attack, a violation of a shaky ceasefire according to Nordic monitors, came as a Norwegian envoy considered how to resuscitate peace monitoring efforts in the South Asian country, officials said.
The attack was launched in the rebel-controlled Verugal region of Trincomalee district, 215km northeast of capital Colombo, air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva said. The military claimed they needed to clear the region before moving engineers in to repair a water tank as Tamil rebels had, according to the government, refused to allow them to do so. Air force jets struck three times, wounding two civilians and destroying two houses, Elilan, a top Tamil Tiger official in Trincomalee, was quoted as saying in the pro-rebel TamilNet website. Guerillas suffered no casualties. A government statement said the "limited operation" was conducted on "humanitarian grounds" to neutralise disruptive forces that are preventing free flow of water to over 15,000 families.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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After laying siege to a house in the West Bank village of Kadum, IDF special forces arrested a Palestinian fugitive overnight Wednesday who was suspected of being part of a terror cell planning an attack on a target inside Israel. The fugitive was fired on by soldiers as he attempted to flee from the house and was subsequently evacuated to an Israeli hospital.
Earlier, Police had declared a heightened state of readiness throughout Judea, Samaria and the Sharon region following an intelligence alert indicating that the terror cell was planning an infiltration into Israel. In the wake of the alert, police set up roadblocks throughout the West Bank and increased security checks at existing roadblocks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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BEIRUT: A large UN aid convoy arrived in the southern Lebanese port of Tyre yesterday and aid workers said they planned to step up deliveries to an area devastated by Israeli bombardment. The convoy of 10 trucks carrying 90 tonnes of food and basic medical supplies travelled from the capital Beirut down a so-called humanitarian corridor, a route cleared with Israel beforehand to ensure the vehicles were not bombed. "We hope this is the tip of the iceberg," said Khaled Mansour, UN spokesman in Lebanon, after the gruelling six-hour drive to Tyre. "We got here so it means the system is working, the humanitarian corridor is working."
Young men unloaded the trucks, lugging sacks of wheat flour on their backs and stashing them in the underground parking lot of a bank. Meanwhile, a Jordanian plane landed at Beirut international airport yesterday in the first airlift of urgently needed aid for blockaded Lebanon as deliveries of assistance started to reach thousands of displaced people in the besieged south.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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SO -- at least one runway must have been spared.
Britain's moral authority in the escalating crisis in the Middle East is being undermined by its close relationship with the US, a former aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday. Blair's refusal to call for a ceasefire between Israel and the Shi'ite Muslim militia Hizbollah is indefensible, according to Stephen Wall who until last year was the prime minister's European adviser.
Writing in The New Statesman magazine, Wall says: "Our government and that of the US have weasel-worded their way through this tragedy. Why? Tony Blair would argue that words of condemnation come cheap and that the job of a leader is to forego the glib sound bite if, by grabbing a headline at home, you write yourself out of the script where it matters most - in this case, in Israel and the US." Wall says that though he is sure Blair is urging US President George W Bush to act in private, and is right to sympathise with Israel's plight, "the overriding reason for Britain's loss of moral authority is Blair's conviction that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US President."
"Could the prime minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives were wrong and should stop immediately? 'What kind of ceasefire?' Blair asks. One that stopped the horror, even for 24 hours, would be a start. Is it the conviction of our government that we should leave it to George W Bush to set the bearings of our moral compass?"
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Ours is low theater, but the UK political system is simply surreal.
(KUNA) -- The Iraqi Army announced Wednesday that its soldiers were able to arrest eight people suspected of being fighters in Tal Afar west of Mosul, in Northern Iraq. Official in charge of operations in the Iraqi Army's second Corps Colonel Lokman Khurshid said in a press statement that the soldiers of the Iraqi army had arrested eight persons in the neighbourhood of Al Muthanna during a raid in Tal Afar. He pointed out that different weapons were seized in Valley Muthanna, adding that caves were discovered in the area.
Khurshid said that the search was still under way in the region and that the weapons seized were three mortars, three detonators of explossive devicess and a locally manufactured rocket launcher, four hand grenades and four Kalashnikov rifles in addition to the quantities of the bullets.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Hezbollah - locked in fierce battles with Israeli forces in south Lebanon - on Wednesday demanded an immediate ceasefire and indirect talks for a prisoner exchange after world diplomats failed to agree an instant truce. Mohamad Raad, leader of Hezbollah's 14-member parliamentary bloc, said: "The position for the Lebanese government is to establish an immediate and complete ceasefire and to start indirect negotiations for a prisoner exchange. "Anything other than that is not acceptable," he said in a statement, as representatives of 15 nations met in Rome to address the crisis, but failed to agree on an immediate ceasefire. "The (Islamic) Resistance will continue its confrontation of the aggression whatever the Zionists do," he said.
The international crisis conference in Rome vowed to work with "utmost urgency" for a truce. Israel launched a massive offensive in Lebanon after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 in a bid to secure a prisoners' swap. Israeli forces have since crossed into southern Lebanon, facing fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
You know what I'm going to say right?
"Help! Help! Their defending themselves! And kicking our asses!"
"We demand they immediately stop and allow us rearm ourselves so we can kill more JOOOS!"
#4
Hizb wants the status quo ante-bellum because they fear their status post-bellum. They sowed the wind, now they're reaping the whirlwind and don't like it. Tough sh*t. No ceasefire, let the decision be made on the ground.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart. Dean called President Bush "the most divisive president probably in our history."
"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people," Dean said. "Americans are sick of that. Even if you win elections doing that, you drag down our country."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Put your leftwing out of business permenantly and we can talk.
#4
"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people," Dean said.
I don't recall Bush ever making any such remarks.
This is the kind of dishonest bullshit that drove me out of the Democratic Party after 31 years. I will *NEVER* vote for another one of these lying bastards, not even for County Animal Control Officer.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/27/2006 5:58
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If the Democrats of yesteryear were alive today, which party would they belong to?
#7
"If the Democrats of yesteryear were alive today, which party would they belong to?"
I don't know what party they'd belong to, but I'm pretty certain JFK wouldn't be too happy with what the Democrats have become.
The Democratic Party used to be the party of the Working Man, dedicated to making sure everybody got a fair shake. The Democratic Party used to be the party of citizenship and service whose President said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." The Democratic Party used to be a party that believed in America and believed that America and what it stands for are worth defending and promoting around the world. The Democratic Party used to be a party that proclaimed, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
But no more.
No longer the party of the working man, the Democrats have become the party for the NON-working man: the party for every parasite, freeloader, freak, fuckup, felon and fatass who thinks the world owes him a free lunch, unlimited second helpings, and a personal escort to the front of the chow line ahead of everybody else, because they're too goddamned lazy to get off their friggin' asses and work for a living like the rest of us.
The Democrats are no longer the party of service and citizenship: they have become the party of smacked-asses, cranks, misfits and malcontents, to whom the Party says, "Ask not what you can do for your country; ask-- no, DEMAND!-- that your country do more for you! You shouldn't have to do ANYTHING for your country! You're a victim, and this country OWES you!!!"
No longer believing in America, the Democrats have become the party of America-haters, the party of loathesome vermin like Michael Moore, to whom it gave a seat of "honor" next to Jimmy Carter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
And far from being willing to pay any price or bear any burden to assure the success of liberty, the Democrats now are unwilling to make even the least effort to bring freedom to those far from our shores. Instead they spout mindless crap like "No blood for oil!" and "Bush Lied, People Died!"
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/27/2006 6:52
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#8
Remember this?: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!...then its on to oblivion...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
#9
I don't think today's Democrat is anything like yesterday's Democrat, either. It seems it has drifted to the point of having been pretty much hijacked a few years ago by moonbats susceptible to every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike. People like to blame Bush, but I don't feel that's the problem, just a coincidence that people can't seem to separate from cause. Why does this party exist? If it were to be offered as a brand new party today as compared to the Democratic party of yesteryear, would it really be able to attract a lot of members? Have its members forgotten to do a reality check and have drifted with the party to wherever dysfunctional eddy it has ended up today? Does this party really have enough relevance to continue to win in the future, or are people going to abandon it come vote time? Is the party's present form really reflective of the thinking of a large part of American society? If so, what has changed?
#10
"I for one am tired of these fundo breeder homophobe so-called Christians and the Israel lobby and the racist inbred southern yahoos and greedy bloodsucking super-rich capitalists--no, not you, Mr. Soros! I meant those other guys over there--and all the rest of those un-American Rethuglican bastards dividing this country with their hate-filled name-calling. I say we line 'em all up against the wall and shoot 'em! Yeeeaaaggghh!"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 7:21
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Common perception was that Democrats disavowed the label Liberal because it evolved into a moniker that represented Tax and Spend. The truth is, politically speaking; the essence of the word Liberal means that when making decisions it is prudent to take other viewpoints into consideration. Something Dean and his Progressive supporters are incapable of doing.
#17
He's the most divisive DNC chairman in history, far outpacing McAuliffe. An Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Kaffiyeh wearing tool, accusing the Iraqi PM of being an anti-semite. That Kaffiyeh is the very definition of anti-semitism. Apparently the man's hypocrisy knows no bounds. But then again, neither does other dems'.
#19
Our side is the one that's supposed to stop being divisive, not his.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006 12:33
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#20
Once we have voter ID in place throughout the US, democrat turnout will fall to about 38 percent. At that point, republican cross dressers could be winning elections over them. We should attempt to find and support good men and women to run as republicans. Good people to do good public service. Put a final end to the corruption of democrat mindless spending and all the uninvestigated crimes associated with todays democrats.
#23
He's a great Vermontacrat and American. Hope he lives to be 150 and is remains active in dumocrat politics until the day he dies. He's absolutely the best thing going for the Republicans since the Hilderbeast and Ted.
MUMBAI: Othello is set for a Bollywood makeover in which William Shakespeare's jealous lover is the leader of a gang of outlaws in modern-day India's political badlands. Bollywood's version of the play, slated for release tomorrow, is the story of a gifted chieftain, Omkara, whose jealousy and blind obsession for his lover tears his secure world apart. Set amidst violent political conflict in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Omkara is director Vishal Bharadwaj's second tryst with Shakespearean drama after the critically-acclaimed Maqbool, loosely based on Macbeth.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Any "wet sari" sequences? It's just not real Bollywood without 'em.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 16:48
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Wet sari scenes most sexy in Bollywood : Survey
According to a recent survey, Bollywood's sexiest appeal is in wet sari scenes. The Website polled on various wet sari scenes and 20,000 voted the top eight.
In Bollywood, one way the Directors and Producers have made sexy scenes available is through getting the actress wet while taking a bath or getting soaked in rain without much undergarment. The audience historically went nuts over these scenes. Recent trend shows such a scene required in each movie. And except a few Bombshells, most of the actresses do not mind it. Lisa Ray's wet clothes scenes are sexiest. However the slideshow will show the top eight scenes.
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006 20:13
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My favorite is the one one the far left huh huh huh. Do you think you could get me a date Fred? I have the entire collection of Picayune times in a shoe box under my bed. Would ya tell her? Would ya huh huh.
"We received emails from him a few days ago, and he was describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position for tactical necessity, not being targeted. Now that's veiled speech in the military. What he was telling us was Hezbollah soldiers were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them. And that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it.
Wonder how Kofi will explain this? cue crickets...
A direct inference that the deaths of the UN peacekeepers was direct result of UN intransigence, incompetence, and a desire to embarass Israel. The suggestion is that the UN knew in advance that Hezbollah was using the post as a shield and that they were warned by their own people and Irael to get out.
Posted by: john ||
07/27/2006 10:29
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CTV.ca has the complete e-mail on their site: A Canadian soldier's report from South Lebanon After the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, and the subsequent bombing campaign began against Lebanon, CTV.ca received an email from Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian Forces soldier serving with the UN in South Lebanon. "If you are interested in a Canadian perspective on the events of yesterday and what is happening here in the area I am serving in, I can provide some concise info for you about the current situation," he wrote.
It's a good read on their mission and what was happening on the ground.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006 10:50
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BUT I AM RELEVANT.
DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?
WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING AT ME?
Local broadcasters in Lebanon reported Wednesday night that Israel hit an army base and an adjacent relay station belonging to Lebanese state radio 30 miles north of Beirut. The report said a transmission tower was knocked down, although it was not immediately clear if the attack was by air or shelling from ships.
Earlier Wednesday, 13 Lebanese people, including six children, were wounded in Lebanon Wednesday after the Israeli Air Force bombarded Hizbullah headquarters in the city of Tyre in south Lebanon. Lebanese security officials reported that the targeted building served as the offices of senior Hizbullah leader Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, but the building was empty of Hizbullah operatives at the time of the strike.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Read this earlier...anyone got some background on why the Lebanese army base was hit?
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:44
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It's the communications system they're bringing down. Probably got power or something from whatever was hit on the base. If Israel wanted to wax the Leb Army, they'd be history tuit suite and there'd be far more than a building or two taken out.
#3
#1, CA, I found this at link. Israeli military officials said the target of the airstrike was a radar station used by Hezbollah for attacks like the one on the Israeli missile boat on July 14.
#4
Not one communications relay system can be allowed to be left standing. You gotta believe that the military and domestic Lebanese communications system is being used by Hezbollah. Israel should trust nothing. Destroy every communications post. In fact, I bet the Hezbollah is using the U.N. post as a communications. BTW, if the Hezbollah want fire rockets next to an U.N. post or use U.N communications system, give a 10 minute warning and destroy the U.N. post. Too many Israeli soldiers are dying because Israel is trying to be too careful. Its time for Israel to stop placating to the U.N. and really get down to business.
(RIA Novosti) - Georgian troops are preparing to storm the hideout of a rebellious militia leader and several dozen supporters, a national TV station said Wednesday. Rustavi-2 said Emzar Kvitsiani and about sixty former members of his Hunter border guard battalion were hiding in a cave in the Kodori Gorge, the de facto border between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia province and that security forces would try to fight the men out by storm.
The Hunter battalion was formally disbanded in 2005, but most of its members have not laid down their arms yet. Earlier on Wednesday, local broadcaster Imedi said the former presidential envoy to the mountainous area - the only part of Abkhazia remaining under Tbilisi's control - had been wounded in the stomach while trying to break through a police blockade. It said the breakthrough attempt had been made before the four-hour ultimatum given to Kvitsiani by the Interior Ministry to surrender expired.
According to Rustavi-2, Deputy Prosecutor General Kakha Koberidze told a news conference that criminal proceedings would be launched against Kvitsiani on charges of treason, illegal possession of arms, and establishment of a militia force. Georgian authorities placed the man on a wanted list and issued a warrant for his arrest. The operation against Kvitsiani was launched after he said Sunday he would no longer obey orders from Tbilisi
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya yesterday said the US view of a new Middle East was one that began with "destroying Lebanon" and with killing the maximum number of Palestinians. "In the name of the government, we condemn the American positions- giving the green light to the occupation to continue its aggressions," Haniya told the Hamas-led cabinet, according to an official statement released to journalists. "We ask the American administration to stop its blind support for the occupation and not allow the continued killing of children, women and old people by American weapons on Palestinian and Lebanese lands. It seems that from the American point of view, the new Middle East starts by destroying Lebanon, by killing the maximum number of our Palestinian people and by bringing down the resistance," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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"We ask the American administration to stop its blind support for the occupation and not allow the continued killing of children, women and old people by American weapons on Palestinian and Lebanese lands. It seems that from the American point of view, the new Middle East starts by destroying Lebanon, by killing the maximum number of our Palestinian people and by bringing down the resistance," he said.
That's funny, it sounds a lot like what Israel is asking of you terrorists.
#5
He's seriously behind the times. The new Middle East started with the de-Talibanization of Afghanistan followed by the de-Saddamization of Iraq. But it's cute when these kind of local yocals think themselves the center of the universe.
#7
I'm getting awfully tired of the MSM calling this two-bit murdering thug the 'PM of Palestine'. The minute this coward steps foot in Israel he's deat meat.
(MNA) -- Although two weeks have passed since the Israeli army began its military attack on Lebanon, all diplomatic measures to force the Zionists to put an end to the bombardment of innocent civilians seem to have been in vain. The foreign ministers of Germany and France, the U.S. secretary of state and the United Nations deputy secretary general have failed to convince Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had held meetings with both the Lebanese and Israeli officials during her recent Middle East tour, believes that it is still too soon to discuss a ceasefire. Rice, who has not proposed any peace plan for solving the current crisis in the Middle East, announced that the United States wants Hezbollah forces to be disarmed, to be followed by the deployment of NATO forces between the border region of the occupied territories of Palestine and the Litani river -- about 20 kilometers from the frontier -- so that Hezbollah forces will be unable to fire missiles into the occupied territories in the future.
Undoubtedly, the Lebanese government and political groups will never agree with such a proposal because the deployment of NATO forces would be a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The recent proposal is not meant to guarantee peace and stability in the region, but is actually a prologue for realizing the Greater Middle East Initiative, which the U.S. has long sought to implement. Naturally, regional nations and particularly the Lebanese nation will never allow the U.S., the European Union, and the Zionist regime to turn Lebanon into a base for plots against other countries.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Yes, it is too soon to discuss a ceasefire. There's still Hezbullies walking around. Kill 'em all first.
#2
Usually when they talk about the "aggressor" it means we are winning
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:35
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I remember reading some tales by a Soviet spy about how he was in the Army in USSR in '67 trying to follow the 6 day war on Russian radio and they knew the jig was up for the Egyptians when the radio started calling the IDF 'the aggressors'
Twenty-five militants were killed by US-led forces in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday, as the US military prepares to hand over security responsibilities in the violent south. Fifteen Taliban insurgents were killed during heavy bombing in three villages in Musa Qala of southern Helmand province on Tuesday night, Helmand's police chief Nabi Mullahkhail said. "The bombing lasted for several hours," he said. "As a result 15 Taliban were killed and 20 others wounded."
Several people who said they were from Musa Qala phoned journalists to say that most of those killed in the attack were civilians. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said only one militant was killed in the raid and the rest were civilians.
Earlier, the coalition said in a statement it had killed seven militants on Tuesday in two separate incidents in the drug-producing region, where thousands of British soldiers are based as part of a NATO-led mission. Afghanistan's defence ministry said another two militants had been killed in combat in the south on Tuesday, and a third insurgent was killed in the southeast.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Oh those fluctuating numbers of dead Talibs. One day it is 19, the next 40, then 19 again, then a new figure, 25. Either way, its all great news to me!
Hmmm, the Talibanny might be re-thinking their Fall Offensive. Summer one has been a real bummer thus far.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006 10:31
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#3
The Arab world is going to wake up 5 or so years from now and realize they have sacrificed a whole generation of young men to allan and blood-cult islamofascists.
#4
They don't care. Polygamy means they have an excess men. Those go to Jihad and get killed but muslim birthrate is not reduced due to wives of polygamos hudbands still producing babies.
The US is "counseling" Israel to negotiate a possible withdrawal from the Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) area with Lebanon as part of a long-term arrangement for Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post has learned. This issue was one of the focuses of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's talks in Jerusalem Tuesday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. However, this issue - as well as discussions about the mandate and composition of a possible multinational force in Lebanon - was shunted aside Wednesday because of the bitter fighting and the IDF losses at Bint Jbail.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#2
If true, a disappointing development. Land for pieces indeed.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:55
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G*ddamnit! Are you f%$king stuck on stupid!?
That means you freaking morons in the State Dept or wherever this bullsh*t came from - and any Israeli government member who even briefly entertains the idea.
Land for peace, land for peace, land for peace - give this up and I'll promise to do that; give that up and I promise we'll do this other thing over here; Give that thing up over there and I double honest to Allah promise we'll never, ever come after anything you have again...
On and on and on and on...
This is freaking ridiculous and the sooner somebody begins to realize that this state of affairs cannot go on forever the better.
#4
I am sorry. but whoever in the US State Dept. said this needs to be fired. Israel do not give up land to a single Arab country until you had 50 years of not one muslim terrorist attack.
#9
*TAKE* (not "give") as much territory as possible, militarize to the hilt, use a portion of it as a buffer around Israel proper, and dare anybody to do anthing about it. Screw this, and screw the arab nations around Israel that have never given it a moment's peace.
The Moscow City Court has sentenced Aslanbek Khasanov, the organizer of the bombing near a Moscow MacDonald's restaurant in October 2002, to 22 years in jail. The court found Khasanov guilty of terrorism, possessing and transporting ammunition, and murder, Interfax reports. On April 27 2004, the Moscow City Court sentenced the four other defendants in the Moscow restaurant bombing case to prison terms ranging between 15 and 22 years.
On October 19, 2002 a car bomb exploded behind a McDonald's franchise in Moscow, killing one and injuring at least seven. Police detained several suspects within the case, all of them alleged Muslim extremists supporting Chechnya's independence from Russia. The bombing took place days before the hostage crisis in Moscow Nord-Ost theater.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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Lebanese parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri yesterday criticised Arab governments for equivocating over what position to take in the face of Israel's offensive on Lebanon, a statement said. "Arab regimes are hesitating," he said in the statement read by Lebanese deputy Yassin Jaber to parliamentarians during an extraordinary session of the Arab Parliamentary Union in Cairo at Arab League headquarters. "They are scared and barely lift a finger in the face of what is happening in Lebanon and Palestine," the statement added.
Berri accused Arab regimes of ignoring the situation in Lebanon "even though they know well that the resistance of the Lebanese and the Palestinians constitutes the only front which defends all Arab countries and the dignity of our people". League Secretary General Amr Mussa, also present at the meeting, criticised Arab governments for their "weak and divided" positions.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Berri tool
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 1:00
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They are not ignoring it. They quite plainly see the fingerprints of Non-Arabs all over it. The Arabs will not bail out Iran and Syria or it's proxies. The Arabs are happy to watch Israel deliver a lesson most of them have already absorbed. Attacking Israel just doesn't pay.
#4
Duh! Check out the oil field maps of the Persian Gulf area. Almost all the fields are in Shiite majority areas. Paleos might be demonstrating on behalf of Hizbollah/Iran, but other Arabs are not. Notwithstanding the rhetoric on Israel, the number one enemy of the Arabs are: Iranian Shiites.
Am I the only one who believes that Syria's leader is abandoning Iran, in face of the Shiite menace? But where would Hizbollah go, if Syrian harborage ended? To hell for all most Arabs care.
I don't know if Assad has the stones to go off the Mullah reservation before they get stomped, but I have no doubt he's been worrying about how to save his narrow Alawite ass for at least 3 years, now. :)
(KUNA) -- The international conference on the Lebanon-Israel crisis, held here Wednesday, failed to reach the anticipated agreement for an immediate truce to block the continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon. After two hours of delay, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema announced the conclusion of the conference with a mere agreement to continue efforts toward reaching a ceasefire. D'Alema said in a press conference following the meeting that he anticipated an immediate truce as several participants insisted; however, he questioned the viability of such a demand.
D'Alema stressed that participants shared willingness to collectively work toward reaching an urgent ceasefire. He said an attempt for a truce required pressuring all of the conflicting parties, noting that the conference started pressuring Israel by demanding it to respect civil establishments and preserve civilian lives. D'Alema said that holding the conference has been a crucial achievement by itself due to the high level of international participation, noting that the main purpose of the conference was to express solidarity with Lebanon. D'Alema averred that participant would continue working together toward an initiative that would include all direct and indirect parties of the conflict.
Speaking at the news conference, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice affirmed the participants' willingness to urgently end violence in the Middle East. The Italian deputy premier and foreign minister stressed that the anticipated truce should be permanent, complete and able to endure. The conference's final communique called on Israel for self-restraint, welcoming Tel Aviv's decision to secure humanitarian corridors and allow flights to land at Rafiq Hariri Airport for humanitarian purposes. The final communique also expressed the international community's deep concerns regarding the dramatic situation in Lebanon and violence in the Middle East, pledging to provide urgent humanitarian aid and to discuss practical steps to establish a free and independent Lebanon with sovereignty over its lands.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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What a hilarious graphic. I'm laughing so hard, I can't even concentrate on this article. Come to think of it, I don't need to read the article. The graphic sums it up.
#2
Why exactly was a truce the anticipated result when, in the list of participants in the conference, the principals involved in the conflict were not even present?
Natter, natter, natter, indeed.
Posted by: Scott R ||
07/27/2006 0:40
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"Please, Dr. Rice, you're being unreasonable. What's wrong with the status quo? I wanna go home and say the problem was "solved" in one day!"
As far as I'm concerned, she the biggest balls there! The rest have peppercorns. Why are they so afraid of Hezballah?
#5
"Nonetheless, it seems that Annan's plan did not appeal to influential western participants."
Gee...I wonder why? Perhaps it's that whole prisoner swap thingy rather then the unconditional release of the Israeli soldiers. Or maybe it's Hizbullah's refusal to disarm under UN#1559? Those damn "western participants" sure are belligerent!
One lost in Iraq two years ago, the other this weekend closing in on Osama in Afghanistan.
The second son was given an opportunity to opt out after he lost his older brother in the battle of Fallaluja. The younger son wanted to "continue the fight".
When these parents go home someday, their sons WILL be waiting for them.
#1
"The Lord bless you and keep you--the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace."
#4
I Timothy 6:12
Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
There is nothing I can say that would make you feel better. So, I won't. My condolences.
#5
Sometimes words fail. In such times, it's perhaps best to recall words already spoken by better men than I:
"I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." -- Abraham Lincoln
fter this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, "That his pitcher was broken at the fountain." Eccl. 12:6. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Father's; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Cor. 15:55. So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
#11
God bless you and yours. Thank you for your sons' service to our Country. May God grant you the Peace that passes all Understanding.
Posted by: BA ||
07/27/2006 14:14
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I recall a Rantburg article a little while ago about Lebanese civilian deaths from Israeli bombings. There were no shedding of tears, no sweet Bible quotes or excerpts from Pilgrim's Progress. Just people saying that they have no sympathy for the dead. Because after all, all Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah, and if they are not, then they are just casualities of war for which no sorrow is called for.
Now a man has lost his children for the War on Terror. Such outpouring of affection and condolences. Except of course, if he were to say that Bush shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq, or if people realized that he is a poor Hispanic guy who may have voted for the Democrats in the last election. Then he would deserve his fate and the tear-jerking Bible quotes would stop. He might even be a damn Mexican taking our jobs.
Ah hypocrisy. Selective humanity is always wonderful to behold.
#16
I wasn't trolling. I did have a point to make--which you don't agree with, understandably. You on the other hand, definitely are trolling, unless guessing at what I do with my hands is the best logical comeback your brain can manage.
#18
Queeg, dear, Israeli munitions are so selective that while the Hizb'allah neighborhoods in Beirut are being turned to rubble, the next street over -- in the Christian neighborhood, or the Sunni, or the Druze -- the discos and the pubs and the cafes are overflowing with light and music and people enjoying the lovely evenings. I think it was one of the CNN reporters that showed film of that yesterday or the day before (check Rantburg - I saw the article here). And last week there were reports from southern Lebanon of gunbattles between Shia villagers trying to escape the barrage and Hizb'allah "militants" seeking to keep them there as human shields. Oh, and the 500,000+ refugees who've fled from Lebanon to Syria -- the Syrians are resentful about rising crime and housing prices.
The only conclusion one can draw from such facts on the ground, Mr. Queeg, is that the only Lebanese civilians left to be bombed are either Hizb'allah "militants" pretending not to be, their active supporters, or their unwilling shields. Regardless, functionally they were murdered by the Hizb'allah terror organization or martyred by them... in a war that Hizb'allah started on Iran's orders.
If those are the people you choose to grieve for, then you've picked your side. There is no moral equivalence in the situation.
Oh, yes. If you want to argue about the children and infants killed, either their parents allowed by choosing to stay, or Hizb'allah caused it by trapping them there. Either way, it was Lebanese adults that chose their deaths, not Israel.
#19
Queeg, which side are you on, Western enlightenment or Islamic darkness? Or do you fancy yourself above such trifles as defending your country, much the Lebanese did wrt Iranian sponsored Hizb'Allah taking over large tracts of territory and waging war from it? Final analysis, the Lebanese allowed cross border war to be launched from "Lebanese" territory. Now they are suffering the consequences, albeit tiny to what could be brought to bear. If the Lebs claim that the territory was not under their control, then they won't have any problems with the Israelis annexing it and bring it under control.
Posted by: ed ||
07/27/2006 17:17
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#20
Queeg, normally I try to be very cordial, even to dumbasses like you. The viseral responce you are getting from all the fine folks here at Rantburg have absolutely no problem with you discussion of the plight of the civs and the right or wrong of this war. But damnit when people are giving their respects for the dead there is no place for debate like yours! You fit in with that ass that goes to funerals to protest. If you want to spur debate go to another article and fire at will. Keep your bullshit retoric out of aricles like this!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 17:55
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My only point was that any innocent life lost must be mourned. You mentioned unwilling Lebanese being used as meatshields by the Hezbollah. Sure, it's not the Israelis fault that they die, but does that mean those people don't deserve our pity? If you read my post, you will see that that's all I meant. Even those people need the precious bible quotes, that's all. Or does getting killed helplessly just automatically make them unworthy of our prayers?
Also, I think your trust in Israeli surgical precision in their attacks is misplaced. I know of at least one Indian Hindu (can't remember the name)who was killed while working at a glssware plant in Lebanon. This happened in the first day of the Israeli bombings, so he persumably had no chance of leaving in time. Does he not deserve any sympathy?
ed:
Does my view that being selective in mourning people is hypocritical, put me on the side of Islamic darkness? Then by your logic, Islamic darkness almost seems cool, which I'm sure wasn't your intention.
49 Pan:
Me posting on a "RANT"ing website is not similar to someone desecrating a military funeral by protesting. For all your heartfelt biblethumping, the poor guy who lost his kids is very unlikely to see this article on this website anyway, so how does is it matter? Anybody can sit on their cushy ass and type a couple of lines on Rantburg showing their "solidarity" with someone who lost a loved one... and then move on to the next available porn site without skipping a beat.
#23
From this old soldiers perspective very soldier is a son, every family member a brother. So to imply that our "Solidarity" is not genuine shows you are so far off the fucking mark you come across as a fucking idiot. Clearly you missed the mark at even the lowest level here, pay attention here. Instead you resort to calling me a bible thumper, coffee alert for those that know me, and I prefer my sleeze in person so I'm not a porn surfer either, but nice try. If you care to know my passion go to www.zambokids.org. I have an ass load credit card debt and no savings trying to support these kids that number about 40% Muslim. When I first came across them they were mostly war orphans. So yes I do give a shit about the loss of life of all the kids and people that are not in the fight. The discussion as to the validity of the war is also warranted. Just not anywhere near an article where we express our sadness for a family that has experienced the horror of an experience such as this.
Where is .com when I need him???
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 19:29
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#24
So to imply that our "Solidarity" is not genuine shows you are so far off the fucking mark you come across as a fucking idiot.
He's of a type: the "moral exhibitionist." For some reason, people like him feel some sort of compulsion to constantly badger other people about their alleged moral failings.
It's a form of public masturbation.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/27/2006 19:38
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#25
As John Donn said (paraphrased), the death of any man diminishes my world and me. I believe that the death of any GOOD man diminishes my nation and my world. As an old soldier, I've buried many good friends - killed in combat, killed in training, killed in just plain living. It's never easy, and it's never "good", but there are times when sacrifice is needed, and good men give their "last, full measure" to secure and maintain the freedom most of us take for granted. It's now up to the rest of us to ensure that this family's sacrifice is justified, by bringing peace and freedom to those that long for it, and are willing to give their lives alongside those of our young men to bring a freedom never before experienced to their nation and their peoples. God bless all men that fight for freedom, and especially the two sons of this Texas family.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/27/2006 21:07
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#27
Queeg don't do this. Especially on this thread.
"So how does it matter?" It matters a great deal to me and I'm sure many others here.
Respect for the dead and their families sacrifices mean something here.
Yes very well said OP. Ditto
Posted by: Jan ||
07/27/2006 22:17
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#28
This must be Andrew Velez of Lubbock, Texas.
He is a selfless man who did what he believed was
right, although I am sure he really enjoyed working
with the other great guys out there.
Of course it is the loved ones who have to live on
without the great guy who suffer most.
I hope Sean Hanity's Ollie North's foundation will
help if there are children
Israeli warplanes destroyed an empty building containing the offices of Hezbollah's south Lebanon commander in this southern port city Wednesday, and 12 people in a nearby structure were wounded, security officials and witnesses said. The explosions in the center of the city raised a giant column of smoke over Tyre, and electricity was knocked out in some areas.
The target was seven-story building housing the office of Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon. The building was heavily damaged, with the top floors were pancaked on top of each other, but witnesses and doctors said it was believed to be empty. The airstrike damaged a neighboring building, wounding 12 people, including six children. The wounded included a woman and child who were seriously hurt, said Dr. Ahmad Mroue at Tyre's hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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The wounded included a woman and child who were seriously hurt, said Dr. Ahmad Mroue at Tyre's hospital.
Israel clearly and strongly advised all those living near Hizbollah strongholds to evacuate as they would be bombed. No sympathy for those who chose to ignore the advice. Choose to stay is to choose to die. Sick and tired of the MSM hand-wringing over stupid, stupid "casualites".
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a ceasefire in Lebanon and criticized US policy in the Middle East on Wednesday, saying Washington wants to "recarve the map" of the region with Israel's help. Ahmadinejad's nation is a major backer of Hizbullah and a sworn enemy of Israel, but he denied that Tehran provides military support to the militant group.
They make the rockets in their basements...
In addition to a ceasefire, Ahmadinejad called for talks on the Lebanon crisis without conditions and demanded Israel compensate the country and apologize for its actions. Ahmadinejad is in Tajikistan for talks with President Emomali Rakhmonov. They signed a joint statement Tuesday declaring "that the use of force against Palestine and Lebanon is unacceptable."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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#1
Hezbos are almost out of rockets I see.
Posted by: Scott R ||
07/27/2006 0:42
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#2
Funny how AhMad and Co. wants an Islamofascist caliphate (i.e., recarve the map), but projects it on US.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:57
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#8
His supply routes are shut down, his troops are dieing. He either has to come out and admit starting this war or risk losing his trapped and soon to be destroyed forces. What an ass.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/27/2006 11:19
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#9
Calling for a cease-fire so soon, Ah'm-a-dinnah-jacket?
Things not working out as you planned?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/27/2006 16:09
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#10
LGF Has a somber take on Ahmadisnutz's manueverings. And it seems to be centered around the date Aug 22 2006
Just what we need - another Ayatollah whose been out of circulation for 1132 years.
#1
Skyhook, heh, I'd prefer a full-court press. Take the gloves off and stop playing patsy with these Islamof=8ckers
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 0:41
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#2
I've been wondering myself whether or not standard radar-guided antiaircraft guns might be effective against the rockets.
Posted by: Phil ||
07/27/2006 1:14
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#3
It would be interesting to see if it would work in a combat environment. It has the power (to vaporize incoming rounds and missiles) and speed (~ 1 shot per second) to do the job. Will be a challenge to acquire, track, and kill multiple incoming bogeys in combat. Also, the upkeep of the system will be very difficult and dangerous, but payback might be well worth it.
#6
The author is right. Issues re: operational use of lasers do include power supply considerations (lower powered ones can run off of electricity, i.e. a local generator but these higher powered ones with chemical sources are indeed logistically intense).
But another issue is air space management. An energy beam that doesn't hit the intended target continues unabated for a good distance. There are a lot of coordination issues to consider if you've got air assets of your own in the region. Under just the wrong circumstances, you might even blind a low-altitude satellite. Lots of training and doctrine have to be developed before they're going to be deployed on anything other than a very limited trail basis.
#9
Phika: I was thinking of something more along the lines of a radar-guided 3 inch gun.
If a radar guided 20mm gun can hit an incoming artillery shell, a 3" gun firing proximity fused shells ought to be able to handle an unguided artillery rocket that isn't maneuvering or anything.
Posted by: Phil ||
07/27/2006 10:10
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#10
An energy beam that doesn't hit the intended target continues unabated for a good distance.
But since it would be into Syria/Lebanon then ain't that a 2-fer?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
07/27/2006 14:37
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#11
The laser shoots upward at an angle. You're far more likely to hit an Israeli helicopter or fighter/bomber than anything on the ground in Syria or Lebanon. ;-(
#12
If a radar guided 20mm gun can hit an incoming artillery shell, a 3" gun firing proximity fused shells ought to be able to handle an unguided artillery rocket that isn't maneuvering or anything.
Absolutely true, but the number of guns required we be crazy.
#13
The proximity fuse idea is ok. The thought of using a CIWS is nuts. The problem is that you'd have thousands of 20mm shells flying downrange within your own territory. They'd probably do more damage than the incoming missile.
#14
The Phalanx with proximity fused shells are being used for base protection in Iraq to take out rockets and mortars. But that has to be fairly expensive unless Raytheon changed the burst length (naval version was 100 rounds). Phalanx Zaps Mortar Shells in Iraq
Posted by: ed ||
07/27/2006 17:50
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#15
Hmmm, you may be right Phil but still dont like the idea of a radar guided aa gun defence, tried and tested in 44 against V1's but V2's were different. 60 years later different but same same, better to counterbattery and kill at source & supply.
(KUNA) -- A senior Iraqi official found dead a few hours after being kidnapped on Wednesday. A police source said the body of the Major-General Abdullah Shahadhah was found in Al-Sh'ab area to the east of Baghdad. Shahadhah was the director of Iraq's residency department in-charge of handling the affairs of expatriates and foreign visitors.
In another development, Iraq's Defense Ministry, in a press release, said during the past 24 hours, security forces arrested 32 gunmen, liberated two hostages and found three dead bodies belonging to two males and a female.
In addition, gunmen disguised as army soldiers kidnapped 17 civilians. Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), a police source said the gunmen stormed a residential building and kidnapped the civilians that included 10 men, five women and two children. The description of vehicles used by the gunmen was distributed to checkpoints in an attempt to rescue the hostages, added the source.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006
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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.
WASHINGTON - Igbal Asghar reached across the counter at Super Halal Meat market and passed two butchered chickens to the man with the familiar face. Then he ducked into the walk-in freezer to fetch the customer's second order, goat meat.
ONE of the men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia had enough military-style ammunition to launch a continuous 35-hour barrage of gunfire. The evidence, from a ballistics expert, was quoted in court documents revealed yesterday as part of the case against nine Sydney men accused of planning an attack last year. The prosecution case against the group is so large it has been broken into 93 parts. 
If you know where to look, its easy to find evidence of Spains Islamic past: You can see it in Spanish architecture and in the faces of the people. You can hear it in Spanish music, especially flamenco, and in the Spanish language itself.
July 27, 2006: The already complex situation in Somalia is becoming even more so. The virtually powerless "Transitional Government" remains based in Baidoa, and is growing weaker as some sub-clans that formerly supported it, have made their peace with the Islamic Courts. The Islamic Courts have been consolidating control of much of southern and central Somalia, and its militiamen were threatening Baidoa. Then several thousand Ethiopian troops entered the country. The Ethiopians now appear to be providing security for the Transitional Government, and there is evidence that they are bringing in more troops and heavy equipment. As a result, despite its calls for "jihad" to oust the Ethiopians, the Islamic Courts have pulled their militiamen back from the vicinity of Baidoa. 
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Hundreds of hours of videotape seized by deputies in their 2003 search of "Girls Gone Wild" producer Joseph Francis' condominium cannot be used in court, a judge ruled. Circuit Judge Dedee Costello suppressed all evidence Tuesday gathered during the searches. Defense attorneys argued the search warrants were not specific about what deputies were looking for in the condominium. 
A powerful earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Thursday but there was no reports of any casualties and damage while meteorologists played down the risk of tsunami. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered 6.0 on the Richter scale. Indonesian meteorologists put the magnitude at 6.1, centered closed to Nias island off the coast of Sumatra.
After nearly a year on the job and under the watchful eye of Congress, John Bolton is inching toward Senate confirmation of his post as U.N. ambassador. Bolton has the green light from Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who last year sided with Democrats in opposing the president's nomination. While Democrats are still expected to oppose the confirmation, Bolton also has retained the support of other key GOP senators.
During his three-day tour to Russia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez went to the countrys world-known armory center, Izhevsk (Udmurtia). In Izhevsk, Chavez announced the intention to rearm Venezuelan army with the help of Moscow and lashed out at the United States, contrasting it with Russia. The Bush administration that is attentively eyeing the visit called on Moscow not to sell the innovative weapons to Caracas, including Su-30 fighters. But the Kremlin made clear the military cooperation with Venezuela breaches neither the international agreements nor the laws of Russia.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.
REUVEN Zelinkovsky was a colonel in the Israeli army, but now he has renounced military might to join a squadron of yogic flyers at the Sea of Galilee to throw a "shield of invincibility" around the Jewish state.
Bangladesh - Chittagong Anchorage Tally: Twenty three incidents have been reported since January 28 2006.
MUMBAI: The name of 
(KUNA) -- The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it "hardly" evacuated 33 soldiers, four with critical injuries on the outskirts of the town of Bint Jbiel in southern Lebanon. "The army has finally managed to evacuate injured soldiers, despite heavy and continuing military encounters," a military source told Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, reporting through its website.
The leftist contesting Mexico's July 2 election on the grounds of vote-rigging declared himself president on Wednesday and said his supporters would step up a campaign of civil disobedience next week. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the vote count to conservative rival Felipe Calderon by a tiny margin, said in a television interview that a rally on Sunday in Mexico City would show his backers have the energy to keep up protests.
In a visit of support to the north on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "the IDF operation won't last for months and, even if it lasts for longer than we planned, we'll know how to match the solution to the citizens."
PESHAWAR: The brother of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Maulana Ziaur Rehman, has been reappointed to the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees after his first appointment was declared void by the Peshawar High Court. 
(KUNA) -- Unknown gunmen Wednesday shot dead principal of a cadet college in Southwestern Baluchistan province, said an official. Mian Maqbool Ahmed was gunned down near his residence in Mastung district, 50 kilometers southwest of Quetta, the provincial capital, District Police Officer (DPO) Hamid Shaukat told KUNA. He said it was not immediately clear who carried out the attack but authorities suspected nationalist militants hand behind the killing.
An Uzbek national arrested in Pakistan has told interrogators that Al Qaeda organised this year's deadly suicide attack on the United States consulate in Karachi, a security official said on Wednesday. Five people, including an American diplomat, were killed in the suicide bombing outside the US mission on March 2, the eve of a visit to Islamabad by US President George W Bush.
CHINIOT: Five people were killed and 12 others injured in a firing incident some 30 kilometres from Chiniot on Wednesday. According to police, a panchayat was convened at Mohallah Mochian Wala, in the jurisdiction of Bhowana police station, to settle a property dispute between the Chaddhar and Jappa clans.
MUMBAI: Two Indian Muslims, one of them a chemical engineer, have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in this month's Mumbai train bombings that killed more than 180 people, police said yesterday. "Two men were arrested on Tuesday night for their role in the blast incidents," K P Raghuvanshi, chief of Mumbai Police's anti-terrorism squad, said.
(SANA) - Hundreds demonstrated in Washington last night near the Israeli embassy to protest the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Agence France Press correspondent in Washington said the demonstrators who belong to ten NGO organizations asserted that the "US government is involved in this war because it helps Israel in a " dishonest mediator form." A demonstrator said the" US ought to actually interfere as to reach to a ceasefire." Another marcher "said what is happening in Lebanon should not take place and the aggression was financed by the United States."
Government soldiers killed at least four suspected Islamic militants yesterday, three of them after they had illegally entered the Indian portion of Kashmir from Pakistani territory, an army spokesman said. The army recovered the bodies of three suspected insurgents after an exchange of gunfire in the Gurez sector along the Line of Control, said Col. H. Juneja, the army spokesman.
(KUNA) -- Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and 22 injured, three seriously, in fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army confirmed Wednesday. Haaretz newspaper, through its website, quoted military sources as saying the casualties among the Israeli forces took place in Maroun Al-Ras village and Bint Jbeil town in the middle sector of southern Lebanon.
The Russian Prosecutor Generals Office has launched a new criminal case against Chechen separatist envoy 
Three militants on death row for the Bali bombings will file a final appeal against their convictions, forcing prosecutors to delay plans to execute them next month, a lawyer and a prosecutor said Wednesday. The three men were among more than 30 people convicted in the nightclub bombings, which officials say were carried by the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group. The attack killed 202people, mostly foreign tourists.
Southeast Asian countries have privately sent a "very strong message" to Myanmar's military rulers to accept democratic reforms, the Malaysian foreign minister said Wednesday.
(KUNA) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, saying that the biggest challenge Iraq faces is the threat of terror. Speaking before Senators, Representatives of the House and members of the White House Cabinet, the newly appointed prime minister vowed that terrorists who kill civilians would face the same fate as the former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi who was killed by US fire.
Twenty-three Palestinians, including a baby and two toddlers, were killed yesterday as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery on the deadliest day in the territory for two weeks.At least 137 Palestinians have now been killed in the four-week assault that has been increasingly sidelined as the world focuses on a deadlier conflict in Lebanon, triggered by the capture of two soldiers by Hizbollah.
Thousands of protesters have clashed with riot police and burned election posters of President Joseph Kabila ahead of a historic poll in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators who threw molotov cocktails and chunks of masonry. They ripped Kabila's campaign posters from signposts and set fire to banners in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa. The country is tense ahead of Sunday's vote - the first free, multiparty elections for presidential and parliamentary positions for more than 40 years.
Sri Lanka's Air Force bombed Tamil Tiger territory in the island's restive east yesterday, officials said, just hours after UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited the area. The air attack, a violation of a shaky ceasefire according to Nordic monitors, came as a Norwegian envoy considered how to resuscitate peace monitoring efforts in the South Asian country, officials said.
After laying siege to a house in the West Bank village of Kadum, IDF special forces arrested a Palestinian fugitive overnight Wednesday who was suspected of being part of a terror cell planning an attack on a target inside Israel. The fugitive was fired on by soldiers as he attempted to flee from the house and was subsequently evacuated to an Israeli hospital. 
BEIRUT: A large UN aid convoy arrived in the southern Lebanese port of Tyre yesterday and aid workers said they planned to step up deliveries to an area devastated by Israeli bombardment. The convoy of 10 trucks carrying 90 tonnes of food and basic medical supplies travelled from the capital Beirut down a so-called humanitarian corridor, a route cleared with Israel beforehand to ensure the vehicles were not bombed. "We hope this is the tip of the iceberg," said Khaled Mansour, UN spokesman in Lebanon, after the gruelling six-hour drive to Tyre. "We got here so it means the system is working, the humanitarian corridor is working."
Britain's moral authority in the escalating crisis in the Middle East is being undermined by its close relationship with the US, a former aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday. Blair's refusal to call for a ceasefire between Israel and the Shi'ite Muslim militia Hizbollah is indefensible, according to 
(KUNA) -- The Iraqi Army announced Wednesday that its soldiers were able to arrest eight people suspected of being fighters in Tal Afar west of Mosul, in Northern Iraq. Official in charge of operations in the Iraqi Army's second Corps Colonel Lokman Khurshid said in a press statement that the soldiers of the Iraqi army had arrested eight persons in the neighbourhood of Al Muthanna during a raid in Tal Afar. He pointed out that different weapons were seized in Valley Muthanna, adding that caves were discovered in the area.
Hezbollah - locked in fierce battles with Israeli forces in south Lebanon - on Wednesday demanded an immediate ceasefire and indirect talks for a prisoner exchange after world diplomats failed to agree an instant truce. Mohamad Raad, leader of Hezbollah's 14-member parliamentary bloc, said: "The position for the Lebanese government is to establish an immediate and complete ceasefire and to start indirect negotiations for a prisoner exchange. "Anything other than that is not acceptable," he said in a statement, as representatives of 15 nations met in Rome to address the crisis, but failed to agree on an immediate ceasefire. "The (Islamic) Resistance will continue its confrontation of the aggression whatever the Zionists do," he said. 
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart. Dean called President Bush "the most divisive president probably in our history." 
MUMBAI: Othello is set for a Bollywood makeover in which William Shakespeare's jealous lover is the leader of a gang of outlaws in modern-day India's political badlands. Bollywood's version of the play, slated for release tomorrow, is the story of a gifted chieftain, Omkara, whose jealousy and blind obsession for his lover tears his secure world apart. Set amidst violent political conflict in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Omkara is director Vishal Bharadwaj's second tryst with Shakespearean drama after the critically-acclaimed Maqbool, loosely based on Macbeth.
Local broadcasters in Lebanon reported Wednesday night that Israel hit an army base and an adjacent relay station belonging to Lebanese state radio 30 miles north of Beirut. The report said a transmission tower was knocked down, although it was not immediately clear if the attack was by air or shelling from ships. 
Palestinian prime minister 
(MNA) -- Although two weeks have passed since the Israeli army began its military attack on Lebanon, all diplomatic measures to force the Zionists to put an end to the bombardment of innocent civilians seem to have been in vain. The foreign ministers of Germany and France, the U.S. secretary of state and the United Nations deputy secretary general have failed to convince Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire. 
The Moscow City Court has sentenced Aslanbek Khasanov, the organizer of the bombing near a Moscow MacDonald's restaurant in October 2002, to 22 years in jail. The court found Khasanov guilty of terrorism, possessing and transporting ammunition, and murder, Interfax reports. On April 27 2004, the Moscow City Court sentenced the four other defendants in the Moscow restaurant bombing case to prison terms ranging between 15 and 22 years.
Lebanese parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri yesterday criticised Arab governments for equivocating over what position to take in the face of Israel's offensive on Lebanon, a statement said. "Arab regimes are hesitating," he said in the statement read by Lebanese deputy Yassin Jaber to parliamentarians during an extraordinary session of the Arab Parliamentary Union in Cairo at Arab League headquarters. "They are scared and barely lift a finger in the face of what is happening in Lebanon and Palestine," the statement added. 
(KUNA) -- The international conference on the Lebanon-Israel crisis, held here Wednesday, failed to reach the anticipated agreement for an immediate truce to block the continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon. After two hours of delay, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema announced the conclusion of the conference with a mere agreement to continue efforts toward reaching a ceasefire. D'Alema said in a press conference following the meeting that he anticipated an immediate truce as several participants insisted; however, he questioned the viability of such a demand.
Israeli warplanes destroyed an empty building containing the offices of Hezbollah's south Lebanon commander in this southern port city Wednesday, and 12 people in a nearby structure were wounded, security officials and witnesses said. The explosions in the center of the city raised a giant column of smoke over Tyre, and electricity was knocked out in some areas. 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a ceasefire in Lebanon and criticized US policy in the Middle East on Wednesday, saying Washington wants to "recarve the map" of the region with Israel's help. Ahmadinejad's nation is a major backer of Hizbullah and a sworn enemy of Israel, but he denied that Tehran provides military support to the militant group.
(KUNA) -- A senior Iraqi official found dead a few hours after being kidnapped on Wednesday. A police source said the body of the Major-General Abdullah Shahadhah was found in Al-Sh'ab area to the east of Baghdad. Shahadhah was the director of Iraq's residency department in-charge of handling the affairs of expatriates and foreign visitors.
