The Malaysians for Peace Alliance (Aman Malaysia) and the Muslims Consumer Association (PPIM) Saturday launched a campaign to boycott Coca-Cola and Starbucks coffee in protest against Israel's atrocities in Lebanon and Palestine. Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir [son of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad], who is coordinating the Aman Malaysia-PPIM pact for the boycott, also urged the Muslim Restaurants Association and other non-governmental organisations to cooperate by boycotting American products.
Speaking to reporters after announcing the launch of the boycott campaign here today, Mukhriz, who also heads Aman Malaysia, believed that the boycott would be effective in bringing more international pressure on Israel to stop bombing Lebanon and Palestine. The move, he added, was also to show Israel and the United States that Malaysians rejected Israel's latest atrocities in West Asia. He added that Malaysians must be made to realise that they can do something to stop the war in southern Lebanon and attacks on Palestine.
Mukhriz had earlier opened the Kuala Kurau Umno delegates meeti
KARACHI: The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Karachi organised a rally on Saturday in Liaquatabad to protest the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and uncontrolled price hikes in the country. Hundreds of protestors carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans against Israel, the United States and its western allies and loudly condemned the Pakistani government for acting at the behest of its western masters. MMA local leaders Siddique Rathore, Mairajul Huda Siddiqui, Nasrullah Shaji, Younus Barai and others demanded the government adopt policies to make peoples lives better.
THE FIRST STEP TO victory on the global war terror will be dropping that stupid name global war on terror. This is the first war in our history where weve declined to even identify who were fighting. In the Civil War, the Union didnt pause to label the Rebs and in World War II we willingly called out the Axis Powers.
I dislike the PC names of things: "Religion of Peace" or "Global War on Terror". Failing to call things by their correct names results in category error. One ends up solving the wrong problem: like strip searching old ladies to avoid profiling young Arab-looking men.
Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of President George W. Bush's handling of homeland security, an 11 percent jump from May, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday. The poll was taken Thursday and Friday, after British authorities foiled a plot to use chemical bombs to bring down as many as 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States.
Bush's approval rating rose to 38 percent, a 3-point increase since Newsweek conducted its last poll in May.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would oppose a ban on all carry-on baggage on commercial flights, the poll said.
Taken three months ahead of congressional elections, the survey found 44 percent of respondents said Republicans would do a better job handling terrorism, compared with 39 percent who preferred Democrats. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they wanted to see the Democrats win enough seats to take over Congress, while 34 percent said they wanted the Republicans to retain control, the poll found.
What matters is the polling in the seats at risk. I can be for a Republican Congress all I want, but my own Congresscritter, Danny Davis, is a Dem who gets 80% of the vote every November.
Twenty-two percent of those surveyed said Iraq was the most important issue in the upcoming election and would determine how they would vote. Eighteen percent said the top issue was the economy and 15 percent cited terrorism. Fifty-three percent of Americans surveyed also said they trusted the Democrats to better manage the economy, while 34 percent sided with Republicans, according to the poll.
The survey of 1,001 adults has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
An alternative resolution on The Situation in the Middle East.
Its happy hour at the United Nations. After four weeks of Hezbollah-provoked war in Israel and Lebanon, accompanied by much diplomatic hand-wringing, the U.N. Security Council met Friday evening to adopt 15-0 its latest attempt to paper over the real problems: Resolution 1701 on The Situation in the Middle East. This resolution is meant to deliver the ceasefire that Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been calling for, also described in the lingo of the U.S. State Department as a cessation of hostilities.
Unfortunately, if Resolution 1701 has any effect at all, its real meaning is that we now embark on a period in which Hezbollah will seize the opportunity to regroup and reload. The feeble and compromised mix of U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army, which is the force authorized in this resolution, will fail to stop them. Iran and Syria will proceed apace with their terrorist infection and subjugation of Lebanon. The U.N. will wave around this latest piece of paper to try to prevent Israel from defending itself, or, for that matter, defending the rest of us against the Death to Israel! Death to America! Hezbollah agenda. Irans President Ahmadinejad, enjoying yet another confirmation of the U.N.s mincing impotence in the face of guns, bombs, rockets, and terror, will continue his fevered preparations to roll out the nuclear bomb.
Continued on Page 49
Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded in a firefight in northeastern Afghanistan after militants attacked an American patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, a military spokesman said Saturday. U.S. troops used artillery to repel the attack in Nuristan province Friday, and helicopters rushed the wounded soldiers to medical care, said Col. Tom Collins. A civilian was also injured.
U.S. forces in recent weeks have been pushing to their northernmost points along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border, including Nuristan, opening military bases in one of the wildest region in the country. Their mission is to crush militants loyal to the Hezb-e-Islami militant group of renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the toppled Taliban regime and remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
15:11 ||
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#1
God bless them and their families.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/12/2006 15:17
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WTF?!?!
Money quote :
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Israel will halt its war in Lebanon at 7 a.m. Monday (midnight EDT Sunday night), a senior Israeli government official said Saturday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter. Israel's Cabinet was to endorse the U.N. cease-fire resolution later Sunday. Rest of article, by the same ZEINA KARAM Associated Press Writer, is the same spin as the one posted below.
#3
"The days have gone down in the West. Behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?"
Seems appropriate. The fight continues but it's just window dressing, setting the stage for the next phase which most likely will a terrorist onslaught the likes which has not been seen. I see this as Iran conducting a "recon in force". They probed, and were met with spinelessness. Iran, and it's allies and proxies can be counted on to respond accordingly when faced with such weakness.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/12/2006 15:56
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#4
It's Rovian plot...to bait Iran in to making a clear cut mistake. Oh no! We are all so weak...please don't attack us. All designed to justify the mule-a crushing to come.
#6
Check out the comments by crosspatch at this post.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 17:18
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#7
The fighting is not going to stop because the Hezbullies don't know how to do anything else. Without the military swagger they are done for, by Saudi financed Leb forces, not by the IDF.
Don't forget the strategic nature of this conflict to KSA and Egypt. They are not happy about all this Shiite force projection. I see them relishing the opportunity to take the Hezb's down, via proxy of course. Big dollars will flow to make that happen.
#10
I dont understand... Aren't we suppose to be supporting countries who are willing to fight against terrorists ? So why the need to call a ceasefire ? Does this mean that from now on when things arent going so well for the murdering , mutalating terrorists , other countries will step into try to prevent civilized nations from protecting their civilians from being MURDERERD by calling for a ceasefire.
Israel should be allowed to conduct military operations for as long as they require and deem nescessary. All terrorists should be hunted down and left to rot in a pool of their own blood. These uncivilized terror loving lunatics deserve no chance to rest, breathe, eat or sleep. War should be waged on these assholes 24/7. Only when the tides have turned and the bombs are falling over their side of the border do they only seem to care about innocent lives being lost - Even if they are the cause of them.
#12
FOX reported this AM that Nasrey has grudgingly accepted the proposed ceasefire by the USA-France - however, Syrian Hezbollah vs Iranian Hizbollah vs Islamic Jihad, etal. orgs the Great Satan = SNAFU/FUBAR remains in the spelling.
#13
WTF??? I guess this is another pause awaiting the big push on the 22nd. You know if the UN is involved it will be a Goat F%&k rodeo. I pray that Israel will ignore the UN and strike hard and deep.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/12/2006 22:17
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#14
Is Olmert crazy like a fox? Nobody in their right mind would agree to a cease fire with the Hezzies. Maybe he's counting on them violating it and giving him the pretext to destroy them. One can only hope.
Italy is ready to send between 2,000 and 3,000 troops to Lebanon as part of the planned United Nations force to enforce a ceasefire, Defence Undersecretary Lorenzo Forcieri told Reuters on Saturday.
Forcieri said it was "realistic" that Italy would be given vice-command of the force, which would be led by France. Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema issued a joint statement earlier on Saturday to say Italy would take part in the force, which was approved by the UN Security Council on Friday. (Reuters)
An Arab assailant stabbed to death a European tourist in Jerusalem's Old City today, Israeli police said. Italian media quoted the Rome foreign ministry as saying the victim was a 25-year-old Italian, Angelo Frammartino, and that he had travelled to Israel last week to do volunteer work. "An Arab youth approached a group of three or four tourists from behind and stabbed one man before fleeing," a police spokesman said. "He died of his wounds." The spokesman declined to disclose the man's nationality, saying only that he was a European and that police believed he was likely the victim of a "terrorist attack".
#1
he was a European and that police believed he was likely the victim of a "terrorist attack".
Interesting. The police in Jerusalem know terrorism when they see it. OTOH in Seattle, when a gunman killed a woman and wounded five others in a Jewish community center, the police declared the shooting a "hate crime" carried out by a lone gunman.
Nice spin at the end...
By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli army units reached the Litani River on Saturday, less than 24 hours after the government ordered an operation to march toward the river in a final push against entrenched Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel Radio reported.
The units were part of a massive force that flooded into Lebanon, trying to seize as much territory as possible before a U.N. cease-fire comes into effect. The objective was to control southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, about 18 miles from the Israeli border, before handing over the area to the Lebanese army and U.N. troops.
Meanwhile, both sides in the war indicated they would accept a U.N. cease-fire plan to stop heavy fighting still raging in southern Lebanon.
Airstrikes killed at least 19 people in Lebanon, including 15 in one village, and Hezbollah rockets wounded at least five people in Israel. Long columns of Israeli tanks, soldiers and armored personnel carriers streamed over the border.
More than 50 helicopters ferried Israeli commandos into southern Lebanon in what was called the biggest such operation in Israel's history. It was part of an all-put push to drive Hezbollah fighters behind the Litani River, about 18 miles from the border, before the truce.
But Hezbollah fought back hard. Israel said dozen of its soldiers were wounded in the expanded offensive, which has tripled the Israeli troop strength in southern Lebanon.
The Islamic militant group said its fighters killed seven Israeli soldiers and destroyed 21 tanks. Israel said its troops had killed 40 Hezbollah guerrillas over the previous 24 hours.
A senior Israeli official, meanwhile, said Israel expects a Mideast cease-fire to take effect either late Sunday or Monday, depending on an Israeli Cabinet decision Sunday morning and consultations with the U.N. and input from the Lebanese government. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter with reporters.
Israeli media reported that the truce would go into effect at 7 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) Monday but gave no source for the information.
The official's comments contradicted an earlier statement by Israeli army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, that Israel expected to fight for another week despite the cease-fire deal. He said Israeli forces - apparently about 30,000 soldiers now - would stay in Lebanon until an international force arrived.
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said his militia would abide by the cease-fire blueprint, but said the guerrillas would keep battling Israeli troops while they remained in Lebanon, calling that "our natural right."
His address was televised as Lebanon's Cabinet met to vote on the U.N. plan. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora signaled the Cabinet would accept, saying it serves the interests of his country and "shows that the whole world stood by Lebanon."
The Israeli Cabinet was expected to approve the cease-fire Sunday, but Israel appeared ready to keep up its full-scale military campaign until the U.N. plan worked its way through the region's political leadership over the weekend.
The resolution approved Friday night by the U.N. Security Council would create a peacekeeping force by combining a beefed-up version of ineffective U.N. units already in the war zone and 15,000 soldiers from the Lebanese army. The force, which could number around 30,000, would stand between Israel and Hezbollah's militia.
France, New Zealand, Italy and Ireland said Saturday they were ready to provide troops and Turkey said it was inclined to do so.
President Bush issued a statement urging the world's leaders to implement the U.N. plan and help bring real peace to the Middle East.
"The loss of innocent life in both Lebanon and Israel has been a great tragedy," Bush said. "Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian sponsors have brought an unwanted war to the people of Lebanon and Israel, and millions have suffered as a result. I now urge the international community to turn words into action and make every effort to bring lasting peace to the region."
Israel has demanded an airtight buffer zone and wonders if U.N. and Lebanese forces are up for the task. A small U.N. military presence - now about 2,000 observers - has been in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon since 1978 and has been overwhelmed by the Islamic militant group's rising power, aided by Iran and Syria.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice specifically cited Hezbollah's two sponsors in a statement Friday for all parties to "respect the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and the will of the international community."
But the resolution, approved 15-0 in the U.N. Security Council, did nothing to immediately halt the fighting that erupted exactly a month ago and has claimed nearly 900 lives - including at least 761 in Lebanon and 123 Israelis.
Israeli missiles slammed into the southern Lebanon village of Rachaf, about 10 miles from the Israeli border, killing at least 15 civilians, security officials said. Israeli ground forces also fanned out across southern Lebanon hunting for Hezbollah rocket batteries that have fired unending salvos across the border.
Three people also were killed in strikes on Kharayeb, and a Lebanese soldier was killed in an air raid near an army base in the Bekaa Valley, officials said.
In Sidon, a coastal city between Beirut and the Israeli border, Israeli bombs destroyed a power plant. Farther south, another power facility was hit near Tyre, knocking out electricity to the port, police said.
On Lebanon's northern frontier, Israeli airstrikes hit the highway leading to the Arida border crossing about a mile from the Mediterranean coast. It was the last official border post open for humanitarian convoys and civilians fleeing the country. The highway was impassable, but drivers tried to maneuver through ruts and ditches.
The only other exits from Lebanon are rugged pathways and back roads through deserts or mountains.
Israel seeks to block supply routes for Hezbollah and disrupt their mobility and has warned it would target any vehicles on the roads in southern Lebanon and along other main highways.
On Friday, an Israeli aircraft fired on a convoy of more than 600 civilian vehicles and others carrying 350 Lebanese police and soldiers who left the Israeli-occupied town on Marjayoun in southeast Lebanon. Police said three civilians and an army recruit were killed and 28 people were injured. The mayor of Marjayoun, Fuad Hamra, put the death toll at six.
Israel said the U.N. troops asked permission to lead the convoy, but it was denied. Previous groups were given permission and traveled unharmed, the Israeli military said.
Fighting continued in Hezbollah-held areas around Marjayoun, a strategic hub overlooking valleys used as Hezbollah rocket bases.
Israeli commando units and guerrillas engaged in close combat in a valley near El-Ghandourieh, about 10 miles southwest of Marjayoun, according to Lebanese security officials.
Other Israeli ground forces, backed by aircraft and drones, met stiff resistance as they tried to reach the Litani River.
Israel said its troops destroyed several rocket batteries and killed more than 40 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours. The guerrilla group announced four deaths Friday and three Saturday.
After a morning free of Hezbollah rocket strikes in northern Israel, a barrage of 20 missiles at midafternoon injured two people in Amirim and three in Kiryat Shemona. Hezbollah had been averaging nearly 200 hits each day in the monthlong conflict.
The Litani is seen by Israel as a crucial boundary in its attempt to push back Hezbollah. Israel repeatedly has insisted that the proposed peacekeeping force cannot allow Hezbollah weapons south of the river.
But it will be nearly impossible to rid south Lebanon of the Islamic guerrillas, who are now in the Lebanese Cabinet and run clinics and other charities that are considered essential in rebuilding the region. Their ability to withstand the Israeli military assault has also made Hezbollah heroes across the Arab and Islamic worlds.
#6
But...they have been fighting for 30 days and it only took 24hrs to reach the Litani? I wonder what they were waiting for.
And seeing has how Hezbollah will continue to fight despite the ceasefire, and no work on how long it will take to get UNFIL forces into the battle zone....
Clearly the IDF knows it can conquor but cannot hold Southern Lebanon.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 14:11
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#7
Israel now has something they have never had before: UN justification to continue wiping out Hezbollah. The agreement specifically allows Israel to contiue as long as they are being attacked. It calls for a UN force only once the fighting stops. Nasrallah has said he will continue fighting until Israel withdraws. The agreement says Israel doesn't have to withdraw until Hezbollah stops ... so ... Israel for the first time in history has a UN okay to continue the fight.
Stop listening to so much political rhetoric and look at the real physical situation on the ground. This is absolutely brilliant. Israel has cleared Hezbollah from all villages within about 5 miles from the border. Israel is now in the process of ejecting Hezbollah from the rest of the area South of the Litani and preparing the area for a UN force to have a shot and keeping Hezbollah from returning and rebuilding and they have de facto UN approval for continuing to do so until Hezbollah either submits or is defeated in the area.
But the absolute key and the one thing Israel has never had before is justification under a UN resolution to continue an operation until her goals are met. You guys are really giving Olmert short shrift.
When you're dealing with Israelis you gotta watch what they DO more than what they say.
Olmert to UN: "Yes, yes, we'll have a cease-fire Monday morning."
Olmert to his Generals: "Ari, Uri, Shlomo, I want a massive air mobile operation into southern Lebanon NOW! Triple the number of soldiers we have there overnight! We only have a week or so to finish off as many Hezbers as we can."
#10
It looks like Israel may have gotten behind the Hezs, with some of them at the Litani and a lot of Hezs at Marjayoun (wherever that is). Unfortunately as soon as Israel starts wiping them out, the UN will probably try to find some way to make them stop.
August 22 is in 10 days. Iran's strategic planning probably involved Hezbollah being positioned pretty much as they were before all of this started thinking Israel would lob a few shells across the border and maybe launch an airstrike. When August 22 rolls around, there are now going to be no Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. No Iranian proxy army to use as a threat for whatever Iran is going to announce on the 22nd.
Israel is overall in a much more secure position and Iran in a weakened position relative to what was the status quo before all of this.
#12
Thanks for the comments crosspatch, they help to put some perspective on what's going on.
I keep thinking of disinformation, and the obligatory Sun Tzu quote;
18. All warfare is based on deception.
19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we
are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away;
when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder,
and crush him.
21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.
22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.
24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where
you are not expected.
25. These military devices, leading to victory,
must not be divulged beforehand.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 17:16
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#13
Ok if this goes as crosspatch says , I will be the first to eat the crow.
1. When an Arab gives you permission to do something (like attack Hesb'Allah), look very closely at the 'something'. Likely it is to his benefit, and your detriment.
2. Israel is not fighting just Hesb'Allah and its sponsors Iran and Syria. They are fighting the United Nations, the Arab world, the world media, the European Left, and Iran and Syria's sponsors.
3. The U.S. and others on Israel's side, but the U.S. and others also have their own interests. It is an election year and there are also other domestic pressures. They too face nearly the same opposition as those in #2, plus their own domestic enemies.
4. If the cease-fire is what it is purpoted to be, then it is a diplomatic jujitsu move. Most of those in #2 will have been co-opted. At the very least, it places the UN in a precarious position if the cease-fire fails. It gives those supporters in #3 a fig-leaf, especially against their own enemies.
5. If it does not work, well, the tanks and troops are in place. Munitions are only a plane-flight away.
#18
Hmph. I don't think Olmert had anything to do with the resolution being as pretty for israel as Crosspatch says. They'll have to spin it harder than they have demonstrated talent for in the propaganda arena (MSM/LIBS/Tranzis will cite the Resolution ad Lib and not read it literally).
As far as I am concerned, I think the resolution is Bolton's doing.
#19
Backing up Ptah on this...Olmert was tossed a bone. I don't think he got clsoe to what he actually wanted. IDF just demonstrated their capabilities. Too bad Olmert didn't have such faith in his own forces. I don't think he has the slightest idea of what the IDF is capable of.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/12/2006 21:26
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The Canadian soldier killed Friday in a fiery suicide attack has been identified as a medic, Cpl. Andrew James Eykelenboom, who served with 1st Field Ambulance based in Edmonton.
He was killed when a suicide bomber plowed an explosives-laden pickup truck into a NATO convoy near Spin Boldak, about 100 kilometres south of Kandahar.
Two soldiers with him in the Canadian Forces G-Wagon were not injured.
Eykelenboom was the seventh Canadian to be killed in southern Afghanistan within a nine-day period, and the 26th since Canada deployed soldiers to Afghanistan in early 2002.
Witnesses said there was a giant blast from the bomb, followed by a huge fire. It took several hours to extract Eykelenboom's body from the burned vehicle.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006
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#1
This will tell you everything you need to know; If muslim killers can't use an ambulance for transporting armed, uninjured jihadis or binLadens away from the battlefield, they'll blow it up, along with anything else useful accomplished by or in the West.
The cost of the war on terror will reach $437 billion by the end of Fiscal Year 2006 on Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In a recent report, CRS said current spending plans through the end of Fiscal 2006 will stand at $436.8 billion in military and foreign aid expenses attributable to the war on terror. That total includes $7.1 billion in 2003 funding that may or may not have been spent on war expenses, the report notes.
The total includes $69 billion in additional dollars from the latest supplemental funding bill. War costs are rapidly approaching half a trillion dollars, as the above totals do not include $50 billion in supplemental bridge funding that is expected early in Fiscal 2007.
Measuring total budget authority for defense operations, reconstruction, security enhancements, foreign aid, and new veterans benefits since 9/11, CRS reports the cost of the war has increased annually. Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom cost $31.4 billion in 2001 and 2002; $81.2 billion in Fiscal 2003; $94.3 billion in Fiscal 2004; $107.2 billion in Fiscal 2005; and $122.2 billion this year.
Iraq has consumed the lions share of the funding: $318.5 billion. The OEF cost has come to $88.2 billion, and enhanced security since 9/11 has required $26.2 billion. CRS said it was unable to locate the destination for $3.9 billion in Fiscal 2003 dollars.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
12:17 ||
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#1
So? In ten years we will have spent 4,370,000,000,000 (proj).
Did we get value for $95 billion per year? So far we have not seen a repeat of 9/11. What price freedom?
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 12:38
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#2
Just a quick question, and I think it is the relevant one; How much MORE have we spent on defense than was projected for our defense budget BEFORE the invasion. IIRC, we were spending huge sums already on the no fly zone, etc. How much more does this cost us, both in absolute dollar terms and as percentage increase from baseline?
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 12:52
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#3
Which is why this "nation-building" sh!t has got to end. We must now enter a phase of "breaking things." Something our armed forced are well-equipped to do and do quite nicely at that. If we can, somehow, establish Iraq (and possibly Afghanistan) as bastions of democracy in this woebegotten region, well and done. But enough of fooling ourselves that we can implement some sort of Mid-East Marshall Plan. We have neither the treasure nor troops required for such a vast undertaking.
Therefore, now is the time to begin fragmenting and decapping those governments who seek to do us harm. Iran tops the list well beyond all other rogue regimes. Syria needs its dose of the backwash ensuing there from. A strong lesson needs to be taken from the current situation with Israel and Lebanon. Shortly enough, we will see that NOBODY besides Israel is open to any peaceful solution. That said, very unpeaceful solutions need to be laid at the feet of Israel's and our own foes.
#5
Interesting thoughts there Zenster. The US breaks Iran (there's history there) and then the 'international community' sits down and tries to rewrite the map and pays for the reconstruction. Works for me...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 17:32
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#6
As for the Homefront, jihadi fronts continue to use our freedoms against our security. We have to close all the loop holes that enable terrorists to escape justice, including impediments to investigative detention. Arrests must be allowed even where suspicion is at a low threshold, and all suspect contacts - internet, phone, direct contacts, etc - and related witnesses, must be interrogated before the suspect is released. Of course, detained suspects should not be main-lined in penitentiaries pending charge-sheeting or release. Detained persons are innocent until proven guilty. But they should be kept in custody until the case to meet test is made.
#9
Zen, we have argued over nation building for at least a year, I have been a proponant of nation building. I'm getting to the point where we need to break things at the megaton level is the only viable solution. The pandering and lack of political will to do what is necessary has gotten us to the point where we must destroy Iran and Syria if we are to live in some form of peace for the next 100 years. All the worries over the poor innocent muzzies is or should be wiped away by the desire for democracy's survival.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/12/2006 22:39
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#10
The sum mentioned comes to about 4% of one year's economic output, which is about 0.8% a year. This is pretty cheap. In WWII, we spent 50% of economic every year fighting the Axis Powers. This means that on an annual basis, we spent over 60 times as much as a proportion of our economy during WWII as during the War on Terror. The casualty count is also way lower - we've taken 6,000 civilian and military dead over 5 years, whereas we took 400,000 civilian and military dead over less than 4 years during WWII.
#11
The cost of our losses on 9/11 was at least $500 billion.
Uniquely skilled people died, buildings were destroyed, aircrafts were lost and others had to be made safer, stock prices went down... Add the increased need for security controls, the time wasted by tens of millions at airports, insurance policies, the economic slow-down, all the people hired to work as security guards instead of building better cars, computers, furniture, etc.
When someone breaks a window, the money spent repairing it could have been used towards more productive or rewarding purposes.
Most of this article is covered in other posts, so I will cut to the interesting part.
In one interview after another, neighbors Muslim and not said they, too, could not imagine how young men they knew could be guilty of the crimes they were arrested for. The people that belong to this mosque, it is not possible they would do these crimes, said Safdar Hussein, imam of the Jamia Masjid mosque in Birmingham. Tayib Rauf, who was one of the suspects, and his brother Rashid Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan and said to be an Al Qaeda operative, reportedly attended prayers there. If the Rauf brothers are guilty, thats an embarrassment to the community, he said. Everyone would be against those people. So who are these paragons of virtue, that "it is not possible they would do these crimes, "
A suspected mastermind of the foiled terror plot to blow up flights between Britain and the US is in jail in Pakistan. Alleged al-Qaeda member Rashid Rauf, 26, is being held over accusations he organised a scheme to commit mass murder by blowing up passenger jets using liquid chemical bombs hidden in hand luggage. Pakistani officials revealed yesterday British-born radical Muslim Rauf was seized near the Afghanistan border on Wednesday. He was arrested outside an Internet cafe after security officials monitoring his movements noticed he was sending unusually high number of text messages to Britain, London's Daily Telegraph reported. Rauf's Pakistani captors named him as a "key person" in the bomb plan and said there were strong indications of an al-Qaeda connection. Accused "Mr Big" Rauf is understood to have lived in Pakistan since leaving Britain after the murder of his uncle Mohammed Saeed, 54, in 2002. The stabbing murder was never solved, and Rauf is wanted for questioning by police over the death. I think Safdar Hussein, imam of the Jamia Masjid mosque in Birmingham, might have some 'splaining to do. Taqiyya doesn't cut the mustard any more.
#2
Those who would do this are not muslims. A muslim could never do such a thing. Whosoever kills a human being is as though he had killed all humanity. And whoever saves a life is as though he had saved the lives of all humanity. Yadda, Yadda. Taquitos.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 12:25
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#5
"Those who would do this are not muslims. A muslim could never do such a thing. Whosoever kills a human being is as though he had killed all humanity. And whoever saves a life is as though he had saved the lives of all humanity."
Well, I think the problem lies in that they don't count all people as "Human Beings". e.g. Women, Jews, Adherents of other religions, adherents of their own religion that the happen not to agree with on a point of religious theory, someone who looked at your wife(s) or child improperly, someone who looked at your property improperly, and any one of a million other disqualifying attributes.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 12:48
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#6
And whoever saves a life is as though he had saved the lives of all humanity
Funny, there was instances when this quote was used in public by french Moderate Muslim Leaders, and each time they actually misquoted the al k'o'ra'n verse from which it is extracted (and which sez that, except for the people who act against islam, basically, who are fair gaime for any kind of violent punishment as per usual k'oran' methodology).
So, either these guys, including the head of the mosque of Paris, are ignorant about the Hadiths(Tm), or they lied on purpose to the infidels, straight to galouzeau "de villepin"'s face.
#7
My gosh, who would have ever thought these fine young men would do something like this. It must have been that the Brits abused their sorry little ungrateful asses. I wish "the good muzzie community" would quit blowing smoke up our asses like we just fell off the god damn turnip truck.
Posted by: N guard ||
08/12/2006 13:18
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#9
And whoever saves a life is as though he had saved the lives of all humanity
The context is Mo addressing the Jews that if they resist "they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.". Not so peaceful when put in context.
5:32 For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty), but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth.
5:33 The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;
5:34 Save those who repent before ye overpower them. For know that Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 13:45
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"Corruption in the earth" if I understood correctly at the time would be "acting against the law of allan", IE not accpeting old mo.
#13
they, too, could not imagine how young men they knew could be guilty of the crimes they were arrested for.
And a substantial portion of the Arab world still cannot "imagine" that bin Laden planned or Saudi perpetrators actually committed the 9-11 atrocity. In the usual routine of swallowing Islamic camels whole and strangling upon Zionist gnats, these same people are just as willing to believe that America's president would order up such an atrocity against his own country, or that out Jewish allies plotted this heinous crime.
We'll leave out any comment regarding the mandatory add-on of "and America deserved it, too."
I think, more than anything, this epitomizes just how unconcerned "Moderate Muslims" are with respect to the jihadist bile being spewed within their midst. Their credulous attitude reflects an unhealthy lack of questioning upon their part (see the swallowing/strangling equation above), an unwillingness to further scrutinize their leadership (back to the old; "one of us is an apostate" problem), even in the face of mounting evidence that their entire religion is being perverted beyond all recognition (i.e., a constant string of Islamist atrocities).
This is why I no longer have any respect for so-called "Moderate Muslims". They have largely become unquestioning participants, silent facilitators or willing proponents of those who seek the ascendancy of Islam. Put another way:
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN 25% OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION WANTS TO BECOME 100% OF ITS RELIGION.
Examine closely the above equation and decide which side of it can be nulled without undue stress to our planet.
#14
I wish "the good muzzie community" would quit blowing smoke up our asses like we just fell off the god damn turnip truck.
Me, too. The problem is: It works! It's also good for internal consumption and seething generation among the fence-sitters and those with extremist tendencies. It's like it's being used as a tool to avoid the inconvenience of being detained or the perceived insult of being under suspicion. "If you don't leave me alone no matter what, I'm going to do my part to generate terrorists!". Duh. It should be "How can I help so we can all get back to normal more quickly?". Smart.
I remember when that Egypt Air flight went down. The only people at the controls were muslim. The whole crew was muslim. The cockpit voice recorder had the crew members fighting that one crazy alternate pilot after he shut down the engines. There was no mistaking the logical conclusion, but all the muslim translators wanted to censor and veil what was said behind some bull$hit "cultural interpretation" of the words that were used. There was an outcry around the world from muslims that it was impossible for a muslim to be suicidal because it was against muslim law. Duh. The seniment was/is nice, that they want to distance themselves from it. I do appreciate that a lot. But I would appreciate it even more if they could own up to the fact that there among all populations there are nutcases, including muslims (belive it or not!) despite what islamic law says. That's why some clever guy recognized a need for the word "insane" long ago. If everybody, especially muslims, could accept this, it would make everyone's job easier.
And two: A big part of this War on Terror is that moderate muslims have to take a little time to understand a few key points about western society. I don't see much being done about that. Or if it is, it's not being done right. Muslims are way too sensitive about just about everything done in order to protect our society. What do they expect? What would an Islamic society do to non-muslims if they were the terrorists? They are lucky they are living here and not the other way around. I think they need some confidence that they are just understandably under suspicion. Even muslims are suspicious about other muslims. The guy who figured this liquid bomb plot out and tipped authorities was muslim. Cool! I also have my suspicions that the vast majority of muslims would have turned the plotters in. The fact that these terror cells are so secretive attests to this. But I don't seem to be getting any implicit understanding or credit for that. There are going to be false arrests, and many are going to be "felony" style arrests because of the risks involved and what is at stake. This has to be accepted. Sometimes the guy doing the arresting is going to have his foot on the other guy's back. Sorry for the perceived insult due to cultural difference, but it has to be this way unless the terrorists decide to play nice. Muslims will have to understand this as much as they ask me to understand their culture.
And yet another thing: There is a segment of muslim society that doesn't want to see Islamic law changed. They have perverted the religion in a way that makes it lawful to take advantage of others, especially females, kids, and non-muslims. They like it that way and don't want to let go of it. Those muslims who I am talking about know what I mean, and they won't talk to it directly with anyone but those who share their views. There are others who in allowing things to change to be more the way it was intended would have to admit that the corner of islam that they grew up in is full of $hit. Taking care of this aspect is going to have to be part of the solution, too.
#16
ed, that's almost word for word what the CAIR spokesman said on Fox this morning. He also tried to run the ole' "These were poor, marginalized Muslims". The Fox interviewer smacked him down with the facts that most of these were middle-class and better.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/12/2006 18:53
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That's nice to know Deacon, we're hearing more stories of people in the MSM starting to call a spade a spade. Also check out the thread on the Robert Spencer interview for more good news.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 19:01
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#18
Like what President Lincoln supposedly said: you can fool some of the people all the time...
What evidence do you have that Islam, the religion, is not 100% aligned with what Islamofascists are doing?
Personal experience. I am acquainted with a lot of muslims. I don't claim to know everything about the culture. I don't by any means. But I know enough to know which end goes up!
Iran is pressing Shi'ite militias to step up attacks against the U.S.-led forces in Iraq in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Lebanon, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq told The New York Times in an interview.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad also told the Times in Baghdad on Friday that Iran may foment even more violence as it faces off with the United States and United Nations over its nuclear program in the coming weeks. The newspaper reported on the interview in Saturday editions.
The remarks echoed those Khalilzad made to reporters on Tuesday in Tikrit, where he raised concern that the war in Lebanon could threaten U.S. interests in Iraq.
"The region is very much interconnected. What happened in Lebanon affects things here," he told reporters in Tikrit during a ceremony with the 4th Iraqi Army Division.
"Iran ... has some forces here. There is the possibility that they might encourage those forces to create increased instability here," he said.
Khalilzad told the Times Iranian incitement had led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, now the seat of the Iraqi government and the American Embassy.
Western security advisers said on Friday there had been a recent spate of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, the Times said, but it was unclear whether anyone was wounded or killed and a spokesman for the American military, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, declined to provide details.
SPLINTER GROUPS
According to the ambassador, the Shi'ite guerillas behind the recent attacks are members of splinter groups of the Mehdi Army, a militia created by the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Those groups are tied to Iran as well as Hizbollah, he told the Times.
Khalilzad said that while there was no proof Iran was behind any particular militia operations in Iraq, there was evidence Iran is pushing for more attacks, although he offered no specifics, the Times said.
"Iran is seeking to ... encourage more pressure on the coalition from the forces that they are allied with here, and the same is maybe true of Hizbollah," he was quoted as saying.
Khalilzad insisted, however, that the most powerful Shi'ite leaders in Iraq had not yet pushed for more violence against U.S. troops, despite Iran's desire for them to do so.
"Generally the Shia leadership here have behaved more as Iraqi patriots and have not reacted in the way that perhaps the Iranians and Hizbollah might want them to," Khalilzad said.
In the interview, Khalilzad said Iran could stoke more violence among Shi'ite militias as the end of the month approaches. A U.N. Security Council resolution gives Iran until August 31 to suspend its uranium enrichment activities or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
"The concern that we have is that Iran and Hizbollah would use those contacts that they have with groups and ... use those to cause more difficulties or cause difficulties for the coalition," he told the newspaper.
CBS News announced in the spring that [Mike] Wallace had retired as a regular "60 Minutes" correspondent, although he would still be available for special interviews.
Wallace said he nearly fell out of his chair when Ahmadinejad told him, "I hear this is your last interview."
or maybe Ahmadinejad knows something the rest of us don't
#1
Of Ahmadinejad, Wallace said, "He's an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart as hell."
Wallace, is apparently, easily impressed. Kind of like Dan Rather being impressed with Saddam. What about this dictatorial little twit impressed you Mike? Was it his Hitlerian demeanor and aspirations? His desire to exterminate the Jews?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 16:06
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I wonder if anyone would notice if Mike Wallace gave just one more interview before the 22nd, just to let the world know that Ahmadinejad's fortunetelling abilities may not bee as good as he thinks.
#9
What Iran does NORTH KOREA tries to do or emulate as close as possible, and the NorKors have already admitted or inferred to having nukes. Iran is hell-bent for regional and later global empire, which isn't gonna stop whether Iran formally announces it has nukes on 8/22 or other. Neither will the attacks on Israel.
In December 1968, Israeli commandos destroyed 13 aircraft of Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines, at Beirut airport. Why? One of the two Palestinians who hijacked an El Al jet five months earlier had lived in Lebanon. The message then was what it would be for the next ten years: Lebanon must disarm the Palestinians. But its fragile government knew that Sunni Muslims, as well as its leftists and Arab nationalists, would resist any attacks on Palestinians. The Palestinians were their defence against the armed Christian establishment. So the Lebanese faced a choice: destruction by Israel or self-destruction through civil war.
Lebanon's postponement of a decision cost it dear: years of Israeli artillery fire, commando raids and aerial bombardment that displaced thousands of Shia Muslim villagers from the south to the new slums on Beirut's outskirts. In 1975, civil war finally came, without weakening the Palestinian commandos as Israel had hoped it would. Three years later, Israel attempted to put this right by invading southern Lebanon, but still it failed to disarm the Palestinians. In 1982, it went all the way to Beirut to expel the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Thus, a new enemy was born: Hizballah, who took up arms for the occupied Shiites of the south. Any Israeli soldier who served in Lebanon will tell you that Hezbollah was an adversary more tenacious than the PLO had ever been. It took 18 years and a thousand dead soldiers before Israel conceded defeat and left.
Now Israel is back to face down a Hezbollah that would never have existed but for its 1982 invasion. It is a safe bet that Hezbollah will be strengthened by this experience. Its popularity was waning because it supported the Syrian presence in Lebanon when all other Lebanese wanted Syria out. As soon as Syria's last troops departed in April 2005, Hezbollah found itself isolated. It was trying to manoeuvre itself into a better relationship with the other Lebanese, but it had a lot of ground to make up. Now rescue has come in the form of Israel's bombardment.
Hezbollah's harshest critics, including many Christians, tell me they are supporting the Shia militia as the only armed force resisting the Israel onslaught. In a way, Israel has made Hezbollah's case against disarmament for it, showing that the Lebanese army cannot protect the country but dedicated guerrillas can fight back. Far from isolating Hezbollah, Israel has simply made its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the most popular man in the Arab world.
Hezbollah started this battle with Israel when it captured two Israeli soldiers - in order to trade them for Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons (taken just as illegally over an international border) and to support the Palestinians under attack by Israel in Gaza. Hezbollah's alliance with the Palestinians comes from its roots. Many of its first militants, before they got religion, had been trained by Palestinians. After the PLO left in 1982 and the Palestinians of Lebanon were disarmed, Hezbollah became their primary protector. When another Lebanese Shia Muslim militia, Amal, attacked the Palestinian camps in the mid-1980s, Hezbollah sided with the Palestinians - not only against fellow Shias in Amal but in opposition to its backers in Syria. Only Hezbollah takes up arms on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, but all of Lebanon is paying for it.
Fifty years ago, CIA agents were finding their way in the newly independent Middle East. One of them, Ray Close, has written how his attempt to stage a pro-American coup Damascus in 1957 forced Syria into the Russian embrace. His colleague Wilbur Crane Eveland delivered money to Lebanon's president to rig the 1958 elections; and Archie Roosevelt (son of Theodore) tried to buy Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Eveland's machinations led to the civil war of 1958, and Nasser ridiculed the CIA by spending the bribe money to build a tower in Cairo known universally as Roosevelt's Erection. Close, whose own forebears were missionaries in 19th-century Lebanon, has embraced a new mission: to prevent imperial adventures by the US and its Israeli client that devour the innocent and invariably fail.
In a recent open e-mail, Close wrote: "One of the definitions of madness is the repetition countless times of the same action, always expecting a different result. For more than half a century, the Israelis have been applying the tactic of massively disproportionate retaliation to every provocative act of resistance attempted by the Palestinians, expecting every time that this would bring peace and security to all the people of the Holy Land. Every single time they have done this, it has backfired. Every single time [his italics]."
Today, Israel is conveying the same message to Lebanon's government as in 1968, 1973, 1978 and 1982: disarm the guerrillas or face destruction. Yet Israel knows that the Lebanese government can no more disarm Hezbollah than it could the PLO. Now, as before, Muslim soldiers would refuse to obey orders to attack their co-religionists, the army would collapse and civil war would follow. Instead, Lebanon is living with the alternative: Israel's annihilation of Beirut airport, the country's road network, telecommunications systems, army bases, water supply and power stations - the entire infrastructure that the country rebuilt when the civil war ended in 1990 - and the slaughter of hundreds so far of its citizens.
What will Israel's latest adventure leave in Lebanon apart from angry and unemployed recruits to Hezbollah with new grievances against their neighbours to the south? What reason is there to suppose that the old actions will prompt a different reaction? What is the definition of madness?
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006
10:43 ||
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#1
Hezbollah exists because of Iran. Period. Poor Lebanese Shiites can't support a terrorist group. Without Iran, no Hezbollah. And who brought Islamist Iran into existence? We have Jimmy Carter to thank.
Charles Glass seems to think that Muslims are a bunch of noble savages provoked by an evil West into righteous responses. The reality is that there are a lot of poor people in the world. Most of them aren't terrorists. What Muslims are doing isn't all that new - it's an attempt to exact tribute by means of carefully applied violence. Muhammad himself showed the way by organizing a bunch of caravan bandits into one of the largest empires the world has seen. These guys are just trying to expand the realm of Islamic empire and exact tribute from the non-Muslim rabble. Glass seems to think that Muslims are static actors responding to what the West does. The reality is that they are dynamic actors working to reshape the world in their image. Inside every Muslim isn't a Charles Glass struggling to get out.
#2
After the PLO left in 1982 and the Palestinians of Lebanon were disarmed...
hmmmm...then who's shooting all the weapons (small and heavy) in Ein El-Hellhole? I call BS. Also, the Leb prisoners "illegally" transferred across national borders? If Lebanon were to actually, say PUNISH, criminals, perhaps the Jooooos wouldn't have Lebs in their jails. Nice moral equivalence.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:05
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#3
I think the fundamental problem with Charles Glass's analysis is that he views military prowess and endurance in battle by upstart forces as evidence of justifiable and righteous grievances. The reality is that military prowess has nothing to do with the justice of a cause, underdog or otherwise. Genghis Khan wasn't any better or worse than the potentates of the gigantic powers surrounding Mongolia. He was just a better military leader than they were.
The Chinese weren't uniquely oppressed or poor as people go when the Communists took over. The PLA was just stronger than Kuomintang forces, which had been shattered fighting a long, exhausting war against the Japanese. The fact is that a war is a contest between two sets of leaderships and peoples. Israel could not prevail in Lebanon because its people (and by extension, its leadership, since Israel is a democracy) were weak, not because Hezbollah was some invincible force given strength by justifiable grievances.
#4
He's right, like causes have like effects. The question is the verity of the first statement. If the first part of a conditional statement is false, the overall statement is true regardless of the truth of the second.
#5
"Three years later, Israel attempted to put this right by invading southern Lebanon, but still it failed to disarm the Palestinians. In 1982, it went all the way to Beirut to expel the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Thus, a new enemy was born: Hizballah, who took up arms for the occupied Shiites of the south."
There is a tall assumption here that Hezbollah was entirely the fault of the Israel invasion into Lebanon. I might appear that way in hindsight, it is pure speculation unless one can show that warnings of this were issued prior to the invasion, any more than it is pure speculation to suggest Hezbollah would not have been created to counter the Palestinian influence in Lebanon.
We knew there was a Sunni Shiite schism in Iraq. Did we know how that would react in 2003? In hindsight, yes, but at the time, no.
Can we extract in either Lebanon or Iraq how much of this unrest is the work of third party outsiders who would be active no matter what Israel or the US does today or did do in the past?
It is a valuable discussion but placing blame in hindsight is just superficial.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 12:29
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j: There is a tall assumption here that Hezbollah was entirely the fault of the Israel invasion into Lebanon.
This isn't just a tall assumption. It's a moronic assumption. Iran has been spending big money mobilizing Shiite terrorist groups throughout the Arab world. The attack on the Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979 was carried out by Shiites with backing from Iran's mullahs. The problem with doing this in most Arab states is that they had well-organized and centralized security forces that could take down these terrorist movements even in cases where Shiites were the majority. Except in Lebanon, which was overrun with militias and occupied by Syria, which supported whichever terrorist movement would make the most trouble for the Israelis. Which is why Israeli invaded Lebanon. Funny how Charles Glass never mentions Syria's role in supplying both the PLO and Hezbollah as its cat's paw against the other Lebanese factions. But then again, he lives in a fantasy world in which Muslims are the good guys engaged in what he views as a holy jihad against the West.
#7
...his attempt to stage a pro-American coup Damascus in 1957 forced Syria into the Russian embrace.
I'm sure that the Soviets were just innocently hanging out, doing nothing when Syria just flew into their arms.
ZF: It's worse than assuming that everyone else is a static actor. These sorts of arguments presuppose that the US and Israel are the only sources of evil in the world. Everyone else lives in some sort of pre-Edenic paradise and any evil in their society must be caused by some ripple or another of American or Israeli action.
#8
He's right, like causes have like effects. The question is the verity of the first statement. If the first part of a conditional statement is false, the overall statement is true regardless of the truth of the second.
Perfesser, pardon me, but you're an idiot.
If any part of a conditional statement is false the entire statement is false.
That is a mathematical fact.
A-B does not equal A+C if A, B, or C=0
Like causes may have like effects, but more often than not they have dissimilar results.
A more efficient statement might have been as follows,
A attacks B, B fails to respond in a comprehensive manner and A continues their attacks, C decides that B does not have the resolve to suppress A ruthlessly (enough) and thus begins attacking B as well finally provoking a response from B. At this stage D decides that B's response has been "disproportionate" and that B must acquiesce to A and D's demands and calls for a ceasefire. E, who has been on B's side for quite awhile decides that it doesn't have the stomach to stand up to D, caves in, and forces B into a ceasefire effectively giving A and C a de facto positive resolution to the equation.
#11
The real madness underlying our approach to fighting terrorism is the assumption that the terrorists' sponsors can hold us accountable for our foreign policies, but we can't hold them accountable for their terrorist attacks. The reality is that we can hold them accountable - and when we retaliate in a serious manner (i.e. kill significant numbers of people), they back off. The problem is that our leadership isn't wired for retaliation, it's always got be about "a new world order" (Bush I) or "freedom" (Bush II). Thanks to Bush II, we have gotten two democratically-elected Islamist governments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. What are the odds that elections will continue once GI's depart those respective countries?
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
10:13 ||
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Convoys of Hizbollah trainees drove to Syria, boarded aircraft at military airbases, and flew off to Iran... The Hizbollah prisoners know that their hero status in Lebanon will be short lived, and that eventually the Lebanese Shia community, the backbone of Hizbollah support, will be called to account. For that reason, many Hizbollah employees are sending their families to Syria, an exile that may prove permanent.
If this is true, then 1) Syria's going to get a bit crowded, and 2) the Alawites aren't going to be happy about it.
A bizarre video of Britney Spears belching and ranting at her husband has shocked fans worldwide.
Well, I'm certainly shocked. Britney Spears? Less than a model of probity and intellect? I'd never have guessed...
The pop star - who appears whacked out confused as she speaks to the camera - moans about being ugly and whinges at husband Kevin Federline while eating what appears to be takeaway chicken and chips.
Mmmmmm! Kentucky Fried! Keeps you from having that gaunt look, like Mother Sheehan has...
She also moans that she has "missed out on life."
Traded her youth for filthy lucre, did she? It happens to all of us. We start out with the same amount of youth and end up with different amounts of filthy lucre, but the trade's made in every case...
When pushed further on the topic she says, quite irrationally: "Things! Y'know! Huh? Where've I been? Huh? I wanna drink at home! Have you seen Back to the Future?"
"I wanna be eight years old again, instead of sitting here eating greasy chicken with a male model or a dancer or whatever the hell it is you do. I don't wanna have stretch marks..."
The dishevelled girl on camera is a far cry from the megastar fans once knew, when she had a string of chart hits and a glamorous lifestyle.
If she got a couple tatoos she'd pass unnoticed in a bit part on COPS.
The video, which has already been seen by two million people on the internet in the past few days, reveals Britney burping, scratching her legs incessantly and rambling about random thoughts such as time machines. The 24-year-old, who is seven months pregnant and mother to baby Sean Preston, says she believes travelling through time is a possibility. Referring to the film Back To The Future, she asks: "Is that possible? To time travel...? Yes it is Kevin. I think other people are ahead of us."
"Or behind us. If they can travel through time they can be whenever they wanna be."
Federline, who is not seen in the video, replies: "Maybe, but they wouldn't tell the world. Can you imagine how many people would go back and change s***?".
Maybe they have. Maybe we're actually living in the better alternative.
The pop star, who is wearing a baseball cap and vest, also says: "I'm ugly. My jaw hurts."
I don't think I want to touch that one at all. Maybe Kevin should buy a kinkajou...
As she let out an enormous burp, her husband tells her: "Dude, we're going to do clips of you burping."
Video at the site show a pretty girl starting on the downslide of youth and beauty with an IQ in the dull normal range. I suspect that when her looks are gone she'll become a political activist...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006
10:12 ||
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I suspect that when her looks are gone she'll become a political activist...
#2
With all due respect, does this belong on Rburg? I thought the Powers That Be decided to get rid of the fluff pieces...
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 11:02
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since Fred did the inline comments, I'd say YS is wrong
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:05
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Someday I'm going to write a history of the war. One of the things our grandchildren will be interested in when they're forced by their teachers to read up on these times will be what the rest of the world was doing while serious young men and women were trying to fight off an evil and implacable enemy.
I'll probably used the Shattered Nation graphic a lot in the next couple weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006 11:11
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#5
Heard this yesterday. White Trash Hall of Fame material.
#8
I'd still hit it...if she'd keep her mouth shut
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:42
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Frank: I'm suprised.
You realize we send the _ugly_ ones off to Hollywood to become "singers," right?
Posted by: Phil ||
08/12/2006 12:54
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The purty ones are sent to Nashville to become "singers".
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 12:58
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I dunno. The only purty singers I know of from around here are local performers noone else has ever heard of...
Posted by: Phil ||
08/12/2006 13:12
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I think part of the equation is that the Big Media Conglomerates _want_ weak-willed no-talent white trash types to be their stars because they want people who will be both pliable and totally dependent on them for their lot in life.
So all we wind up seeing is airwaves, both video, radio, and coaxial, filled up with 24 hours a day of vacuum being pushed at us.
Posted by: Phil ||
08/12/2006 13:15
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I dunno, somehow the studio system was that, but past stars were more behaved, at least publically, being on leash from their studio. Nowadays, it seems we've got the worst of both studio systems and post-60/70's independent stars.
#14
I was thinking of Faith Hill (Mississippi). But then I am partial to her since she is a dead ringer for my first love. Oh, the regrets we have from our youth.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 13:49
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With all due respect, does this belong on Rburg?
#16
For a tattoo, she would have to get "fart-wings", alternatively known as the "cashier's stamp", and the "mark of the FSGA" (Future Slave-Girl of America).
That is, the "winged" lower back tattoo that can be exhibited by low cut pants.
via The Corner at NRO
I welcome the resolution adopted yesterday by the United Nations Security Council, which is designed to bring an immediate end to the fighting sparked last month by an unprovoked terrorist attack on Israel by Hizballah, a terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria.
Preach it, Brother!
The United States and its allies have been working hard since the beginning of this conflict to create the conditions for an enduring ceasefire and prevent armed militias and foreign-sponsored terrorist groups like Hizballah from sparking another crisis.
Yesterday's resolution aims to end Hizballah's attacks on Israel and bring a halt to Israel's offensive military operations. It also calls for an embargo on the supply of arms to militias in Lebanon, for a robust international force to deploy to southern Lebanon in conjunction with Lebanon's legitimate armed forces, and for the disarming of Hizballah and all other militia groups operating in Lebanon. These steps are designed to stop Hizballah from acting as a state within a state, and put an end to Iran and Syria's efforts to hold the Lebanese people hostage to their own extremist agenda.
Can I get an AMEN??
This in turn will help to restore the sovereignty of Lebanon's democratic government and help ensure security for the people of Lebanon and Israel.
The loss of innocent life in both Lebanon and Israel has been a great tragedy. Hizballah and its Iranian and Syrian sponsors have brought an unwanted war to the people of Lebanon and Israel, and millions have suffered as a result. I now urge the international community to turn words into action and make every effort to bring lasting peace to the region.
"Put up or shut up, Kofi and assorted Arab councils. We are once again giving the UN one last chance to ACT on its resolutions."
And also giving us time to deploy more troops in Iraq, where Hezb'allah have been actively working with al Sadr's militias to try to bring down the government. We're pressuring them, but the heat needs to be turned up if we aren't going to lose what we fought and bled for over the last few years. Iran wins an important tactical victory if they are able to destroy Lebanon and Iraq's governments. AS ALWAYS, the goals of the civilized nations are more complex than the simple destructive goals of the barbarian raiders and the plotters who use them. That's the nature of this conflict and it won't go away quickly. We need to be in it for the long haul, with sufficiently broad aims so that win for real.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006
10:00 ||
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#1
You know, I'm a voter. Aren't you supposed to lie to me and kiss my butt? Ghostbusters II
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Aliens
#2
Ahhh but the devil's in the details isn't it? What will be the mechanism for disarming the Hezzies? And what of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, the original casus belli? The UN is once again blowing smoke. For shame, Mr. President. It appears that after almost 5 years, the Bush Doctrine is just so many words...
#3
"These steps are designed to stop Hizballah from acting as a state within a state, and put an end to Iran and Syria's efforts to hold the Lebanese people hostage to their own extremist agenda."
I don't give a candy-coated crap what the resolution is "designed" to do: what matters is what it WILL do. Which, as far as I can tell, is absolutely nothing.
Get the goddamn lead out of your ass, Bush, and FIGHT this fucking war for a change instead of farting around with the UN and its feckless dithering.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/12/2006 11:21
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#4
The sleezeallahs won through this resolution. The "axis of ignorance" managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in this Hezzballah reload agreement. What stupidity on the part of the West. There will be no peace and no ceasefire. If we can't help the Israelis fight the WOT, we should stop meddling in their affairs. This is appalling. We are stuck on stupid. Did I miss something in the last few days. Did we win the WOT while I was out? Or did we capitulate?
#5
I hear y'all, but I'm not so sure. I think Bush knows perfectly well the resolution isn't likely to do what needs doing.
BUT ... he has the UN on record now - no vetos, no abstentions. That is more leverage then he or Israel had a couple weeks ago.
AND ... he has put on the public record an interpretation of events he intends to measure their response against.
It's frustrating to do it this way. But we aren't invulnerable, alas, to EU regulatory gaming of our export industries, or to the disastrous results of a major global economic meltdown trigged by Chavez and Ahmadinajad blowing up the oil ports etc. He's got to, I think, try to bring along both the EUs and those like them here at home. And he has China and Russia at least officially on record. That means that when there is an 'accidental' bombing of the Chinese embassy again, or whatever, the public denunciations will only go so far ....
Dave D. wrote: farting around with the UN and its feckless dithering.
I think Bush really DOES believe in the UN, all evidence to the contrary. He said as much in the plod up to the start of the Iraq invasion, and if he has done one thing it is that he says what he means and means what he says.
#8
You really want a full litany on that NS? Should we maybe start with Jimmah's "beat us, we deserve" sanctimonious sacrifice of US interests to Ahmadinajad a couple decades ago?
#11
Olmert lost absolutely INVALUABLE time in the way he conducted his war against Hizb'Allah. He needed to use overwhelming, disproportionate force and let the IDF encircle and cut off Hizb'Allah from reinforcement and resupply. The UN is still playing with the facade of evenhandedness. The UN has been an ENABLER of terrorists in south Lebanon for almost a generation now.
One thing that we have been doing is losing the PR war. Terrorists, with the help of the MSM, have been winning it. If you are going to win this war, you have to dominate the battlefield, which includes all fronts.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/12/2006 12:14
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#12
The spineless twit babbles. Thanks for handing the Israelis asses over to the U.N.
They will be about as effective as the ICRC was in Germany during WW2.
#13
Thoth, don't you think the Israelis did that themselves under Olmert? Just askin.
We HAVE been doing a lot for them - not just diplomatically but logistically, huge amounts of jet fuel etc. Olmert pissed it away, or so it looks from this corner.
#14
Yeah, Olmert did piss it away. I should probably just shut up on the subject, becuase I am pissed off over it, and will probably say things I later regret. With that in mind, maybe it's just best for me to be mum on the subject.
#18
I think that President Bush is trying to salvage the dog's breakfast that Olmert made. There is a reason why Olmert had to call Bush and why the conversation only lasted 8 minutes. Because of Olmert's indecisiveness, the IDF has lost its aura of invincibility and Hamas has emerged as the only Arab entity to ever stand up to the IDF for more than a week or two. Bush cleared the way for the IDF to go in and smash Hezbollah. Olmert the Spineless frittered away the opportunity of a generation. The blood of the innocents that will die in the future is on his feckless hands. This is an object lesson of what can happen when Liberals make war, think John Kerry, think Al Gore.
#19
No don't need to go back to Jimmah, just look at the present circumstance.
This is without doubt, Israel's worst wartime performance. Any idea as to why? Did we keep the leash on too tight? Is Olmert/Halutz as bad as I think? Is Hezb'Allah that good? Is there sufficiently more that we don't know to change our minds?
#20
Because the Israelis did not think their existence was at stake like in 1973, 1967, 1948.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 14:23
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#21
Ed nails it, I think.
Did we keep the leash on too tight? Is Olmert/Halutz as bad as I think? Is Hezb'Allah that good? Is there sufficiently more that we don't know to change our minds?
From what I've read, we had to URGE Olmert to take the opportunity. Might could be he never wanted to respond militarily to the killings/kidnappings at all.
Re: Hezb', if Israel was indeed surprised by the depth of the bunkers and the very modern C3 equipment in them, then yeah, they are equipped better than was thought, better dug in and more heavily trained. If that's the case then Israel may well have not thought their existence was IMMEDIATELY threatened, and figured they could send a message to Iran without a full ground war and occupation.
May be too late, in which case only an international force has any chance of giving Israel a respite, assuming (and they are BIG assumptions) that a) Israel clears out southern Lebanon pretty well first and b) the force is actually gonna do its job.
Okay, I did say they were big assumptions .... but Israel really CAN'T reoccupy Lebanon and hold it. And if they tried, they would be playing right into Iran's trap.
As for us, I suspect we may have relied a lot on Mossad estimates for all that, because our Arabic and Persian speaking reliable data gatherers are stretched thin w/ Iraq and a lot of other issues.
#22
Ahhh but the devil's in the details isn't it? What will be the mechanism for disarming the Hezzies?
There is none, doc. This, as with all other cease-fires is a hudna and nothing else. Bush is breathing his own exhaust to think otherwise. As leroidavid so aptly stated the situation last Thursday:
How can Bush says that "this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation", and at the same time, put pressure on Israel to delay its offensive, and plan an awful deal at the UN rewarding the Islamic fascists of the Hezbollah ?
All this is incredible.
We are confronted with the hideous spectacle of our politicians willingly turning this conflict into a quagmire. To summon forth the well-beaten and thoroughly deceased equine quadruped, THIS IS NOT ANOTHER VIETNAM.
In Vietnam the Vietcong were supplied by China and Russia, both of whom we could not retaliate against in any effective fashion. Without differentiating between Israeli and American interests (see leroidavid's comment if you are unclear on this), this time around we have a golden opportunity to take the facilitators to task. Syria, and especially Iran, must be held to accounts for their role in furthing this regional bloodshed. Unlike China and Russia, these two rogue nations can be bombed back to the stone-age and deserve it in spades.
How Bush can claim to be fighting terrorism and simultaneously attempt to restrain Israel's attempts to do the same goes beyond comprehension. LEBANON VOTED IN A TERRORIST GOVERNMENT, JUST LIKE THE PALESTINIANS.
It is time to pay the piper for populations that are stupid enough to glorify or legitimize terrorist regimes. What other honest message can we send such unrepetant cultures? We have now reached a point where we must either bow to Islamists as having the unassailable right to wage asymmetrical war against the West or simply begin the wholesale slaughter of them and those who provide them haven. Israel knows and has always known the answer. Why is it so hard for us to finally purchase a clue?
#23
"Why is it so hard for us to finally purchase a clue?"
a) Wishful thinking;
b) 9/11 wasn't enough to get us out of our easy chairs;
c) The perfidy of the *SPIT* loyal opposition;
d) OBL was absolutely right about us: we are soft, corrupt, decadent and fickle;
e) The triumph of what I call "process people" over "results people";
f) Getting distracted by interim goals to the point of losing sight of the objective;
g) Terminal Timidity; and
h) All of the above.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/12/2006 16:31
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#24
LEBANON VOTED IN A TERRORIST GOVERNMENT, JUST LIKE THE PALESTINIANS.
Not quite true. One heavily Shia area voted in some Hezb'allah representatives. Most of the country didn't.
And that's what makes it hard to decide exactly when a country as a whole crosses the line into complicity.
For me it was when Siniora failed to denounce Hezb'allah and basically conceded that he had neither tried nor would try to restrain them. Still, until the attacks I suspect that many Lebanese took the easy way out when bullied by Hezb'allah, but didn't like it, aren't armed and had no reason to believe that a government still heavily under pressure from Syria would back them up if they resisted. That's not heroic, but it's not quite the same thing as supporting HB either.
We gotta do what we gotta do, but I do think there are more or less innocents getting harmed in Lebanon. I just don't know of any other way to get them out, given the utter failure of the UN after the Israeli withdrawl.
#25
Thank you for clarifying, lotp. It is omelet-making time. Whose eggs would you rather have being crushed? This is the only real question of consequence confronting us at the moment. Innocent or not, people who have terrorists in their midst must now be made to realize that is something that carries a price tag. We can no longer coddle those who refuse to act against terrorism. Unarmed or not, there are significantly greater measures uncooperative populations can take to resist those who put them in harm's way. I refer you to the Danish resistance against the Nazis. A small country like Denmark successfully hobbled the Nazi war machine. If the Danes could do it, so can the Druze or Lebanese Christians. If they want to sit back and watch without actively detrimenting the terrorists, they had better be ready to catch some shrapnel.
#26
"For me it was when Siniora failed to denounce Hezb'allah and basically conceded that he had neither tried nor would try to restrain them."
Siniora is weak, and he allowed himself to be blind-sided.
Reuters put out Lebanon as saying 'no' to the initial proposal. 'Lebanon' turned out to be Hesb'Allah and Syria's ally, Nahbi Berri.
Siniora has also been out-flanked and out-spoken by Syria and Iran. Oh, he complained about it, but it was half-hearted.
As for omlet-making, the smart eggs left before and during the civil war. What leadership there is, are either beholden to the Syrians, their own ethnic groups, or their clan. The rest of the populace are either tired of war or fatigued. Likely why the Cedar Revolution could not even depose the current adminstration.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
09:46 ||
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think he knows he's been outed?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:51
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Now that he's been outed, Frank, he needs to INcarcerated as a war criminal. Funny how the Germans are on top of this story and we see Nada in the American MSM.
Security officials trying to protect America's airliners face a twin battle: stopping bad stuff and stopping bad people. Most of the focus has traditionally been on stopping bad stuff, and that is a big challenge. Distinguishing good water bottles from deadly ones will never be easy.
So increasingly, security experts think the nation needs to focus more on stopping bad people. Much of the work to stop potential terrorists must occur before they ever walk into an airport, aviation experts say. "By the time you get to the security checkpoint, chances are you've lost the battle," said Douglas Laird, an aviation consultant who once headed security for Northwest Airlines.
But U.S. programs aimed at identifying threatening people have been mired in controversies and setbacks including privacy protections, technology troubles and old-fashioned management fumbles. Secure Flight, the Homeland Security program that is supposed to check passengers against a comprehensive terrorist watch list, is the most troubled. The program has been in development for three years and is nowhere close to being put into practice.
On the flip side is the Registered Traveler program to identify the good guys through advanced background checks and speed their trip through security so that screeners can focus on lesser-known travelers. But it, too, has been delayed and derided in some circles as a waste of resources.
A third initiative, behavior recognition, tries to identify suspicious people at the airport. But the idea languished for years amid concerns about racial profiling. In recent months, the Transportation Security Administration made progress, developing a screening system it believes can avoid those minefields. The program is still at just a handful of airports.
To be sure, no matter how good these techniques get, they are meant to complement physical screenings. After discovery of the plot to mix bombs with liquid explosives, the TSA has barred passengers from carrying on most liquids and gels. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday that the policy would be modified, but he didn't specify how.
Now that the ban on liquids is in place and the threat has been publicized, relaxing it will be tricky. Several experts say they will not be surprised if it sticks. "I'm quite confident it will lead to a permanent ban on liquids," said Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security who is now at the Aspen Institute. "This is apparently as close to 9/11 as we've come since and I think we're going to see some permanent changes, and we should."
Bad people can, theoretically, be identified once they are at the airport. By assessing a person's body language and travel details, screeners can make a quick judgment on the threat level.
The TSA has a program in place in a few airports to do that now. Called Spot, or Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, it involves specially trained security officers scrutinizing people in security lines and elsewhere in the airport.
#1
OMG, tell me it's not true. Are these witless fools finally going to start looking at Muzzie males instead of strip searching grandmothers from Sheyboygan ? I think I'm going to have a spasm.
#2
Note that at least one of the UK plotters is a white convert. Not a big trend yet, but the networks are trying hard to recruit them specifically to get around profiling.
A graduate student from the University of Central Florida remains missing Saturday after he was pulled underwater by a large sea turtle, according to Local 6 News. Officials said Boyd Lyon, 35, vanished Thursday afternoon about three miles north of the Sebastian Inlet and 400 yards out to sea, sheriff's officials said.
The student was apparently tagging turtles as part of a UCF research project. "The person was onboard a Boston Whaler with other students when a large turtle pulled the victim underwater," Local 6's Bob Frier said.
The Coast Guard from the Fort Pierce, Fla., station is conducting the search with assistance from the Brevard County sheriff's helicopter. Turtles - why do they hate us?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006
08:49 ||
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#2
Gamera -- my favorite deep-sea terror creature! I loved how the rockets came out the back holes of the shell. Though those two insufferable Japanese brats in the movies needed to die painfully, of course ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006 11:58
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BP PLC announced it would keep one side of the Prudhoe Bay oil field open as it replaces corroded pipes, enabling it to funnel up to half its previous output and avert a larger crimp in the nation's oil supply. BP had previously said it would have to completely shut down the nation's largest oil field after discovering a leak nearly a week ago.
The company said Friday it decided to continue supplying oil out of the western side of the field after reviewing 1,400 ultrasound inspections on five miles of the 22-mile pipeline and discussing the matter with federal and state regulators.
BP said it will monitor the pipeline around the clock and use infrared cameras from the sky and the ground to detect small leaks. It will run a high-tech "smart pig" device through the line by November to search for weaknesses in pipe walls. "With greatly enhanced surveillance and response capability, I am confident we can continue to safely operate the line," BP America Chairman and President Bob Malone said in a statement.
The company said it is currently producing about 150,000 barrels of oil and natural gas per day from the western side of the field, but hoped to reach about 200,000 barrels a day.
The natural gas accounts for between 11,000 and 12,000 barrels of the total. Before the discovery of the leak, BP was pumping as much as 400,000 barrels a day out of the entire field, 8 percent of the nation's domestic output. BP also said it was looking at ways to restore some production from the eastern side of the field, subject to approval by federal regulators.
The cost to repair and replace leaking pipelines at Prudhoe Bay could be about $170 million, BP spokesman Neil Chapman said. That was an early, rough estimate for the current repairs and for cleaning up a major oil spill in March.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
07:49 ||
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#1
I wonder if the Smart Pig is nicnamed Arnold and if not, why not?
Ehud Olmert accepts the ceasefire resolution proposed by the UN Security Council. Reuters says "world powers agreed on Friday on a U.N. resolution to end four weeks of fighting between Israel and Hizbollah.... Draft resolution was set to be unanimously approved by the Security Council later on Friday.... Lebanese government accepted the draft.... Israeli official said the Israeli army would not stop its offensive until the [Israeli] cabinet met on Sunday to consider the resolution..... Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would ask his cabinet to accept the document."
A Haaretz op-ed sarcastically asks, "after all, why did we embark on the war, if not to ensure that French soldiers will protect Israel from the Hezbollah rocket battery."
Wikipedia's official entry for Benjamin Netanyahu says it is "widely anticipated that a no-confidence vote will lead to new elections with Netanyahu becoming the next Prime Minister of Israel."
Who knows?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006
07:48 ||
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What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.. W. Churchill
#2
There would appear to be a recognition that destroying Hezbollah is impossible without attacking both Syria and Iran. You can expend precious capital from Israel in fighting in Lebanon only to have the leadership and remnants Hezbollah slip into Syria and regroup with arms from Iran. A strategic victory for Hezbollah to be sure. If Israelis are sleeping in bunkers today, we will all be sleeping in bunkers tomorrow.
We are detroying the branch and trunk without destroying the root. All the UN can do is slow the regrowth of the branches while Bush and Condi and Co. figure out how we destroy the roots.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 10:58
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#3
J: If Israelis are sleeping in bunkers today, we will all be sleeping in bunkers tomorrow.
Not likely. Israel can't do whatever it likes for fear of trade and military sanctions. Uncle Sam can. It is by far both the largest market and the strongest military power in the world. The only hope our enemies have is that we won't revert to WWII style rules of engagement. That depends on how many of our people end up dying. The higher the friendly body count, the fewer the restrictions on how we destroy the enemy.
You know how liberals always worry about the fate of enemy civilians? They'll stop doing so if they have to risk their lives under a universal draft. Restrictive rules are for when someone other American is risking his life. Note that George McGovern was involving in incendiary raids over Germany in which millions of German civilians were killed.
#4
John,
Bush, Condi & Co. can't figure out how to 'destroy the root' - because the American people won't accept it. A large chunk of the population believes Bush people engineered this week's airline bomb threat. Lieberman was beaten. The opposition to the Iraq campaign has now risen to - I think - a majority. There's no way this Congress will authorize an attack on ANY other country. Maybe after the next 9/11 (or worse), but I'm not even confident about that. And the Islamo-fascists know it.
#5
The question is whether the 15,000 will have teeth or mearly monitor the return of Hezbulla.
OTOH if Hezbulla doesn't accept then Isreal can say they tried and unleash the hounds.
#6
Nasrallah was on Al-Jizz just now saying they'll observe the cease fire ...AFTER all them Jooooos are out of Lebanon. Cribdeath will be the verdict on the ceasefire
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:19
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IDF operations in Lebanon continued to expand on Saturday. Israeli government officials said IDF operations would not stop until the IDF's goals were reached, despite the passage of UN Security Council resolution 1701. Let's hope they will expand it so much that South Lebanon will become a huge Hezbollah graveyard...
Early Saturday, the IDF was ordered to take over all areas in south Lebanon from which rockets have been fired at Israel. It's about time !
Defense Minister Amir Peretz, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and senior IDF officers visited the Northern Command headquarters in Safed overnight Friday in order to oversee the beginning of the IDF incursion meant to carry out the government's order.
According to the IDF, troops were advancing north and west in south Lebanon toward the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from Israel. Taking the territory would take several days, the army said, following which the IDF would operate in the area to remove the terror infrastructure and to destroy rocket launchers.
According to Northern Command Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman, the last part of the operation could take several weeks. In an interview with Israel Radio on Saturday, Friedman said the IDF could expand its operations past the Litani if it was ordered to do so by the government, and emphasized that the IDF would continue to operate in south Lebanon until the cabinet gave different instructions.
A senior IDF source said on Saturday morning that the army believed the operation to clear launchers from south Lebanon would last several days. Senior government officials reportedly have said that the IDF could succeed in taking all the territories from which rockets had been fired despite the short timeline given to continued military operations by the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
On Friday, as many as 40,000 troops were still massed on Israel's northern border. It was not immediately clear how many of them would join the fighting in Lebanon.
Israeli officials expressed satisfaction with the resolution, and the government was scheduled to vote on the cease-fire at its weekly cabinet meeting Sunday morning.
As of early Saturday morning, the IDF was still engaging Hizbullah in south Lebanon. Troops advanced northward from the security zone they have been occupying there, headed for the Litani River. IDF forces have killed at least 20 Hizbullah fighters in Saturday fighting, the IDF said. There were media reports of IDF casualties in fierce gun battles raging in south Lebanon, but no confirmation was immediately available from official sources.
The IDF began a widened operation in south Lebanon after Wednesday's cabinet decision that authorized the army to carry out a massive ground offensive "to deal with the Hizbullah positions in south Lebanon, from which barrages of missiles continue to be launched against the Israeli civilian population," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "Our action does not exclude a diplomatic option," Regev said before the Security Council vote. "But... it is incumbent upon the government to defend its citizens."
According to military sources, close to 70 percent of the Katyusha rockets raining down on Israel are fired from just south of, and north of the Litani river. It is in these parts of Lebanon that the Hizbullah's Nasser Unit is waiting with thousands of fighters and functioning command and control centers.
IDF sources said that even with a cease-fire in place, Israel should try to improve its position militarily - to push to the Litani to drive back Hizbullah and push its rocket launching capabilities from away from the northern border.
#3
Don't just blame the politicians. Halutz was a putz for saying that everything could be achieved with air power. There is still time for a good outcome provided that Israel continues with the push to the Litani. The UN resolution gives them the wiggle room to carry on for a while longer.
I'd just about rather be tarred with Benedict Arnold than that SOB.
Aftermath
What become of Maj. General Horatio Gates himself? After the militia broke and fled, Gates soon followed. Some reported that he did attempt to rally the retreating militia, but to no avail. What can be said is that Gates was in Charlotte, North Carolina, sixty miles away by the evening of August 16 only hours after the battle. He was in Hillsborough, North Carolina, 180 miles away, by August 19.
You called it. "bunch of bull" is exactly what this war on Hezbollah has been. Raise your hand, if you agree that this "final push" is just a face saving gimmick by Olmert.
#10
And so it is written, "and a little cow shall lead them".
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 14:06
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#11
Raise your hand, if you agree that this "final push" is just a face saving gimmick by Olmert.
The comment elsewhere to the effect that the UN resolution and Bush's statement are an attempt to extricte Israel from the total mess Olmert has made ... rings true to me.
Israel has nearly tripled the number of forces in Lebanon as part of its expanded ground war in Lebanon, and expects to fight for another week, despite a UN cease-fire deal, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said Saturday. Maybe has Olmert decided to win the war... That would be a good news...
The army chief said Israeli troops would stay in Lebanon until an international force arrives.
U.S. forces raided a funeral gathering and detained 60 men suspected of links with an al-Qaida cell blamed for a spate of car bomb attacks in Baghdad, the U.S. command said Saturday. If only we would learn to cluster bomb al-Qaida funerals and cut out the need for jailers and undertakers.
The arrests in Baghdad were the first major roundup of suspected insurgents since U.S. reinforcements started streaming into the capital last week as part of a new crackdown on violence. A statement by the U.S. military said the arrests were made Friday in Arab Jabour, a southern neighborhood of Baghdad and a stronghold of Sunni insurgents.
The 60 detained men are believed to be associated with a senior Iraqi al-Qaida leader in a cell that "specializes in bomb making," the statement said. "The group has been reported to be planning and conducting training for future attacks," it said. "Multiple forms of credible intelligence led the assault force to the location, later determined to be a funeral gathering, where the suspects were detained."
Women and children were separated from the men and the arrests were made without incident, the statement said without giving any details.
In an interview with the New York Times published Saturday, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Iran was instigating Shiite militias to step up attacks on U.S. forces in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Shiite Hezbollah is backed by Iran. Iran's prodding has led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone, the compound that houses the main components of the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, Khalilzad was quoted as saying.
The Shiite guerrillas behind the attacks are members of splinter groups of the Mahdi Army, he said. The newspaper quoted unnamed officials of the Sadr Organization as saying that rogue elements of the Mahdi Army are not under their control and carry out attacks without guidance from al-Sadr. That excuse got buried with Arafat.
"Iran is seeking to put more pressure, encourage more pressure on the coalition from the forces that they are allied with here," Khalilzad was quoted as saying. U.S. Embassy officials were not immediately available to confirm Khalilzad's comments.
The extent of Iranian involvement here has long been the subject of debate within the U.S. military and civilian establishment. Privately, some senior U.S. officials are skeptical that the Iranian government is doing more than providing money to select Shiite groups. Others insist the Iranians are providing weapons and training to some Shiite factions. The increase in attacks on the Green Zone also followed a coalition crackdown on Mahdi Army elements in Basra, Mahmoudiya, Musayyib and Baghdad.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
07:31 ||
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#1
the military arm of the Mahdi army?
that's REALLY lame
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:08
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#2
U.S. forces detain 60 at Iraq funeral
Avout Damn Time.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 9:20
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#3
I have just got to stop posting Pre-Coffee.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 9:22
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#4
"The extent of Iranian involvement here has long been the subject of debate within the U.S. military and civilian establishment. Privately, some senior U.S. officials are skeptical that the Iranian government is doing more than providing money to select Shiite groups. Others insist the Iranians are providing weapons and training to some Shiite factions."
Oh please. The freakin shaped charges have Tehran stamped all over them. No one with half a brain disputes what the Iranians are doing in Iran and have been since the war started. Iran has always been a bigger problem than Syria, IMO. If there is one focus on the shortcoming of Rmmy's limited troop strategy it is that there were not enough troops to secure the borders. Major screw up as far as I can see.
#6
Not so sure about a "surge" in indirect fire at the IZ, but in the past few months (well before Lebanon) there was a return to intermittent fire (frequently duds and usually hitting anything in particular). And recent love notes have in fact came from novel parts of town.
Too tired, otherwise would post an article about the current second phase of the B'dad security operation, only to point out that what we're now doing in B'dad should probably have been done long, long ago (and elsewhere, as needed). Surrounding troublesome areas and systematically clearing them. Is this rocket science?
I could be all wet, but if I'm not some analysts and historians with access to all the command reasoning and direction from above should be able to do some devastating stuff on how - at the tactical level - we've fought this one. Greatest military that ever walked the Earth, but looks like there has been some major malfunction in the most basic decisions here.
Israeli warplanes launched wide-ranging airstrikes and sent commandos into the Hezbollah heartland Saturday while the U.N. raced to begin enforcing its new cease-fire blueprint and stop the fighting. Airstrikes killed at least 15 people in one Lebanese village. Israel also blasted a highway near Lebanon's last open border crossing to Syria as it kept up its full-scale campaign against Hezbollah militants. Long columns of Israeli tanks, troops and armored personnel carriers streamed over the border.
The U.N. plan approved on Friday night would create a peacekeeping force by combining a beefed-up version of the ineffective U.N. units already in the war zone and 15,000 troops from the Lebanese army. The contingent, which could number around 30,000 soldiers, would stand between Israel and the Hezbollah militia.
Israel's Cabinet meets Sunday to approve the U.N. plan. Lebanese officials signaled that their formal backing could come Saturday. Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said Israel has nearly tripled the number of forces in Lebanon and expects to fight for another week despite the cease-fire deal. He said Israeli forces apparently about 30,0000 now would stay in Lebanon until an international force arrives.
Israel has demanded an airtight buffer zone and wonders if U.N. and Lebanese forces are up for the task. A small U.N. military presence now about 2,000 soldiers have been in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon since 1978 and have been overwhelmed by the Islamic group's rising power, aided by
Iran and Syria.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice specifically cited Hezbollah's two sponsors in a statement Friday for all parties to "respect the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and the will of the international community." But the resolution, approved 15-0 in the U.N. Security Council, did nothing to immediately halt the fighting that erupted exactly a month ago and has claimed more than 800 lives. Details of fighting at link.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006
07:26 ||
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#2
Condi seems to have contracted a bad case of wishful thinking. (I saw her interview by Sean Hannity last night.)
Posted by: demoralized in DC ||
08/12/2006 8:22
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Condi's job is to make the US look like it is willing to adopt a solution that doesn't target all Muslims unfairly. Or, more specifically, that doesn't destroy the progress towards a responsible indigenous Lebanese government -- which progress Hezb'allah wants to destroy as much as they want to destroy Israel.
NEW DELHI, AUGUST 11:For the first time, Sharad Pawar has admitted, on record, that he had deliberately misled people following the 1993 Mumbai blasts by saying there were 12 and not 11 explosions, adding the name of a Muslim-dominated locality to show that people from both communities had been affected.
Spilling the beans on what became an ill-concealed secret in later days, but had never been said openly, Pawar said he had to quickly find a way to stop Mumbai from going up in flames and this was the ploy he hoped would keep Hindus from retaliating.
The step was pre-meditated as only shortly before making the announcement about the 12th blast that never was, he had been informed of 11 coordinated blasts in the city in March 1993, all hitting Hindu majority areas.
Speaking to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTVs Walk the Talk, which will be broadcast tomorrow at 7.30 pm, Pawar, who was Maharashtra Chief Minister at the time said he had anticipated clashes between Hindus and Muslims and he had to prevent that from happening.
I went on TV and deliberately misled people. Instead of 11 explosions I told 12 and one of those areas was Masjid Bunder, dominated by minorities, Pawar said.
And then at the Air India office, where the first explosion had occurred, Pawar came up with another deliberate fudge to prevent riots.
He had said then that from some of the material used in the blasts, it appeared that terrorist groups south of India were behind themhinting at the LTTE.
The NCP president, who is Agriculture Minister in the UPA government, conceded that questions were indeed raised in the party on this step. He was in the Congress then and had been sent to Mumbai by P V Narasimha Rao to put the city back in order in the wake of the riots that had led to a sharp polarisation between Hindus and Muslims after the Babri Masjid demolition.
Pawar said the polarisation of those days was creeping back after the July 11 train explosions. The bombs had been planted in first-class compartments of the Western Railway suburban line to target those from the higher salaried sections, as very few Muslims would be in those compartments.
It was because of this that there were similar experiences like 1993 after things had turned around for Mumbai and it was behaving like a cosmopolitan city.
The Minister, whose NCP is a partner in the Vilasrao Deshmukh government in Maharashtra, praised the police after the latest attack on the city but was critical of the state governments role following the blasts. There was tremendous scope to improve, he said.
In his interview, Pawar praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs handling of the nuclear issue on which he is facing opposition from the Left and the BJP.
He said the discussions with the US are not final and if there was any indication of India being dictated to on the nuclear deal, he believed Manmohan Singh would withdraw from the scene.
In his estimate, the PM could not be compared to Indira Gandhi who was also party president, he said, but was nonetheless a visionary and an administrator. He is a fit person to run a coalition government and each MP and UPA member is clear about his integrity and wisdom, Pawar said.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006
07:15 ||
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The plot to blow up US-bound airliners is becoming known as 'Bojinka II,' since it is nearly identical in scope and method to Operation Bojinka, which was foiled in 1995 by Filipino authorities.
But Operation Bojinka II, thwarted by the British authorities at the end of an intelligence-led operation which started in December, 2005, differs in some aspects from the original Operation Bojinka of 1995.
Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad had planned Bojinka 1995 as a timer-triggered operation and not as a suicide mission. They had planned to select US-bound flights from South-East and East-Asia with an intermediate halt. The terrorists chosen for the operation were to leave the plane at the intermediate halt after concealing the timed improvised explosive devices inside life-jackets.
Operation Bojinka II was planned as suicide missions to be undertaken by the terrorists on direct flights from airports in the UK to different destinations in the US.
The second difference is that Ramzi and Khalid had planned to have the liquid explosive smuggled into the aircraft in containers used for keeping contact lens cleaning solution. The planners of Operation Bojinka-2006 had planned to have the liquid explosive smuggled into the aircraft by having it concealed at the false bottom of cans used for keeping power drinks.
The idea was that if the airport security asked them to consume some of the power drink before them, they would have had no problem doing so.
Operation Bojinka 1995 involved using a mixed group of Pakistanis and Arabs, with Ramzi and Khalid, both Kuwaiti residents of Pakistani origin, providing the leadership.
Eighteen of the intended suicide volunteers for Operation Bojinka II are reportedly British citizens/residents of Pakistani origin -- the majority of them Punjabis and some Mirpuris from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, whose parents had migrated to the UK when their land was taken over by the Pakistan government for the construction of the Mangla Dam.
All the Pakistani-origin suspects are Sunni Deobandis. There was also one White convert to Islam in the group of plotters -- Umar Islam, 28, (born Brian Young) of High Wycombe.
According to sources in the Pakistani police, some of the 18 persons of Pakistani origin detained by the British police in connection with the investigation had traveled to Pakistan after the earthquake of October 2005, to work as humanitarian volunteers in the relief camps run by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the mother organisation of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in the Balakote area of the North-West Frontier Province.
These sources say that during their stay in the relief camps, they were taken by the Jundullah, a Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisation which is close to Al Qaeda, to its training camps in the Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan for training. They later returned to the humanitarian relief camps of the Jamaat.
The police sources also say that before returning to the UK, they had visited the jail in Sindh in which Omar Sheikh, who masterminded the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, is imprisoned, while he awaits the trial on his appeal against the death sentence imposed on him by a lower court.
Jundullah is a new jihadi terrorist organisation, which started operating in the Karachi area three years ago. It was involved in an abortive attempt to kill the corps commander of Karachi in 2004.
Its involvement was also suspected in a suicide car bomb explosion near the US consulate in Karachi on March 2, in which a US diplomat was killed. This explosion took place on the eve of the visit of President George Bush to Pakistan.
Maitur Rehman, a 29-year-old Pakistani from Multan in Punjab, is reported to be the present amir of Jundullah. He had previously served in the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an anti-Shia terrorist organisation, and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami.
Two of the suicide bombers involved in the 7/7 London blasts of last year were also reported to have met Omar Sheikh in jail during their stay in Pakistan. It is important to have Omar Sheikh interrogated outside Pakistan by independent intelligence agencies.
Since the 7/7 London explosions, the British authorities have been keeping a watch on British citizens/residents of Pakistani origin visiting Pakistan in order to check whether they might had any contacts with Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations and Al Qaeda during their stay there.
It would appear that it was during such enquiries in December last year that their suspicion fell on one or more of the persons involved. Subsequent enquiries led to others and to the ultimate discovery of the plot of Operation Bojinka 2006.
Reports in the British and American media indicate that the decision to arrest all the suspects under watch was taken following indications that these suspects were planning to undertake a dry run for the operation by traveling by different flights to the US in order to test the airport security measures before undertaking the operation.
Pakistani and British officials have indicated that tip-offs from Pakistani authorities on the basis of the interrogation of two unidentified persons arrested recently in Karachi and one person arrested in the tribal areas adjoining the Afghan border also played a role in the successful and timely discovery of this plot.
While British officials say that all those involved have been identified and taken into custody, US officials claim that there are still five persons who are at large.
While Pakistani officials have definitely cooperated with the British in the investigation of this plot, the extent and nature of this cooperation is not known.
According to the police sources, Pakistani authorities apprehend that the interrogation of the arrested persons in the UK might bring out that they had links with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and this could create an embarrassment for them.
As a precautionary measure to avoid any allegations from the West of inaction against the Jamaat and the Lashkar, General Pervez Musharraf ordered the police on August 9 to place Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the amir of the Jamaat, under house arrest for one month. They are hoping that by that time the British investigations would show whether the arrested persons had any link with the Lashkar. If no evidence of such link turns up, he is likely to be released from the house arrest.
The continued involvement of members of the Pakistani Diaspora in the UK in acts of terrorism committed or planned against Western targets poses a dilemma for the British authorities.
While General Musharraf has been providing to the Western countries all the assistance they require after a particular plot has been detected, he has not been acting against the flourishing terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory. How to make him act against Al Qaeda and others without endangering his own position in the army, that is the question they keep asking themselves.
They do not realise that the continuing presence of Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory is the only guarantee for him to ensure his continued importance in the eyes of the West. He will continue to follow his present policy of feeding and sustaining the terrorists and sacrificing only those whose terrorist activities are detected by the West.
Unless and until they act against Musharraf, they will have no respite from acts of jihadi terrorism originating or inspired from Pakistani territory.
B Raman
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006
07:08 ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 10:34
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#3
As a dumping ground for the trash? (Criminals, etc)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 10:34
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#4
Musharraf is a necessary evil. If truly democratic elections were to be held in Pakistan today, jihadists would win, and someone like Osama bin Laden would be in charge. We can only have so many fronts open at a time.
To understand what happened during the last month, we need to consider several questions.
(A) What Israel needs re Lebanon?
(B) What is the opposition Israel faces?
(C) How quickly it can be accomplished?
What Israel needs is: (i) to hold South Lebanon up to the Litani = defensible border, and
(ii) freedom to retaliate/preempt terror attacks from the rest of Lebanon.
The opposition = (i) Lebanese & (ii) the rest of the World.
The last includes our only ally USA, for two reasons.
(i) USA has plans for Lebanese democracy (won't work any better than Iraqi democracy, but...).
(ii) USA has a, not just ideological, interest in survival of Israelbut not in Israel
powerful enough to be independent of USA.
The process simply cannot be accomplished in one stroke (vide Iraq where US military
won in a few weeks, and been bleeding for 3 years. Or, for that matter, the first (1982)
IDF incursion into Lebanon).
Now, what IDF managed to accomplish under the "incompetent" leadership of Olmert?
The Lebanese
(a) South Lebanese
As the 1982 - 2000 period shown, Israel cannot hold South Lebanon with its population.
Right now, the population is mostly gone, and their support infrastructure is
being systematically destroyed in the process of Hizbi hunting.
(b) Rest of the country.
Suffered a significant degradation of its infrastructure and will require significant international help
to rebuilt. And given Arab (Muslim or Christian) venality, we are talking (i) huge sums and
(ii) fighting over the loot (there is also a minor advantage of less money for Paleos).
Rest of the World.
One of Israel's principal enemies, MSM, suffered a significant loss of credibility.
Another, the UN, appears to be a winner now, but once it confronts the realities on the ground ...
Bush's administration suffered more than a little embarrassment caving in to the Fwench.
This being an election year, I expect to see a competition between Rep & Dem as to
who is more pro-Israel.
To summarize, Israel will start the next round (does anybody here doubts there's going to be a next round?) with some advantages.
#1
g: USA has a, not just ideological, interest in survival of Israelbut not in Israel
powerful enough to be independent of USA.
Israel can't be powerful enough to be independent of the US. Not in a world where it needs foreign weaponry and trade to keep its defense and economy going. Not unless it can magically generate another 70m Israelis in a hurry. Germany and France can be independent because of their large populations. Not Israel. No one's going to embargo either country. Israel is such a nit that it's an easy target for arms and trade embargos.
#2
the US should refuse to pay for rebuilding the south leb infrastructure. F*&k em. They support Hezbollah, they can live in rubble
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:30
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Yep, fix it yourself, the expense will keep you poor and weak for a long time, maybe poor and weak enough that you can't afford any further troublemaking for a good long time.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 10:10
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#6
?? HZB can shot against Israel UNIFIL will make nothing. Israel cant answer back
because those nice yelow HZB flags with Blue flags at 50m will be out of reach. External interventionism will even increase more pressure in Israel. Every time the "international community" pressures only makes that to those that are easier to be pressured.
#7
I'm sorry, but I just can't give any credibility to the view that Olmert's dithering was part of a grand scheme. No Israeli would consciously start out to diminish the reputation of the IDF and elevate Hezbollah to equal status with the IDF. Perhaps the title is intended to be ironic. In any event, Olmert won't be in power for more than a month or two after the ceasefire begins. He has committed political suicide by fighting a hesitant, halfhearted war. The IDF is now viewed as beatable and that is not good for the future of Israel and Israelis.
#8
I don't do exact quotes, because I have no memory, but IIRC, Napoleon once said never to assume incompetence was automatically malice and willful intent.
#9
US support is an article of faith for Israel. They know full well that the only reason that Israel survived the Yom Kippor War was the unqualified support given by Richard Nixon. One of the main reasons it has survived since then was the nuclear arsenal developed shortly thereafter and the blood money the US has paid for the past 30 years to neutralize Egypt. The annual economic and military aid along with the special status given to Israel for military technology helps too.
#10
Olmert is a perfect example of why you don't want a socialist, leftist, or lawyer running things. He does not have the support of the IDF members and will be gone in 2 months time.
He has allowed Iran and Syria through Hizb'allah to claim an Arab/Shite victory against Israel. It doesn't matter that they are surounded in rubble this has impact in the tribalist mind. They beat Israel. Israel is now less safe. The US is in a weaker position in Iraq. This is a huge screw up and it's impact will be felt for years. Hizb'allah was allowed to win by Olmert's half actions and incrementalism.
#12
Time will show whether Olmert is a genius. I'm not convinced now.
It would be interesting to run an experiment: let Israel try to stand completely independent of the USA. Fortunately, experiments like this cannot be run.
Alliances go both ways. We support Israel, and in return, we expect Israel not to sell their advanced technology to enemies of the USA - like AWACs for China.
#13
Lebanon = Syria = North Korea > US-the West needs to ascertain the true intent of these nations' top leadership or influential elites vv IRAN-CHINA. In any case, I doubt Dubya will allow or support any scheme which does not finally halt the shelling/terror agz Israel, nor allows Radical Iran + war/terror-centric Islamist fundamentalism to dominate any ME Muslim nation regardless of like or dislike for Israel.
(West Virginia) The Washington County Sheriffs Department in Ohio has arrested two men for their involvement in what police say could be aiding terrorists, and one man linked to them could have been doing the same in Taylor County.
Last week, the Grafton police pulled over 24-year-old Hashem Sayed for a routine traffic stop. But what they found in his car was far from routine. Patrolman Daniel Laymon recalls the scene, "There were multiple cell phones, roughly 150 to 200 cell phones from multiple retailers," he said. Buying that many pre-paid phones is not a crime, but the police say it is unusual.
It's just the fall-out from revealing the NSA program. The jihadi sleepers here were ordered to buy up a bunch of pre-paid cell phones which, with no records of ownership, are more difficult to trace. Betcha the NYT doesn't care.
Less than a week later, the authorities in Marietta, Ohio, arrested 20-year-old Osma Sabhi Abulhassan and 20-year-old Ali Houssaiky. Washington County Sheriffs deputies seized several pre-paid cell phones and thousands of dollars in cash. Because of the incidents, Grafton police believe the events are connected. "The department feels that there are a lot of similar circumstances and there are a lot of similarities between the activity there and the activity experienced here," said Patrolman Laymon.
The activity seems to be more than just a coincidence. All three men are from Dearborn, Michigan and all three gave similar reasons for buying the phones. Sayed said he was buying them to ship to California to sell for a profit. But Washington County's sheriff says that may not be the whole truth. "They are digital for detonating car bombs and they have a particular digital frequency and that's what they're using them for," said Sheriff Larry Mincks.
There's a sinister second use.
Mincks says the men also had instructions on how to obtain private flights and airplane passenger information. "It also had some information concerning airport security and check points."
He says the two men apprehended in Ohio are linked to another man who is being investigated for possible terrorism. Now, police across the state have a warning for residents. "Not that it's a crime," said Grafton Police Chief, Robert Beltner. "But we can check into it to make sure nothing illegal is going to take place with those phones."
#1
I'm starting to think it's just a matter of time before remotely-controlled car bombs start going off in the USA. The only thing lacking is the accumulation or generation of explosive materials. Multiple simultaneous explosions in crowds would be as demoralizing as 9/11.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:33
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Are you kidding ? There is no lack of explosive materials. They have just not yet been ready to take this step. But due to their superior intellect, they will. They can't resist once seething reaches a critical level. I'm going to re-zero two of my scopes today at 400 yds. Got some new loads to try out also.
#4
I suddenly became physically ill thinking about the beneath the surface implications of this, i.e., the possibility of a major terrorist campaign similar to the infatada within the U.S.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/12/2006 15:38
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#7
Sayed said he was buying them to ship to California Pakistan to sell for a profit.
Change one word and suddenly everything crystallizes.
Mincks says the men also had instructions on how to obtain private flights and airplane passenger information. "It also had some information concerning airport security and check points."
Yoohoo, BIG RED TRUCK! If this doesn't raise all sorts of neon-colored warning flags then law enforcement is brain-dead. These perps need lengthy and exhaustive interrogation. A free trip to Gitmo, some federally build sub-standard housing with federally supplied sub-standard room mates would seem in order as well.
#8
Coding tags, why do they hate us? Preview is my friend.
Sayed said he was buying them to ship to California Pakistan to sell for a profit.
Change one word and suddenly everything crystallizes.
Mincks says the men also had instructions on how to obtain private flights and airplane passenger information. "It also had some information concerning airport security and check points."
Yoohoo, BIG RED TRUCK! If this doesn't raise all sorts of neon-colored warning flags then law enforcement is brain-dead. These perps need lengthy and exhaustive interrogation. A free trip to Gitmo, some federally build sub-standard housing with federally supplied sub-standard room mates would seem in order as well.
#9
From a story I uncovered about the first two Dearborn yutes... "Houssaiky's mother is an employee of Jordanian Airlines at Metro Detroit Airport," said Subhi. "It was her car that the two were riding in and the papers were related to her work."
Still and all... why would SHE bring that kind of work home with her? I don't see a legitimate reason for that kind of paperwork to leave the airport.
BRITISH police claim to have found a "martyrdom video" in which one of the 24 British Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to destroy up to a dozen passenger aircraft sets out his reasons for joining the planned suicide attack. British officials said the damning evidence had been found in the home of one of the suspects, who include a 23-year-old biochemistry student and a Heathrow security guard with an all-areas access pass. The guard was in his airport uniform when he was arrested and led away in handcuffs.
The suspects are mostly of Pakistani origin but two are white converts to Islam. Abdul Waheed, 21, changed his name from Don Stewart-Whyte six months ago after growing up as the son of a Conservative Party official. Neighbours said Waheed, whose father died when he was 14, had abandoned a life of drugs and alcohol when he became a Muslim, and was working as a salesman at an electrical store.
Another convert, 25-year-old Oliver Savant of east London, had changed his first name to Ibrahim. Each of the converts grew a beard, shaved his head, began wearing white robes and married an Arabic or south Asian Muslim woman. Waheed, of High Wycombe, west of London, and Savant were arrested on Wednesday night as hundreds of police swooped to head off what they allege would have been a deadlier attack than the 9/11 World Trade Centre disaster. Most of the suspects were described by neighbours as devout Muslims.
Another two of those arrested in High Wycombe were named as cricket-loving brothers Amjad and Assad Sawar. The brothers, in their 20s, are married and live in a semi-detached house with their wives and parents. "They used to play football with everybody down the park up until about three years ago," one neighbour said. "Since then they have been very quiet."
Other neighbours said the men had recently shunned their local mosque and had started to wear more traditional clothing and visit an Islamic bookshop. Witnesses in Birmingham said they saw up to 20 police chase two brothers, who ran away but were caught.
British officials said they acted after learning that the 24 men were planning to conduct a "trial run" as soon as this weekend and that, if it worked, they would have gone ahead within days and blown up a number of packed holiday-season flights to the US. Police have not yet found any explosives or chemicals but a US congressional source told reporters the plotters planned to mix a British sports drink with a peroxide-based compound to make a potent explosive that could be ignited with an MP3 player or mobile phone.
Pakistan announced that it had arrested two British men of Pakistani origin in Lahore and Karachi last week to help break the plot and said it had provided crucial information to help British investigators. The Pakistani Government, which is keen to improve its reputation for fighting terrorism, also said it had detained the head of the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba. However, it was not clear if that was directly related to the British plot. US officials said money had been sent from Pakistan to the ringleaders, several of whom had visited Pakistan. Britain froze 19 of the suspects' bank accounts, which reportedly hold suspiciously large amounts of money.
The alleged plot led to a security clampdown on Thursday that forced the cancellation of 600 flights at London's Heathrow airport alone. The knock-on effect at other airports disrupted the travel of more than 400,000 people. Police say the plot involved taking liquid chemicals on board as hand luggage and using them to make explosives. Security officials responded with the tightest-ever crackdown on hand luggage, which will continue for some time.
American officials said the plot was the most serious terror threat to the US since September 11, 2001, with President George W.Bush saying it was a reminder that his country was "at war with Islamic fascists". US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the scheme had been "really quite close to the execution phase".
"The conception, the large number of people involved, the sophisticated design of the devices that were being considered and the sophisticated nature of the plan all suggest that this group that came together to conspire was very determined, and very skilled, and very capable," Mr Chertoff said.
Despite a long-running investigation, intelligence agents had learned only in the past fortnight that the targets would be flights to the US. Mr Chertoff said the plan had many of the characteristics of an al-Qa'ida operation - a so-called terrorist spectacular aimed at multiple targets. The plotters are believed to have studied the timetables of three US airlines - American, Continental and United - and to have planned to attack flights to New York, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The ABC television network in the US reported that five suspects were still at large. However, British police insisted they had detained all their known suspects. Home Secretary John Reid said he had imposed the country's top level of security warning as a precaution in case there was some unforeseen back-up plan to launch another terror raid.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006
00:30 ||
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#1
Can we not shoot these SOBs and just short circuit the martyrdo thingy? Can they not be convinced that martyrdom just ain't what it used to be? There is a shortage of virgins, mansions in the sky, and beds for the mansions.
#4
These guys believe that profiling does not happen. What are the probabilities that Oliver might have made it on a flight, but Ibrahim gets a second look? As long as Al Qaida trains their western converts to take an arabic fascade, they will have limited sucess.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 10:38
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Paris Hilton got no love this week from her pet kinkajou Baby Luv in fact, the racoon-like animal bit her. The heiress was not badly hurt but did visit a hospital emergency room to receive a tetanus shot, her publicist, Elliot Mintz, told The Associated Press on Friday. Hilton was frolicking with her exotic pet early Tuesday morning "the way some people play with their cats and dogs" when the animal became excited, Mintz said.
"So how'd ya get bit on the butt, Miss Hilton?"
"I was frolicking with my kinkajou."
"Yep. That'll do it every time."
"Baby Luv bit her. It's a superficial bite on her butt left arm," he said. Hilton, concerned that she was bleeding, called Mintz at 3 a.m., and he took her to the hospital.
"It's 3 a.m. and I can't sleep... Hmmm... I'm out of sleeping pills and the pool boy's gone home. I think I'll frolic with my kinkajou."
"She was seen by a doctor, who treated the wound, gave her a tetanus shot, cleaned the wound and applied something to it," Mintz said. The 25-year-old "Simple Life" star and her publicist left the hospital around 5:30 a.m.
"Remember, Paris: All publicity is good publicity."
"Yeah. Getting bit on the butt by a kinkajou's good publicity. That's why I pay you so much, Mintzy."
Mintz said Hilton's butt arm did not appear to be swollen the next day. Baby Luv was checked out by a veterinarian Wednesday. "I don't view kinkajous as aggressive animals. The same kind of thing could have occurred frolicking with a German Shepherd," Mintz said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006
00:06 ||
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#1
So how's the fishing, Fred? :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006 0:20
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#2
any worries about rabies?
Posted by: Jan ||
08/12/2006 0:38
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#3
Jan,
You, of course, mean the poor kinkajou catching rabies (or something else) from that second-hand mattress of a skank.
#7
3AM call to her publicist cuz she's bleeding from a bite? Life as a publicist sounds like it sux, and working for a high-maintenance Ho like her must be even worse
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 8:02
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#8
Penicillin, not rabies shots, Dreadnought. Better safe than sorry.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 8:11
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#9
Toldja I'll be around now and then. But my posts are going to be on the low end of the intellectual scale. Unless something explodes near me, I'm not following the news.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006 9:16
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#10
The 25-year-old star and her publicist left the hospital around 5:30 a.m.
So? Before goiung to the Doctor she whistled up her "Publicist" then went to the ER and made Damn sure it hit the news.
Bitch.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 9:42
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Posted by: Rick ||
08/12/2006 14:06
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#16
Reminds me of the tale of an NFL player (via Dan Jenkins?), who got word back from his doctor that he had a raging dose of the clap. Thinking quick, he asked the doctor to have a shot ready for his wife when he brought her in.
Then he asked his wife to help him do a home project and "accidently" shot a staple into her hand.
"Oh, gee, honey! I'm sorry! We had better get you to the doctor to get a penicillin shot for that!"
While Fred's gone fishing, the mods (Steve W, Emily, Steve Y, Pappy, Dave and lotp) are going to keep the lights on and the engine running here at the Burg. There's lots of news to cover, and we intend to cover it. A few things, please --
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I may fix one or two links if the mood strikes me. But don't count on my minimal good graces as a substitute for your lack of diligence. I'm the Not-Nice Moderator for a reason.
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Maybe even more so.
Another note: This is Fred's primary set of links to the news you see here every day. Feel free to nose around the links and find us some news. If you ever wanted to Be Fred, this is your big chance!
A big thanks to everyone.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#3
The Rantburg Scimitar-Defender Times-Picayune-Courier-Howler and Intelligencer will mostly be an evening edition, unless I'm inebriated, in which case it may not appear at all.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006 20:11
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Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was being treated Friday evening in the emergency room of Providence Health Center in Waco. Sheehan, who has been on a liquids-only diet for 37 days as part of a fast in protest of the war, was described as being gaunt and pale as she arrived at the hospital. An assistant said Sheehan, who flew to Central Texas after a trip with other activists to Jordan to meet with members of Iraq's new parliament, was being treated for exhaustion.
Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey died in Iraq in 2004 while serving with Fort Hood's 1st Cavalry Division, returned to Central Texas last week, after purchasing a 5-acre tract in the Crawford area. She again took up her vigil in the area of the president's Central Texas ranch, where afternoon temperatures have been at or above the century mark.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006
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#2
Something serious, I hope? We should be so lucky.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/12/2006 0:09
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#3
I question the timing. I think she's trying to distract us from Karl Rove's plot to pretend to blow up planes in order to distract us from Ned Lamont's victory.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/12/2006 0:29
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#7
I'm sorry but can someone remind me why I should care about this duchebag?
I may have become a bit indifferent to the people outside the U.S.A., that I understand, but for some reason I am conflicted about this,schlemel a U.S. citizen. There is no written rule about love thy American citizen is there? Because I wish she would end up in the same hole with the other non infidel duchebags...
I don't hate america but hate some americans... what a frickin delima.
All I know is the states should have the decision. Federal gov. should only pertain to foreign matters as the states are concerned.
#13
they don't have water on her Crawford site, using portapotties too....hope they're all catching something nasty and intestinally debilitating....mmmmmmmmm, full portapotties in the baking Texas sun...... makes me feel pale and gaunt just thinking about the smell
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:35
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#14
IIRC - Smoothie King is the provider of choice in North Texas - had several nearby in Dallas.
#28
My thought exactly ed. She's used to comfortable 70's/80's in the SF Bay area (doesn't she formally reside in Berkley?). Going from what we consider down right chilly here in the South to Crawford, TX is a severe shock to a body (especially one like that, my eyes, my eyes). Upper 90's/low 100's and add in about 250% humidity, and we've actually begun to feel what hell is like down here.
Posted by: BA ||
08/12/2006 23:25
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Apparently, I am not alone thinking that Hezbullah will try to take over Lebanon once the ceasefire sets in
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
WASHINGTON -- For anyone who still thinks the Israeli-Lebanon war is just a border scuffle, one Middle East expert shouts a dire warning:
"As soon as a cease fire occurs, the Hezbollah Blitzkrieg' will crumble the Lebanese Republic of Weimar' and install its own Khumeinist Republic' on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The consequences of such a development are far beyond imagination for the region and the world. Hezbollah would have paved the way for Iran to create the mother of all world threats since Hitler."
So cautions Professor Walid Phares, author of "Future Jihad," a visiting fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels, and a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, the Lebanese-born Phares likens the current Hezbollah offensive in Lebanon to a "putsch" -- with the convoluted aims of reestablishing a pro-Syrian-Iranian regime in Lebanon, reconstructing a third wing to the Tehran-Damascus axis, reanimating the Arab-Israeli conflict, rejuvenating Syrian dominance, isolating Jordan, reaching out to Hamas, crumbling Iraq, and unleashing Iran's nuclear programs.
#3
Almost all of the analysis and opinion I've read, all of the dire assessments and future terror scenarios ladled out, require the continued existence of the regime in Iran.
Hezbollah, Syria, et al - and there are likely tens if not hundreds of small unknown groups of fodder running around playing holy jihadi - all depend upon Iranian money, terror networks, state documents, and military assistance. Remove any of these essential assets and it all breaks down.
Without Iran, it basically dries up leaving only scattered cells of losers. Hezbollah, Syria, independent jihadis - they'd implode to a tiny fraction of their current numbers. And nukes wielded by Mad Mullahs? - down the well with their other dreams and myths. Shia ascendancy - dead.
It's as plain as can be. The Iranian regime must be destroyed and their remnant of empire dismantled into its constituent parts.
#5
If that's clear, then why isn't the answer to your question equally clear?
The 1500 aim points were carefully collected by Pentagon planners, according to Gen McInerney. It wasn't idle activity, it was one of several war plans for Iran.
#6
Don't forget the Saudi-Paki nexus. The plane bombing plot didn't involve any Shiites.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 7:04
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#7
There's no question who will do it, the only question is when?.
As for the Soddies, their turn will come...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 8:27
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#8
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/598877/posts excerpt:
Bernadette warns that a new, big war could break out at the turn of the Millennium. On the eve of the year 2000 a final clash between the followers of Mohammed and the Christian nations will happen. In a horrible battle, 5.650.451 soldiers will loose their life and a bomb with great impact will be thrown onto a city in Persia.
If the original text indeed says thrown onto, it would be a remarkable prediction; only since World War 2, bombs were thrown on cities. Air raids were completely unknown in Bernadette´s time. The great number of casualties leaves no doubt that she referred to a Nuclear bomb.
#11
In all seriousness in regards to the Cedar Revolution,
Good Christ...
I weep for not seeing what was right before my eyes...
So many opportunities lost are staring us in the face in such a stark manner today. We have screwed up royally and now we have to reap the whirlwind of the seeds that we have allowed to be sowed.
Brace yourselves, my friends...the days ahead I fear will be trying indeed...
It's going to work every bit as well as the last Mideast peace deal, I just know it.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Friday that calls for an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and authorizes the deployment of 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.
Read on, and you'll see how dumb this is ...
The draft, which had been proposed by the United States and France, offers the best chance yet for peace after more than four weeks of significant bloodshed.
There's the first lie ...
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the resolution late Friday, after a day of dramatic day brinksmanship including a threat to expand the ground war in Lebanon. But Israeli officials said Israel would not halt fighting until Israel's Cabinet has approved the cease-fire deal in its weekly meeting Sunday.
At which time Olmert just might be deposed as PM.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also assured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his country backed the resolution, a U.S. official said.
As if he matters.
Despite Lebanese objections, Israel will be allowed to continue defensive operations, and a dispute over the Chebaa Farms area along the Syria-Lebanon-Israel border will be left for later. Israel won't get its wish for an entirely new multinational force separate from the U.N. peacekeepers that have been stationed in south Lebanon since 1978.
The short story: nothing changes, except the Hezbies will be seen in the Arab world as having stood their ground.
There is also no call for the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel or a demand for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops. Although the draft resolution emphasizes the need for the "unconditional release" of the two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by Hezbollah sparked the conflict, that call is not included in the list of steps required for a lasting cease-fire.
So the Israelis don't get what they went after at the start: no clear containment of the Hezbies, and no soldiers returned.
At the heart of the resolution are two elements: It seeks an immediate halt to the fighting that began July 12 when Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli troops along the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border separating Israel; and it spells out a series of steps that would lead to a permanent cease-fire and long-term solution.
Oh boy, a roadkillmap! And we all know how good Arab terrorists are at following roadmaps for peace.
That would be done by creating a new buffer zone in south Lebanon "free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL." The force now has 2,000 troops; the resolution would expand it to a maximum of 15,000. Under the resolution, UNIFIL would be significantly beefed up to help coordinate when 15,000 Lebanese troops deploy to the region. As Lebanese forces take control of the south, Israeli troops would withdraw.
The Leb troops are thoroughly infiltrated by the Hezbies so it isn't clear who will control what.
And I suspect UNIFIL will continued to be composed of Brazilians, Bangeladeshis and the Mighty Uruguyans.
A senior U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. and France envision a 10-day timeframe between the moment a halt to the hostilities is declared and the moment UNIFIL troops go into action in the south.
They can't be serious. There is no way you can give the Hezbies ten days to improve their situation and then expect UNIFIL to move them out of the way. The Hezbies will have every incentive to take pot shots at the Israelis and at UNIFIL in that time.
The draft asks Annan to come up with proposals within 30 days on resolving various border disputes including the one over Chebaa Farms. Lebanon had wanted a direct demand in the draft that Chebaa Farms be put under U.N. control.
Which means the UN now has retreated on Chebaa, having formerly noted, correctly, that it was part of Syria all these years. Nice going, Dr. Rice.
"Everyone back in the Peace Processor!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#1
Good enough for government work. Now go destroy Hezbollah.
#6
Israel accepted this pretty quickly. I'll bet the Lebanese take this as a sign that they could negotiate more out of the deal, at the expense of a bunch of Hezzies and a few actual innocent civilians.
#7
So much for not settling for the same old cease fires. So much for reshaping Lebanon and the mideast. So Ali and Amad, show up at the same time tomorrow. Bring you RPGs, you know the really camel ass-kicking one that takes out infidel tanks. Bring the grenades and AK-47. Bring some of the small, easily conceivable rockets too. Nassrah is picking up a load of new shit from our friends in Syria. The jihad is going just as planned. We snookered the West again. They are so easy to manipulate and deceive. Eventually, we will wear them down. We have the American left and the democrats working for us. They don't know shit from Shinola. Oh, and did yoo read the NWTs the other day, we have them in on our side too. They are very sympathetic to our cause. We will win one for the Gipper Allen.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:37
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#10
I figure Condi and Bolton are doing a pretty good job of appearing in public after what has to have been not a whole lot of sleep for the last couple weeks straight, and they still have to function in a high pressure public venue.
Thank the gods for overnight drycleaning. ;-)
Trafficant, on the other hand .... well there's no excuse for that one. ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 11:35
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#13
the other white meat?
Actually, it's kind of a gray-brown - and very greasy. I prefer raccoon. Possum is only one step up from armadillo, which I wouldn't eat unless I was starving.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/12/2006 15:15
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#14
Simpsons episode the kids are stranded, starving on a desert isle and Ralph sez:
"I'm so hungry, I could eat at Arby's"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 15:27
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#15
This just breaks my heart. The free world is at stake here and Condi, who I respect, is giving it all away. We should be helping Israel, not imposing a peace deal. You don't have peace with terrorist orginazizations, you just have a pause so they can rebuild and strike again. Sorry guys it is time to get real here and strike these guys with weapons measured in megatons. Our lives and our kids futures are at stake here. It is time to make it real for the world and make everyone know we are done with this crap.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/12/2006 22:26
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TEHRAN, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) - Iran's conservative Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi vowed Friday to rein in the media as part of a new clampdown on "wicked manifestations in society".
The minister said there too many domestic news agencies in the Islamic republic and that their number needed to be reined in to create more quality and less quantity of news output.
So they'll get rid of the ones that report anything negative about the Mad Mullahs.
He said 11 news agencies were already operating with his ministry's authorization and another eight were awaiting permits. A further 50 to 60 had also submitted applications to the ministry, he added. "I have no choice but to restrict the extent of these things, when the investment has been more in quantity than quality," he said.
Because he's smarter about this than the consumers of the news.
Saffar-Harandi said the move would be part of a wider campaign to revive the values of the Islamic revolution in cultural life. "Unfortunately, we witness inappropriate and wicked manifestations in society today ... But now, you have my word that we will purify the cultural atmosphere," he said in a speech carried live by state radio. "In the near future, we will not witness an unhealthy cultural product among books, movies, shows, music, etc."
It's a 'Back to the Burqa' movment.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#1
"Saffar-Harandi said the move would be part of a wider campaign to revive the values of the Islamic revolution in cultural life. "
A revival is necessary? But I thought everybody just LOVED the Islamic revolution.
" . . you have my word that we will purify the cultural atmosphere,"
Purify? Uh-oh.
"In the near future, we will not witness an unhealthy cultural product among
books,
movies,
shows,
music, etc."
Gotta reign in the Iranian people and make things really, really boring. Of course this doesn't apply to the Mullahs and their gated community Hollywood lifestyles.
We had 60+ comments on this yesterday, so we're continuing this story into today.
JERUSALEM Aug 11, 2006 (AP) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted an emerging Mideast cease-fire deal and informed the United States of his decision, Israeli officials said Friday. Olmert will recommend that his government approve the deal in its meeting on Sunday, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief journalists on the internal discussions.
It was not immediately clear whether Israel's expanded ground offensive would be frozen. Defense officials said it appeared the campaign would be halted.
#3
Olmert Lamont after impressive stupidity and incometence will try save his reputation by making peace. This is the Peace Now people running a military.
#4
Guys, Im curious. Ive been following the blogg for sometime. Most on this site support Israel's campaign in Lebanon, but generally (very) critical of Olmert who is trying to portray himself as a strong and legitimate Sharon alternative. Why such strong sentiments? What did I miss?
#5
ST 9292, if you've been following this site and recent events, then it should be obvious why the strong sentiments - so just say what's really on your mind.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/12/2006 1:40
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#6
Why we pissed at Olmert because he started a war then stopped. When you start a war you get rid of your enemy. When the US went into Afgan Taliban lost power, Iraq Saddam found in a hidey hole. See the diffrence.
#7
Actually this hasn't been so bad. Hezbollah in the past has kidnapped Israelis. Israel's reaction has been to lob a few shells across the border and negotiate an exchange of prisoners.
This time Hezbollah got one heck of a bloody nose. Their Beirut infrastructure was demolished, they took some serious hits in Bekaa, and much of the prepared positions, bunkers, tunnels, and weapons caches were destroyed in the border villages. AND, when it all stops, Hezbollah finds the Lebanese army and a beefier UN force with a stronger mandate in place right in their heartland.
Anyone who trys to portray this as ANY kind of a Hezbollah victory is just playing politics because when you look at the real physical situation on the ground, Hezbollah has lost much.
#9
By the ceasefire deal, Hezbully has been legitimized. It has been adressed as if it were a country, not a terrorist org. The repercussions of this unfortunate stupidity will be felt for a long time. Crosspatch, scroll down to a post called Crystal Ball to see what's in store in the near future. Beyond that see the opinion of Walid Phares in Iran Poised To Be 'Mother of All World Threats'
#10
I agree the Israeli political leadership has been surprisingly irresolute... and the cost has been much higher than it should've been because of it.
Fact: it all pivots on Iran.
I would not be surprised to find that, after Olmert's poor performance became apparent, the US decided to share some strategic plans and told them to back off and take the deal. After all, the little sideplay going on in Lebanon with Hezbollah is only a symptom, not the real problem.
It is a waste of good people to fight a proxy with an endless supply chain and complicit international cover.
The real issue is the Iranian regime. And I believe it is forfeit.
#11
I disagree that Hezbollah has been legitimized. They are not a party to the agreement. In fact, they are only referenced where it is stated they must ceasefire and move above the Litani. The agreement allows Israel to continue operations as long as Hezbollah continues to fight. Even if Israel accepts the agreement, should Hezbollah continue fighting, Israel is not obligated to do a thing, they may continue the fight until Hezbollah is defeated or submits to the terms.
It is a clear defeat for Hezbollah.
"they still have the kidnapped soldiers, though."
It is my understanding that the issue of the kidnapped soldiers will be addressed in another resolution once combat operations have ceased.
#12
Vrospatch, you need to see this from the viewpopint of Middle-East. As far as Hezbollah is concerned--a stunning victory, for in their perverted culture, if you're alive at the end of the fight, you can claim victory.
But not only that. Being degraded only marginally. Hezbollah still remains a powerfull force within the Lebanon context. They will milk that factor as much as they can and get on with their "settling of scores" until they achieve supremacy.
Ahmadinutjob is laughing, meanwhile. He did not need to lift a finger and everything lines up to his advantage.
#14
I disagree that it is a "stunning victory" and isn't even being seen as such in the Middle East. In fact, they are looking at it with apparently quite a bit of sarcasm. Such as ... if Hezbollah is being so victorious, why call for a ceasefire? Why not, if Hezbollah is giving the IDF such a licking, simply continue fighting until the IDF is destroyed? In other words, even Arab commentators are making fun of Hezbollah.
Don't believe that just because the news media says anything short of an absolute destruction of Hezbollah is a victory that it means that is really so. There are quite a lot of people in the region that see it for what it is. Israel was being restrained in order to get a fundamental change in the situation on the ground. That is the overall goal. The idea is to weaken Hezbollah. Sure, if they are not absolutely broken, they will claim some kind of victory, but as the days and weeks go by and the toll of the hammering their infrastructure took becomes felt, they will be increasingly seen to be in a weaker position.
Christian, Druze, and Sunni factions have not taken this hammering, nor has the Lebanese army. So Hezbollah has been weakend physically in relation to these other elements. They have been set back. They have defended Lebanon not one bit. Israel was able to do exactly what they wanted to do whenever they wanted to do it. As I type this, the IDF is on a mad rush all the way to the Litani. They will probably be there within 24 hours or less ... they might even be there now. Reporters on the border say they have seen more helicopters cross the border just tonite than in the entire duration of the war combined. The IDF is putting troops deep inside Lebanon tonite.
Any "victory" for Hezbollah will ring hollow in reality.
#15
To put it another way, Hezbollah has defined "victory" the same way the Black Knight defined it in that Monty Python movie. After having both arms, both legs and finally his head chopped off, the Black Knight responds with "I'll bite you!". And such is the "victory" of Nasrallah.
#16
Crospatch, heard about some activity around Northern Border. One hopes it is not too little too late.
But as the degradation of the HA forward force goes, the estimate is about 300 (so far). That takes down the original ~ 6000 to about 5700. That may be a palm and a far cry from Black Knight dismemberment. They have enough resources left to pull off an internal coup d'etat with their 10,000 strong reserve. They don't need rocket launchers for that.
#17
Well, thinking... depending how well IDF covers the SL area in the next 24 hrs... HA may get cocky and as they say, shiite may hit the fan... the Black Knight scenario may be closer to the original.
One thing would be, though, a spectacular success, if IDF gets Nasrallah dead or alive. Next 30 days.
#18
"But as the degradation of the HA forward force goes, the estimate is about 300 (so far). "
I believe that estimate is VERY low. We might never know the true count. Hezbollah is never going to want the true extent of the casualties to be known. That 300 (and I have heard higher counts, the IDF themselves having handled over 400 dead Hezbollah fighters) is what they are willing to admit. They would be taking whatever bodies they can off the battlefield. Where they can, portraying them as civilian killed. In many cases, probably simply burying them where they can. I would pay more attention to reports of large numbers of missing Lebanese shiite men after this is over. Israel can't toss this much ordinance into there and have this many firefights for a month and only kill 10 people per day. They couldn't do that if they TRIED to miss.
#19
In other words, this notion that they can bomb and have troops engaged in direct combat that that amount of artillery fire for a month and kill 600 civilians and only 300 Hezbollah is silly on the face of it. Anyone putting any stock in that number is seriously gullable and that is being charitable.
#20
Crosspatch, you may well be right, but this is the Middle East. Anything less than a complete defeat for Hizbollocks will be portrayed by them as a victory.
In the Middle East perception is more important than substance. This may not be the first war Israel lost, but it may well be the first it didn't win and that in the Arab mind means they are closer to destroying Israel.
#22
If saddam was able to present his 1991 defeat as a victory for having survived american onslaught, then I can't see hizballah not receiving an huge boost from this whole mess (assuming there is not a dramatic change, like nasrallah being helizapped, true, or the idf cleaning the bekaa), regardless of the actual results on the battlefield. If iran wishes to get the leadership of the whole jihadist/anti-western movement over the sunnis, a perceived victory of the hizballah over the "zionists" is a big plus, despite whatever perception the arab regimes might have, it's the Masses(Tm) and the radicals who matter.
#23
Hizb'allah will claim victory anything short of hunting them all down and executing them. It's not like the Tyre Times will contradict Hizb and live. When fighting muslims, the west must show irrefutable gains. That means taking land and women captives. Anything less will not register in the muslim mind.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 7:16
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#24
Agreement is a prelude to a larger and nastier war in the near future.
#25
Hell, Saddam's still claiming victory and asserting he's still in charge. Arab/Muzzie words should be taken as lies from the second they leave their lips. Who cares what they claim?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:32
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#26
Israel's defeat happened back when Olmert was elected PM. The mis-events of the last month are just the other, and inevitable, shoe dropping. May the Israelis not repeat their mistake.
#27
I'm hoping the IDF will carry on the infantry drive to the Litani even after the cabinet has accepted the UN resolution, which does not call for an immediate end to hostilities anyway. It looks like the Israelis have worked out the right tactics for anti-tank weapons now: lots of boots on the ground with the infantry ahead of the armour.
#28
Lebanon is a real mismash of a country with three weak factions (Sunni, Christian, Druze) and one strong one (Hezbullies). If the Hezbullies are significantly degraded and the other factions, via the international force and training/build up of the Leb army, are strengthened, then perhaps, perhaps, the Hezbullies can be reigned in. At least it is possible that they will have to deal with internal conflicts rather than doing anything to Israel. The key is how much they are degraded, cause if they are the people are going to remember who started all this crap. While bitching about the Israelis is good for the TV camera, the reality is that the people saw Hezbully bury the rockets under the school and saw the AA gun up on the apartment roof. They know that Hezbully played them for suckers.
In the end though, I still think this is all prelude to far bigger stuff.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 12:13
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#34
Wow! First war Israel has lost. Congrats to the Olmert administration.
Posted by: Dave T. ||
08/12/2006 14:37
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#35
Just Peachy! Now Hezbolla will be able to fire missles over the heads of German, French, Eygyptian, and Turkish troops and the only way Israel can respond (on the ground) is with an act of war against those nations... Just Peachy.
Posted by: Just Peachy ||
08/12/2006 14:44
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#36
IMHO those troops will never deploy, because the fighting won't stop to allow it. Hezbollah can't disarm or stop attacking the Jooooos while Israel's in Lebanon, and Israel will keep attacking Hezbollah while it's getting hit. I think that's why Israel's setting up as far north as possible before the time the deal is supposed to go into effect. My 2 cents FWIW
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 15:05
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#37
Look for the French to suggest that their troops should first go onto a narrow strip at the border with Israel and keep the IDF as a shield between them and Hizb'Allah.
#1
Pinko blogger, Sirocco, posted this translation of this Qana inspired poison. He doesn't deserve a link.
Gods chosen people
Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06
From the Norwegian by Sirocco
There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Husseins Iraq or the Serbs ethnic cleansing. We must now get used to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history.
We do not believe in the notion of Gods chosen people. We laugh at this peoples fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as Gods chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism.
Limits to tolerance
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning bushes, and a license to kill.
We call child murderers child murderers and will never accept that such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We say but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!
Unscrupulous art of war
We acknowledge and pay heed to Europes deep responsibility for the plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and the Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to get their own home. However, the state of Israel, with its unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy. It has systematically flaunted International Law, international conventions, and countless UN resolutions, and it can no longer expect protection from same. It has carpet bombed the recognition of the world. But fear not! The time of trouble shall soon be over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto.
We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back. The state of Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace until it lays down its arms.
Without defense, without skin
May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The state of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without skin. May the world therefore have mercy on the civilian population. For it is not civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is directed.
We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are poisonous. It was endurable to live some years without the blue grapes of apartheid.
They celebrate their triumphs
We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children more than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as fitting punishment for the people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of Israel, appears as an insatiable sadist.) We query whether most Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or Lebanese lives.
For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls writing hateful greetings on the bombs to be dropped on the civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine. Little Israeli girls are not cute when they strut with glee at death and torment across the fronts.
The retribution of blood vengeance
We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of Israel. We do not recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We do not recognize the principle of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do not recognize collective punishment or population-wide diets as political weapons. Two thousand years have passed since a Jewish rabbi criticized the ancient doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
He said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. We do not recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the ruins of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert Schweitzer expressed it: Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.
Compassion and forgiveness
We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.
Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first Zionist terrorists were operating.
Israel does not listen
For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first of all then Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi said: And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we accept the deportation of whole populations or the abduction of legally elected parliamentarians and government ministers.
We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It is the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with Gods assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians have so many other countries, certain Israeli politicians have argued; we have only one.
The USA or the world?
Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: May God continue to bless America. A little child took note of that. She turned to her mother, saying: Why does the President always end his speeches with God bless America? Why not, God bless the world?
Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of the heart: Why doth Humanity so slowly progress? It was he that wrote so beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the notion of Gods chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a Muhammedan.
Calm and mercy
We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population have to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say: May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a crime without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless people.
Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells, vulnerable like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, defenseless like women and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra, and Chatilla. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!
Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too many children and civilians have already been murdered.
This is a good objective analysis, and I think he's on the right track. Emphasis added.
It appears that Ehud Olmert has accepted in principle the cease-fire proposal offered by the US and France, who apparently recovered somewhat from the swoon it experienced over Arab criticism of the original proposal. . . . Some have hailed this as a breakthrough, while others see it as an unmitigated disaster. The truth is that the proposal gives both sides something while attempting to find what everyone understands will be the eventual outcome of any protracted war, given the reluctance of Israel to attempt another twenty-year occupation of Lebanon.
And it holds an ace in the hole for Israel, which many seem to have missed.
Let's look at the resolution itself . . . . The points adopted in this proposal say nothing of an immediate withdrawal by Israel, nor does it link the war to the issue of Lebanese criminals in Israeli prisons, the motivation for starting the war in the first place. Nasrallah got skunked on the one action he hoped to accomplish, and the resulting prisoner swaps will likey involve only those captured during the war. It also explicitly puts the blame for the war on Hezbollah -- and excludes it from any other legitimation in the document.
In fact, the resolution requires Hezbollah to cease all hostilities, while it only requires Israel to cease offensive operations. Until Hezbollah stops launching rockets at Israel, the IDF has a free hand to take responsive action to stop them and take out their launch capabilities. In effect, it says that Israel can continue the fight until Hezbollah stops attacking them.
The resolution also demands the end of military support for Hezbollah and the exercise of sovereignty over southern Lebanon by the Lebanese government. That demand is not new, and had the Lebanese complied with it last year, this war would never have taken place. The Siniora government will have to control the territory south of the Litani, and according to this agreement, everywhere else in Lebanon, too.
There's plenty to dislike here, too. The agreement makes several flattering references to the seven-point plan put forth by Fuad Siniora, a list of grievances and goals he could easily have copied from a Hezbollah web site. Most egregiously, it continues the UNIFIL force as the conductor for the Lebanese Army, despite its decades-long record of incompetence and outright collaboration with Hezbollah. The UN will deploy a much larger UNIFIL force than in the past, up to 15,000 troops, matching the Lebanese Army contingent. It will also have a mandate for force in order to ensure compliance, although given the lack of will shown in UNIFIL and other UN forces in the past, one has to chuckle inwardly at the suggestion.
Some hoped for a crushing defeat of Hezbollah, especially its command structure, starting with Hassan Nasrallah. Unfortunately, the Israelis dithered too much in its military strategy. In retrospect, the air campaign was a mistake, and the IDF should have been allowed to adopt a massive incursion strategy instead. The threat of such an incursion gained Israel plenty of concessions in this document, but Olmert could have won most of his objectives had he not paid so much attention to the diplomatic tut-tutting adopted towards Israel but not the terrorists it faced.
In any event, an outright victory was very unlikely. Hezbollah remains very popular among the Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon, a significant portion of the nation. At worst they would have melted into the towns and villages and simply returned later. The best Israel could achieve was to have the Lebanese government take responsibility for the south and hold it militarily to keep terrorists from conducting unfettered attacks on the border. If this agreement gets properly implemented -- a very large If -- then Israel will have achieved those goals without having to conduct another generational occupation of Lebanon.
Lastly, by agreeing to this cease-fire, Olmert puts pressure on Siniora to do the same and to put Hezbollah in a box. If Siniora refuses, then Olmert orders the incursion. If Nasrallah refuses to accede to Siniora's demand to disarm and withdraw as required by this proposal, Olmert can claim that the Lebanese government is hostage to Nasrallah and act to liberate it. Olmert will have worked the appeasers into a position where they will have endorsed further military action by the collapse of their own peace plan.
Everything hinges on Nasrallah. If he accepts the terms and allows Siniora to dislodge them from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is finished regardless of their public claims. Their raison d'etre is the defense of the southern border against Israel -- and if the Lebanese Army takes that responsibility, then their militia serves no purpose in the middle of Lebanon. If Nasrallah balks, then Israel will have a green light and a wide window to finish the job, and they will have lost very little in the hours it will take for the gambit to play to its conclusion.
. . . One other point is worth mentioning. The Power Line post suggests that the Bush administration didn't want to take the heat for more fighting in Lebanon, which I think is an unfair shot at the White House. Bush and his team made sure that they would not allow the UN to win the war for Hezbollah, and this document at least shows that effort, regardless of its implementation. It's really not our job to hold umbrellas for Israel, and they certainly didn't show too much enthusiasm for fighting the kind of war the post suggests in any case.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006
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#1
My quibble is that Olmert would have to have a sudden personality change to act as Captain Ed describes. Up to now he's fit the jellyfish pic to a tee.
It's not a disaster, for this reason: The language of Paragraph 10, point 1, reads "Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations." This is not parallel language. Hezbollah must cease all attacks. Israel must only cease "offensive military operations." Since Israel itself defines its own action in South Lebanon as by definition defensive, not offensive, there's a lot of give here. Besides which, will Hezbollah really cease "all attacks"?
Posted at 5:31 PM
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 9:54
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#3
Oh goodie, it's a worthless piece of paper.
Any Hezbollah Rocket passing into Israel is a valid excuse to resume kicking their ass.
Wonderful, promote and reward the Israelli who got that language into the "Cease Fire" paper.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 10:17
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. . . We are inclined, in our snobbish way, to dismiss the Americans as a new and vulgar people, whose civilisation has hardly risen above the level of cowboys and Indians. Yet the United States of America is actually the oldest republic in the world, with a constitution that is one of the noblest works of man. When one strips away the distracting symbols of modernity - motor cars, skyscrapers, space rockets, microchips, junk food - one finds an essentially 18th-century country. While Europe has engaged in the headlong and frankly rather immature pursuit of novelty - how many constitutions have the nations of Europe been through in this time? - the Americans have held to the ideals enunciated more than 200 years ago by their founding fathers.
The sense of entering an older country, and one with a sterner sense of purpose than is found among the flippant and inconstant Europeans, can be enjoyed even before one gets off the plane. On the immigration forms that one has to fill in, one is asked: "Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offence or crime involving moral turpitude?" Who now would dare to pose such a question in Europe? The very word "turpitude" brings a smile, almost a sneer, to our lips.
The quiet solicitude that Americans show for the comfort of their visitors, and the tact with which they make one feel at home, can only be described as gentlemanly. These graceful manners, so often overlooked by brash European tourists, whisper the last enchantments of an earlier and more dignified age, when liberty was not confused with licence.
But lest these impressions of the United States seem unduly favourable, it should be added that the Americans have not remained in happy possession of their free constitution without cost. Thomas Jefferson warned that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. To the Americans, the idea that freedom and democracy exact a cost in blood is second nature.
We went to the fine new museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, devoted to the American Civil War. It was the bloodiest war in American history. Americans slaughtered Americans in terrible numbers before the North prevailed. You can look up the names of soldiers on a computer, and I found to my slight surprise that a man called Joseph Gimson served on the Union side as a private in the 37th Regiment of Coloured Infantry, and was "severely and dangerously wounded" in the battle of Northeast Station on February 22, 1865.
We stood at Gettysburg, scene of the bloodiest battle of all, on a field covered with memorials to the fallen. Here Abraham Lincoln gave his great and sublimely brief address, ending with the hope "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".
Again some Europeans will give an unkind smile. All this sounds so Puritan, so naïve and so self-righteous. We cannot help feeling that the Americans ought to have been able to settle their quarrel without killing each other, and, while we cannot defend the institution of slavery, we wonder whether the North had the right to impose its will by force.
These are vain quibbles. The North went to war and was victorious.
The Americans are prepared to use force in pursuit of what they regard as noble aims. It is yet another respect in which they are rather old-fashioned. They are patriots who venerate their nation and their flag. . . .
The Americans' tactics in Iraq, and their sanction for Israel's tactics in Lebanon, have given rise to astonishment and anger in Europe. It may well be that those tactics are counter-productive, and that the Americans and Israelis need to take a different approach to these ventures if they are ever to have any hope of winning hearts and minds.
But when the Americans speak of freedom, we should not imagine, in our cynical and worldly-wise way, that they are merely using that word as a cloak for realpolitik. They are not above realpolitik, but they also mean what they say.
These formidable people think freedom is so valuable that it is worth dying for.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006
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"To the Americans, the idea that freedom and democracy exact a cost in blood is second nature."
#6
6: Yep, the difference between Sgt. York and Sen. McCain.
I'm no McCain fan (although I would vote for him over any Democratic candidate, including Lieberman), but McCain flew over North Vietnam when LBJ was president, meaning that the rules of engagement against anti-aircraft batteries was no firing until fired upon. I don't think Alvin York had to worry about waiting for bullets to fly by him before he was allowed to shoot back.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 9:59
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#8
It can be said that philosophically, most of America is optimistic and realistic; whereas Europe is pessimistic and realistic.
Our common ground, realism, means that neither of us claim to be a sacred people whose founders were gods; we do not seek perfection on Earth, and we look with cynicism on those who do; and that we prefer the clarity of the here and now to a mythical future or past where all our dreams come true, or when everything was perfect.
Even our idealists are grounded. Americans can look out over a patch of nasty, harsh desert and imagine there a New Jerusalem. Just needs some wallpaper and a few throw pillows and there you are. Call it the idealism of low expectations.
Optimism and Pessimism are where we differ. Europeans have had 1500 years to burn almost every drop of optimism out of them.
Endless times, some optimist would lead them forward only to be bitterly stomped out. Their philosophy in their daily lives has become: "Things will go on like this for years and years, and then get worse."
For them, happy endings, even in a movie, are just painful reminders of all the times when there hasn't been a happy ending.
Americans, for the most part, are all about happy endings. We insist on them. We refuse and reject losing, seeing it only as having missed an opportunity to turn a loss into a win. Better luck next time. Every cloud has a silver lining. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And a hundred other such homilies.
Add on to that the revolutionary spirit. Americans, again for the most part, truly believe in their revolution. They want to share the wealth, the idea that if people get real democracy, they will be better off no matter where they live.
Plus, they strongly distrust anyone who isn't a democrat. Among our presidents, those who are remembered most favorably are first those that protect democracy and attack tyranny, and then those that spread democracy.
We hold the idea that though we would prefer to live and let live with other peoples, we can no longer afford to be isolationistic. That non-democrats anywhere, left to their own devices, will make trouble in the world.
And this is our biggest pride. That we are not content to profit from non-democrats just because we can, supporting their status quo; but that we always demand that they do something in pursuit of democracy and freedom, no matter how small.
We do not profit directly from this, which befuddles other democracies less inclined to interfere, less willing to spread the revolution. But it is our crown jewel.
#9
Ok, I appreciate the article and the comments, but when I read the title, I became immensely sad, because I read it not as being descriptive of americans as a whole (Americans would die for Liberty), but instead predictive of the future:
Americans shall die for liberty.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 12:11
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#10
think freedom is so valuable that it is worth dying for
By God Andrew you got it!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/12/2006 15:17
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Michael Yon issues a warning about the situation in Iraq. Required reading.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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I would disagree over his statement "we must do something now".
On the contrary, we have stopped the insurgency, but now the Iraqis must hash out among themselves how they want to live. Like battling siblings, we have kept them out of danger until they were mature; but now it is up to them to find their own path.
The vast majority of Iraqis will determine their fate. If they want peace and prosperity, we have given them all the tools they need to achieve it. But if they are obstinate and combative, then the bright future they are offered cannot survive.
In the future, either path may be a good one. If they unite, it means that they have it within them to be a single nation. If their differences are too great, which may be the case, then it may be better for all if they part company.
Ironically, the greatest danger of a split is not from the feuding Shiite and Sunni Arabs, but between those two and their peaceful coexistence with the Kurds.
If Iran falls before the US, Kurdish Iran will be irresistably drawn to Iraqi Kurdistan. They could not become part of Iraq, because Kurds would then far outnumber the Shiites. So it would be the easiest thing in the world for Kurdistan to become an independent nation.
This would still leave the Shiite and the Sunnis in the situation they find themselves today--needing to figure out where they stand with respect to each other. Even if their own territory was enlarged by the addition of the Iranian Arab southwest, its religious split mirrors their own. Still Shiite and Sunni having to get along with each other somehow.
It was the situation before the US arrived, and it will be when the US has left.
#2
'Moose, I think I'm with you on this. Saddam was sitting on top of a particularly hideous basket of vipers, and it looks as if they'll need to hiss themselves out.It is growng increasingly clear that it's not "us" vs. "Iran" or "Soddy Arabia", but "us" against "Ummah". We'd best rearrange our thinking, and our strategies in a similar fashion, since "Ummah" does not issue passports or yet have a Bejeweled-Turban-In-Charge.
#3
I wouldn't say that, because this is not a religious war. I have long said it is a war between civilization and barbarism, or more properly, vandalism.
More than anything else, the Moslems we are fighting hate modernity. Though they are surrounded by it, and even have to use it, they hate all technology not mentioned in the Koran. And not just technology, but knowledge, as well.
The Moslem philosopher al-Ghizali and his peers formalized the rejection of innovation and learning, and stopped cold Moslem intellectual progress, though it took many years to spread through the Ummah. It was done for short-sighted nationalistic reasons.
Only with the rise of the British Empire did this stagnation finally start to end. And in truth, it has been a slow war ever since.
But Islam is facing a crisis, as the large number of Moslems who can and do accept modernism are being forced to face the vandals. According to the Wall Street Journal of a few days ago, Islam is losing so many people so rapidly, that if it continues unabated, by 2050 there will be 3 billion Christians.
These are people who believe that Islam cannot have a reformation. But there must be an equal number who believe it can, and must. There only needs to be one strong advocate, one reformer, for them to rally around, for a massive split to take place.
And one in which the vandals are consigned to the wilderness, to embrace their beloved primitivism and die out.
I would support a candidate who introduced a bill in congress saying that Islam is not a religion recognized by the United States, but rather a "philosophy" and thus not protected under the 501 tax code section, be it 501c3 or whatever.
Then I would encourage the congress to remove the hate crime laws relevant to Muslims.
Then we could all follow our conscience on how to deal with them.
Whup comes to mind.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 18:54
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HAVANA (AP) - It was supposed to be the ultimate tribute, several days of parties and concerts to mark Fidel Castro's 80th birthday. But instead of listening to folk music and attending conferences on his legacy, Castro is expected to spend his birthday Sunday in bed, recovering from surgery for intestinal bleeding.
"¡Commandante! ¡We have Generalissimo Franco on line one for a wonderful birthday greeting!"
A few Cubans say it won't be long before Castro is giving five-hour speeches once again, but many believe he will never be quite the same.
He's going to be much more stable real soon now.
Details on Fidel Castro's whereabouts and medical condition are a mystery. On Friday, it was unknown whether any birthday celebrations would take place this weekend. A long list of leftist international artists and foolish intellectuals all of whom should know better had planned to travel to Havana to fete Castro on his big day, but after the announcement of his illness, the celebration was pushed back to December. Top officials in recent days have said he is recuperating and should be back to work in upcoming weeks, reassuring many Cubans. But some skeptics say they believe the situation may be more grave than officials admit. Many doubt the Cuban leader will make even a brief appearance to cut his cake Sunday - especially after hearing close friend Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's remark Thursday that Castro is in a "great battle for life."
Kiss of death right there.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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"Great battle for life" with Castro is an oxymoron.
Die punk. Die.
but, of course, there's no pictures or video...go figure?
(Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro is walking, talking and being briefed, according to a cryptic statement published Saturday in the Communist Party daily, Granma, a day before the "Maximum Leader's" 80th birthday.
"Someone who visited the comandante a few hours ago to brief him on certain matters ... said he witnessed how the head of the revolution, after receiving a little physical therapy, walked in the room and later, sitting in a chair, engaged in an animated conversation," Granma said.
Castro has not been seen publicly since he temporarily ceded power to his younger brother on July 31 because of complicated abdominal surgery. His last public appearance was on July 26.
His health is being treated as a state secret and there has been no information as to where he is being treated, who is visiting him or any detail on his health.
"Our friend saw the comandante up and about, like someone anticipating new victories," Granma said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 10:57
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#4
Hell, the Beard can use the brain stem for most of his speech functions.
#5
Would it be too much to ask for the airforce to swoop down low and buzz the hospital for Fidel's birthday? And maybe deliver a Jdam or two with a pretty bow?
LONDON (AP) - One was an athletic teenager who had grown into a devout young man, another a soccer-loving convert to Islam. The youngest was 17, the oldest 35. Many were born in Britain and all were reared here.
As police held 23 young British Muslims accused of plotting devastating airline bombings, both the authorities and their neighbors sought Friday to understand how ordinary communities spawned a terrifying plot. 19 names were made public Friday by the Treasury after the government froze their bank accounts. They have names of Muslim origin, including many that are common in Pakistan. At least 14 live in London, four in leafy High Wycombe, 30 miles away, and two in the central city of Birmingham.
Not a single Clive, Trevor or Nigel amongst them eh?
It is unclear how the men met or who the ringleader is, although suspicion has fallen on the only one identified who is over 30 - Shamin Mohammed Uddin, 35, of east London.
The father of three of the arrested men, Faisal Hussain, collapsed into tears, telling Britain's ITV News that his sons - Nabeel, Umair and Mehran - weren't involved any plot. ``They went to prayer and they were Muslims, that is the only thing they were guilty of,'' he said through an interpreter in an interview broadcast Friday.
They must have been listening to the spittle-spewing preacher at the mosque, Pops.
At least nine of the suspects lived in Walthamstow, a typically polyglot London neighborhood of modest brick houses and small apartment blocks, halal butchers, pubs and fast-food restaurants. It is an ethnically mixed community with a smattering of affluent professionals and a large Muslim population served by several mosques. ``Walthamstow's a happy, chilled-out community,'' said resident Hajra Mir. ``We weren't expecting this.''
Except in the mosques.
That sense of shock was repeated across the neighborhood. Residents said it is a friendly, quiet area where people respect their neighbors. Several of the suspects had lived there for many years and attended local schools.
But several men from the neighborhood have been linked to the Saviour Sect - an offshoot of a disbanded radical Islamist group, al-Muhajiroun, which was based in nearby Tottenham and gained notoriety for praising the Sept. 11 hijackers.
A-ha. Think we might strike gold if we dig there?
A Walthamstow leader of the sect, Abdul Muhid, has been charged with soliciting murder during an angry protest earlier this year over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. He had previously been arrested for calling for the killing of British troops while proselytizing at a Walthamstow market.
There's your designated spittle-spewer. Now we need to identify the money man, the bag man, the chemist, the chemist's assistant, the messenger, and the operations ringleader.
Last fall, a rally planned by the group at a community center was banned by local officials after organizers distributed leaflets portraying an Islamic fighter holding a rocket launcher outside the prime minister's Downing Street residence.
Local Muslim leaders say the area's major mosques are vigilant about keeping radicals away. But several of the suspects appeared to fit the pattern of radicalization seen in the bombers who attacked the London transit system: young men born and bred in Britain, raised in moderate homes, but drawn to a more uncompromising version of Islam than that practiced by their parents.
Right about the time they have trouble finding a job, dating a non-Muslim girl, get introduced to life at the mosque, and meet the spittle-spewer. More biographical information on the attackers at the link.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#1
Puzzle because of being clueless. Clueless because of being willingly suckered by fashionable PC "multiculturalism" which defy reality and give asymmetrical concessions indiscriminately away. They can only remain puzzled to further(and excuse)their preferred denials.
#3
It puzzles Brits and Americans because we think and act in a logical fashion. What they have to do is get off their asses and realize they are dealing with brainwashed, demented fanatics from the Death Cult, who will stop at absolutely nothing to kill them, their children, and grandchildren without blinking an eye. If this ever soaks in to their old , rigid brains, they'll know what to do. Problem is, they (and we) are wasting crucial time.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 13:14
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#6
It is the 30 something problem. You had all of these dreams, all of the glory. Then you find that you have to work a real job, contribute to society, pay mortgage, etc.
The difference in reaction to realizing your childhood dreams may not be attainable is amazing.
Here, people get a new car, dump their wife / girlfriend ... move across country, whatever.
In Islam, 30 something problem means blow stuff up and kill all the infidels. Seriously, we should look into this further, as it seems you always find in Islam these 30 somethings going off the deep end and externalize their angst at this against the nearest infidel they can find - taking the young and impressionable with them.
#7
Interesting theory, bombay, but the clowns who are preaching hate and indoctrinating/convincing the splodeydopes are over 30.
Jihad by idiot proxy.
One thing I have noticed about these "cultures" - they claim the West is oversexed, but in fact they are the ones who are hung up on sex (or more probably their lack thereof).
Their absolute lack of respect for women retards their societies. It doesn't have to be that way; there are modern Muslims who respect women and life as much as we do, and don't want to live in these clowns' 7th Century wet dream. Problem is, I don't think they're the majority.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/12/2006 22:07
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#8
Yeah, older ones, stuck on all they have left, the ideology.
But the ones that move to action and take things down are the 30 somethings (with their young followers behind). The angst and rage egged on by the elders who long for the glory.
#10
The Brits think that their public and media being anti-Israeli in attitude should protect them from Moslem violence. What they don't realize is that every time they reaffirm Moslem 'grievances' and declare Moslems are justified in using violence against Jews and Americans that Moslems feel reaffirmed in their desire to do violence to Brits as well.
British police are now saying the 24 alleged bombers arrested in Britain yesterday were probably planning to use a homemade, peroxide-based liquid to blow up the 10 U.S.-bound planes they had targeted.
John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian think-tank on organized violence, said he's pretty sure he recognizes which solution the terrorists had in mind. "Triacetone triperoxide was the weapon of choice for the Palestinians during the second intifada. It's the preferred weapon for a lot of jihadists," said Thompson, who's been studying terrorist bomb-making techniques for over 20 years. "It's really powerful for its weight, so it's used a lot in suicide bombers' vests."
Anyone with half an hour, a set of instructions found online and about $75 can easily make the stuff. "You could make it in your kitchen," said Prof. Bhibou Mohanty, an explosives expert at the University of Toronto.
Mohanty said the major ingredients are peroxide, which is found in hair bleach, and acetone, which is found in most types of paint. Mix them in the right quantities, use some aluminium powder to increase potency and you've got yourself a ready-made bomb.
The compound has advantages beyond its simple makeup. For instance, said Mohanty, it's really easy to get it to explode. "It can be ignited, as opposed to detonated," he said. That means that a simple match or lighter would be enough to start an explosion.
Or any simple electronic device with a current. You could pull a battery out of a cheap radio, clip on a couple wires, and voila.
Because it's a liquid, it can be stored in places where airport security officials might not look. Thompson said just a small eyedrop container could hold enough of the solution (properly mixed, of course) to bring down an aircraft.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. But since hair bleach and nail polish will do, the security nightmare is easy to see.
British police have not confirmed the use of a peroxide-based solution. All they know for sure so far is that the explosives came in liquid form. So in theory, there's still a whole range of possibilities as to what the bombers planned to use. Thompson said there are lots of ways to make a cheap liquid bomb. The only common denominator is that just about anyone can do it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#1
'Or any simple electronic device with a current.'
And hence the specific concern about IPod's. I wonder if Apple is going to start a new 'think diffrent' campaign?
#2
I have a couple of iPods as I suspect many here do. I'm trying to figure out how you get enough power out of it to spark something. The port at the bottom is my guess, but you have to get to the USB/Firewire pins, and I think they only support 500 (200 ??) mA max. Not sure if that can set off a peroxide/nail polish bomb.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006 0:18
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#3
Michael Chertoff's press conference the morning of the alert stated that "they wake up every morning thinking about ways to kill infidels" (really more of a paraphrase there, but the gist is correct). My thought was, "Why aren't we doing the same?"
We do here at the 'burg, but everywhere else, it's crickets and condemnation. Bah.
#5
The Brits were very specific about NOT allowing disposable cameras onboard any aircraft, at the very beginning of the alert. The built-in flash unit is what concerned them : small electric igniter if the outer casing is removed.
#8
With an inherently unstable mixture, a medium length section of nichrome wire and single matchhead would be enough to ignite it. That is what the old Estes model rocket engine igniters were, basically.
#14
Well if the device beeps or buzzes the model rocketry fix was say a radio shack timer hook up a 9 volt battery in series with the buzzer with a flash bulb when the buzzer circut is triggered the 9volt battery sets off the flashbulb that ignites a length of thermalite fuse that sets off your pyro.
BTW i have read that this explosive might be familiar to most rantburgers as those cracker balls you know toss and they go bang fireworks. Makes me really want to be next to a couple kilos of the stuff.
Posted by: bruce ||
08/12/2006 20:35
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#15
To stay ahead of the "Silicon Simians", this would probably be a good thread to keep alive somehow...Our basic collective H.S. Chem. smarts is better than theirs anyway. We just don't "dwell" on it like they do. I say, keep the insights flowing.
Olmert is an idiot. That is apparent, his pussyfooting is now clearly visible for what it is--incompetence.
Unless IDF, by some miracle, degrades Hezbullah substantially in the next few days what happens next is fairly obvious.
Once the ceasefire sets in, HA will go for Lebanon's jugular. Nasrallah already promissed some days ago that "once we are done with Israel [in this war], we will settle the score with all the Lebanese politicians that oppose us". There is probably no need to elaborate on what "settling the score" means.
So, the next stop in this twilightzone--Hezbullystan.
By his imbecillic conduct, Olmert is being instrumental in creating this potential nightmare.
#3
I'm hoping Olmert is speaking as a "Good Politician," meaning out of both sides of his mouth.
To the UN, Yes, Yes, a cease fire is necessary and desirable.
To the IDF Generals, Kick their asses quickly, permanantly, and kill them all (Or as many as you can) Time is short.
I also recall the dictum, "Better your enemies think you a fool"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 10:06
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#4
Gromgoru, Hezbully being a state within state and occupying the SL was bad enough, if they took over whole Lebanon, you think that wouldn't be badder?
However, analysing latest snippets of info... there is a good chance that may not be in cards. The degrading of HA forward force may have been going on a larger scale than the released figures indicated. Also, it seems that the rats may be leaving the ship, or planning to.
KABUL - A NATO soldier was killed in a suicide car bomb blast and three Al-Qaeda terrorists militants died in a separate attack on Friday in the latest violence to hit Afghanistan, officials said.
A Taleban suicide terrorists bomber detonated an explosives-filled car near a NATO vehicle in the volatile town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar province near the Pakistani border, killing one of the alliances soldiers, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. The incident occurred on the road from Spin Boldak to Kandahar, when a white Toyota Corolla drove towards an ISAF convoy, and exploded near one of the vehicles, it added.
Local police chief Abdul Wassay Alokozai also said it appeared to be a suicide blast and added that NATO troops had sealed off the area. I can see a vehicle in flames, he said.
Self-proclaimed Taleban terrorist spokesman Yousuf Ahamdi told AFP by telephone from an unknown location that the attack was a suicide bombing carried out by a Taleban terrorist fighter. The suicide terrorist bomber was an Afghan and his name was Ilhas, he said.
The NATO-led force has now lost ten soldiers to hostile action since taking control of the dangerous south of the country on July 31 from a US-led coalition that overthrew the Taleban in 2001. The soldiers nationality would be released by the relevant country.
Separately three Al-Qaeda terrorists militants were killed in the countrys east in a joint raid by Afghan forces and the US-led coalition, the coalition said. Another three terrorists associates were arrested in the operation near the village of YaQubi in Khost province, which targeted an Al-Qaeda terrorist member considered a significant threat to Afghan and coalition forces, it said.
Credible intelligence linked the targeted terrorist to remote-controlled improvised explosive device and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks in Khost province, the coalition said in a statement. The three terrorists opened fire using small arms and were killed when the Afghan and coalition forces returned fire, while the others were detained without incident, it added.
The statement did not specify whether the terrorist suspect who was the target of the mission was captured or killed. A spokesman for US troops in the capital Kabul said the military was attempting to ascertain the seniority of those captured. We are still trying to assess the level of the terrorists detainees, he said.
AK-47 assault rifles with armor-piercing ammunition and a cache of grenades was found in a building at the site of the raid and later destroyed, the coalition said. No Afghan or coalition forces were injured in the operation, it said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - Nearly 450 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division returned home from Iraq on Friday and more flights into Fort Campbell are expected soon, base officials said. The new arrivals bring the total number who have returned since the first homeward-bound flights in early July to about 1,000. Up to four flights, each of about 200 soldiers, are expected next week at the sprawling Army base that straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.
"We're getting to the point where the main body of the units are prepared to come in," said Fort Campbell spokeswoman Cathy Gramling. "Every time we welcome soldiers home, it's important and it's a great time to be at Fort Campbell." Most of the nearly 20,000 soldiers in the division should be back from Iraq by the end of November, Gramling said.
The 101st Airborne is finishing up its second yearlong deployment to Iraq. The first came at the start of the war in 2003, then troops returned for about a year before the second deployment in October.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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Turkey is battling the largest-ever recorded outbreak of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), which has killed at least 20 people this year, with experts saying on Tuesday that more cases of the Ebola-like disease are inevitable in coming months. Most of the cases have occurred in six provinces in the Black Sea and Central Anatolia regions: Tokat, Sivas, Gumushane, Amasya, Yozgat and Corum.
"We will unfortunately keep seeing cases at least until September, when the virus starts to slow down because of the cold weather," said Dr Önder Ergönül, an associate professor at Marmara University who has been involved with the government's response to the outbreak.
Authorities at the World Health Organization (WHO) are awaiting further information from the Turkish government, including where the other cases have arisen. Turkish authorities say no cases have been reported in tourist areas along the Mediterranean coast.
By Aug. 4, the disease was responsible for 242 cases, including 20 deaths, making it the largest reported outbreak since it was first identified in 1944, authorities say. Last week a nurse treating patients with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever died after being accidentally infected by a needle. To date four healthcare workers have been infected, though there have been no reports of the virus spreading in hospitals.
"There have been large outbreaks of this virus before, but we are concerned about the size of this particular outbreak in Turkey," said WHO's Regional Advisor for Communicable Diseases in the European Region Dr. Bernardus Ganter. "We are reassured that the outbreak appears limited to only one part of Turkey, in Anatolia," said Ergönül. More than 90 percent of cases have been reported in people who have had direct contact with animals, according to Ergönül.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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#1
We will unfortunately keep seeing cases at least until September, when the virus starts to slow down because of the cold weather,"
ahhh the dreaded cold turkey
*rimshot*
I'm here all week, try the veal
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/12/2006 8:09
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In the flurry of pro and con statements from American Christians regarding Israel's strikes on Hezbollah guerrillas, one major religious group has remained notably quiet - evangelicals.
The biggest organizations in the movement, usually vocal backers of the Jewish state, have made no formal comment on the war in Lebanon despite pleas from Israelis that they do so. Among those who have taken no official stand are the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents thousands of local churches and ministries, and the 16.2 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination.
The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the evangelical association, insists the inaction is not a criticism of Israel, but reflects a new caution about the risks for Christians living in Muslim countries. Haggard said Israeli embassy officials called him several times a day during the first two weeks of the conflict, asking for a public expression of support. He declined. ``Our silence is not a rejection of Israel or even a hesitation about Israel. Our silence is to try to protect people,'' said Haggard, pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. ``There's a rapidly growing evangelical population in virtually every Islamic country. Much of it is underground in the countries that are more radicalized, and many of the Christians survive based on their neighbors just ignoring the fact that they don't go to mosque.''
Sounds like a good reason to stay low.
Asked for comment, Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said only that ``Southern Baptists overwhelmingly support Israel's right to live at peace with her neighbors within secure borders and they pray for the peace of Jerusalem to prevail in the Middle East.''
James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, released his first comments in a statement Friday, a month after the fighting began. Dobson said the loss of life in Lebanon was ``terrible,'' but added ``there is no doubt who the aggressors are'' in the war and that Israel is being threatened with ``annihilation.``While we are praying without ceasing for the innocent victims in Lebanon, we stand firmly with Israel and the Jews,'' Dobson said.
The three groups have far greater impact on public policy than do Christian Zionists, a minority among conservative Christians who back Israel unequivocally because they see its existence as part of biblical prophesy.
While Israel is the biblical homeland, Lebanon also holds a special place in the Christian community. About 36 percent of its population is Christian, comprised mostly of Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, according to the World Christian Database at Gordon Conwell-Theological Seminary. And Christians across the spectrum of belief have long-standing missionary ties there, setting up hospitals, schools and other ministries.
Reservations have mainly been expressed by the Roman Catholic Church and the more liberal mainline Protestant groups. The World Council of Churches, which represents about 350 Protestant and Orthodox Christian churches, along with the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican have repeatedly called for a cease-fire.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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I'm going to be on vacation from the 'Burg for the next couple weeks. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be here, just that I won't be here very much.
I'm turning the teevee off. I've got a stack of Westerns and detective novels that I haven't read in a few years, and I'm going to drown worms fishing tomorrow.
Dr. Steve will be wielding the Delete Button of Power in my (mostly) absence.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2006
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#1
Enjoy, Fred. But was that worms, or muzzie terrorists? Couldn't quite read it . . .
#6
yes thanks. Have a very fun time. My favorite type of fishing, is in a boat with good friends, beer and bourbon, hanging the line over the side "trolling" for fish.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/12/2006 0:19
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#7
Just remember, Doc Steve is a Trained Professional. He can actually *inflict* sepsis at T-1 speeds...
#23
I see fishing with high-explosives in the making... don't you think you already came close to the edge with your rpg-based moose hunting, Mr. Pruitt? Tsk, tsk.
#37
I go fishing a lot, I just don't go catching very much.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/12/2006 12:34
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#38
DW and I are taking some time off Monday - me to fish, her to sit in the shade and embroider. I'll be thinking of you, Fred, and if I catch more than two (trout), you're invited to the fish fry!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/12/2006 14:11
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#39
Careful, Fred. Them fish is gettin' ornery these days. Don't get grabbed by a black bass...
Now I understand how a guy like Arafat could have gotten a Nobel prize. Compared to Grass, he was a real humanitarian.
Gunter Grass, the Nobel prize-winning author, has admitted he served in the notorious Waffen SS during the Second World War. Grass told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that, aged 17, he was called to the Waffen SS 10th Armoured Division, the combat arm of Hitler's paramilitary forces. Grass, 78, said in the interview: "My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote this book. It had to come out, finally." He has written a book of recollections, which details his war service. The book is due out in September.
The SS operated the death camps in which millions died. The Waffen SS grew into 38 combat divisions with almost one million men. Grass said he volunteered for military service to get out of the confinement he felt in his parent's house. "It happened as it did to many of my age ... we were in the labour service, and a year later, the call-up notice lay on the table," he said. "And only when I got to Dresden did I learn it was the Waffen SS."
Grass was wounded in 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1999 and is best known for his first novel The Tin Drum. Published in 1959, it chronicles the life of the young boy Oskar Matzerath. He is regarded as the literary spokesman for Germans who grew up in the Nazi era.
The site reminds us that though they are reviled to this day because of their association with the notorious SS, the Waffen SS divisions were purely professional army units without connection to the secret police. Even those of us who have extensively read the history of World War II will be surprised to see just how many SS divisions were raised. A few like the Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Tottenkopf, Wiking, and Hitler Jugend are familiar names, but the rest of the 40 odd are unknown. Many of them were formed from men of countries Hitler overran or allied with. Even the Indian army contributed to the non-German forces: deserters to the Indian National Army who found their way to Fortress Europa formed the 950th Infantry Regiment in 1944, after the unit was released from the regular German Army.
#6
All volunteers from the little I remember too, it seems the case here ("Grass said he volunteered for military service to get out of the confinement he felt in his parent's house"), though his particular assignement to the waffen ss might have been due to their requirements at that given time and/or his own personal athletical qualities.
#8
The Tin Drum may or may not be a great book--I've never read it, so I can't say--but Gunter Grass is a barking moonbat anti-globalist and anti-American. In other words, he's not changed much from 1945, has he?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006 8:14
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#9
"Inevitably, September 11 came up. [Nadine] Gordimer identified terrorism's root cause as poverty; Grass concurred, portraying 9/11 as a case of the victimized justifiably striking back at the powerful."
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006 8:34
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#10
The site reminds us that though they are reviled to this day because of their association with the notorious SS, the Waffen SS divisions were purely professional army units without connection to the secret police.
When you visit Dachau you'll have an opportunity to see many of the camp documents. There on pubilc display and clearly shown are the markings and headings of the 'Waffen SS'. Not the other Nazi organizations usually blamed, scapegoated, etc for the extermination and killing program. They are Waffen SS.
On December 17, 1944, near the hamlet of Baugnez on the height half-way between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville in Belgium, the leading element of Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper, named after its leader SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper, encountered the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (FAOB). Kampfgruppe (battlegroup) Peiper was the lead unit of the 1st Waffen-SS Panzer Division 'Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler'. The battlegroup consisted of over 100 tanks and 150 armored halftracks. The 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was mounted in jeeps and trucks, and had no heavy weapons. They were accompanied by several ambulances. The U.S. unit was moving to a new assignment and was not aware that German troops were in the area, although a U.S. combat engineer officer had warned the unit not to take the route they did.
The jeeps and trucks of the 285th encountered several tanks of Kampfgruppe Peiper. The German tanks fired on the U.S. vehicles, which were quickly abandoned by their occupants. With no anti-tank weapons, the Americans surrendered. About 150 of the prisoners of war were disarmed and sent to stand in a field near the crossroads. Peiper and his leading vehicles then continued their advance, which was behind schedule.
A tank pulled up, and a truck shortly thereafter. Witnesses stated that a single SS soldier pulled out a pistol and shot a medical officer standing in the front row. He then shot the man standing next to the medical officer. Other soldiers joined in with machine guns. It is not known why this happened; there is no record of any order by an SS officer. Throughout the massacre, the vehicles and men of Kampfgruppe Peiper continued to proceed through the crossroads.
However, some survivors testified that they had heard the order given to kill all the prisoners: "Macht alle kaputt.".
The Waffen SS at Oradour -
2nd SS Panzer Division 'Das Reich' was ordered to make its way across country to the fighting in Normandy. Along the way it came under constant attack and sabotage from the French Resistance. Allegedly, SS soldiers were further angered by finding atrocities committed by some resistance; in particular, a German ambulance in which all the wounded had been killed and the driver and assistants tied to the cab before the vehicle was set on fire. No record of this alleged incident exists in German records.
Early on the morning of June 10 Sturmbannführer Otto Diekmann reported to Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a high German official was being held by the French Resistance guerrilla, the maquis, in Oradour. That day he was to be executed and publicly burnt amidst celebrations. The two French civilians also stated that the whole population was working with the maquis and that high ranking leaders were there at the moment. At about the same time the SD in Limoges reported that their local informers had reported a maquis headquarters in Oradour. The high German official was belived to be Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kampfe, a personal friend of both Diekmann and Weidinger who had been captured by the maquis the day before. Kampfe was never found and is listed in SS records as "Missing in southern France in action against terrorists".
On June 10 the 1st battalion of the Waffen-SS (Der Führer) regiment, led by Sturmbannführer Otto Dickmann, encircled the town of Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered all the inhabitants to congregate in a public fairground near the village centre, ostensibly to examine people's papers. All the women and children were taken to the church, while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were taken to six barns where machine gun nests were already in place. According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die more slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with kindling and set the barns on fire. Only five men escaped; 197 died there.
Having finished with the men, the soldiers then entered the church and put an incendiary device in place. After it was ignited, the surviving women and children tried to flee from the doors and windows but were met with machine gun fire. Only one woman survived; another 240 women and 205 children died in the mayhem. Another small group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour as soon as the soldiers appeared. That night the remainder of the village was razed. A few days later the survivors were allowed to bury the dead.
#13
It sounds to me like he volunteered. The Waffen SS was all volunteer until mid '44 when Himmler got access to the German draft pool. However, Germans were not drafting 17 year olds at that stage of the war.
Regarding the Waffen SS and concentration camps guards: The 2 were separate branches of the SS, but there were constant transfers between them. Several Waffen SS divisions were created from concentration camp guards.
Also the Waffen SS made a habit of not taking prisoners or killing them after capture. This happened so often on the Russian front that it was almost routine.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/12/2006 12:37
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#14
Sorry you guys can't read. Go back to #10. Go to Dachau. Look at the records. They were Waffen SS not some other 'SS'.
#15
"The Tin Drum" was a great book(though a little naughty), and the impression I got from it was that it reflected the publics denial of what was going on around them. (Thus Oskar refused to grow up and remain a child evermore. He would belt out the occasional "scream" when warranted).
I don't know if Grass is a moonbat or anti-American, he may well be. But "The Tin Drum" is an exceptional piece of literature, and is well deserved of any accolades it has received.
/It is heavy reading though. NOT for those who like simple.
#17
An old review of the book I wrote about 4 years ago:
The Sight and Smell of Depravity
A Review by **************
02/08/2002
Darkness follows us all. We may mean well, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Some people think themselves good, but in the end, they have done damage, having left some kind of negative impact on their fellow man without realizing it.
Unfortunately, the twentieth century was filled with war, and war brings out the worst mankind has to offer. The Tin Drum describes perfectly how mankind lost the ability to cry during World War II. Nowhere else was this strange inability more obvious than in Germany and Poland. The Tin Drum is a novel of the events leading from WW1 to WW2 in those two nations, and what followed afterwards. It is the story of a loss of innocence for a whole culture and region.
The Tin Drum was written by Gunther Grass in 1959. Highly European in flavor, it is a well-regarded novel, and helped Mr. Grass win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. It is translated wonderfully into English by Ralph Manheim and must go down as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
Oskar Matzerath is a midget living in an institution. Apparently, he has done something horrible, but we do not know what until near the end. He turns away his visitors, and starts on his own autobiography. What follows is not for the faint-hearted.
Oskar starts by telling the story of his grandmother, Anna. This Kashubian beauty is sitting in a potato field cooking herself a little lunch from her crop. A short man (an arsonist running from the police) begs for cover under the large four skirts she wears. She gives him permission, and he climbs to hide underneath her womanhood. The police come by and they ask the old lady if she's seen a short man, but all she can do is moan and groan in response. The police, seemingly rather slow on the uptake, just figure the potatoes must be good. After they leave, Grandma rises, and our little arsonist buttons up his fly and leaves her...pregnant.
Her brother's wife has a baby about the same time she does. His name is Jan, and is pure Polish. Anna bears a daughter named Agnes, and she is not.
Jan and Anna grow up very close. Too close. Anna marries a man named Alfred Matzerath, who also happens to be a good friend of Jan's. Together the three love playing skat games, and Matzerath doesn't seem to mind that Jan is also playing with his wife, as long as he gets his share of sex too. Between the two men, Anna gets pregnant soon and gives birth.
Oskar Matzerath is born into the world under two bare light bulbs. He is aware of what is going on, and wants badly to go back in the womb. He watches a moth "drum" between the two light bulbs. Agnes says she will buy little Oskar a drum for his third birthday. Oskar pretends to do all the baby things he should do, and looks forward to that drum.
By his third birthday, Oskar's decided doesn't like what he sees of his world. He plans an "accident," to himself a fall down the stairs. What he has really done is stopped himself from growing, but he needs an excuse for the adults. He plans to remain forever three years old and three feet tall. (A lot of things are in threes in this novel.) At three he also discovers he has the amazing ability to cut glass with his voice.
Oskar then relates the ugly world he sees growing up in the free city of Danzig in the 1930's, through the second World War, and the post-war years. What does he see? Does he stay three foot tall for the rest of his days? Is Jan or Alfred his father? What role does the drum play in all this? If you want to find all this out, read The Tin Drum for yourself.
None of this book is easy to read or analyze without being disturbed by it. This book has more symbolism than most mythology, and if you aren't aware of this, it will leave you confused.
If you are easily disturbed by twisted scenarios, don't pick this up. Oskar is one sick and twisted individual, and so are most of the others. Blasphemy and violence abound, as do certain sexual practices generally considered kinky/obscene.
Lessons to be learned? That humankind is evil, and gets even worse in the face of war and unstable governments. You will see how low people will go when the economy collapses.
Do I recommend The Tin Drum? Yes and no. This is a book that requires a lot of patience, and a strong stomach. At times it will feel like one of the greatest books ever written. The use of symbolism, and way of phrasing and description make the novel appear most beautiful. Then at other points it will just smack of ugliness. Ultimately, I do recommend it; it is, after all, a Nobel Prize winner.
The Tin Drum has a lot of foreign names and terms, but it has a glossary in the back to help. This comes in very handy when politicians and charity organizations are discussed. This is for at least college level readers. Younger or worse readers will just become frustrated, and they probably won't finish it.
There is a lot of evil and ugly in this world. The Tin Drum holds nothing back in exposing it. This is not a book of hope; it is a book of suffering. Try it at your own risk. While great, it is not for everyone.
#18
The death camps were run by the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the Death's Heads). It was the Einsatzgruppen that went around killing civilians, jews, and gypsies in the east. At Dachau, the Waffen-SS were primarily recovering wounded, many who were summarily executed in the belief they were the guards: DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP - LIBERATION 06:00 Waffen SS-Obersturmführer (Lt.) Heinrich Skodzensky, the new, hastily designated Camp Commandant, holds morning roll call for the garrison now guarding Dachau. His roll call tallied 560 men, many of them in hospital. A mere lieutenant had never before commanded the massive concentration camp, but the real SS Commandant, Martin Gottfried Weiss, had "run off" the day before, along with more than a thousand of the Allgemeine and Death's Head SS guards stationed at the camp prior to the American approach. Skodzensky's orders were to surrender. (Dachau Archive)
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2006 14:50
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#19
Let's see, in the SS during World War II, on the Communist side in the Cold War, and on the Islamist side in the war on terror. Are there any other important issues he could get on the wrong side of? He seems to have racked up the halfwit trifecta.
#24
"Dog Years" discusses the prewar and war years from the viewpoint of Hitler's dog. The pages oconcerning the July 20 Plot, for example are a mesmerizing read... This is fiction (Hitler's dog moves the bomb-containing briefcase under the table at the last moment) bu the point is well made that Stauffenberg (sic?) should have stayed around and martyred himself instead of exiting the scene.)
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Incumbent President Joseph Kabila had the lead with more than 1 million votes counted, but the numbers were far from definitive, with election workers in dugout canoes still looking for ballots in the troubled tally.
Some 20 million people - or 80 percent of Congo's 25 million registered voters - cast ballots in the July 30 presidential and legislative election. Kabila had 49 percent of the 1,669,073 ballots counted - just over 8 percent of the vote, according to the Electoral Commission. His main challenger, vice president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, had about 20 percent. The remaining votes were split among some of the 31 others on the presidential ballot.
A preliminary countrywide tally was expected to be announced on Aug. 20, and a final tally on Aug. 31. With the field so crowded, no candidate was expected to win a majority in the initial round. If that is the case, a second round will be held between the top two vote getters, probably in October.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to send a team to Lebanon to investigate alleged abuses by Israel.
The council approved the resolution, proposed by a group of states led by Islamic countries, by 27 votes to 11. Many of the resolution's opponents criticised it for not mentioning Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Addressing the emergency session in Geneva, the UN's human rights chief, Louise Arbour, chided both sides for inflicting suffering on civilians. "Israeli attacks affecting civilians continue unabated," she told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council. "Also unrelenting is Hezbollah's indiscriminate shelling of densely populated centres in northern Israel," she said.
Thanks for noticing the latter, Louise, your pink slip is waiting at your former office.
The resolution alleges systematic human rights violations by Israel using terms like war crimes, crimes against humanity and massacres.
Israel and the United States, although not members of the council, urged a vote against, calling the resolution unbalanced. European Union countries, alongside Japan and Canada, voted against, calling it one-sided and divisive.
Those voting for included China, Russia, India, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Zambia and South Africa, as well as members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
No surprises there, but Presidente Fox shouldn't ask us for anyone in his last few months in office.
The resolution passed highlights once again the bitter divisions of the Middle East, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes says.
Human rights groups and aid agencies struggling to bring relief to Lebanon all agree the humanitarian situation in the region is becoming catastrophic, our correspondent notes. But this resolution, revealing once again just how politicised the United Nations can be, is probably not what they were looking for, she adds.
#3
This is far worse than divisive, politicized, or useless. Arbour's comments - and she was being critical of the idiotic resolution - embodies the abandonment of all actual humanitarian law. The suffering of non-combatants as a result of deliberate actions by one side (HB) does not impose any special burdens on Israel. The usual obligation to avoid non-combatant deaths and injuries and to make military-benefit calculations in cases where such cannot be avoided apply - but so far nothing indicates that Israeli actions do not pass muster in this regard (mistakes are a separate matter). It is an evisceration of the humanitarian considerations of the laws of war to give HB a pass for its deliberate mixing of combatants and non-combatants to gain military advantage.
#5
They never investigate the people who take vids of themselves cutting people's heads off, do they?
But then again, would the head chopppers listen anyway? Kinda like looking for your car keys under the streetlamp cause the light is better, even though you lost them 300 meters away.
Just like in relationships, these loosers only have the power over you that you give them. Tell them you don't care at all what they say and deny them access; eventually they will wither away and die.
Oh, red cross meet with the kidnaped and imprisoned israeli soldiers? No? That's odd.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
08/12/2006 12:20
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Moved to Saturday since it was posted late and of interest. AoS.
Thousands of South Koreans, including former defense ministers wearing their old military uniforms, rallied Friday in Seoul demanding the president halt moves to retake wartime command of the country's military from the United States. "Stop the plot to destroy the Korea-U.S. alliance!" some of the protesters chanted during a rally in front of the city's central train station. Over their heads flew balloons strung with placards bearing the images of the South Korean and the U.S. national flags side-by-side.
Police said about 5,000 people, many of them elderly veterans, turned out for the demonstration that underlined the worsening divide in South Korean society over the government's push for the return of wartime command.
South Korea transferred control of its forces to a U.S.-led U.N. command in 1950 that helped the country repel invading communists from North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. While peacetime control of the military was given to the South in 1994, the U.S. takes control of the South's military if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula. In case of war, South Korea is to transfer command of Korean forces to the US. US Forces Korea has the command, control and intelligence assets to command a major war. The Koreans will have to spend major Won to acquire those assets. While they are at it, they might want to spend a few more Won to stock enough ammunition for 30 days. Massive US stocks, that SKor relies on, will be withdrawn.
South Korea and the U.S. have been in talks on the issue since Seoul formally proposed taking over the command last year. The two sides are expected to draw a roadmap for the proposed transfer when their defense chiefs hold annual talks in October in Washington. President Roh wants wartime command by 2012. The US offered to do it in 2008.
The issue has recently become a hot topic in security-sensitive South Korea which faces the communist North across the world's most heavily fortified border as critics stepped up their campaign against the government's move.
Among those speaking publicly against the plan have been many of the country's former defense ministers, who claim the command transfer is premature and would unravel the country's alliance with Washington and undercut deterrence against North Korea. "I oppose taking over the operational command. It's premature," Lee Sang-hoon, who served as the country's defense minister in 1988-1990, said at Friday's rally. Yesterday 16 former defense ministers very publicly came out against Roh's plans.
President Roh rejected the criticism this week, saying the South's military is strong enough to take over the command anytime, and leaving it with the U.S. is a slight to national sovereignty. His blunt rebuff further fueled the debate. Officials say Washington also supports handing over the command to the South.
Since we might not be there in 2012.
About 29,500 U.S. troops are now stationed across South Korea as a deterrence against the North. The U.S. troops are scheduled to be reduced to 25,000 by 2008. Expect even more reductions after transfer of wartime control. A lot of personnel and assets will be redundant. And don't expect the 700,000 US reinforcements currently allocated for Korea in case of war.
Posted by: ed ||
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And don't expect the 700,000 US reinforcements currently allocated for Korea in case of war.
Considering that there are only about 520,000 servicemembers in the Active Army with major commitments elsewhere, its a good bet that they are basically left to their own devices. However, I suspect that conventionally the NKPA is about as effective as the Iraqi was under Saddam. Lack of food has hit them as well, no funding for real training and modernizing, officers appointed for political reliability rather than merit, etc. The only question is if there is 'will' on the part of the South Koreans to resist. If they are unwilling, why should Americans do the dirty work? If they are willing, they won't need us anyway.
On Thursday, the US Commerce Department reported that the June trade deficit on goods and services was US$64.8 billion, down from $65 billion in May but up from $63.3 billion in April.
The petroleum deficit fell to $24.7 billion in June from $25.8 billion in May, but was up from $21 billion in April. Prices rose in June but import volumes fell. The oil-import bill is likely to rise in July and August, because of conditions in Middle East markets and the shutdown of significant production in Alaska. Also, imports from China continued to rise.
Tightening conditions in international oil markets and rising imports from China will soon push the United States' annual trade deficit to $800 billion, imposing a significant drag on economic growth.
The trade deficit must be financed by foreigners investing in the US economy or lending Americans money. Direct investment in US property and productive assets provides only a small portion of the needed funds, and the balance is obtained through the sale of Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, bank accounts and other paper assets. Americans borrow nearly $60 billion each month to consume more than they produce. The total debt will exceed $6 trillion by the end of 2006.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Whilst I worry about the geopolitical implications of global free trade (dependance on economic inputs beyond your political control), in economic terms imports make any economy wealthier.
And if China wants to subsidize American consumers, where's the problem?
Big deal, the only thing I "Sell" is my time and labor, for which I get a paycheck, then I spend some of it, and keep a portion for the future.
So in the same vein, My employer runs a deficit, he spent money, and got labor, which is not accounted for as a trade item.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/12/2006 9:53
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Redneck Jim.... yeah he's running a deficit with you but hopefully he's not running an overall deficit. The goods/services you're producing he's selling and who he's selling to is running a deficit with him.
The issue in some peoples' view is that we're running an overall deficit when it's all added up. I'm personally not concerned with it.
#6
Well, the West warned the Chinese six ways from Sunday to let the Yuan float, and they have ignored the advice, even though their own financial gnomes agreed.
So, when the bubble bursts, and they are left holding the bag, they will no doubt blame us for their troubles, noting that we have heavily insulated our economy from crash-diving in tandem with theirs.
#7
The blog Cafe Hayek talks a lot of good stuff about 'deficits', here's a good post related to the twin deficits.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/12/2006 16:34
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US manufacturers are hit particularly hard. China's currency-market intervention creates a 25% subsidy on its exports
Nothing a 25% tariff couldn't cure. So many of you seem so unconcerned about this issue. To quote a prominent economist, "A nation cannot subsist by taking in one anothers' washing."
Somewhere, someone needs to actually be building something. China's refusal to properly float the Yuan is allowing it to hollow out the manufacturing cores of most other industrialized nations. At what point does it stop?
Our military ascendancy relies upon the ability to reliably manufacture and assemble a huge swath of products. Flat panel color displays for our fighter cockpits, flash memory and bulk DRAM storage chips are vital to the instrument intensive "net-war" model being adopted by our military. Much more simple tasks, such as garment manufacturing assume signifigantly grater importance if we are at war and need specific seasonal uniforms. Vehicle assembly (be it cars or tanks) and a host of other middle tier industries all tie in to our national security. Shall we permit any of these to wither and die solely because of our enchantment with low-priced and low-quality manufactured goods streaming forth from a country that has openly ruminated on declaring nuclear war upon us?
American politicians on both sides of the aisle have been bought off by groups whose interests lie with the continued importation of cheap Chinese goods. When will everyone wake up and recognize that the American people are being sold down the river by sleazy pols whose greatest concern is being re-elected and not in serving the public.
#11
Z: Our military ascendancy relies upon the ability to reliably manufacture and assemble a huge swath of products. Flat panel color displays for our fighter cockpits, flash memory and bulk DRAM storage chips are vital to the instrument intensive "net-war" model being adopted by our military. Much more simple tasks, such as garment manufacturing assume signifigantly grater importance if we are at war and need specific seasonal uniforms. Vehicle assembly (be it cars or tanks) and a host of other middle tier industries all tie in to our national security. Shall we permit any of these to wither and die solely because of our enchantment with low-priced and low-quality manufactured goods streaming forth from a country that has openly ruminated on declaring nuclear war upon us?
These are all American technologies. We design the machine tools, the manufacturing lines for these tools and the processes for these manufacturing lines. In many cases, the made-in-China products that we buy in stores are manufactured in American-owned plants. Sanmina and Solectron are just two of the American subcontractors that assemble the made-in-China gadgets that we see in the stores. The physical plant might be in China, but the technical knowhow is all American. Note that China isn't such a great place to do business except for the low wages. Even at the current exchange rate, Chinese wages and rents are spiralling out of control. Companies doing assembly work are starting to look at Southeast Asia* again because of increasing Chinese costs.
* For the geographically-challenged, China is part of Northeast Asia.
Norwegian authorities warn cooperation partners each time a passport goes astray. There are currently a record 95,000 missing passports in the computer register of the Schengen agreement countries, news agency ANB reports.
Tormod Ødegård, head of the passport office for Oslo police urges citizens to take better care of this document. "This is serious."
"Nø! Rëålly!"
"The passport is a proof of identification that can be abused," Ødegård said.
This guy is really good, isn't he. Passports can be abused. Musta been to Pakistan once or twice.
In addition to the 95,000 thousand active missing passports, there are also missing foreign passports and travel documents for foreign nationals living in Norway and there is no clear overview of how big this problem is.
Sounds like their Immigration Service is about as good as ours.
The NCIS fears that many of Norway's missing passports are being misused, and they are particularly attractive since Norwegian citizens can travel visa-free to so many countries. "Missing passports create problems for fighting terrorism and human trafficking. For people involved with these types of crime a Norwegian passport can be extremely valuable," said captain Hans-Peder Torgersen at the international division of the NCIS.
The number of missing passports is growing every year. In 2005 a total of about 20,000 passports were registered missing, and most are not found. "Only around 1,800 reports of missing passports were canceled last year. That means that 90 percent of these passports do not turn up," Torgersen said.
Brilliant guys, simply brilliant.
"We report missing passports to Interpol. In this way information of stray passports are as available as possible internationally. But we are dependent on the control authorities in other countries when it comes to revealing abuse of Norwegian passports," Torgersen said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas Friday at hundreds of eye-rolling stone-throwing Muslims angered by the demolition of a half-built mosque in Ethiopia's capital, witnesses said. Several people were bleeding in the streets, but the extent of their injuries was not clear.
More than 100 protesters were taken away in military trucks. Another 100 were under armed guard on the street. At least one car was overturned and several others had windows smashed during the clashes in the capital's Merkato district, the main Muslim area of Addis Ababa.
The disturbances broke out after some houses and the half-built mosque were demolished because they had been illegally built on city administration-owned land, Federal Police Cmdr. Hailu Demsash said. "Muslim leaders were unhappy about the new site that was offered for the mosque," he told The Associated Press. "Some people in the community began to make faces problems. The police took action to displace the large crowds."
It was the 143,298th holiest site in all Islam. Of course they had to riot.
Ethiopia's population of about 77 million is about 45 percent Christian and about the same percentage Muslim, with the rest following indigenous beliefs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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Wanting to build on stolen public land how islamic of them.
NEW YORK (AP) - Fred, not our Fred the Undercover Kitten who gained fame earlier this year by posing as a would-be patient to help police nab a phony veterinarian, has died, authorities said Friday.
The 15-month-old tabby was killed Wednesday when he wandered into traffic and was run over by a car, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. Fred not our Fred ran out his caretaker, prosecutor Carol Moran's back door, into her yard Wednesday while Moran was attending to two dogs. Neighbors found his body in the road later that morning.
Fred not our Fred was a rescued stray when he was enlisted by law enforcement in February. An undercover investigator posing as Fred's owner summoned the suspect to an apartment rigged with a hidden camera and pretended the kitten needed to be neutered. The man was arrested as he left carrying Fred in a box and cash for the operation.
Fred not our Fred got his due at a news conference, where he sported a tiny badge on his collar. "He's pretty easygoing, a real Brooklyn guy," Moran said at the time. Fred not our Fred received a Law Enforcement Appreciation Award and was honored at an adopt-a-thon benefit hosted by Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters.
Rest in peace, Fred not our Fred. Poor li'l kitty.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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London, Aug. 11 An Iranian man from the northern city of Rasht is facing prison and may be executed for converting from Islam to Christianity, a Christian news agency reported.
Seven years after Issa Motamedi Mojdehi converted to Christianity, he was jailed by the Ministry of Intelligence Security (MOIS), Irans notorious secret police, for apostasy but was officially charged with illegal drug trafficking, Compass Direct News reported. The 31-year-old was arrested on July 24. A week later, he was transferred to Lakan Prison.
The report said that officials had told Motamedi Mojdehi that he would remain in jail and possibly face execution unless he renounced his Christian faith. An officer identified only as Mr. Baghani warned him that it might take several executions before Iranians understand the consequences of apostasy under Islamic law, Compass said.
Authorities reportedly found out that Motamedi Mojdehi and his wife Parvah had converted to Christianity in January, when they chose a name from the Bible, Micah, for their newborn son.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to choose one's religion. So we'll hear an international outcry, right? Didn't think so.
Yes, they really do hate freedom.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
08/12/2006 3:29
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This is from Mindanao in the Philippines, but it prolly is a program for young impressionable teens being shipped around the world.
Student journalists as peace builders? Some 158 staffers of student publications from public high schools around Southeastern Mindanao attended a peace writing workshop Thursday at a Department of Education function hall here. The workshop, included for the first time in this year's DepEd annual Regional Training for Campus Journalists, "is part of an effort to build a culture of peace in Mindanao," according to lead organizers from the Office of the Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCO). Similar workshops would be organized in other regions in Mindanao, said Romeo Montenegro, MEDCo's chief for media affairs. The students came from the cities of Davao, Digos, Panabo, Tagum, and the Island Garden City of Samal (IGACOS), and from the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental.
Youth leaders from Moro groups, the Lumads and the settlers shared their peace-building experiences to the participants. The Kids for Peace Foundation, which organized the youth camp, facilitated the sharing to illustrate how youth organizations worked on their own peace advocacy projects. MindaNews handled the peace writing workshop, which focused on explaining the need for campus journalists to write accurately and responsibly, by understanding the root causes of conflicts and the histories of Mindanao's peoples.
Well, most of them anyway.
Discussions included the effects of inaccurate reportage on Mindanao and the power and responsibility of the media to help start or end a war. Also, MindaNews explained the media's capacity and duty to help prevent conflicts from occurring as a stakeholder to peace in Mindanao. Organizers sought to introduce key concepts of peace journalism to student journalists in the workshop and encourage them to apply the principles of peace journalism in writing articles. Also, they aimed to develop a Mindanao peace and development agenda among the student reporters. The workshop promoted awareness of the pursuit for peace in Mindanao by providing basic background of the history of conflicts, and the current challenges in adhering to the 1996 peace agreement. It also sought to make students aware of efforts by the youth to build a culture of peace in Mindanao, according to information from MEDCO. Organizers also aimed at developing a high school peer network to champion peace journalism in Mindanao.
The peace writing workshop is part of the cross-sectoral effort to build a culture of peace in Mindanao in line with the aim to strengthen peace constituency and citizens' participation in the peace process, MEDCO said. After the workshop, students will also attend another day of journalism training sessions on editorial writing, news and feature writing, sports writing and editorial cartooning, copy writing and headline writing, photojournalism, lay-outing, and radio broadcasting.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, whose Washington office was raided by the FBI amid a federal bribery investigation, will face a dozen challengers in the November election. The official sign-up period for Louisiana's Nov. 7 congressional election ended Friday. In Louisiana, there are no earlier party primaries; if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, the top two go to a December runoff.
Way to go Democrats, showing a united front as always, and everyone on-message.
Although some are lesser-knowns, a few challengers carry significant name recognition, political ties and fundraising potential that could lead the eight-term Democrat into his first hard-fought race in years. Several candidates said the New Orleans-based district needs someone focused on hurricane recovery, rather than a federal investigation that has embroiled Jefferson. Jefferson framed his opponents as opportunists who won't succeed in unseating him.
They reelected Nagin, after all...
Jefferson was accused of using his position to promote the sale of telecommunications equipment and services offered by iGate, a Louisville-based firm that sought contracts with African nations, and of soliciting bribes in return. The FBI said it found $90,000 stashed in a freezer in his home. Two men have been convicted as part of the scandal. A federal appeals court temporarily delayed the bribery investigation while Jefferson challenges the legality of the unprecedented FBI raid on his Capitol Hill office. Jefferson has not been charged with a crime and has denied wrongdoing, but was stripped of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee because of the investigation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/12/2006
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Pile on!
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2006 0:32
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Hi, Mr. Abdominal Snowman, nice to have you back; sorry about the news regarding your Johor long lost cousin, I thought you might see him again, but it appears he will continue to miss family reunions... how long since you got a phone call or a letter from him? Cryptids are not very sociable, it seems, except for you, of course.
BANGALORE - Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov's five-day visit to India that ended on Thursday might not have grabbed much media attention in New Delhi, but it is in Tajikistan that India is taking quiet strides toward furthering its ambition of becoming a global player: India's first military base abroad will become operational in Tajikistan soon.
During Rakhmonov's visit, the two countries signed pacts on strengthening cooperation in the fields of energy, science and technology, foreign-office consultation, and cultural exchange. India also offered to rehabilitate the Varzob-1 hydropower plant in Tajikistan.
Two days before the Tajik president's visit, the India-Tajikistan joint working group (JWG) on counter-terrorism met in Delhi. At the JWG meeting, the two sides agreed on bilateral mechanisms to exchange information on various aspects of terrorism, including the financing of terrorism, that affect their two countries. India also offered to provide Tajikistan with counter-terrorism training.
This cooperation is, however, just the tip of the iceberg. Less visible and more significant is the India-Tajik cooperation at Ayni Air Base, near the Tajik capital Dushanbe. Work on the base is expected to be completed next month, and the base will become operational by the year's end.
India is constructing three hangars at Ayni, two of which will be used by Indian aircraft. India will station about 12 MiG-29 bombers there. The third hangar will be used by the Tajik air force. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is also stationing trainer aircraft under a 2002 defense-cooperation agreement whereby India has been training the Tajik air force.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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In the late 1990s, India set up a 25-bed hospital at Farkhor, near Afghanistan's northern border, where injured Northern Alliance fighters battling the Taliban were treated.
It was to this Indian hospital the injured Ahmad Shah Masood was brought after the attack on 9/10.
Posted by: john ||
08/12/2006 6:43
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This is India's practical way of becoming a de facto member of the Security Council. The criteria are that you must be a major economic and nuclear military power, *and* that you must be able and willing to project those forces.
From that point on, it doesn't matter if you have a seat on the UNSC, you are part of it anyway. You are a player. Even if the rest of the Security Council want to do something, they have to ask your permission first.
Eventually, the major international players will probably have a joint standing army, each under their own flag, stationed at strategic points around the globe. Probably two in Africa and two in Oceania, possibly Indonesia or Malaysia.
Martial arts black belt, Harvard graduate, jewellery designer, businesswoman. Her father may be a brutal dictator, but the official list of Gulnara Karimova's achievements is as long as your arm.
Now the glamorous daughter of the president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, has added a new talent to the list with the release of her first music video. Unutma Meni (Don't Forget Me) features the 33-year-old brunette under the stage name GooGoosha - apparently her father's name for her - cavorting in a cartoon wonderland where she travels to a secluded castle and a tropical island in a limousine that floats through the air.
It has animated cartoons that look like a cheesy, low-rent Myst.
Commentators say the video - showing repeatedly on Uzbekistan's domestic equivalent of MTV - is part of a campaign to promote Ms Karimova as a potential successor to her father, whose term of office finishes at the end of next year.
Despite the stumbling block of promoting a woman as leader in a traditional Muslim society, Ms Karimova is thought to be the only person who can protect the assets of her father's family and cronies.
Sorta says everything, doesn't it. Wonder if she knows Suha?
However, critics suggest the new song will do little to raise her appeal. "This is exactly comparable to the emperor Nero playing his harp and everyone having to cheer," said Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was sacked after exposing the Karimov regime's torture of political opponents. "It'll make her feel very good but she won't gain any popularity."
Ms Karimova first came to international attention after a high-profile divorce from her husband, Mansur Maqsudi. In 2003 a US court ruled that Mr Maqsudi should be given sole custody of the couple's two children, Islam and Iman, then 10 and six. However, she refused an order to return them from Uzbekistan. Ms Karimova kept $4.5m (£2.4m) worth of jewellery, plus business interests worth approximately $60m, as part of her divorce settlement. The assets included nightclubs in Tashkent, investment holdings and a recording studio.
Uzbek media, which are tightly state-controlled, have praised Ms Karimova for charity works, dubbing her the Princess of Uzbeks. "It is characteristic of Gulnara to do everything with excellence," said Tatyana Petrenko, a music critic.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Armed assailants ransacked and burned a provincial office of the Iraqi presidents Kurdish party on Friday, accusing its official newspaper of criticizing a Shia cleric, police said. About 50 gunmen loyal to Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi stormed the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by President Jalal Talabani, beat up the guards and destroyed furniture before setting the building on fire, said police Lt. Othman Al Lami.
The attackers fled after seizing three AK-47 rifles from the guards, one of whom was injured, al-Lami said. There were no officials in the office during the early morning raid. Pamphlets distributed by the attackers claimed that the offending article included a July 29 statement by Al Yacoubi in which he spread ¢hatred against the Kurds. The flyer said the cleric was trying to "ignite a war between the Arab Shias and Kurds by claiming that Kurds are targeting other ethnic groups. Al-Yacoubi was immediately available for comment, and the claims in the flyer could not be immediately confirmed. Al Yacoubi is the spiritual leader of the Fadhila, or Virtue, party, which is part of Prime Minister Nouri Al Malikis Shia alliance.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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And nothing bespeaks Virtue more than beating up guards and burning down a building.
That'll teach 'em to spread their lies about the Ayatollah trying to stir up trouble with the Kurds. Yes sir, these are some peaceful folks and will kill anyone who says different.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
08/12/2006 3:08
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Armed assailants ransacked and burned a provincial office of the Iraqi presidents Kurdish party on Friday, accusing its official newspaper of criticizing a Shia cleric
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.
KARACHI: The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Karachi organised a rally on Saturday in Liaquatabad to protest the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and uncontrolled price hikes in the country. Hundreds of protestors carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans against Israel, the United States and its western allies and loudly condemned the Pakistani government for acting at the behest of its western masters. MMA local leaders Siddique Rathore, Mairajul Huda Siddiqui, Nasrullah Shaji, Younus Barai and others demanded the government adopt policies to make peoples lives better.
Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of President George W. Bush's handling of homeland security, an 11 percent jump from May, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday. The poll was taken Thursday and Friday, after British authorities foiled a plot to use chemical bombs to bring down as many as 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States. 
An alternative resolution on The Situation in the Middle East.
A bizarre video of 
A graduate student from the University of Central Florida remains missing Saturday after he was pulled underwater by a large sea turtle, according to Local 6 News. Officials said Boyd Lyon, 35, vanished Thursday afternoon about three miles north of the Sebastian Inlet and 400 yards out to sea, sheriff's officials said.
IDF operations in Lebanon continued to expand on Saturday. Israeli government officials said IDF operations would not stop until the IDF's goals were reached, despite the passage of UN Security Council resolution 1701. 
Israeli warplanes launched wide-ranging airstrikes and sent commandos into the Hezbollah heartland Saturday while the U.N. raced to begin enforcing its new cease-fire blueprint and stop the fighting. Airstrikes killed at least 15 people in one Lebanese village. Israel also blasted a highway near Lebanon's last open border crossing to Syria as it kept up its full-scale campaign against Hezbollah militants. Long columns of Israeli tanks, troops and armored personnel carriers streamed over the border.
(West Virginia) The Washington County Sheriffs Department in Ohio has arrested two men for their involvement in what police say could be aiding terrorists, and one man linked to them could have been doing the same in Taylor County.
Paris Hilton got no love this week from her pet kinkajou Baby Luv in fact, the racoon-like animal bit her. The heiress was not badly hurt but did visit a hospital emergency room to receive a tetanus shot, her publicist, Elliot Mintz, told The Associated Press on Friday. Hilton was frolicking with her exotic pet early Tuesday morning "the way some people play with their cats and dogs" when the animal became excited, Mintz said. 
While Fred's 
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was being treated Friday evening in the emergency room of Providence Health Center in Waco. Sheehan, who has been on a liquids-only diet for 37 days as part of a fast in protest of the war, was described as being gaunt and pale as she arrived at the hospital. An assistant said Sheehan, who flew to Central Texas after a trip with other activists to Jordan to meet with members of Iraq's new parliament, was being treated for exhaustion. 
At the heart of the resolution are two elements: It seeks an immediate halt to the fighting that began July 12 when Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli troops along the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border separating Israel; and it spells out a series of steps that would lead to a permanent cease-fire and long-term solution.
TEHRAN, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) - Iran's conservative Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister 
HAVANA (AP) - It was supposed to be the ultimate tribute, several days of parties and concerts to mark Fidel Castro's 80th birthday. But instead of listening to folk music and attending conferences on his legacy, Castro is expected to spend his birthday Sunday in bed, recovering from surgery for intestinal bleeding.
LONDON (AP) - One was an athletic teenager who had grown into a devout young man, another a soccer-loving convert to Islam. The youngest was 17, the oldest 35. Many were born in Britain and all were reared here.
In the Middle East, they call it Hellbrew.
A Taleban suicide 
Separately three Al-Qaeda 
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - Nearly 450 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division returned home from Iraq on Friday and more flights into Fort Campbell are expected soon, base officials said. The new arrivals bring the total number who have returned since the first homeward-bound flights in early July to about 1,000. Up to four flights, each of about 200 soldiers, are expected next week at the sprawling Army base that straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.
Turkey is battling the largest-ever recorded outbreak of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), which has killed at least 20 people this year, with experts saying on Tuesday that more cases of the Ebola-like disease are inevitable in coming months. Most of the cases have occurred in six provinces in the Black Sea and Central Anatolia regions: Tokat, Sivas, Gumushane, Amasya, Yozgat and Corum.
I'm going to be on vacation from the 'Burg for the next couple weeks. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be here, just that I won't be here very much.
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Incumbent President Joseph Kabila had the lead with more than 1 million votes counted, but the numbers were far from definitive, with election workers in dugout canoes still looking for ballots in the troubled tally.
By Peter Morici 
Norwegian authorities warn cooperation partners each time a passport goes astray. There are currently a record 95,000 missing passports in the computer register of the Schengen agreement countries, news agency ANB reports.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas Friday at hundreds of 
NEW YORK (AP) - Fred, 
London, Aug. 11 An Iranian man from the northern city of Rasht is facing prison and may be executed for converting from Islam to Christianity, a Christian news agency reported.
Student journalists as peace builders? Some 158 staffers of student publications from public high schools around Southeastern Mindanao attended a peace writing workshop Thursday at a Department of Education function hall here. The workshop, included for the first time in this year's DepEd annual Regional Training for Campus Journalists, "is part of an effort to build a culture of peace in Mindanao," according to lead organizers from the Office of the Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCO). Similar workshops would be organized in other regions in Mindanao, said Romeo Montenegro, MEDCo's chief for media affairs. The students came from the cities of Davao, Digos, Panabo, Tagum, and the Island Garden City of Samal (IGACOS), and from the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental.
