TERROR chief Osama bin Laden will have his poetry published next week.
As well as being head of al-Qaida, the mastermind behind the World Trade Centre attacks once recited his poems at weddings and other feasts, an Arabic studies academic has discovered.
Prof Flagg Miller found the recitings on tapes recovered from bin Laden's Afghanistan compound after the September 11 attacks, the Sunday Times reports.
Prof Miller, of the University of California Davis, said bin Laden was a skilled poet and many people taped him and passed the recordings around like pop songs.
One poem begins: "A youth who plunges into the smoke of war smiling stains the blades of lances red. May God not let my eye stray from the most eminent humans, lest they fall."
It portrays bin Laden as a "warrior poet" who will lead followers to an idyllic refuge in the Hindu Kush mountains.
Prof Miller said often in bin Laden's verse mountains were shields against secular temptations.
The poems seem calculated to win over disaffected urban youth by telling gory tales of war.
Tape extracts will be in next month's Language and Communication.
Some Arabic specialists are outraged at the publication of the poems.
One said they were like brutal video nasties.
"Whatever else bin Laden is, he is now exposed as a disgrace to two millennia of Arabic culture," the specialist said.
sounds like the Dem pol's little puke son is the guy..
The FBI is stepping up its investigation into the possibility that a University of Tennessee student hacked into the personal e-mail of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
A person who identified himself as a witness tells 10 News that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning. Kernell lives in the Commons apartment complex at 1115 Highland Ave. David Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis.
A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed there has been "investigatory activity" in Knoxville regarding the Palin case, but she said there are no publicly available search warrants, and no charges have been filed. A separate law enforcement source confirmed to 10 News that a search warrant was served on Kernell's apartment.
According to the witness, several agents arrived at The Commons of Knoxville around midnight. They presented their badges upon entering Kernell's apartment, where several students were having a party, and took down their names. bet that put the kibosh on the fun. "Hey...is that weed I smell? Y'all are old enough to drink, right?"
The witness tells us they asked him and those who did not live in the unit to go outside. He believes the investigators took about 1.5 to 2 hours taking pictures of everything inside the apartment.
He says Kernell's three roommates were also subpoenaed, and must testify this week in Chattanooga. I (obviously) have no sympathy for this little punk
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008
16:30 ||
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#1
Supporters of a presidential candidate conduct a break-in to try to get the goods on an opposition candidate. Sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't quite place it. I'm sure the media will help fill in the context.
Next questions: what did Obama know and when did he know it?
#2
I'll give the O'man the benefit of the doubt. I recollect that Nixon didn't have prior knowledge of the break in, but did involve himself in a post event cover up to distance himself from the perps. In either case [to take a phrase from the lefty plan book] it was an atmosphere of 'anything goes' and 'ends justify the means' by the higher ups that set up both events.
#6
Assuming this all fallows through, the kid will learn the consequences of doing some fun thing that happens to be illegal - and getting caught. I read somewhere last week that there was some sort of working connection between him and an Obama staffer. He did some work for the staffer, or something like that. It will be very interesting if any such connections are found. May need more room under the bus. We'll see.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/21/2008 22:35
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Looks like University of Illinois Dept of Corrections!
Pakistani military forces flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply the Taliban during a fierce battle in June 2007, according to a U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel, who says his information is based on multiple U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports. The revelation by Lt. Col. Chris Nash, who commanded an embedded training team in eastern Afghanistan from June 2007 to March 2008, adds a new twist to the controversy over a U.S. special operations raid into Pakistan Sept. 3.
Pakistani officials strongly protested that raid, with a statement issued by the foreign ministry calling it a "gross violation of Pakistan's territory."
But fewer than 15 months earlier, Pakistani forces were flying cross-border missions in the other direction to resupply a "base camp" in Nangarhar Province occupied by fighters from the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Hezb-i-Islami faction led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Nash told Army Times in a Sept. 17 telephone interview.
He had previously alluded to the episode in a PowerPoint briefing he had prepared to help coalition forces headed to Afghanistan. The briefing, titled "Observations and Opinions IRT Operations in Afghanistan by a Former ETT OIC" and dated August 2008, has circulated widely in military circles. Military Times obtained a copy.
Nash said his embedded training team, ETT 2-5, and their allies from the Afghan Border Police's 1st Brigade fought "a significant fight" in late June 2007 in the Agam Tengay and Wazir Tengay valleys in the Tora Bora mountains of southern Nangarhar - the same region in which al-Qaida forces fought a retreat into Pakistan from prepared defenses in the winter of 2001-2002. "I had six [Marine] guys on a hill," Nash said. "They weren't surrounded, but in the traditional sense they might have been."
At a critical point in the battle, the Pakistanis flew several resupply missions to a Taliban base about 15 to 20 kilometers inside Afghanistan, Nash said. None of the Marines witnessed the helicopter flights during the four days they were there, he said in a Sept. 19 email. Rather, the supply flights had been reported to them by Afghan soldiers and local civilians in the village of Tangay Kholl.
Summarizing the reports, he said, "A helo flew in the valley, went over to where we knew there was a base camp, landed [and] 15 minutes later took off," adding that this happened "three different times."
The Afghan government's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had sources in the camp who confirmed that the helicopters were on a resupply mission, according to Nash. "From NDS sources that we had in the opposing camp, [we know] they were offloading supplies," he said.
This was consistent with multiple other reports Nash and his Marines received during that period, he said in the email. "The officer that I had advising the [Afghan Border Police brigade] intelligence officer reported to me the presence of this support in south Nangarhar throughout late June and into August of '07," he said. "Both Maj. Razid - the ABP [Brigade] intelligence officer - and Lt. Col. Daoud ... then working in ABP intelligence separately and on numerous occasions reported this to the ETT."
He said these reports were confirmed by a separate set of Marine trainers advising the Afghan National Army battalion in the area, who checked out the reports "through their Afghan intelligence officer."
Two NDS lieutenant colonels, working separately, made further reports to the Marine ETTs about the Pakistani helicopter support to the Taliban. Nash set great store by the NDS reports. "In general, we do not rely on the Afghan human intelligence nearly enough," he said. "Everybody will always roll out the one time that somebody [in NDS] was working for the other side. But I can tell you that when bullets were flying, they were spot on for me, so I trusted them."
The Marine officer said he was not sure what model the helicopters were, but added: "My understanding is they were painted in military colors."
"In passing this information to other governmental agencies at the time, they confirmed the events via word of mouth to me and my intelligence adviser to the Afghans," Nash said. "Other governmental agencies," or "OGA," is a phrase U.S. military personnel often use to refer to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Few other U.S. forces were involved in the late June battle, because the major U.S. force in the area, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was focused elsewhere at the time, Nash said. "[I] passed the information to the coalition, my reporting chain, OGA knew about it, Afghans knew about it," he said. "We didn't report or pursue any further. Just accepted [it] as a fact. There was nothing we were going to do about it anyway."
The U.S. military public affairs office at Bagram air base in Kandahar did not respond to emailed questions.
Nadeem Kiani, the press attaché at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., denied Nash's claims. "There is no truth to these sorts of reports," he said, adding that "120,000 Pakistani troops are fighting terrorism in the tribal areas" and that about 2,000 Pakistani troops had lost their lives to terrorists.
Nash's briefing included a slide titled "Outside Enemy Support," which mentions ISI support to "anti-coalition militias," or ACM: "Helo re-supply to ACM training camps inside Afghanistan."
When told of Nash's briefing, several U.S. military and civilian officials expressed surprise and said this was the first they had heard of such support. Retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan from November 2003 to May 2005, said he "would have been absolutely astounded" had the Pakistanis attempted to resupply the Taliban by helicopter during his tenure in command, which ended in May 2005. "Nothing remotely like that occurred," he said.
A field-grade Army officer with recent experience in eastern Afghanistan was also surprised by Nash's claim. "I never saw or heard of an ISI helicopter resupplying the enemy inside Afghanistan," he said. "I just didn't. It doesn't match any of my knowledge of that area."
Another Army officer, currently stationed in eastern Afghanistan, also said he had never heard of any cross-border Pakistani helicopter flights to support the Taliban.
But according to Nash, the helicopter missions were just the tip of the iceberg of the support the Taliban and its allies in his area of operations received from Pakistani forces. That support included training and funding - he notes in his briefing that the average Taliban fighter makes four times the average monthly income of an Afghan - in addition to logistical help and, on numerous occasions, direct and indirect fire support, he said.
"What [the Pakistanis] bring to the fight is not only tactical expertise, but [because of] how they're arrayed along the border, they can easily provide support by fire positions that our enemies are able to maneuver under," Nash said. "We were on the receiving end of Pakistani military D-30." The D-30 is a towed 122mm howitzer.
"On numerous occasions, Afghan border police checkpoints and observation posts were attacked by Pakistani military forces," usually those belonging to the Frontier Corps, a locally recruited force in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas that abut the border with Afghanistan, he said.
In addition, he said, his Marines had definitely seen combat with Pakistani forces.
The introduction of al-Qaida and Pakistani military training teams into Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami units resulted in a "dramatic increase in capabilities" for those forces, Nash said. "The biggest thing is coordination between enemy units," he said, adding that the Taliban and its allies had evolved from "hit and run" attacks to "hit and maneuver."
"Their ability to pull something off like a pincer movement or a flanking movement wasn't necessarily present before," he said. But with the injection of "professional" expertise, he said, "You started to see attacks that weren't conducted by goat herders. These were people who knew what they were doing."
Shown a copy of Nash's briefing, a U.S. government official who closely tracks events in Afghanistan and Pakistan said he could confirm everything Nash said about Pakistani support to the Taliban with the exception of the line about "helo resupply."
"All of that's going on," the U.S. government official said. "They have [training] personnel in place ... I've heard the logistical supply is very much going on."
But despite the extensive military and paramilitary support Nash said Pakistani forces were providing the Taliban and their allies, the Marine officer stopped short of saying Pakistani forces fighting the coalition were carrying out Pakistani government policy. "I'm not saying that any of that is sanctioned by the government of Pakistan," he said. "What I'm saying is this is occurring," the officer said.
The U.S. government official who closely follows Afghanistan and Pakistan also said it was difficult to gauge exactly who in the Pakistani government was giving the go-ahead for such extensive support of the Taliban. "The question that's hard to answer is what level of senior leadership is that under," the official said. "The usual Pakistani M.O. is to say 'Those are rogue elements and we're trying to get them under control.' "
He noted that the Pakistanis used a similar defense when it came to the support its forces gave to the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against Soviet forces. "I think that's as much bulls---today as it was 20 years ago," he said.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/21/2008
15:19 ||
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So is the proper terminology "Pakibans" or "Talipaks"? Just for future reference......
It's a quamire out there! I especially like the part about sporting injuries being more common than combat injuries.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/21/2008
15:07 ||
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#1
Ever since WWI, there have been elements that have craved to create "God's army" out of the US Army, soldiers who are chaste and do not smoke, drink, or even curse.
In serious combat operations this is understandable, except for the cursing part; but then they want to keep these rules when the fighting has died down, and that is when the serious problems begin.
To start with, soldiers just plain don't want to be denied the pleasures of life. Just because they are willing to do the job of fighting doesn't mean they have joined a new religion.
Then there is the sort-of-racism-tinged element of not wanting soldiers making babies with local girls, and bringing them and their kids home.
Even MacArthur (PBUH) tried to ban sex for moral reasons. He did this by denying the soldiers condoms, resulting in an explosion of VD in Korea.
In the 1980s, the US Army was full of morality programs to end smoking and cut down on the fatty foods, but it crashed and burned trying to restrict alcohol.
But the bottom line is that the vast majority of soldiers now serving are done with combat for good, even if they stay in the ranks. Their experience is worth vastly more than their morality, even if the "nasty Nellies" crave to make them pure again "for their own good."
Combat vets are far less malleable than peacetime soldiers, and if ordered to quit smoking, drinking and having sex, they will succinctly tell whoever to go pound sand in a rat hole.
#3
In the 1980s, the US Army was full of morality programs to end smoking and cut down on the fatty foods, but it crashed and burned trying to restrict alcohol.
How so? I say several careers end with a DUI. I saw 'happy hour' disappear from the clubs. In fact without the booze, I saw the clubs disappear as well [which put my 'voluntary' monthly dues back into my wallet]. I saw the number of Art 15s due to 'alcohol' related incidents significantly drop. I saw the youngin's going to Canada to get their fix, but it was damn quiet around the post in comparison to the 70's.
#5
In 1998 the common area of my hooch in Yongson (Seoul) had a stripper pole and fully equipped bar. We never had any problems with our command.
And I'll say no more to protect the guilty.
#6
That was when they first introduced the fat man program, which kicked out a lot of high quality NCOs who were fat, and then kicked out a bunch of high quality NCOs who were so muscular that the MET Life civilian standard fat tables assumed they were fat.
Almost any physically fit female would fail, because the MET Life table assumed all females were blobs.
They also instituted the first of the anti-smoking policies that cost a hell of a lot of talent. I remember how they purged most of the smoking, fat accountants from one division and put the whole division out of action. Nobody could figure out how to do payroll, personnel actions, ration cards or budgeting. But they could do push-ups.
The had to hire expensive, smoking and fat civilians to get their house back in order.
The USN had to discontinue its fat man program because they needed raw strength, and it took 5 skinny guys to pull a rope as well as 1 fat guy. Having forgotten that lesson, they are trying to do it again.
Seriously, what is more important in a Finance Corps guy, the ability to run two miles in under 18 minutes, or the ability to multiply two five digit numbers in his head?
The stupid concept was "every soldier an infantryman", which sounds great, until you realize that 14 out of 15 military jobs are not fighters, but support.
Fat, smoking soldiers were the first guys to learn computing in the army. I saw one who saved a major training exercise, because he was the only guy who could figure out the logistics. They gave him a big commendation for it, then kicked him out, two years short of retirement.
And, of course, when they tried to take liquor away from soldiers, as always, they made their own. This ends up putting soldiers in the hospital. Even in Gulf War I.
These are grown-ups. If they want to smoke, drink, fornicate, and eat fatty food, and they still kick the enemies' ass in battle, they should be allowed to do so.
#7
That was when they first introduced the fat man program, which kicked out a lot of high quality NCOs who were fat,
And a lot that weren't quality either.
Seriously, what is more important in a Finance Corps guy, the ability to run two miles in under 18 minutes, or the ability to multiply two five digit numbers in his head?...The stupid concept was "every soldier an infantryman", which sounds great, until you realize that 14 out of 15 military jobs are not fighters, but support
Except a lot of those jobs have gone to contractors. As they have reorganized since 2000 they shifted many jobs to civilians.
And everyone is a fighter as the troops of 507th found out trying to transit Nasiriyah and got destroyed. The clerks and mechanics couldn't fight. Somehow the increase in combat training in basic since then reflects that.
And, of course, when they tried to take liquor away from soldiers, as always, they made their own. This ends up putting soldiers in the hospital. Even in Gulf War I.
And it also becomes the basis for Hollyweird movies broadbrushing all the troops because a few make their own distill stuff and then go off to hideous commit crimes. It's just another Abu Ghrab waiting to happen because it reflects poor command and control.
These are grown-ups. If they want to smoke, drink, fornicate, and eat fatty food, and they still kick the enemies' ass in battle, they should be allowed to do so.
Frozen Al: for the last time, the source html goes in the source box, not embedded as a link in the text. I don't have the time (or patience) to keep cleaning these up. AoS.
I am including this as a counter point to all of the doom and gloom being spread about the economy recently. Some little known facts:
The balance sheets of U.S. corporations as a whole, including many with headquarters in the Twin Cities area, are healthier than they've been in years. Corporate America was sitting on $14 trillion in cash in the second quarter, according to Federal Reserve flow of funds statistics. That's an 18 percent gain since 2002, after adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, corporate debt over the same period rose only 8 percent.
That means many companies will be able take advantage of strategic opportunities.
"Clearly, the need to borrow is not that high," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, a leading economic forecasting firm based near Boston. "As a result, the corporate sector is somewhat insulated from this financial crunch that seems to be going on."
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/21/2008
14:21 ||
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"Clearly, the need to borrow is not that high,"...
So who has been doing all the borrowing that got us to this 'crisis'?
Why are the turkeys in Washington talking about 'capitalizing' the market to support borrowing?
#2
This has been coming on for a long time. These companies are hoarding cash to protect themselves from the chaos. That is, while they are building reserves, they are just sitting on them, not lending money.
It means that until somebody breaks the ice and starts lending again, this money has been taken out of the economy.
For the first time since 1940, the short term T-bill went into negative territory recently. This means that people were willing to pay the government to protect their money, instead of getting interest on that investment. It means that they weren't willing to lend it to *anyone* but the government.
#3
For the first time since 1940, the short term T-bill went into negative territory
Moose in another thread you were saying TBills were worthless couldn't sell 'em for any soaring interest rate, let's work on the consistancy on our insanity okay?
#4
You only think there is a conflict here. It wasn't long after t-bills went negative in 1940 that the government had to introduce war bonds, because their budget was so stretched.
FY '09 is going to be a bloody nightmare for the feds, as tax revenues may be double digit less than they were for FY '08. The top 20% of income earners pay 80% of the federal income tax. They make most of their money through investments, and it has not been a good year for investments.
And 40% of all federal taxes are corporate taxes.
This means a huge budget deficit, if spending is anything like it was this year. And a huge budget deficit, plus huge bailout payments, means a butt load of t-bill offerings.
Right now, t-bills are one of the safest investments. But the more t-bills that are offered, the less safe they become. This is because the government does not pay yields via earnings, but by tax revenues.
In effect, issuing t-bills to pay off the yields of other t-bills. This next year, interest on the federal debt along may equal defense spending. It is already the fourth highest expenditure in the budget, after HHS, Social Security, and the Pentagon.
Why hasnt she granted the fabled Washington Post an interview?
Maybe its because shes kinda busy right now.
Maybe its because youre not the Official Gatekeepers anymore and your oversized egos are in the way.
Maybe its because two long tv interviews in two weeks is enough.
Or just maybe its because you people have wiretapped her home and stolen her mail, accused her husband of infidelity, attacked her children, called her a whore, a thief, a liar and an unfit mother. If you could get any drunken Democrat guttersnipe from here to Anchorage to mouth an accusation between bouts of vomiting in an alley, you printed those accusations as facts on your front pages in screaming banner headlines.
Youre like some kind of Peeping Tom stalker, standing on a box outside her bathroom window, touching yourselves and mumbling I know she loves mewhy wont she talk to me?
Youre like a bunch of jaded old whoremongers in an old Western; as the calico cathouse curtains flap in the breeze, you look out the window and see a fresh-faced girl get off the noon train, holding her hat against the wind. Youre all thinking that in no time at all, youll have her working in Madame Hillarys DC House of Ill ReputeWhores Re-Formed While U Wait!
But I think shes going to have you working for her.
#1
Note to the MSM. You are teaching the Trunks that they can effectively communicate without you. If they win the White House in November, they won't need you to communicate with the American people. They can use the alternate media instead. They won't need a 'Press Office' anymore or your gad flies mucking up the White House anymore. Just a secretary to organize 'exclusive' interviews for 'friends'. Just remember, its the bed you made.
#2
"... every time you try to lob a grenade at her, you stumble and lose a few more fingers and toes as the bomb goes off at your own feet. ... [T]he charade is over. Americans are finally hip to your game. Cockroaches, meet Kitchen Light."
ROFL!
Righteous rant indeed. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 14:13
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Why won't she grant the WaPo and interviews? Perhaps because the WaPo (and NYT and LAT) have lost any shred of credibility that they had with voters.
#5
The Washington Post, the NYT, and most other newspapers are only read by people who have already made up their mind. McCain does not need to talk to them.
The problem with the ABC interview was not ensuring that it was live. Allowing ABC to edit before showing was a mistake.
#6
Mmmmmm, not necessarily, DoDo - if the McCain campaign can get the truth out about their how their edits were actually lies to the American people.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 18:49
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#7
The MSM is a delusional collection of Rags and rabid Video oracles that are determined to spread their Anti-American Lies & their Leftest Agenda!
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
IS SO WARPED AND CONCEITED THAT THEY HOLD FORTH THE PROPOSITION THAT IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO PICK UP THEIR TURDS BY THE CLEAN END.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/21/2008 20:57
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Considering that Sarah drew an audience of 60k in a Florida city that normally boasts 75k, I think the WaPo needs her more than she needs them.
(Note....yes, I realize that not all 60k were from that town. But, The One's biggest crowd has been 75k and that was only for his "coronation". Florida was recently considered a battlefield state, but hell....I coulda told 'em that it was gonna go red after that delegate seating fiasco at the DNC....)
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/21/2008 12:50
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#2
Hope and change? I repeat: 0bama HOPES the voters don't notice that his positions continually CHANGE. Thankfully, journalists are starting to notice too.
#3
AMF, you POS. It's long past time. I hope now that you're not protected by your office you soon find yourself in PMITA prison for a long, long stretch. If that happens, you should consider yourself lucky. Israelis should have shot you for treason.
#4
This thread is a sad commentary on what we really think of Ohlmert. The leader of the only democracy in the ME has just resigned and we're so tired of this guy, that we barely even comment. I'm willing to bet most of us haven't even read the article.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/21/2008 14:17
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#5
well, I did ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 14:36
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I'm willing to bet most of us haven't even read the article.
granted that was true for me. But as for the few comments, I think Frank G pretty much summed it up in his yellow inline.
#8
Mike, i think that the take on Olmert was the same as for any prominent figure that, evenwith the case made against him, continues to hang on, for whatever reason. Once it became clear that it was more than typical paolitics, he should have stepped aside and gathered what little bit of self respect he had left instead of stonewalling. (and yes i read the article).
Whoa. The last full paragraph in the article is deeply moving.
A German film taking a new look at the bloody legacy of the Baader Meinhof Gang will open this week, aiming to blot out the "terrorist chic" image of the 1970s urban guerrilla outfit.
Reportedly the most expensive German picture ever made, "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is based on a bestseller by Stefan Aust, a former editor of the influential weekly Der Spiegel. It chronicles in exacting detail the wave of assassinations, bombings and kidnappings after the group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), declared war on what it called the morally bankrupt West German state.
The filmmakers say the picture, which will be released Thursday and has already been selected as Germany's entry in the Oscar race, will put an end to the glamourisation the young revolutionaries have undergone in popular culture in recent years.
Some of the country's most influential critics have hailed the film as an authentic look at the most turbulent decade in postwar Germany. But several commentators, including children of the RAF's members and victims, say the A-list cast and estimated 20-million ($29-million) budget have created a titillating, irresponsible spectacle.
"Bernd Eichinger claims that his film will destroy the RAF myth but the opposite is the case," one of Meinhof's daughters, 46-year-old journalist Bettina Röhl, wrote on her blog referring to the screenwriter and producer. "The 'Baader Meinhof Complex' is the worst-case scenario - it would be impossible to top its hero worship."
The Baader Meinhof Gang, dubbed so after its founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, captured the imagination of a generation that charged that their parents had failed to own up to Germany's Nazi past.
Activists inspired by the 1960s student protests against the Vietnam War and US policy in the Middle East became radicalised, resorting to violence and mayhem to bring down West Germany's young democracy.
A second generation of RAF members continued the campaign after Baader and Meinhof were murdered by guards, or fellow inmates committed suicide in prison following their capture in 1972. But many sympathisers were eventually repelled by the band's reign of terror. It is believed to have killed 34 people before disbanding in 1998.
"This was, and not just for me, the biggest German tragedy of the postwar period," said Eichinger, whose 2004 drama "Downfall" set in Hitler's bunker was nominated for an Academy Award.
Like "Downfall" and the Stasi drama "The Lives of Others" which won the 2007 Academy Award for best foreign language film, "The Baader Meinhof Komplex" was conceived as a blockbuster to help Germans come to terms with another dark chapter of their past.
The cast include Moritz Bleibtreu ("Run, Lola, Run") and Martina Gedeck ("The Lives of Others"), who appear in hipster clothing and indulge in free love, drag racing in stolen Porsches and orgiastic shoot-em-ups. A stint in a Palestinian militant training camp in Jordan in one scene turns into a farce when the female guerrillas insist on sunbathing in the buff within the sights of the Muslim fighters.
The film has drawn comparisons with Steven Spielberg's "Munich" in its structure and themes, examining the corrupting power of fierce idealism when the ends are to justify the means.
In recent years, a handful of films and television programmes on the RAF including the 2002 biopic "Baader" were accused of lionising the charismatic, if fanatical, protagonists. T-shirts emblazoned with "Prada Meinhof" or the RAF's Heckler and Koch machine gun logo rode a wave of "terrorist chic" among 20-somethings in German cities.
The film received major public funding and the German government, ever wary of extremism, threw its support behind the project. "It's time we had an unflinching look at this topic using film as a medium. Until now, movies tended to make heroes out of the main characters," the president of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Thomas Krueger, told German radio, praising the filmmakers' efforts. "But this is a blood stain that soaks a strain of German history. It needs to be confronted honestly."
Jörg Schleyer, son of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer who was murdered by the RAF in the notorious "German Autumn" of 1977, also raved about the picture after its gala premiere.
"The 'Baader Meinhof Complex' shows the wanton brutality of the RAF without sullying its victims' memory," Schleyer, 54, told the daily Bild. "You see how my father's chauffeur and another passenger in the car were just slaughtered. It hurts me to watch that but it is the only way to make clear to young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF was at that time. They were not rebels or freedom fighters. They were murderers."
The film has been sold to several foreign markets and will be released in Britain and France in November.
#1
If true, this is a landmark event in the political maturation of the media-industrial complex. Ever since James Dean, the standard media meme has been to take the worship of "the rebel" to greater and greater extremes, the long-running deification of the psychopath Ernesto Guevara being only the most egregious example among many.
To the media-industrial complex, the world is a movie and terrorists have the James Dean role.
(Ironically, James Dean himself was a serious and studious young man who did not play the "James Dean" role in real life, his death in a sports car accident not withstanding.)
#3
Fuck the Baader-Meinhof gang, and all their fellow travelers. The whole lot of them can burn in hell.
I felt one of their blasts. Never forget. Never forgive.
"Until now, movies tended to make heroes out of the main characters"
True dat. Hope this one points out the fact that during his capture in Frankfurt, Baader was shot in the ass and squealed like a stuck pig little girl.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 18:47
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#4
oughtta be a way to tie this in to Ayers
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 18:52
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#5
I was in Wiesbaden while the Baader-Meinhoff gang was terrorizing Frankfurt. Our unit was one of five that were specifically targeted by the RAF. A friend of mine was injured in the IG Farben building blast. The best thing that could ever happen to the Baader/Meinhoff gang is to be completely ignored and forgotten. They deserve no more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 23:36
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.
The images support the view of international refugee organizations and Iraq experts that a major population shift was a key factor in the decline in sectarian violence, particularly in the Iraqi capital, the epicenter of the bloodletting in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
Minority Sunni Arabs were driven out of many neighborhoods by Shi'ite militants enraged by the bombing of the Samarra mosque in February 2006. The bombing, blamed on the Sunni militant group al Qaeda, sparked a wave of sectarian violence.
"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left," geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement.
"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said Agnew, who studies ethnic conflict.
Some 2 million Iraqis are displaced within Iraq, while 2 million more have sought refuge in neighboring Syria and Jordan. Previously religiously mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad became homogenized Sunni or Shi'ite Muslim enclaves.
The study, published in the journal Environment and Planning A, provides more evidence of ethnic conflict in Iraq, which peaked just before U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of about 30,000 extra U.S. troops.
The extent to which the troop build-up helped halt Iraq's slide into sectarian civil war has been debated, particularly in the United States, with supporters of the surge saying it was the main contributing factor, and others arguing it was simply one of a number of factors. Continued...
#1
Actually, I don't think that's totally BS; IIUC, about half of the 20% or so of the Sunni Master Race Members have left the building. I remember reading about the delusional worldview of sunnis, many of whom supposedly thinking they were the MAJORITY of the iraqi population, but when half your neighbors choose to fly to greener pastures, and the guys fighting to restore your brood as the top of the chain food are either psychos and/or thugs, it's not hard to understand why the "sons of iraq" saw the light, and understood there was no future in their grand strategy. Basically, they were beaten, and they finally had to face it, couldn't happen to a nicer lot.
#2
"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left," geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement
OR the more equal distribution of power on the electric grid left previously "special" places like Tikrit and Sunni Baghdad with less power than before...or they are conserving. I'd say Mr. UCLA man is making a huge jump to a predetermined conclusion
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 11:16
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#3
My mind almost blow when i read this BS text. Read they example they wrote about violence: A bomb planted by Al-qaeda that by definition doesn't have anything to do with with geographic/ethnic barriers. All Al-Qaeda based violence have nothing to do with that. It was Al-qaeda sunni violence over iraq sunnis that made some province hot bed of violence.
The politics behind this are disgusting.
Posted by: Gromoper Scourge of the Heathen Rus6841 ||
09/21/2008 11:34
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Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."
#6
Uhh ..... while as reported, this "study" is indeed BS insofar as it ignores the changes in widely dispersed parts of Iraq, many with their own distinctive profiles and histories since 2003, it accidentally trips over (in principle) one key - no, THE key - issue.
Wars - real, nasty, not-screwing-around wars - are won or lost. Period. One or more sides are defeated, the will of others is imposed on them, their MAM population is killed or reduced, their means to wage conflict or withstand the cost imposed on them for initiating/continuing their violence reduced or eliminated.
So - if the "study" actually showed what its authors claim (doubtful), then it's a reminder that wars are not won through fancy strategies that sound good at the war college (and they shouldn't do that, either).
The simple, obvious objection to the "study" is, uh, how do you explain Anbar .... or Diyala .... or Mosul ... or .... or .....
Sure, population shift may have been a "key factor" - but that doesn't have anything to do with other factors - the Anbar awakening, its analogues in Diyala and elsewhere, the cumulative improvement in the ISF - and .... the resumption (finally) of the initiative by MNF-I.
One other thing (category: erroneous shibboleths that help distort the overall picture): "hundreds of thousands" were killed? Maybe ... just barely. And the bulk of those were killed by one side, and its collaborators (10 guesses as to who that is). These people just, by sheer coincidence, happen to be the SAME people who ran the place before we showed up, and who DID kill millions overall, not to mention run the place into the ground in almost every imaginable human and material sense.
I'm still thinking the "hundreds of thousands" thing is nonsense - and I'm already certain that it has no place as a throwaway line in a wire-service report. One of the things that has destroyed basic "reporting" as a means of providing information to the public. Put someone knowledgeable and rigorous in a wire service editing position, and you wouldn't recognize the dispatches - instantaneously.
It may seem like an unlikely pairing, but the fun-loving furry Muppets on Sesame Street are partnering with the Department of Homeland Security to teach kids as young as 3-years-old how to proceed should a terrorist attack, hurricane, or other potential catastrophe occur.
For the times it's not a sunny day in the neighborhood, Sesame Street wants its pupils prepared, reports CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City.
"An emergency is something that happens that you do not expect," warns a helmet-wearing Grover at the beginning of a new DVD and information package aimed at young children. Officials hope children will learn how to respond should a major event occur.
"This way they're aware something unexpected can happen and there's ways to prepare for it," says Jeanette Betancourt, the Education Director of Sesame Workshop.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 stressed the need for a child's psychological protection, while family separation during Hurricane Katrina taught the need to know names other than mommy and daddy.
On the DVD, the familiar and friendly faces of the Muppets sing about first names, last names, emergency kits, the neighborhood's helpers, and -- with Grover as the intrepid reporter -- what to know in case of an emergency.
Helping with the kid-friendly message were experts with Weill Cornell Medical College's pediatrics department. "They can memorize their own address and phone number so someone knows how to get a hold of them and then we focused on parents and saying what they can do," says Dr. Mary Jo Ward, a Developmental Psychologist at the college.
The push came from what kids didn't know. Developers of the package say almost 2 out of 3 families don't have an emergency plan everyone is aware of.
Parents are happy to add this to their collection. "I guess if you can watch it on a DVD they might pay more attention," says parent Julie Koontz. Adds Jennifer Friedman, another parent who agrees with Koontz: "It's something the parents can use to stimulate conversation."
A conversation helped by characters that children trust. "It's made from the child's point of view, it's fun. It's not only not threatening, but it's also a way to enjoy it over and over and over," says Betancourt. Too much time + Too much money == ?
#2
This is important. As soon as each of the trailing daughters was truly talking, I taught her a little song with her full name, street address, town and country. We lived in Germany when I started this, so I taught it to them in the local language. When we moved to Belgium I taught them the new address in English, because the Belgians become so upset if addressed in the wrong language, whether French or Flemish. This gave the tds confidence that they would be ok if they got lost or separated from their adults, and I no longer needed to worry that when turned in to the police they would have answers beyond, "My name is trailing, I live with Mommy and Daddy at home."
#3
TW is exactly right. My extended family lives in Louisiana and Texas, and go through hurricanes, tornadoes, and just plain thunderstorms regularly. They also experienced the total disorganization that occurred during the Katrina evacuation. It's easy for a family to get separated, and tough to reunite them if you don't have a last name, telephone number, or street address. Good on Sesame Street to do this - those familiar characters will take some of the dread out of what would otherwise be a somber and frightening experience.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 19:39
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#4
"Too much time + Too much money == ?"
You and Procopius2k have not been on the wrong side of disaster? Or perhaps you've both forgotten what happens when things go kablooie. Or perhaps you're counting on the parent(s) to do it?
May I counsel you that that final sentiment doesn't necessarily work?
And that the primary recipient of kids not knowing what to do will be the government responders?
My question is why hadn't this hadn't been done five or six years ago.
A Taliban ambush on a French platoon killed 10 soldiers in August. Now, a secret NATO review shows that the French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared.
#1
This was forwarded my Michael Yon as well. Interesting article, though and like some commenters at the link, this really irks me to have a newspaper publish a SECRET Nato memo, and score a propaganda victory for the taliban, especially with the "the sky is falling" tone.
But, then again, french msm have heavily indulged into the whole defeatist meme, much to the pleasure of all the "sovereignty guys" and all the anti-americans, left and right. Kinda funny, in a perverse way, to have the french army experiments the might of the "fighter-journalists" carrying water for ennemy propaganda against their own camp, out of sheer ideology.
As for the G&M article itself, well, this doesn't surprize me much if what I've understood about the shortages and general lack of viable equipment in the french Army are true - and they probably are, too many concording sources.
This reminds me of this Blackfive article from earlier this year, where two flaws of the french army are glaring, the lack of inter-operability with other allied forces (in this one, the rescue of the wounded french paratrooper is made more complicated as communication equipments are not compatible) and the lack of english fluency.
On the plus side, I'm glad one commenter from the Great white north noticed that despite being outgunned and pinned down in a killing zone, the paras still managed to kill 15 taliban, as opposed to their 9 KIA (the 10th was killed in an unrelated road accident on the way home).
#3
this really irks me to have a newspaper publish a SECRET Nato memo, and score a propaganda victory for the taliban, especially with the "the sky is falling" tone.
It should be starnadrd practice to carry journalist as human shilds on colaition vehicles.
in this one, the rescue of the wounded french paratrooper is made more complicated as communication equipments are not compatible
#4
Not just Taliban. This from the Globe and Mail:
"...the attackers cannot be described as purely Taliban; they likely included fighters from the Taliban movement, but also from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami network, and perhaps from other groups.
Senior officials said they suspect the involvement of Hazrat Noor, an extremist leader from South Waziristan, in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A report in the French magazine Paris Match suggested a local commander named Farouki may be responsible. Yet another insurgent leader, Mullah Rahmatullah, has also taken credit for the ambush. Originally a commander for Hizb-i-Islami in the Uzbin valley, Mr. Rahmatullah now reputedly gets funding for his activities from both the Taliban and Mr. Hekmatyar. All reports may be correct, observers say, assuming that many groups co-operated on the attack."
#6
It was not the Hizb Izlami who provided the popel who were good: it basically draws from the same poll than the Taliban and the people of Masud beat them again and agsin. I suspect that they were Chechens or perhaps Pakistani Spacial Forces in the area. Notice: zero proof, juts educated guess on who on the area can provide well trained personel and reasonably good snipers.
A quote attributed to Sandra Cichon, a private citizen, is spreading across the internet as a living example of White Racism. Did a reporter put words in this woman's mouth? An article in the St. Petersberg Times, quotes Cichon as having said, "I can't imagine having a black president . . ."
In a phone interview Saturday, Sandra Cichon of Spring Hill, Florida denied that she ever spoke with any pollster or reporter concerning Obama or about anything regarding race. Cichon was taken by surprise when phoned by this reporter, and she was not aware that she had been quoted in any newspaper.
The September 15, 2008 article Black 'issue' hangs over presidential polls by Adam Smith of the St. Petersburg Times Political states:
A pollster calling Sandra Cichon, a 60-year-old Democrat from Spring Hill, would hear her identify herself as an undecided voter. But is she really?
"I can't imagine having a black president, and I think he's inexperienced," she told a reporter recently, eventually acknowledging she was leaning unenthusiastically toward McCain. "I don't think we (Democrats) have a chance to be in the White House with Obama."
Many analysts wonder how many voters answering polls hide their racial biases or mislead survey-takers about their real preferences.
The article fails to name the pollster who claimed to have called Cichon. When asked during my phone interview, Cichon denied speaking to any pollster on the phone.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008
09:35 ||
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#1
Vote for Obama:
He will give you (false)hope, (take your) change and if you don't you are a buck-toothed red state racist.
#2
Sandra Cichon is must be a Republican racist. Oh. She's a Democrat? But she's can't really be a Democrat......and she said something about BO being inexperienced too. But what does inexperience have to do with anything, not many people have had much experience being a Messiah. No matter, he will get OTJ training. Wrong!
#3
Wow--by attributing these stupid things to someone they identify by name, age, place of residence, they are endangering the person. A lot of people would want to cause harm to someone who is (falsely) quoted as saying, "Now can I cook you up a batch of Obama waffles?" This is leftist fascism. Scary.
#4
They don't care, anymore than the hackers care that they endangered the Palin children by publishing their cell phone numbers and private email accounts to every slavering paedephile out there.
#5
Nah, its the Klan reborn [just refocused] and inhabiting the same old political shell it once thrived in to play out its politics of hate and intolerance. Its the same behavioral pattern, the same wink and a nod from the same usual suspects.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 17:01
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#7
I predict a landslide for McCain in Nov.
I have a question for any lefties out there: Are you happy to be associated with the stuff coming from your compadres?
The Obama campaign can only be described as a collection of mean-spirited jerks who are falling apart faster than anything I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.
I suspect a good percentage of democrats, who are not frothing at the mouth, won't show up to vote. They will tell the pollsters that they will be there, and they will intend to go, but in the end they will be busy that day and well...they don't really like him much anyway.
I won't be the least bit surprised if we see multiple states such as Iowa, PA, OH, IN, CO, NM, MN, and others go towards McCain. JMHO.
#9
A lot of people would want to cause harm to someone who is (falsely) quoted as saying, "Now can I cook you up a batch of Obama waffles?"
The "waffles" thing is very clearly snark added by the writer at the Double Take blog. Sowell is being either disingenuous or dumb by taking it seriously.
You know, polls only measure one kind of demographic: those who don't have anything better to do than gab to strangers on the phone.
#10
Angie - it may be true that it was intended to be snark, but too many Obama supporters have displayed a mean streak that I have never before witnessed in my life time. "Obama waffles" or "Bush the idiot chimp who can't read" is par for the course. But a part of the left is simply becoming unhinged and vicious in their words and actions.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front said on Sunday more fighting would most likely happen at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan if the military were to continue punitive operations against its forces in Mindanao.
Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief negotiator, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone that religious leaders in Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in sermons on Saturday called on the Bangsamoro people to unite and wage a jihad -- holy war -- against enemies of Islam. Iqbal said MILF chair Ebrahim Murad also stated that if the military operation would not stop, more fighting should be expected in the future. The possible declaration of Jihad by religious leaders is part of their personal views. In the MILF, we have been launching Jihad since we started our organization but we are now negotiating with the government, Iqbal said. Right now, the military operations in Central Mindanao and Lanao areas continue. If they will not stop, we expect fighting will erupt again after Ramadan, he said.
The call for unity and Jihad among Muslims came out after soldiers attacked MILF rebels in Calanugas, Lanao del Sur, while doing their Iftar (breaking of fast) on Thursday. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has mounted an operation against MILF commanders Ameril Ombra Kato and Abdulla Macapaar, also known as Bravo. The two are facing multiple criminal charges for allegedly leading rebel attacks on civilian communities in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte last month.
The government has doubled the reward for information leading to the capture of Kato and Bravo from P5 million each to P10 million. Another P5 million has been put up for the capture of another MILF commander, Aleem Sulayman Pangalian. We will not surrender them because we have no agreement with government to turn them over, Iqbal said.
At least 100 Afghan policemen and government officials, including a deputy provincial governor, were poisoned after eating their evening meal.
A man claiming to be from the Taliban said he had carried out the mass poisoning but NATO's military force, which offered medical treatment, said it was believed to be a straightforward case of food poisoning.
About 100 men fell ill in the eastern province of Nuristan late yesterday after eating iftar, the evening meal that breaks a day of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, deputy provincial governor Abdul Halim said. They had all eaten food prepared in the kitchen of the governor which feeds some provincial authorities and police who guard the compound. "After we had our iftar, about 100 people felt really ill,'' he said.
Many had fainted and about 360 people were treated were given medical treatment. Halim said he had also taken ill but had recovered by Sunday. The provincial police chief was however still being treated in a clinic, he said.
The source of the poisoning appeared to have been the bread but it was being investigated.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, in Afghanistan to help the government defeat a Taliban-led insurgency, said about 160 people were treated at a clinic and 200 more at a local police station. "Although the cause of the illness is not fully understood it is believed to be a straightforward case of food poisoning and the matter is being investigated by the Afghan National Police,'' it said in a statement.
A man who gave his name as Ajab Khan and said he was a Taliban commander in the region claimed responsibility for the poisoning and said 300 people had been affected.
Nuristan is a rural and mountainous province on the border with Afghanistan. It has seen attacks by Taliban insurgents, with the radical faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar also active there.
ISLAMABAD: Was there a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening? No one will confirm it but circumstantial evidence is in abundance.
Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on the same night when Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.
Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines were either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel. These steel boxes were not passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel lobby and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott.
Besides several others, PPP MNA Mumtaz Alam Gilani and his two friends, Sajjad Chaudhry, a PPP leader, and one Bashir Nadeem, witnessed this mysterious activity to which no one other than the PPP MNA objected and protested.
A source present there told The News that after entertaining them with refreshments at the Nadia restaurant at midnight when Mumtaz Alam, along with his friends, was to leave the hotel, he found a white US embassy truck standing right in front of the hotel's main entrance.
Both the In-gate and the Out-gate of the hotel were closed while almost a dozen well-built US Marines in their usual fatigues were unloading the steel boxes from the truck. No one, including the hotel security men, was either allowed to go near the truck or touch the steel boxes, which were being shifted inside the hotel but without passing through the scanners.
Upon inquiry, one of the three PPP friends who was waiting for the main gates of the hotel to open to get his car in, was informed that the suspicious boxes were shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel. Mumtaz Alam was furious both at the US Marines and the hotel security not only for the delay caused to them but also for the security lapse he was witnessing.
On his protest, there was absolutely no response from the Marines and the security men he approached were found helpless. Mumtaz Alam told the hotel security official that they were going to endanger the hotel and its security. He was also heard telling his friends that he would never visit the hotel again. He also threatened to raise the issue in parliament.
One does not know whether the PPP MNA revisited the hotel after that mysterious midnight but his brother Imtiaz Alam, who is a senior journalist, was in the same hotel when the truck exploded at the main gate of the hotel. Imtiaz Alam had a lucky escape and found his way out of the hotel with great difficulty in pitch darkness.
One of the lifts he was using fell to the ground floor just after he forced the door open on the 4th floor and got out of it.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/21/2008
09:22 ||
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#1
The old saying goes: "Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear." How much of what a paki "witness" sez he "saw" should you believe?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/21/2008 10:07
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#4
Fox News is reporting two Embassy Marines dead.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008 11:38
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#5
Sounds like someone was getting an earfull of facts gleaned by US embassy personnel, and the Talibunnies heard about it (probably from the ISI). Pakistan needs to get its act together, or the US needs to do some butt-kicking, or both.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 15:12
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I said in my last letter that America wanted President Musharraf out for five reasons but gave only four. The fifth is that America was upset with him for getting Observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, thus putting some of our eggs in the baskets of Russia and China, the two emerging poles that will soon challenge the single polar status of the USA.
I also forgot to tell you one lesson. We have to become self-reliant. We must. There is no other option. Otherwise perpetual slavery stares us in the face. Thus, sacrifices must be made by the well off. The poor have nothing to sacrifice. So long as you spend more than you earn and live on borrowed money, so long will you not be truly independent, living only an illusion of artificial well being. A stage then comes when you will become totally dependent, having mortgaged your future and your soul to the devil, as we nearly have. There is no redemption from hell except repudiation, which requires revolution. You just cannot escape it, son. Not if you want to be a proud and independent nation.
After last week's letter you asked whether our Army Chief General Kayani means what he says when he warns of retaliation if US-NATO soldiers raid Pakistani territory again. If it's a bluff, what if his bluff is called? The bluff was called last week when NATO helicopters tried to violate our airspace. After warning shots they retreated. We didn't blink. So relax. Kayani is a professional soldier. You don't become army chief without being baked in a piping hot oven of intense and extensive experience. Army chiefs don't make such statements lightly. The top brass consider all the pros and cons before doing anything. They know that if they retaliate the US could escalate the war.
They know too that they won't be alone then. The Taliban, other militants and the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan will immediately become one, like a mailed fist, for they will be fighting for the liberation of Afghanistan from foreign occupation, just as they did in the Eighties against another superpower. Behind us will be China, perhaps Russia too, as then it was America. The US doesn't even have the numbers to control Afghanistan. How can they match this?
A couple of days after the retaliation, Admiral Mullen came unscheduled to Islamabad. Morale skyrocketed. We had made the head of the most powerful military machine in the world "come running" to Pakistan. Don't fool yourself. While our leaders were talking with Mullen, NATO missiles were raining down on Pakistan. Look, America won't take this further. They can hardly handle Iraq and Afghanistan, how can they open another front against a country much larger than both of them put together with the strongest military in the Muslim world, nuclear-armed? What with its economy sinking into the morass of depression, not recession, it will be too hot to handle.
As to forcing us to "rollback" our nuclear programme, what the hell does that mean? We are already a declared nuclear country. Rollback happens during development, like stopping enrichment. Iran is at the rollback stage; we are far beyond. Where will they take so many of our missiles and warheads? It's not that easy. They are disassembled and housed in several places, which are constantly changed. Missile brigades guard them. This is not child's play. There are only two ways they can feel comfortable with our nuclear assets, one silly, one sensible. The silly one is to get a puppet government here to allow IAEA full inspections and perhaps also let America have a position in our command and control authority. The sensible one is to accept and admit Pakistan in the international nuclear club, where it will have to adhere to all the safeguards that other club members do. But American foreign policy is not famous for being sensible.
Don't worry about America's deputy foreign secretary Boucher or CIA chief Hayden wanting our ISI to the "reorganised". Hayden, apparently, has even presented a "plan" to the new rulers we have democratically elected to look after our sovereignty, integrity and ideological frontiers. The attempt to bring it under the Interior Ministry backfired. Look, son, who the rulers are doesn't matter. There is such a thing as the People. There is also such a thing as the national establishment. Politicians aren't its members. They think they run the country, but they actually work for the establishment without realising it. They can do what they like as long as they don't transgress our sovereignty, integrity and ideology (which they and most of our literate-uneducated are fuzzy about anyway), or let anyone else do so. If they do, they will be made mincemeat of. So don't worry. It's the CIA that needs reorganisation, what with its many failures, like not predicting 9/11.
You were confused over our former chief of general staff Lieutenant General Shahid Aziz's purported statement that Musharraf kept the army in the dark and handed over Pakistanis to America. Shahid Aziz has denied it. It was naïve of him to talk to a reporter, but I've told you that when it comes to real life retired generals (and bureaucrats) are innocents abroad who think that they are better at anything and everything than us "bloody civilians". When they parachute into reality at the end of their careers, the "bloody civilians" often give them a bloody nose. I've seen it happen time and again. Lost without a secretary and a driver, they try and escape anonymity by holding forth on television and in the press, thinking that we are all amnesiac fools. Anonymity is like death. The only way a man thinks he can beat mortality is by being known and recognised, forgetting that after his funeral rites are done and all the mourners have gone he will be forgotten anyway, unless he wins recognition for something good he has done for the country and the people. The bureaucrat who will never be forgotten is Akhtar Hameed Khan, who did so much for the poor. If your Dada is and will be remembered for anything, it is for his 'Translations From the Quran' and his television lectures on Islam. People talk of being charitable with those who finally see the light. But seeing the light like Abu Sufian the night before the conquest of Mecca makes one a hypocrite.
Shahid Aziz is not a hypocrite. He is not seeking publicity. He sounds appalled at what happened. As a soldier and a gentleman he is top drawer. He is a good man and a great patriot who has been unfairly sullied because he innocently dived into an unfamiliar pool of sharks. That is all. People shouldn't make a big thing out of it just to embarrass Musharraf. They don't realise how much they damage the country in so doing. Sadly, we have rubbed out that fine line that divides national interest from national damage. That includes a small part of the media that tars the rest with the same brush. Look, son, there are three things you must know.
Musharraf didn't keep the army in the dark on the War On Terror. Only those who are relevant are informed strictly on a need-to-know basis. The CGS knows whom the army arrests and hands over to the ISI. Thereafter it is none of his business for he doesn't need to know.
No Pakistani caught in Pakistan was ever handed over to America. They took only those they caught in Afghanistan. We sent a Colonel Mukhtar to inspect Guantanamo and on his report got many Pakistanis released.
We did allow electronic surveillance by drones. The missile attacks were unauthorised, Musharraf started reacting badly and his relationship with the US began souring. But as long as he was in power, no US or NATO soldier was ever allowed to set foot in Pakistan.
Here's a piece of advice. Never worry about what others may think of you as long as you are sure that you are doing the right thing. You are not answerable to them but to God alone. I'll tell you a story that shows how the media can say something else while telling the truth.
A pastor entered his donkey in a race. It won. He was so pleased that he entered it in a race again. It won again. The local paper read: "Pastor's ass out front." The bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter his donkey in another race. The next day, the headline read: "Bishop scratches pastor's ass." This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun. Next day's headline read: "Nun has best ass in town." The bishop fainted.
He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The following day the paper read: "Nun sells ass for $10." This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the headline screamed: "Nun announces her ass is wild and free." The bishop was buried the next day.
The writer is a senior political analyst
Posted by: john frum ||
09/21/2008
09:19 ||
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#1
I figured this was another story about Biden and the Catholic Clergy
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 11:19
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#2
"Sadly, we have rubbed out that fine line that divides national interest from national damage."
Dang! The DemocRats are in Pakistan too.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 11:22
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#3
". We had made the head of the most powerful military machine in the world "come running" to Pakistan. Don't fool yourself. "
He'd best take his own advice with delusions like that.
The time is coming to treat Pakistan as an enemy. And dipshits like the author of that piece will not survive it.
They want to support the Taliban and live in the 12th century? OK, we can help with that. Simply take out the power plants and some key distribution centers, and water purification and a few key bridges, and let them rot in their own filth.
#4
BTW, that dipshit was the ghost-writer of "In the Line of Fire: a memoir" - the autobiography of Pervez Musharraf.
His father ghost-wrote "Friends not Masters", the autobiograpghy of another Pak dictator - Ayub Khan.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/21/2008 13:13
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#5
I think OS is right about the time coming to treat Pak as an enemy. Take them out, remove their nukes, and let India turn their country into a desert by preventing the Punjab rivers from flowing there.
There's a win-win there, too. Once Pak is Somalia east, India can tell its Muslims that if they cause any trouble at all, they'll have their citizenship revoked and be deported to the hellhole formerly known as Pakistan. Look at the former Pakiwakiland as being Gaza writ large. The Muzz will stay in line--or else.
#6
I think OS is right about the time coming to treat Pak as an enemy. Take them out, remove their nukes, and let India turn their country into a desert by preventing the Punjab rivers from flowing there.
There's a win-win there, too. Once Pak is Somalia east, India can tell its Muslims that if they cause any trouble at all, they'll have their citizenship revoked and be deported to the hellhole formerly known as Pakistan. Look at the former Pakiwakiland as being Gaza writ large. The Muzz will stay in line--or else.
Islamic terrorists (they don't all claim to be al Qaeda) in Yemen managed to pull off another major attack, and failed. This time the target was the U.S. embassy, and the fifteen minutes of mayhem included two car bombs and ten or more gunmen. Apparently the plan was to set off the bombs near two of the entrances, then get into the embassy itself. These days, U.S. embassies in Islamic countries tend to be built back from the road, with local police and troops handling outer perimeter security (and U.S. Marines and contractors handling the embassy buildings defense). This attack was defeated by the Yemeni security forces, leaving six of the attackers dead. An Indian passerby was also killed, along with ten other Yemenis (including the American born wife of a Yemeni, both of whom died while standing in line to enter the embassy to get a visa for a trip to the U.S.) Four Yemeni security personnel were killed in the bombing and brief gun battle.
This is a major loss for the Islamic terrorists, as they have not only failed in their attack, but killed more Yemenis in doing so. This makes the terrorists less popular, and soon leads to their demise. This is a trend that has occurred time and again in the last few decades (in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq). For the last year, Yemen has been increasingly aggressive in rounding up actual, or suspected, Islamic terrorists. In response, terrorists have set off bombs near the U.S. and Italian embassies, and a housing compound for foreigners, over the last year.
Al Qaeda in Yemen operations had actually peaked in 2000, when a suicide bomber took a boatload of explosives into Aden harbor and badly damaged a U.S. destroyer (the Cole). That attack killed 17 U.S. sailors, and brought down the wrath of Yemeni security forces, for a while anyway. Since September 11, 2001, the pressure has been steady, and hundreds of al Qaeda members and supporters have been arrested or killed. That has thwarted many attacks, and none of the ones that were carried out were as effective as the attack on the USS Cole. On the downside, convicted terrorists have been able to bribe their way out of jail, although they are often recaptured.
Counter-terrorism experts have long suspected that al Qaeda leaders had put a ban on operations in Yemen, in order to keep the local security forces inactive, because the place is so useful as a terrorist hiding place and a transit node for movement into other areas. The last thing al Qaeda wants is lots of counter-terrorism activity in Yemen. This is where Osama bin Ladens family originally came from, and he still has kin there. The Yemen government is willing to go along with the al Qaeda "truce", as this is good for the lucrative tourist trade. But there are too many Islamic radical factions, and not a lot of discipline to be found. So attacks continue. Some Yemeni officials would like to run al Qaeda out of the country. But most officials see this is as impractical. Many Yemenis are quite conservative in their religious beliefs, and tend to agree with al Qaeda. While this is a minority of the population, it is a fanatic one, willing to cause lots of trouble if stirred up.
#1
including the American born wife of a Yemeni, both of whom died while standing in line to enter the embassy to get a visa for a trip to the U.S.
Relative of Lackawanna Six jihadist killed in Yemen jihad attack on U.S. embassy School officials said Elbaneh was the daughter of Ali T. Elbaneh and the niece of Mohamed T. Albanna, two Yemeni-American community leaders who took plea deals in a case involving an unlicensed money-transmitting company that illegally sent at least $5.5 million to Yemen. Authorities never have alleged that the money was used for terrorist purposes.
In November 2006, U. S. District Judge William M. Skretny sentenced Ali T. Elbaneh to six months of home confinement for playing what federal prosecutors called a very minor role in the illegal business. Albanna received a five-year prison term.
Authorities said the dead woman also was related to Jaber Elbaneh, Mohamed Albannas nephew, a fugitive accused of traveling to a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan with the Lackawanna Six.
The United States was angered when Jaber Elbaneh, 42, convicted in Yemen for planning attacks on oil installations, was allowed to go free while appealing his 10-year prison sentence.
He has since been taken back in custody, Yemeni officials say, but Yemen has refused U. S. requests that he be handed over for trial on charges of providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. He is listed by the FBI as one of the worlds most wanted terrorists
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 9:29
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Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that Iran's military will "break the hand" of any aggressor that target his country's nuclear facilities. Addressing a military parade broadcast live on state television, he said: "If anyone allows himself to commit even a tiny offense against Iran's legitimate interests, borders and sacred land, our armed forces will break his hand before he pulls the trigger."
Ahmadinejad said Sunday that sanctions only help Iran achieve self-sufficiency. "Those who once imposed sanctions, today should open their eyes and see our nation's technical achievements."
"Today, Iran is not in a position to show softness toward its enemies," said Ahmadinejad, but added that threats made against Iran's nuclear facilities amounted to only "psychological warfare."
Sunday's parade marked the start in 1980 of Iran's ruinous eight-year war with neighboring Iraq. During the parade, state television showed various types of Iranian-made missiles, including Shahab-3 and Ghadr. Also taking part in the parade was a military truck that carried a huge banner saying "Israel should be eliminated from the universe" in both English and Farsi.
Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar announced on Saturday that Israel is militarily so weak that could be [sic] a threat to Iran. We do not consider Israel as a threat at all, the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony arranged to bury three soldiers martyred during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Israel should resolve its internal problems first. our nation has no worries about the threats by Israel and its ally America, Najar remarked.
Najar stressed the power of the Iranian nation lies in its culture of martyrdom and altruism, adding if enemies dare to launch a strike on Iran, they will face an all-out defense. On the recent Defenders of the Sky of Velayat war-games, the minister said it was aimed at increasing the military might (of the armed forces), testing new ways of management and defense.
"Another aim of the maneuver was testing the domestically produced equipment, and this is in line with preparedness to respond to potential military threats by enemies, he explained. However, he said the message of any war-game is to improve security in the region. Our power is a defensive and preventive power and we intend to attack nowhere. However, we are firm in defending this land.
Venezuela is increasingly becoming a police state. The government is expelling foreign critics, and jailing or harassing domestic ones. President Hugo Chavez's brand of nationalistic socialism is ruining the economy and antagonizing neighbors. Chavez is trying to use oil income to buy the support of enough of the population to keep himself in power. Meanwhile, the United States has charged three senior Venezuelan officials with working for FARC, mainly in the area of money laundering, and arranging for FARC drugs to get smuggled through Venezuela. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on the three Venezuelans, restricting their access to the international financial system. The three men were also charged with trying to overthrow the Colombian government, as another way to aid FARC. Chavez took this personally, and the spat between the U.S. and Venezuela got nasty, with ambassadors being expelled.
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008
08:13 ||
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#1
Hugo Chavez, President and Pompous Ass in Charge of Venezuela.
You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.
"I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain," O'Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved "Another Democrat for John McCain" signs and roared its approval.
O'Connell assured the energized crowd that "organized labor will have a seat at the table when John McCain becomes president."
Joe Rugola sees a respect among union members for McCain.
It's the kind of statement that Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George does not want to hear. "It's a problem," George admits, "but we are in an all-out effort to educate our members that the Democratic Party is the only one for working families."
Working families like Penny Pritzker's ...
He is not exaggerating when he says "all-out effort" - just try following him for a day and you're exhausted by the events, focus groups and sit-downs in which he participates.
Democrats count on unions for get-out-the-vote efforts and for the support of members and their families. Without them, states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio -- which each have about 740,000 workers who belong to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- would move into the Republican column.
George narrows the problem down to race. "There is no question, earlier in the primary campaign the racial issue was there, just like the gender issue was with Hillary for some unions," he says. "We in America like to think we don't have any hang-ups or stereotypes. But because of our history and because of a lot of industrial psychology controlling the masses, people have innate prejudices."
For example, a lot of people hate Sarah Palin just because she's successful and not a card-carrying feminist ...
George says that the mind-set of some people in the labor movement regarding race is no different than it is in church groups, or in the Republican Party.
Or in the Democratic Party but of course he won't say that ...
Joe Rugola is George's counterpart in Ohio and he, too, is seeing a problem with race and his members. Yet he also sees another dynamic going on -- a respect among union members for McCain. "There is no question that John McCain historically has had a cultural connection with our members," Rugola says, "but the reality is that his policies are not good for working families."
Frank Stricker, a history professor at California State University and a union expert, says race is a key to what alienates segments of the labor movement, especially in Ohio and west of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Stricker says that other than people not voting for a black candidate, a couple of factors -- such as Obama's cultural style and pro-choice stand -- do not sit well with culturally conservative union members.
University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato is blunter: "There's no question that race is at the heart of Obama's problem with blue-collar white union members. You'd have to be pretty naive to think otherwise."
Sabato explains that, normally, today's severe economic dislocation would send union members flocking to the Democrats' nominee. "Well, they are not flocking. McCain is their kind of guy. His biography and maverick nature are appealing."
Oh, so it's not all race after all, huh Larry ...
Yet for some labor members race does not factor at all in their voting decisions. Joe Swistok, 62, of Southington, Ohio, is a lifelong union member who began working at Republic Steel in 1964; his father had worked there since 1936. He switched his party registration to Republican during the Reagan years. "Reagan impressed me. That guy did a lot for this guy," Swistok says, referring to himself. "This area is devastated for one reason: You can't tax businesses and expect them to stay."
Stricker thinks Obama "must make a strong economic-populist appeal," one hinging on class warfare, in order to win Pennsylvania and Ohio.
To that end, both George and Rugola are engaged in huge voter-contact efforts -- door-knocking, phone calls, mailings, peer-to-peer efforts. According to an AFL-CIO spokesman, 2.1 million registered voters live in union households in Ohio, 1.7 million in Pennsylvania. In a close election, every one of these votes matters for Democrats.
"Approximately a quarter of all American households say there is a union member in the home," Sabato explains. "They are much more Democratic than average, but in GOP landslide years like 1972 and 1984, a majority has voted Republican."
Sabato says that a third or more union members consistently vote Republican for president, despite their union leaders' recommendations.
Part of Obama's problem is the contrast he presents: On one day alone last week, he spoke passionately about the country's economic concerns, then zipped off to Los Angeles to raise $9 million from Hollywood's elites. That's sort of like John Kerry windsurfing during the 2004 election: Union members in Youngstown or in "Little Washington," Pa., just can't relate.
#5
As a lifelong supporter of unions (when they are needed to protect workers; NOT solely for the benefit of union higher ups!!!) I say Cornsilk Blonde and Pappy hit the nail on the head.
#1
As a former voting assistance officer, I can attest that the military makes a solid effort for the members of the armed forces to exercise their right to vote. It's on the other end where the obstructions occur. Notice that it was the 'absentee' [the military] vote that the Gore Campaign immediately went after to eliminate at the very beginning of their attempted Florida coup. They went into the courts to throw out any envelope not date stamped by the Post Office. Of course anyone who pulls their own mail can look and see how many pre-paid envelopes are without date stamp. This demand also included those that while date stamped as received by the local board of elections still didn't have the USPS mark. It also ignored that the absentee ballot process, which varies by state, often had the requirement of a counter signature by a duly appointed officer to testify as to the authenticity of the voter. [Something that has been lacking for local voters].
#2
Although my (overseas) command(s) made great efforts to ensure everyone who wanted to vote could, I was never sure that any of my absentee votes actually were counted back home. In '96, I didn't even try.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/21/2008 14:23
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Negotiators for the campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama agreed yesterday on a format for the Oct. 2 debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., resolving an issue left open in August after the campaigns settled on the structure of the three presidential debates, according to sources involved in the talks.
Under the plan agreed to yesterday, Palin and Biden will have less time than McCain and Obama to reply to moderators' questions and discuss each other's answers. And there will be no guidelines given to Gwen Ifill of PBS, moderator of the vice presidential debate, as to subject matter, allowing her to mix in questions about foreign and domestic matters, the sources said.
Both sides were satisfied with the final agreement, the sources said. The Commission on Presidential Debates, the independent nonprofit organization that manages these quadrennial events, had hoped the campaigns would agree to the same longer segments for the vice presidential aspirants as those adopted in August for the presidential debates.
In the negotiations, Republicans wanted to limit the amount of time available for their neophyte candidate, Palin, to be questioned on a single topic. No bias here; move along.
Democrats, meanwhile, wanted to be sure Biden and Palin spoke from lecterns rather than sitting at a table the way Vice President Cheney and his rivals in 2000 (Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut) and 2004 (Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina) did. Both sides got what they wanted. Palin and Biden will each have 90 seconds to respond to questions, followed by a two-minute period for discussion between the candidates.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2008
07:11 ||
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#6
From a Mod -- Impartial and Objective, why don't you go watch a football game? You're level of reasoning just doesn't fit in here. Facts and sometimes even opinions we accept, but some of your rhetoric is out of line.
#7
Sherry, you should see the examples of his "thinking" in the other threads where he has graced us with his presence. (grin) I think he's gone 3/4 of the way through the Soros talking points.
With truly extraordinary speed, opinion has swung behind the radical idea that the government should commit hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to purchasing dud loans from banks that aren't actually insolvent. As recently as a week ago, no public official had even mentioned this option. Now the Treasury, the Fed and congressional leaders are promising its enactment within days. The scheme has gone from invisibility to inevitability in the blink of an eye. This is extremely dangerous.
The plan is being marketed under false pretenses. Supporters have invoked the shining success of the Resolution Trust Corporation as justification and precedent. But the RTC, which was created in 1989 to clean up the wreckage of the savings-and-loan crisis, bears little resemblance to what is being contemplated now. The RTC collected and eventually sold off loans made by thrifts that had gone bust. The administration proposes to buy up bad loans before the lenders go bust. This difference raises several questions.
The first is whether the bailout is necessary. In 1989, there was no choice. The federal government insured the thrifts, so when they failed, the feds were left holding their loans; the RTC's job was simply to get rid of them. But in buying bad loans before banks fail, the Bush administration would be signing up for a financial war of choice. It would spend billions of dollars on the theory that preemption will avert the mass destruction of banks. There are cheaper ways to stabilize the system.
In the 1980s, the government did not need a strategy to decide which bad loans to take over; it dealt with anything that fell into its lap as a result of a thrift bankruptcy. But under the current proposal, the government would go out and shop for bad loans. These come in all shapes and sizes, so the government would have to judge what type of loans it wants. They are illiquid, so it's hard to know how to value them. Bad loans are weighing down the financial system precisely because private-sector experts can't determine their worth. The government would have no better handle on the problem. But the government does have the 'cash', yes?
In practice this means the government would make subjective choices about which bad loans to buy, and it would pay more than fair value. Billions in taxpayer money would be transferred to the shareholders and creditors of banks, and the banks from which the government bought most loans would be subsidized more than their rivals. If the government bought the most from the sickest institutions, it would be slowing the healthy process in which strong players buy up the weak, delaying an eventual recovery. The haggling over which banks got to unload the most would drag on for months. So the hope that this "systematic" plan can be a near-term substitute for ad hoc AIG-style bailouts is illusory.
Within hours of the Treasury announcement Friday, economists had proposed preferable alternatives. Their core insight is that it is better to boost the banking system by increasing its capital than by reducing its loans. Given a fatter capital cushion, banks would have time to dispose of the bad loans in an orderly fashion. Taxpayers would be spared the experience of wandering into a bad-loan bazaar and being ripped off by every merchant. Makes sense to me, but I'm an engineer...
Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago suggest ways to force the banks to raise capital without tapping the taxpayers. First, the government should tell banks to cancel all dividend payments. Banks don't do that on their own because it would signal weakness; if everyone knows the dividend has been canceled because of a government rule, the signaling issue would be removed. Second, the government should tell all healthy banks to issue new equity. Again, banks resist doing this because they don't want to signal weakness and they don't want to dilute existing shareholders. A government order could cut through these obstacles. I'm not sure I like what I think I understand about this, however.
Meanwhile, Charles Calomiris of Columbia University and Douglas Elmendorf of the Brookings Institution have offered versions of another idea. The government should help not by buying banks' bad loans but by buying equity stakes in the banks themselves. Whereas it's horribly complicated to value bad loans, banks have share prices you can look up in seconds, so government could inject capital into banks quickly and at a fair level. The share prices of banks that recovered would rise, compensating taxpayers for losses on their stakes in the banks that eventually went under. Someone suggested this is what the Gov was doing, and owuld eventually make a profit. Or was that just for Lehman Bros.?
Congress and the administration may not like the sound of these ideas. Taking bad loans off the shoulders of the banks seems like a merciful rescue; ordering banks to raise capital or buying equity stakes in them sounds like big-government meddling. But we are in the midst of a crisis, and it shouldn't matter how things sound. The Treasury plan outlined on Friday involves vast risks to taxpayers, huge complexity and no guarantee of success. There are better ways forward.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2008
07:02 ||
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#1
I would absolutely love to own a business that couldn't fail, spend all you want, and when I'm broke, the Govt hands me cash to continue, WITH NO REPAYMENT EVER.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2008 7:38
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#3
The solution is simple. Unwind all the debt that underlies real estate bonds, then revalue the bonds to their proper levels.
Financial institutions could start doing this tomorrow, but the folks running these institution won't permit that because frankly, they expect to get bailed out and they want to game this new system for their own profit.
If the government insists on buying bad debt, then taxpayers not only gets any future profits generated by these financial institutions they also get all executive bonuses over $1,000.
Additionally, the government reserves to sue every financial institution that made improper loans or failed to disclose all the details any financial transactions they made between 2000 and 2008, and recover any monies from anywhere.
#4
Fox Noise did an excellent how it happened this morninging. Sort of a Fannie and Freddie meltdown for Dummies, which I found quite helpful. Through banking de-regulation, appears we've gone back to the future with the mixing of bank loans and Stock Market gamblers. Same mess that helped bring on the Great Depression, hence the regulations put in place in the 1930's to keep banking deposits and loans OUT of the stock market. Fox emphasized that even though it showed Slick Willie signing the de-regulation legislation, there was quite enough blame to go around. Translation.... all of Washington and no one in Peoria was in on it.
#6
The suggested alternatives have problems of their own.
First, you can 'force' banks to issue new equity (that is, stock), but you can't force people to buy it. In an illiquid system, how do the other players come up with the tens of billions of dollars for each bank to raise its capital?
And if you have the government inject the equity by buying equity (stocks or warrants), you now have the government manipulating the banking system directly -- how long before President Obama puts Penny Pritzker in charge of naming all the new directors to the bank boards?
Sure, it's hard to figure out the value of bad loans -- that's what happens when loans go bad. But better to remove them from the books, let the economy recover, and sell the assets later when you can. The good part of the current plan is that it is self-limiting: as the Treasury Dept gets rid of the bad loans and assets it removes itself from the financial markets. Buy equity and you're in for the long haul.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008 12:38
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#7
Thanks for some balance, Doc. It's sooo rare, these days.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2008 12:57
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#8
trolls smell funny
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 14:38
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#9
Just like there are no self sustaining pure socialist economies. [Unless you classify Cuba and North Korea as 'sustaining'].
#10
Morgenson in the NYT today has a relevant opinion piece on this, RTWT.
An excerpt:
"A.I.G. had written $441 billion in credit insurance on mortgage-related securities whose values have declined; if A.I.G. were to fail, all the institutions that bought the insurance would have been subject to enormous losses. The ripple effect could have turned into a tsunami.
So, the $85 billion loan to A.I.G. was really a bailout of the companys counterparties or trading partners.
Now, inquiring minds want to know, whom did we rescue? Which large, wealthy financial institutions counterparties to A.I.G.s derivatives contracts benefited from the taxpayers $85 billion loan? Were their representatives involved in the talks that resulted in the last-minute loan?
And did Lehman Brothers not get bailed out because those favored institutions were not on the hook if it failed?
Well probably never know the answers to these troubling questions. But by keeping taxpayers in the dark, regulators continue to earn our mistrust. As long as we are not told whom we have bailed out, we will be justified in suspecting that a favored few are making gains on our dimes. "
AND
"Which brings us to Item 2 for policy makers. Stop pretending that the $62 trillion market for credit default swaps does not need regulatory oversight." This is the real iceberg ahead for all of us, the feds have said nothing about this whatsoever.
#11
Frank,you were not talking about Bobby, were you? Didn't recognize me when I was sincere?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/21/2008 16:55
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#12
no - the troll that was in front of my comment- was "disappeared" by the Mods
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 17:02
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#13
you, Mr. Bobby, are one of my favs, I would never dis you like that
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 17:04
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#14
One thing they should do, but never will, is impose accountability.
Every C-level exec and the entire boards of these companies immediately be forced from their job, no golden parachute, and force liquidation of their estates and confiscate the money for the benefit of the taxpayers. Give them 10% of their estate after debt is satisfied, or $100K, whichever is less, and we the taxpayers take the rest as a penalty. This makes the PERSONALLY accountable. And it will certainly get the attention of those who follow them.
They screwed up, we are holding the bag -- they should be put IN that bag and barred from all employment within the financial sector.
Make the bankers and others pay a price as a consequence of them blowing up things to where we the taxpayers had to step in.
#15
OldSpook, the name of the guy who needs to be punished most is revealed in the third paragraph of this 1999 NYT article:
"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders."
"The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring."
"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."
#1
What exactly has Iran done about ending the Pirate's predations?
Talk?
Profit?
Not a damn thing?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2008 7:42
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#2
Sent arms.
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 7:47
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#3
"Iran criticizes failure to crack down on Somali pirates"
And how exactly has I-ran used its vaunted "navy" to attack said pirates?
Put up or shut up, you whiney-assed fools. Looks like you're named "I ran" for a reason....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 11:17
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#4
Barbara,
They can't attack fellow Muslims.
Except of course, unless they're the wrong kind of Muslim. Or they're not pious enough. Or they have associated with infidels. Or they just feel like conquering them. Other than that, they can't attack. It' someone else's job.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/21/2008 14:29
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#5
"Except of course, unless they're the wrong kind of Muslim."
I think the Somalis are of the Sunni variance. Which is partially why the Iranians feel free to complain.
The other part is that the Iranians like to be asses at times.
Penny Pritzker is Barack Obamas chair for his campaign finance committee, sometimes also referred to as treasurer for Obamas campaign finance committee.
So Obamas campaign finance committees chairwoman is hosting Ahmadinejad on Thursday at the Hyatt.
The Pritzker family, Penny in particular, were pioneers in creating a new financial product in the late 1990s and early 2000.
#1
To make the connections even more interesting, theres a link between Penny Pritzker of Hyatt along with the subprime meltdown and ACORN (see community organizer: voter fraud).
So heres a woman who helped create the subprime mortgage fiasco and drove her bank into a half-billion dollar failure, was associated with an organization that is notorious for voter fraud, and is sinking the flagship of the Hyatt Hotel chain by inviting an aspiring mass-murderer of Jews to be a guest of honor there.
The subprime crisis. ACORN. And Mad Jad.
What a confection!
And this is the woman Barack Obama chose to handle his campaign finances.
#2
And this is the woman Barack Obama chose to handle his campaign finances.
All jokes aside, I sincerely hope she hasn't changed her strategies one Iota.
Let the Obamamessiah drown in debt, seems a fiting end for the Dem's past history to continue, but on a personal level.
Destroy yourself, not others.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2008 7:31
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#3
Meet your new Secretary of the Treasury if Zero wins.
#3
Why do they present Sullivan as a conservative? The deranged moron clearly is not.
They lied, repeated lies, misquoted slurred and slimed. Rove mentioned as well. They are so convinced of their knowledge in spite of the fact that they are wrong. It was a lefty circle jerk. They would be dead from shock if they ever managed to touch the third rail in their liberal cocooned entertainment world - its called reality in ours.
You know, if someone tossed a grenade into that room, I bet that none of them would be missed.
#4
If you take these attacks against Sarah Palin seriously, as I do, you might consider joining me in declaring that 'I am Sarah Palin. Treat me as you would her.' These unprecedented personal attacks on her must stop. The only way I see that I can help is to stand up for and with her. In doing so, I am not standing up for her political or religious beliefs. I am not against any discourse on these subjects, only the personal attacks. I agree with many of her views and will deebate them. It not just her views that are under attack here. The attack has spread to her gender, her role as a mother, wife and even her personal appearance. Last week, I saw what I think was a utube entry showing her and McCain having sex. If I understood it correctly, it was not meant to be erotic. It was meant to demean and debase both of them. It must stop.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/21/2008 17:05
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#5
The politics of personal destruction and intimidation being waged against Sarah Palin are an attack against the very foundations of our way of governing. It's important that the offenders (the left, this time around) be slapped down so hard that for the next generation or so anyone who even contemplates this sort of thing again is immediately rebuked by his/her own party.
There are things I don't like about McCain. And I'm a little leery of some of Palin's stated policy positions. But all of that is nothing compared to the importance of massive Republican success in this election - combined with a clear message to both parties to get their damned acts together pronto.
Last week, I saw what I think was a utube entry showing her and McCain having sex. If I understood it correctly, it was not meant to be erotic. It was meant to demean and debase both of them. It must stop.
Richard of Oregon, you make it sound as if there actually is such a video - which of course there is not. I don't know your views enough to know if I just read your post incorrectly or if you were attempting to be serious and thus a troll. Would you like to clarify?
#3
Decade? I can't believe he even got 15 minutes. Its hard to recall anything he did on SNL that was funny. Do remember him and his partner smirking about the need to violently overthrow the US government at the end of one of their skits.
NEW DELHI: Barely a week after serial blasts rocked the national capital leaving 24 dead, the narrow bylanes of south Delhis Jamia Nagar locality were caught in terror crosshairs on Friday as the police shot dead two alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists but lost one its most decorated officers in the raid.
The police claimed to have killed Atif alias Bashir of Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh), a key player of the IM which has claimed responsibility for all recent serial blasts, along with his associate Sajid. Two others, the police said, managed to escape. Another alleged terrorist, Saif, was, however, arrested even as two policemen, Mohan Chand Sharma, an inspector with the Delhi Police Special Cell, and head constable Balwant suffered bullet injuries. Sharma, a Presidents Gallantry Medal winner who led the raid, later succumbed to his injures.
Delhi police commissioner YS Dadwal told mediapersons that Atif was the main planner and bomb maker of the serial blasts in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.
The encounter took place around 11 am and continued for at least 40 minutes in the predominantly Muslim locality amid voices of protest.
Local residents said it was impossible for two of the alleged terrorists to escape from the third-floor apartment with only one entry-exit point. Its the fourth encounter Jamia Nagar has seen in as many years.
Dadwal said they had received specific inputs that key leaders of the Indian Mujahideen who had organised the bomb blasts not only in Delhi but also in other places were hiding in Batla House (in Jamia Nagar).
Posted by: Seafarious ||
09/21/2008
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A bad headline for an interesting story. This "DNA" source is new to the 'Burg (I think) but seems to have a lot of local reporting.
NEW DELHI: The emails sent before the serial blasts of Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Uttar Pradesh have been signed by three individuals, but one of them was only trying to copy the signature of the group leader just before Jaipur blasts, according to one of Indias leading graphologists.
The graphologist, who has helped the police in several investigations, believes that all the signatories are urban bred, English-speaking individuals, who may have had almost no madrassa education, if they are Muslims. "It is quite possible that the three persons who have signed the documents do not know Urdu language. And thats because the strokes in the signature of a person who knows how to write and read Urdu are distinctively different. There is no reason to conclude that all of them are Muslims," he said.
"These people are well educated men and have been born and brought up in metros. They have sound family backgrounds and have been brought up in families with a modern outlook," the handwriting expert said.
Continued on Page 49
Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.
According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction, said Tancredo. Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.
Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant a near impossible task.
When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty, said Tancredo. The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.
Tancredos bill, dubbed the Jihad Prevention Act, would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.
Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.
We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives, concluded Tancredo. If you arent comfortable with that concept, you arent welcome in the United States.
#2
I would think the laws are already in place to prevent Sharia in a free society -- although I believe the laws are in place to prevent illegal immigration, too...
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/21/2008 7:44
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#3
Link with what is happening in UK with David Cameron.
#4
I would like to see the Catholics, Jews (and any other group who has non-liberal standards) demand the same set of legal standards for their beliefs...abortion is wrong, divorce is wrong, etc.; and see if the courts and liberals in the United Kingdom would support them.
Just sayin', ya' know.
#5
Muslims Against Sharia praise Congressman Tancredo's initiative. We advocated similar measures in the past and fully support "Gihad Prevention Act"
"Any person from a country where a substantial part of the population is pro-Sharia should not be allowed in the West, not only as an immigrant, but even as a visitor with a few exceptions, i.e., political asylum or as a diplomat etc. ... Every legal immigrant should be allowed to stay only if he/she did not display desire to establish a Sharia state in a host country. Any naturalized citizen who displays a desire to establish a Sharia state in a host country should have his/her citizenship revoked and promptly deported. I think the latter two groups is where the real danger lies." Linda Ahmed, FrontPage Magazine, July 24, 2008
"Anyone who proclaims Islamic extremist views should be tried for sedition, since we are at war with radical Islam, or at the very least, promptly deported." Khalim Massoud, FrontPage Magazine, September 9, 2008
#6
That's good to know, Muslims Against Sharia. Thank you. I'm not sure about not allowing visitors, though. I mean, you clearly have the right attitude, and you are Muslim. Do you have any ideas how we could encourage others like you?
The spokesman of the Hawiye clan has accused Ugandan forces of launching attacks on Somali civilians during the Holy Month of Ramadan.
During an exclusive interview with Press TV in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, Ahmed Dirie told our correspondent that Ugandan troops, sent to Somalia to help curb violence in the war-torn country, are responsible for the deaths of large numbers of civilians. Dirie, thought of as the Nelson Mandela of Somalia by many of its people, demanded that Uganda withdraw its forces and stop perpetuating violence by the country's Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
According to Dirie, at least 53 civilians, including women and children, have been taken to hospital in the last 12 hours suffering from serious injuries he says are caused by Ugandan violence in Mogadishu.
Uganda has committed around 1600 troops as part of the African Union peacekeeping initiative AMISOM. The Hawiye clan is the dominant clan in Mogadishu and the largest clan in Somalia according to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Human Rights Watch.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Hey Ahmed, how's your support for islamic terrorists working out for you and your clan?
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 7:10
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(VOI) -- A policeman was killed and seven others wounded in two separate blasts that targeted two Iraqi police patrols in al-Anbar, a police source in the province said on Saturday. "An improvised explosive device went off today near an Iraqi police patrol very close to the H3 refinery west of Haditha city, (250 km) west of Baghdad, killing one policeman and injuring three others," the source told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI) on customary condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
Meanwhile, the same source said that a hand grenade today targeted a police patrol in al-Debes area, central Hit city, wounding four men, including an officer in the city police. Anbar, whose capital is Ramadi, lies 110 km west of Baghdad.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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(SomaliNet) France has circulated a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for a coordinated, international response to tackle piracy off the coast of Somalia. France says that all states interested in maritime safety should take the necessary measures to prevent pirates from hijacking ships in the area. Earlier this week pirates hijacked two more ships off the Somali coast; there are now 13 vessels being held for ransom.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
We're kind of busy now, but feel free to go ahead and jump right in.
#2
You can't deal with the piracy issue until you deal with the lawlessness and civil war going on. Trying is a fool's errand. Not having a functional national government will allow all kinds of fun things to escalate. The entire civilized world needs to come together and jump on Somalia with both feet. Of course, Russia and China will never allow that to happen, but it's what's needed.
Maybe the pirates need to capture a Russian or Chinese vessel. Maybe that's the only thing that will change some minds.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 19:42
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#3
Put a Panamanian flag on a rusty old cargo ship with a pop-up MK-15 Phalanx on an elevator amidships, a dozen or so Marines.... and go HUNTING!
Division in BNP still exists as no so-called reformist BNP leaders were included in the delegation that sat for the electoral dialogue with the Election Commission yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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An al-Qaeda video marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks has appeared on the Internet more than a week late due to technical problems. The delay of the much-touted 87-minute video, caused in part by the main Islamist websites crashing, has thwarted al-Qaeda's yearly celebration of its attacks on U.S. cities in 2001.
Parts of the video -- a compilation of documentary footage and messages by al-Qaeda leaders -- were aired on Sept. 8 by Al Jazeera television, which did not say how it obtained it. But the full version hit websites on Friday, eight days after the anniversary.
On it, senior al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid vowed that Western forces in Afghanistan would face "more large-scale attacks ... where they least expect it" and called for militants in Pakistan to step up their fight. "In order for jihad in Afghanistan to continue and be victorious, you must stand with your Mujahideen brothers in Afghanistan and ... strike the interests of Crusader (Western) allies in Pakistan," said Abu al-Yazid, a commander of al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda has marked the anniversary of Sept. 11 in the past with releases including a tape on Sept. 7 last year in which its leader, Osama bin Laden, appeared on video for the first time in nearly three years, addressing the American people.
It was unclear why the websites normally favored by al-Qaeda had gone down. By Saturday, the two most popular were still out of action. Some suspected they had been targeted by hackers. India's Hindustan Times pointed the finger at intelligence websites that track militant sites on the Internet, which responded in tongue-in-cheek fashion.
Rusty Shackleford of My Pet Jawa denied his web group was behind any cyber-attack on the websites. "But if I was responsible I'd deny it," he said.
When less popular Islamist websites managed to post links to the video -- which includes a "last will" recording by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- downloaders noted that the password given to them was wrong. This further delayed the release and unnerved al-Qaeda sympathizers, one of whom wrote: "May God bless you my brothers, but the password is wrong."
The video also showed al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri accusing predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran of taking part in a Western "crusade" against Islam.
The closure of the Sunni websites coincided with a widespread cyber attack which shut down some 300 Shiite sites, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said. Fars blamed this on Sunni hackers in the United Arab Emirates. Hackers calling themselves Group XP took responsibility for defacing the website of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest Shiite authority. The group said the Shiite sites were attacked for "offending Sunnis".
Visitors could push a button to see U.S. humorist Bill Maher making fun of Sistani's religious edicts on a television show segment posted on youtube.com.
This article starring:
Ayman al-Zawahri
Mustafa Abu al-Yazid
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
It was censored by ABC, right? No, that's "The Path to 9/11." Sorry. (Source, Pajamas Media)
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/21/2008 0:17
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Investigators are now probing Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh's suspected involvement or link with militancy at home and abroad following Thursday's arrest of 10 of its leaders and activists in Rajshahi.
Sources in the law enforcement agencies yesterday said the arrests were not unexpected and that the agencies were looking for Tahrir men after a few of them distributed leaflets at Baro Masjid in Rajshahi around 10 days before the arrests.
Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) Commissioner Mahbub Mohsin yesterday said the arrest of Tahrir leaders on Thursday was not surprising. "We had been looking for the organisation's leaders and activists for distributing leaflets at Baro Masjid," he told The Daily Star.
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies suspected Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh as a militant organisation and kept it under watch for quite a long time although it is not officially declared a militant outfit, said a top official of a law enforcement agency in Dhaka.
Meanwhile, The Daily Star yesterday received a fax dated September 18 sent in the name of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) that apparently acknowledged Hizb ut-Tahrir as its 'front organisation' and asked the government and all law enforcement agencies to refrain from harassing its leaders and activists.
The message also reiterates Tahrir Chief Coordinator Mahiuddin Ahmed's demand for releasing the 10 arrested leaders and activists within 48 hours and threatened that otherwise "Bangladesh will be stained with the blood of law enforcers and all the advisers".
Although Hizb ut-Tahrir has been campaigning in the country for several years by distributing leaflets and putting up posters, its activities came to the notice of law enforcers after the grenade attack on the then British high commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury at Hazrat Shah Jalal Shrine in Sylhet on May 21, 2004.
Tahrir men had put up anti-British and anti-US posters around the shrine two days before the attack, which made investigators suspect that the attack was carried out by Hizb ut-Tahrir. And since then the outfit has been alleged to have militant links at home and abroad, said a law enforcement official involved in the probe into the attack.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad yesterday told the media that Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Rajshahi are suspicious and that they are investigating the outfit's objectives and activities. He said they are cautious not to let similar incidents take place elsewhere.
"The leaflets distributed in Rajshahi contain objectionable statements against the state and the government. We are investigating the line of their activities," the IGP said.
Another law enforcement agency source said Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh was on the list of suspected militant organisations prepared by intelligence agencies, including police and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), when JMB started militant activities openly.
Rab Additional Director General Col Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, who led the investigation into JMB's militant activities and massive terror attacks, told The Daily Star yesterday that many statements of Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh are similar to those of the JMB.
"We are yet to trace any terrorist activity by Hizb ut-Tahrir. Its activities are being watched," Gulzar said.
Boalia Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Ramzan Ali, who was tasked with investigating activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir after Thursday's arrest, said over phone, "I am investigating if the 10 arrested leaders and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir are involved with militancy."
He said on September 9, Tahrir men distributed leaflets in front of the Baro Masjid in Rajshahi after Esha prayers. "The language of the leaflet was objectionable. Since Hizb ut-Tahrir's name was on the leaflets, we were looking for their activists," he added.
The leaflet reads, "Our rulers have discarded the Quran and Sunnah...They have handed us over to our enemies. In this holy month of Ramadan, we have to take oath to dethrone our rulers and establish the rule of Khilafat."
Hizbut ut-Tahrir also criticises sending of forces in United Nations Peace Keeping missions for protecting "enemies" instead of "turning them into the flag bearers of Islam".
A law enforcement agency source said Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh sought permission from an intelligence agency in Rajshahi on Wednesday for holding a press conference at Rajshahi City Press Club on Thursday but did not get the permission.
The police arrested the 10 Tahrir men when they attempted to hold the press conference without prior permission.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Lest we think America has the only elections that matter ...
Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron. Eight cabinet ministers, including the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary, would be swept away in the rout as the Tories marched into Downing Street with a majority of 146, says the poll, conducted for PoliticsHome.com and exclusively revealed to The Observer. Seats that have been Labour since the First World War would fall.
The sheer scale of the humiliation is almost as bad as that endured by the Tories in 1997, suggesting it could take Labour a similar time to claw its way back to power. The party would be virtually extinguished in southern England and left with only its hardcore redoubts in northern England, the Welsh valleys and deprived inner-city areas.
The stark findings from the survey of almost 35,000 voters across 238 seats, published on the PoliticsHome website today, are likely to fuel the stalled insurrection against Brown. A third of potential Labour voters in marginal seats would be more likely to back the party if he were replaced.
Intriguingly, the findings also suggest David Miliband's hopes of leading Labour may depend on him challenging Brown before the election. While the Foreign Secretary would survive the rout, his power base would be decimated, making it much harder for him to get elected in a party likely to have shifted to the left: cabinet allies James Purnell and John Hutton would have gone, along with senior Blairites Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke. Jacqui Smith, Ruth Kelly, John Denham, Des Browne, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw are projected to lose their seats. In Scotland, the poll predicts the SNP will win next month's Glenrothes by-election
Yesterday as MPs gathered in Manchester for the annual party conference Brown began a fightback, pledging free part-time nursery places for two-year-olds in a move towards universal childcare for pre-school children. He told the Sunday Telegraph he wanted to see 'more choice for women and for families'.
However, even as Brown was being cheered onto the conference stage, Clarke was urging MPs to confront him. In an article for the Sunday Times he said prevarication was 'actually the most dangerous course of all'.
Today's poll shows how Labour's progressive face would be scarred by the projected defeat, with women disproportionately more likely to be defeated and five of its 13 black and Asian MPs, including three ministers, voted out.
By contrast, Cameron's new intake would include a lesbian businesswoman, a 'chick-lit' novelist and a single mother turned farmer. He could claim he had transformed the Conservatives into a modern and multicultural party, potentially tripling the number of women in the ranks and adding five new ethnic minority and three openly gay MPs. It comes amid signs of clear momentum building behind Miliband, who uses an interview in October's issue of Prospect magazine - to be published during the conference - to attack the 'abuse of market power' by failing executives paying themselves unjustified salaries.
The Foreign Secretary was also boosted when the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, his biggest rival for the leadership, publicly ruled himself out and warmly praised Miliband. In a newspaper interview yesterday, Johnson praised his younger colleague's 'common touch', adding: 'I hope he goes a long way because I'm a big fan of his.'
Brown now has a mountain to climb at a conference likely to be dominated by the twin threats of Miliband and the global banking crisis. MPs are being asked to sign a loyalty pledge circulated by the backbencher Martin Salter, while the star of The Apprentice, Sir Alan Sugar, has recorded a film urging critics to back the leader or 'have the balls to get out'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008
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#1
"Brown began a fightback, pledging free part-time nursery places for two-year-olds in a move towards universal childcare for pre-school children."
Gee, that sounds familiar. Where have we heard that before?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 0:52
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#6
Aren't Canada's elections in mid-October, with the Conservatives set to turn a slight majority into a large one? Good news all over! Now we Americans have to hold up our end.
The outburst from Communities Secretary Hazel Blears threatens to undermineexplain Prime Minister Gordon Brown's determination for the British government to maintain a neutral position in the US presidential electionexpected bloodbath.
Thirty people were injured in fresh clashes in Kashmir during an anti-India protest strike that shut shops, schools and offices Saturday in the latest trouble to hit the scenic region.
Clashes erupted across summer capital Srinagar when Kashmiri protesters chanting "we want freedom" hurled stones at Indian police, who retaliated by firing teargas and rubber bullets. "Some 16 policemen and 14 protesters were injured during violent clashes," a police statement said.
The strike, called by a separatist committee spearheading recent anti-India demonstrations in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, emptied streets of all traffic. "Saturday's strike is to demand the right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir," leading separatist chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.
Separatists have been demanding a UN-supervised referendum giving people the choice of independence, staying with India or joining Pakistan.
On Friday, 20 people were wounded in clashes during protests against New Delhi's rule in Kashmir, ending a week of calm in the restive region.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) yesterday threatened to bomb police stations and check-points in the city. In a fax to the Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) headquarters at around 6:00pm, the banned Islamist outfit said it would launch attacks in retaliation for arrest and harassment of its cadres.
Confirming the threat from the militants, Mahfujur Rahman, assistant commissioner of RMP Detective Branch (DB), told reporters that they have beefed up security at police stations and other installations in the city. The fax said JMB has enough explosives to bomb the police stations.
Addressed to Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), superintendent of police, DB and National Security Intelligence, the fax did not carry any signature. It said the outfit has targeted police stations since the law enforcers are "creating obstacles to its operation".
Earlier on September 7, another fax purportedly sent by JMB threatened to bomb the residences and offices of caretaker government's advisers and police officials.
This article starring:
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh
Mahfujur Rahman, assistant commissioner of RMP Detective Branch
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Three international soldiers and two Afghan civilians were killed yesterday when bombs struck patrols in separate incidents in Afghanistan, the international military forces said. The forces did not release the nationalities of their casualties, leaving this to their home nations. The coalition also did not say who the Afghans were.
Two soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force were killed when a bomb hit their patrol in the east of the country, ISAF said.
And a trooper with the separate US-led coalition was killed in a similar blast in the south that also left two Afghan civilians dead, the force said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the insurgent Taliban militia has carried out a series of similar attacks in its drive to force out the international soldiers helping the Western-backed government.
At least 215 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year alone, most of them in insurgent attacks, according to an AFP tally. Around 220 died last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Indian Mujahideen - the group that claimed responsibility for last week's deadly bomb blasts in New Delhi - is being supported by Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, Delhi police said on Saturday.
This is the first time New Delhi has linked last Saturday's serial blasts, which claimed at least 24 lives, to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Delhi Police Joint Commissioner Karnal Singh told reporters that Lashkar-e-Taiba "was providing complete support to the Indian Mujahideen and the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)".
The Indian Mujahideen first came to public attention last November following serial blasts in Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh in which at least 13 people died.
The group has said it was also responsible for a string of five bomb blasts in July in the western city of Ahmedabad that killed at least 45 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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United States spy drones flew over different areas of North and South Waziristan on Saturday morning. According to a private TV channel, the drones flew over Ghulam Khan, Lowara Dattakhel, Madahkhel, Shawal, Razmak, Makeen, Laddah and different areas of Kurram Agency including Tarimangal, Maqbal. According to another media report, tribesmen opened fire on drones in Samazwani in South Waziristan, forcing them to return to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Don't fear rhe Reaper...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/21/2008 8:24
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#2
According to another media report, tribesmen opened fire on drones in Samazwani in South Waziristan, forcing them to return to Afghanistan.
I'm not sure the drones were "forced" to return to Afghanistan, and I don't believe people firing AK-47s at a drone would be very effective. I do believe that firing on the drone does an excellent job of pinpointing "hostiles" active in Pakistan.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 15:21
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#3
could the isi supply the taliban with equipment capable off shooting down drones?
Posted by: Paul ||
09/21/2008 17:10
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Security forces continued shelling Taliban positions in various areas of Kabal and Matta tehsils in Swat on Saturday. However, there were no reports of casualties. Locals said security forces destroyed several houses owned by Taliban in Kooza Bandai area of Kabal. Taliban blew up a health centre in Odigram area. There were no casualties. Residents of Kabal, Matta and Khwazakhela are facing serious problems due to suspended power supply after transmission lines were damaged in the forces' shelling in Kooza Bandai.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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The military killed at least 16 Al Qaeda linked fighters in fierce gunbattles in Bajaur Agency, officials said on Saturday. Helicopter gunships and artillery were used in the fresh clashes that erupted late on Friday. Five fighters were killed in a gunbattle early on Saturday near Shakai village, a security official told AFP. The other deaths occurred overnight in nearby villages, he said. The casualty figure could not be independently verified. Residents said that reinforcements, including a large number of fresh troops and tanks had arrived in Bajaur.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Israel believes Russia passes intelligence it gathers about the Jewish state to Syria and indirectly to the Hezbollah resistance group in neighboring Lebanon, a senior military officer said on Friday. The allegations were made by Colonel Ram Dor, chief of information security in the armed forces, to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
They came at a touchy time in relations with Moscow, given Russian arms talks with Syria and the involvement of a Russian state-owned company in building a nuclear power plant for Iran at Bushehr on its Gulf coast.
Russia has, in turn, complained about Israeli arms and training for Georgia, with which it fought a five-day war last month over the Georgian province of South Ossetia. "My assessment is that their facilities cover most of the state of Israel's territory," Dor told Yedioth Ahronoth, describing Russian spy ships that dock in Syria and Russian personnel who he said serve in electronic eavesdropping stations on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"The Syrians share the intelligence that they gather with Hezbollah, and the other way around. This we know, because we know how to build a mirror-image that shows us what enemy intelligence knows about us," Dor said. "So if the Russians help the Syrians get information, and the Syrians constantly pass it on to Hezbollah, it is a reasonable supposition that the information gathered by the Russians also reaches Hezbollah's hands."
Russian officials in Moscow were unavailable for comment.
Avoiding criticism
Moscow has denied providing Syria or Iran with support that could boost their offensive capabilities and in recent years has offered to host Israeli-Arab peace summits.
Israel generally avoids public censure of Russia. Analysts say it is concerned such criticism could hurt efforts to lobby Moscow into scrapping arms sales to Syria or weaken its backing for U.N. sanctions designed to deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb.
Israel suffered surprise setbacks in a 2006 war with Hezbollah which some Israeli military commanders blamed on the guerrilla group's access to Russian intelligence and weapons.
Hezbollah does not volunteer information on its military assets, and Iran and Syria deny providing the group with arms.
According to Yedioth, Israel believes the Russian are spying on it "so significant changes in the region do not catch them by surprise. They are preoccupied with Middle East stability".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Yeah, but let's root for russia against tiny Georgia - that makes sense!
(PTI)US military advisors in dozens may soon be heading for Pakistan to train its army in counter insurgency and the specialised warfare course could begin in matter of weeks, according to a top US military commander.
"The US and Pakistan have cleared remaining obstacles, so the long delayed team may arrive in Islamabad within weeks", Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was quoted by Los Angeles Times on his return from a key visit to Pakistan.
Washington for months has urged the Pakistani to accept a training team. Pakistan resisted, asking for additional weaponary and equipment some US officials believe is best suited for its standoff with regional rival India, the Paper said.
But now, Mullen told the paper the primary stumbling block had been the fact that Pakistan could not build the proposed training site, near the western town of Peshawar, quickly enough. He said the two sides had now agreed to use an alternative site, north of Pakistani capital Islamabad. " We're still going through adminstrative delays, but I do see it happening", Mullen said adding " I think It's in the next few weeks".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
The US and Pakistan have cleared remaining obstacles
gorb's interpretation: Gov't officials are running scared.
#5
IIRC, US trainers always leave out one or two "tricks" when training non-US nationals in any top-of-the-line courses, John. Most of the time it's not critical, except when fighting US counter-insurgency forces.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/21/2008 15:17
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#6
US trainers always leave out one or two "tricks" I sure hope so, plus I hope they put RFID tags & GPS units in the equipment they sell them.
#8
Most likely you are going to have to work with the Pakis and keep tabs on them on an ongoing basis. Pakinstan ISI is a den of intrigue and full of Taliban and AQ and sympathizers.
It is difficult to invade a country of 180 million people. The next best thing is to work with Pakis and try to stem the Taliban/AQ problem in Pakistan. If Pakistan gets controlled, Afghanistan ought to quiet. There cannot be havens in Pakinstan for AQ. We will see another 911 and the Afghan was will continue without end if this problem continues to fester Pakistan.
#10
Hopefully these advisors will be language trained special forces. We will have to vet the Pakis like we did the Vietnamese when working with them in Vietnam or the Afghans that we work with. We won't always be right.
The Obama campaign has released new radio and TV ads in Spanish that seek to tie Sen. John McCain to anti-immigrant comments made by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
The ads also suggest the Republican has "dos caras" -- "two faces" -- when it comes to his relations with Latino voters. The new messages, airing in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, come in response to recent Spanish-language ads by the McCain campaign that suggest Obama is responsible for the collapse of last year's bipartisan immigration reform efforts.
"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the television ad's announcer says in Spanish as a picture of Rush Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out."
"They made us feel marginalized in a country we love so much," the ad continues. "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families."
The companion radio ad uses the same script as above and then continues:"Don't forget that John McCain abandoned us rather than confront the leaders of the Republican Party. Many of us were born here, and others came to work and achieve a better life for their families -- not to commit crimes or drain the system like many of John McCain's friends claim. Let's not be fooled by political tricks from John McCain and the Republicans. Vote so they respect us. Vote for a change."
This Spanish-language ad battle started Friday, when the McCain campaign started airing a TV spot in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that laid the failure of comprehensive immigration reform at the feet of Obama and his Democratic colleagues, even though he supported the bipartisan efforts to enact such reforms and voted for their final proposal last year. It continued Tuesday when the RNC bought time in Nevada for a radio ad expressing similar arguments. The Obama campaign and Hispanic and pro-immigration reform groups denounced the ads as distortions.
"I think they don't want us to pay attention to the fact that John McCain's message in English is different than his message in Spanish," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) during a conference call with reporters today. "If the Latino community can't count on John McCain in the heat of an election, how can we possibly count on him when the heat is really on in the White House?"
Both candidates have aired Spanish-language radio and TV ads primarily in the Southwest and Florida, where growing Hispanic populations have the potential to help turn previously red states blue for Obama. A July survey by the Pew Hispanic Center gave Obama a wide lead over McCain nationwide among Latino voters, and Democrats don't plan to let the lead slip.
"Whenever we get a punch from Senator McCain, we're going to counterpunch harder," former transportation secretary Federico Pena said on the conference call. "We're not going to take any vote for granted." The Obama campaign also plans to start airing advertisements next week in Florida.
#1
"Whenever we get a punch from Senator McCain, we're going to counterpunch lie and distort harder," former transportation secretary Federico Pena said on the conference call.
Hangu police on Saturday announced the arrest of two would-be suicide bombers. Police said that the two wanted to target lawmakers from the FATA, particularly Munir Khan Aurakzai, and senior officials of Hangu police. The two arrested men were identified as Ghaffarullah and Ahmed Ali. Ghaffarullah told reporters that he was educated in Waziristan and in madrassas in Khushab and Lahore. He said he was trained in Chargap area of Waziristan, and was tasked to attack Munir Aurakzai and police officials, adding that he belonged to Baitullah Mehsud's group.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Well, ya have to be registered in order to qualify for retirement benefits.....
... was killed in an encounter between his accomplices and members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) at Purbo Shyampur in the city yesterday.
No clue where that is ...
The deceased was identified as Shayel Khan alias 'Killer Pandit,' 20. Son of Abul Kalam Khan in Barisal district, Killer Pandit was a close associate of Bara Miah and main killer of Shaheen group, RAB sources said.
Oh, a main killer. Just the kind of person the RAB wants to meet.
"Killer Pandit was wanted on twelve systems in a number of criminal cases, including murders," a RAB official said.
That's how he got the nickname, ya know ...
Being informed about the gathering of some illegal arms carrying miscreants at Purbo Shyampur, ...
shout-out to Mahmoud the Weasel ...
... a team of RAB-10 raided the area at about 2:30am, RAB sources said.
Just about the magic witching hour.
Sensing the presence of RAB men, ...
"Hark, my spider-sense is tingling!"
... the criminals started aimless firing on the elite force, forcing them to fire back that triggered a gun-battle.
Not a single bullet was embedded in a tree or wall so as to be recovered for ballistics.
"At one stage of the gunfight, Killer Pandit was caught in crossfire ...
... feets having failed him ...
Being stuffed into the trunk of the RAB squad car for hours will do that..
... and died instantly," ...
"rosebud!"
... said an eyewitness account of RAB.
And if you can't trust the account of an RAB eyewitness ...
Two RAB members were also injured in the encounter, ...
Hernia and a bruised ego ...
... said a RAB official unwilling to disclose their names.
But we know they were Herb and Roger.
However, the elite force recovered a loaded pistol from the spot.
So the crazed Killer Pandit couldn't be trusted with a shutter gun ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Still following the template I see.
Well, if it works why change?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2008 7:15
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#2
I for one am reassured, a soothing (for me) ritual is always good on a Sunday. I would be near perfect if only we had a few nuggets.
(SomaliNet) A party official said on Thursday that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and prime minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai are deadlocked over appointing cabinet ministers after reaching a power-sharing agreement.
On Monday, Mugabe signed the agreement with Tsvangirai, relinquishing some powers for the first time in nearly three decades of rule under pressure from regional leaders and a growing economic crisis. The pair met on Thursday to try to sort out who gets which posts in the cabinet. "The meeting was inconclusive, it was a deadlock and has been referred to the negotiating teams for further work to try and find common ground," said Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa.
The state-run Herald newspaper said earlier Mugabe had told a meeting of his ZANU-PF party on Wednesday that the agreement was "a humiliation." But: "Anyhow here we are, still in a dominant position which will enable us to gather more strength as we move into the future. We remain in the driving seat."
The deal with Tsvangirai and the head of a breakaway opposition faction followed weeks of tense negotiations to end a political crisis compounded by the veteran leader's disputed and unopposed re-election in a widely condemned vote in June. Under the agreement, Tsvangirai, who heads the largest of the two MDC factions, will become prime minister and chair a council of ministers supervising the cabinet. Tsvangirai's party is expected to get 13 cabinet posts, with Arthur Mutambara's breakaway faction likely to control an additional three ministries.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF, which lost control of parliament in the March election for the first time in 28 years, is likely to have 15 ministers in the cabinet. But the 84-year-old Zimbabwean ruler, who has governed since independence from Britain in 1980, will retain the presidency and head the cabinet as well as keep control of the powerful army. The police are expected to fall under the opposition.
Zimbabweans hope the agreement, brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, will be a first step in helping to rescue the once prosperous nation from economic collapse.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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(SomaliNet) Uganda's Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels early on Thursday attacked a border village in Sakure sub-county between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in a surprise attack on barracks of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). ''About 100 LRA rebels made a surprise attack Thursday morning on the SPLA military barracks in Sakure Payam,'' state information minister, Col. Joseph Ngere, told the press. ''One SPLA soldier was killed and a four-year-old child was killed too.''
The child, he said, was ''thrown into the fire of the burnt house of the area's chief, which is just three kilometers from the SPLA military barracks at the Sudan-DRC border. Neighbouring households were also burnt down, leaving the area dilapidated.'' The LRA are reported to have abducted and mutilated some inhabitants and four persons are reported wounded.
''The LRA rebels were quickly repulsed by the SPLA forces. On the roads where the LRA escaped, there were drops of blood. SPLA forces captured one rifle from the LRA rebels,'' Ngere added.
The attack was throwing into balance the planned signing of the peace deal this weekend. ''There is no reason for negotiation and wasting of resources for the LRA dead-locked peace deal,'' Ngere said. The SPLA have sent reinforcements to Sakure. This is the second major attack by the LRA since the Juba peace talks faltered.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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The driver of a truck carrying a United States consignment was killed and his brother injured when unidentified men opened fire on the truck in Tedi Bazzar area of Jamrud on Saturday.
The truck was loaded with a US consignment bound for the US Bagram airbase when it was targeted by unidentified men on the Pak-Afghan Highway, sources said. The driver, Bacha Zada, died and his brother Lal Agha, was critically injured in the firing. The gunmen reportedly stole Rs 20,000 from the truck, the sources added.
Meanwhile, four passengers of a van were abducted from the Pak-Afghan Highway in Wali Khel on Saturday. The passengers, whose names could not be ascertained, were on their way to Peshawar from Torkham when a double cabin pickup intercepted their vehicle. The unidentified men forcibly took the four passengers with them, sources said. Witnesses said that the kidnappers had taken them to Tehrah valley via Ali Masjid.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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BNP and its allies yesterday told the Election Commission (EC) they will not accept the new electoral provisions being implemented in the upcoming parliamentary polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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(PTI) At least 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed and a dozen injured today when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into an army convoy in the country's restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The convoy of over 30 vehicles was going from Bannu in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal agency, when the attack occurred.
Citing official sources, Dawn News channel said that at least 10 soldiers were killed and a dozen others injured in the attack, which occurred at a spot 12 kilometres from Miranshah.
The Bannu-Miranshah road was closed to traffic after the attack and troops cordoned off the site of the blast. The Waziristan area is a stronghold of the followers of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Iran has sharply criticized the Italian premier over his comments about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's critical stance toward Israel. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, said Silvio Berlusconi's remarks about President Ahmadinejad were 'uncalled for' and 'unbefitting' of the Italian nation.
Berlusconi had censured Ahmadinejad for praising the Palestinian resistance against Israel. Berlusconi said the "world must pay the utmost attention to someone who says that Israel must be wiped off the map."
Iran has repeatedly stated that the president's remarks were badly mistranslated and taken out of context. In a July press conference after a D8 summit in Kuala Lumpur, Ahmadinejad said "Iran has no plans to attack Israel", adding that "the illegal regime would disintegrate on its own".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Truth hurts, huh?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 0:48
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#3
That is not a 'heap', that's just a geometric pattern that none of us recognize.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008 12:28
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#4
Busby's choreography was based on his WWI experience (drills, formations, etc.). Dancers, six wives, po'ed starlets (he got sued by one)... he led a pretty active life.
This article provides a decent summary of what's happening so far ...
Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration asked Congress for unchecked power to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from U.S. financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets. The plan, designed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is aimed at averting a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and economic growth to a standstill. The bill would bar courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.
``It sounds like Paulson is asking to be a financial dictator, for a limited period of time,'' said historian John Steele Gordon, author of ``Hamilton's Blessing,'' a chronicle of the national debt. ``This is a much-needed declaration of power for the Treasury secretary. We can't wait until the next administration in January.''
As congressional aides and officials scrutinized the proposal, the Treasury late today clarified the types of assets it would purchase. Paulson would have authority to buy home loans, mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-related assets and, after consultation with the Federal Reserve chairman, ``other assets, as deemed necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets,'' the Treasury said in a statement.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008
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#1
The light hasn't dawned on them that T-bills are worthless. Nobody wants them even at sky high yields. The game is up, there is no $700B to spend.
Treasury can put those T-bills out there, but they are nothing but junk bonds.
#2
That's the deal: Even if this bailout has congressional support, 100 percent, where's the Fed going to get the money and who will buy the treasuries needed to fund the loan?
You gonna relay on foreign countries to buy ever cheaper Fed debt?
Where are you going to get the money? Gonna raise taxes on all citizens and transfer the wealth to Wall Street?
#3
Sorry, but it should be restricted to US corporations only. Let other countries bail out their own. None of them would help ours out from stupid mistakes.
#5
Probably not 'very profitable', but it wouldn't surprise many people if some of this bad debt they purchase turns out to eventually be worth more than they paid.
The T-bill is a junk bond?
Please tell me you're not serious?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/21/2008 7:12
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#6
Unlikely. The only way to make a profit is if the underlying real estate value exceeds the price the taxpayers are paying for the bad loans.
In the early 1990's the Savings and Loan bailout ended up costing taxpayers $125 billion out of the $500 billion taken over. Most of that in bad real estate loans. Extrapolate that to today's proposed $700 billion takeover and taxpayers will fork over $175 billion to the financial sector sharks and loan deadbeats.
A tiny portion of the bailout costs should be recovered by suing the crap out of the folks who profited handsomely from this. Unfortunately, they are too connected and have given too much campaign contribution money for the politicians to take any action against them.
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 7:29
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#7
On second thought, it will probably cost the taxpayers more than $175 billion. The government took over S&Ls with a total portfolio value of $500 billion. Not all of that was bad real estate loans. This time the gov proposes to take responsibility for $700 billion in risky real estate.
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 7:34
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#8
Moosey what would you have us do? Take the PU to the bank? Buy gold? Fishhooks? Likker? Gulp Bait? Call in the now defecting army and have the enforce the zoning laws. Jeeeeebus.
#10
A failure by the government to support the U.S. financial system could lead to ``a depression,'' Senator Charles Schumer told reporters in New York. ``To do nothing is to risk the kind of economic downturn this country hasn't seen in 60 years.'
Do you mean like suicides and greedy Charlie Shumer Washington politicians jumping out of skyscraper windows? And the downside is? Bring it on! I've got my Victory Garden ready to go!
#13
.5MT: If you max out your credit cards, you can no longer buy things with them. The same applies to the US government. If it cannot get credit, and thus create debt, it *has* no more money. It *must* stop spending. It cannot just magically increase the debt. The money has to come from somebody else.
Most Americans, and even congress, are hypnotized to think that the US government can just make money out of thin air. It cannot do this.
Unless somebody loans them the money, they are instantly broke, bankrupt. They have already spent this years tax revenues, and then some.
The only alternative is to stop spending money already appropriated.
Literally, to shut down a broad section of the US federal government, and divert the money it was apportioned to the other parts, the vital parts, until the next tax quarter brings in more.
Call it a "holiday", if you like. As much as 25%, my guess, of the government, will have to shut down.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/21/2008 14:34
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#15
The light hasn't dawned on them that T-bills are worthless. Nobody wants them even at sky high yields.
This is not true. Last week the Treasury auctioned off at least $100 billion in short term notes, over & above previously scheduled routine auctions. The terms varied from 7 days to about 6 months. Interest rates varied from 0.1% to 2%. The lower the interest rate, the higher the demand.
As long as all other financial institutions continue in very doubtful condition, the demand for Treasury notes will continue strong.
The real crunch would be if the full faith & credit of the USA becomes doubtful, at which point even Federal Reserve Notes (i.e, cash) will lose their value. There are so many financial entities manipulating values at this time, it is hard to know where to turn just to maintain the value of one's savings.
#16
Probably not 'very profitable', but it wouldn't surprise many people if some of this bad debt they purchase turns out to eventually be worth more than they paid.
Black Swan has an interesting comment (after the usual boilerplate about how Bush is the anti-Christ - or would be, if BS were Christian):
If the banks were to receive $.60 on the dollar for their mortgage backed securities, it would be a total gift. Remember, Merrill Lynch "sold" its mortgage backed securities for $.22 on the dollar. ML also carried the paper. In other words, they gave the appearence that they got financial asbestos off their balance sheet, but in actuality, they were unable to sell it. ML had $30.6 billion of CDOs that were already marked down to $11.1 billion. Yet, they "sold" this garbage to Lone Star for 6.7 billion. That left Merrill Lynch taking another $4.4 billion write-down and 'selling' those securities at 22% of the original face value. If it were a real sale, it probably would have gone for $.05 on the dollar (it wasn't a real sale because Merrill still carried the liability for losses if the securities fell below $0.22 on the dollar - in essence, Merrill pledged the assets as collateral in exchange for a loan), or, possibly, couldn't have been sold at all.
The National Australia Bank (NAB) took a 90% writedown on its 550 million (AUD) in holdings of US mortgage debt. What it did was to admit that it's AAA-rated securities were virtually worthless. So what are these mortgages that the Treasury wants to buy with first $700 billion chunk of US taxpayer money worth? They are worth nothing. This is a gift from the former CEO of Goldman Sachs to his cronies. The first $700 billion increment of mortgages bought by the taxpayers will constitute a direct payment to the very banks that destroyed the American economic system. These mortgage backed securities will be collateralized by the absolute worst toxic waste the banks have been stuck with. Once in posession of this money, the banking elites can continue to pay themselves huge bonuses, while continuing the leveraged looting that became legal the day Bill Clinton Signed Phil Gramm's bill (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), a bill that vitiated the Glass-Steagall Act.
The problem with this deal is that real estate prices are still falling to historic norms, and all toxic instruments associated with them will continue to decline in value.
#17
The problem with this deal is that real estate prices are still falling to historic norms, and all toxic instruments associated with them will continue to decline in value.
They're already worth practically nothing, as the article notes. Assuming the Treasury pays practically nothing, they might not do too bad in terms of recovering a chunk of that 700 billion.
As for housing prices falling, yep. At the very least until next spring when the defaults begin to slow, then we can begin to work off the inventory glut.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/21/2008 16:32
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#18
As for housing prices falling, yep. At the very least until next spring when the defaults begin to slow, then we can begin to work off the inventory glut.
I think it will take way beyond spring. Hong Kong has a shortage of land, and ten years later, prices are still 50% of what they were in 1997. This is in a place without zero down payment, option ARM loans and really high savings rates, where the population went from 1m in 1945 to 7m today. What that means is that any assets bought today have quite a way down to go. I suspect a big chunk of the items Merrill sold were the 20 portion of 80/20 loans (i.e. zero downpayment mortgages where the 80 (first claim) portion of those loans was sold, and Merrill hung on to the 20 (secondary claim) portion).
#19
Interest rates varied from 0.1% to 2%. The lower the interest rate, the higher the demand.
See Moose, the Fed's seems to be able to move easily. Please, please consider wtf you are posting. Many new posters think you know what the fuck you are talking about.
#23
The Community Reinvestment Act probably contributed to this situation but likely was only a minor instrument. The 1st version of the CRA was in the 70s and it has been amended many times making it difficult to allocate specific blame to various sections of the law.
The execs at Fannie and Freddie deserve much of the blame as do others. The Bush administration tried to reform Fannie and Freddie in 2003 but they were thwarted (US Rep Barney Frank has claimed credit for the thwart).
#24
ZF: I suspect a big chunk of the items Merrill sold were the 20 portion of 80/20 loans (i.e. zero downpayment mortgages where the 80 (first claim) portion of those loans was sold, and Merrill hung on to the 20 (secondary claim) portion).
In plain English, in places like California, where median sale prices have gone down 30%, the secondary claims get nothing, and most holders of those debt securities don't even bother registering a claim, given the legal and procedural costs.
Foreclosure costs also take up a hefty chunk of the recoverable value of homes. Most foreclosures take months, and can take up to a year. Even after the foreclosure, the property can sit on the market for a while. During that time, squatters can leave their messes in the house, pipes can burst, mold can grow and thieves can strip the house of plumbing, electrical wiring, appliances, windows, and in the worst case, transients can burn it to the ground for kicks. The bottom line is that foreclosed properties can end up selling for a fraction of its reduced value. These are the hazards that a buyer of distressed assets faces. To buy them at anything like their real values, inspections and appraisals will have to made of portfolios of properties - something that will probably take many months - months during which property prices will continue to slide. And then there's the issue of unpaid utility bills, HOA bills and property taxes, all of which have to be paid, and will reduce the value of the home. The idea that the government will do a good job of getting value for money just isn't that high, especially when you consider the pay differentials between government and private sector employees. More likely, they (meaning we taxpayers) will get taken to the cleaners.
#25
mhw: The Community Reinvestment Act probably contributed to this situation but likely was only a minor instrument.
Barry Ritholtz says that in 2004, the SEC gave special dispensation for the five brokerages under siege to increase their leverage from 12 to 30. Notice how Piper Jaffray isn't in danger of going out of business. Notice how nobody's talking about AG Edwards getting wiped out.
#26
Moose: The light hasn't dawned on them that T-bills are worthless. Nobody wants them even at sky high yields. The game is up, there is no $700B to spend.
Treasury can put those T-bills out there, but they are nothing but junk bonds.
Actually T-bills are in great demand right now, because several money market funds have broken the buck (gone below $1 for every dollar of assets invested). The government's move to guarantee that money market funds will not break the buck has slowed down withdrawals from those funds. The problem is that if that guarantee persists, the temptation will be for those funds to invest in the riskiest securities (with the minimum required ratings) that they can find - in part to cover the insurance premium required by the government. A government guarantee for money market funds makes them a substitute for Treasuries. While yields for Treasury bills are at an all-time low, I expect a flood out of them into higher-yielding money market funds next week, meaning Treasury yields will spike.
#28
I think there's an urge to blame people who must have known this would happen and make them criminally liable. I think in this context, "know" is a strong word. I think they believed, as in every other financial mania (tulips, internet, et al), those fatal words - "This time, it's different". This is why a lot of CEO's rode their stock losses into the ground, and even bought more stock as their share prices fell. Everyone, from home buyers to mortgage securities investors, believed that home value to income ratios in America would start to approach the high levels of Europe and the rest of the developed world. They were wrong.
Nonetheless, everyone who bet money and lost during this financial bubble should not be allowed to shirk the consequences of his behavior. For one thing, giving him a free pass would give him an incentive to repeat this kind of unproductive risk-taking behavior in the future. For another, we taxpayers should not be responsible (and in any case, are too financially-strapped) for paying the bill for someone else's mistakes.
#29
mhw: Actually AGEdwards is owned by Wachovia and without the Treasury's action, Wachovia might go under.
You're right about AG Edwards 2007 takeout - my bad. Wachovia, however, will go under if the Treasury buys its assets at anything like their actual values. And that's the sticking point - if the Treasury's intent is to buy the assets for what they're actually worth, all they're doing is ensuring an orderly liquidation - and huge FDIC claims. If the intent is to rescue banks like Wachovia, they will pay much more than the assets are worth. And with the second option, taxpayers, not shareholders or bondholders, will take the hit and the management team that took the company to the cleaners will remain intact.
#30
.5MT: But then again, many new posters might confuse you with someone who knows more about economics than just snarky sniping.
As I mentioned in the parallel thread, "It wasn't long after t-bills went negative in 1940 that the government had to introduce war bonds, because their budget was so stretched.
FY '09 is going to be a bloody nightmare for the feds, as tax revenues may be double digit less than they were for FY '08. The top 20% of income earners pay 80% of the federal income tax. They make most of their money through investments, and it has not been a good year for investments.
And 40% of all federal taxes are corporate taxes.
This means a huge budget deficit, if spending is anything like it was this year. And a huge budget deficit, plus huge bailout payments, means a butt load of t-bill offerings.
Right now, t-bills are one of the safest investments. But the more t-bills that are offered, the less safe they become. This is because the government does not pay yields via earnings, but by tax revenues.
In effect, issuing t-bills to pay off the yields of other t-bills. This next year, interest on the federal debt along may equal or exceed defense spending. It is already the fourth highest expenditure in the budget, after HHS, Social Security, and the Pentagon."
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 20:30
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#32
Treasury proposal keeps changing:
-- Now to buy "troubled assets" without specifying type
-- Treasury backup of money market funds limited to depositors as of 9/19 and excluding subsequent contributions (eliminating incentive to move bank deposits into MMF & also avoids competing with Treasury paper offerings)
-- firms with HQ's outside of US will now be eligible
I use spring - March sometime - As when defaults begin to fall a little because March of 2006 was when the the rediculious loan madness began to tail off.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/21/2008 22:48
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#34
Barry Ritholtz says that in 2004, the SEC gave special dispensation for the five brokerages
For those following along at home, here's the link:
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was opened on Saturday to allow hundreds of Muslim pilgrims to leave the besieged territory ruled by Hamas, Palestinian officials said. The crossing will be open on Saturday and Sunday, an official said, adding some 3,000 Gazans had registered for departure during the two days.
However, the Hamas-appointed crossing authorities said most of those allowed to leave were pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia for Omra (minor pilgrimage) to Mecca during the Holy month of Ramadan, in addition to sick people, students, and holders of foreign passports.
"We expect to process 1,500 travelers today, if there are no obstacles, including 300 sick people in need of treatment abroad and 300 others who hold foreign nationality," Mohammed Adwan, a spokesman for the crossing, said. He added that the crossing would remain open on Sunday to allow students to leave the impoverished coastal territory to study abroad.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, has been opened only rarely to allow sick people, students, and diplomats to leave the territory of 1.5 million people.
Unlike during past openings, when desperate Gazans had rushed the border and clashed with Hamas and Egyptian security forces, no disturbances were reported. Travelers boarded buses in Gaza City and Khan Yunis before being driven to the border, and dozens of Hamas security forces fanned out around the crossing to prevent anyone else from approaching.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
"and some British bitch that wouldn't shut the f@ck up"
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 8:33
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As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bows out under a cloud of corruption allegations, Israel hopes his successor Tzipi Livni can live up to the "Mrs. Clean" label her supporters have given her as she tries to unite the ruling party.
"Livni's victory did not stem from a feat of organization or from political alliances," columnist Nahum Barnea wrote when she was elected this week to succeed Olmert as Kadima party leader. "It stemmed from the public's general longing for new, fresh and mostly clean leadership," the influential Barnea wrote in the country's best-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
However, Livni faced her first challenge hours after winning the vote with a lead of just one percentage point over her main rival, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Livni sought to restore unity within the governing Kadima party as new rifts emerged. Livni met top party members to try to stress the need to close ranks as the centrist party seeks to form a new coalition government. Evidently disgruntled, Mofaz, a hawkish former army chief, said on Thursday he will take a break from politics in a move Israeli media called a "bombshell."
Senior figures in Kadima defined Mofaz's decision as "crushing the party," the Maariv daily said, amid media speculation the minister could return to the right-wing opposition Likud party that he, Livni and Olmert left in 2005.
At Friday's Kadima meeting, which was marked by the absence of Mofaz, Livni made it clear she hoped to maintain the current alliance with the centre-left Labor party and the religious party Shas.
'Clean politics'
While Olmert's accusers have painted vivid tales of him accepting envelopes stuffed with cash in hotel rooms from an American businessman and of filing multiple claims for the same expenses, Livni has maintained a 'pure' image. The 50-year-old former Mossad spy and daughter of a prominent Zionist fighter from the days of Israel's creation in the 1940s, has tried to present herself as carrying a banner of integrity during her decade in politics. "It outrages me, the attempt to claim that it is a matter of norms that everyone who enters politics needs to adopt," she said in May after Olmert's cash donations first came to light.
While campaigning this week to lead the Kadima party, she presented her candidacy to its members as a chance to put such scandals behind them: "This is a second chance to shape Israel's image, to fix the damage and to place the good of the country and its people at the centre," she said.
Olmert plans to resign as premier once Livni has formed a new government coalition, a process that may take some weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
Yep, that was the ticket, "Clean", that help get Mr. Carter into the White House. Notice how well that worked out in Iran and your future security?
The powerful Egyptian business tycoon-- accused of ordering the murder of a Lebanese singer--spoke out for the first time since his arrest earlier this month and vehemently denied the charges against him, press reports said Saturday. In a letter written from prison, Hisham Talaat Mustafa said he is innocent and accused "enemies" of fabricating the case against him, Egypt's pro-government newspaper Akhbar al-Youm reported.
Mustafa--a lawmaker and top ruling party member--was arrested Sept. 2 after he was accused of paying a former police officer U.S. $2 million to kill singer and former girlfriend Suzanne Tamim, who was found decapitated in her luxury home in Dubai in July. Mustafa's lawyer, Farid al-Deeb, said he will prove that plenty of people had a reason to want Tamim dead and his client has been set up, the paper quoted him in an interview as saying.
Al-Deeb also denied rumors that Tamim had stolen U.S. $30 million from Mustafa and said the alleged phone conversations recorded by Mohsen al-Sukkari, the former officer accused of killing Tamim, are false.
Mustafa also sent out a message to his family and told them to "raise their heads" and have full confidence that he is innocent, the paper added. Mustafa's trial is scheduled to open Oct. 18 in Egypt.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sought on Friday to restore unity within her governing Kadima Party as new divisions emerged in the wake of her narrow victory in this week's primary. Livni met top party members in a bid to stress the need to close ranks as the centrist party seeks to form a new coalition government. After the meeting, Livni told journalists that she wanted to form a government "as soon as possible, as long as everybody acts responsibly."
Livni won Wednesday's vote to replace scandal-plagued Premier Ehud Olmert as party leader, but she may struggle to find enough coalition partners to command a parliamentary majority and avert early elections.
She faced her first challenge hours after winning the vote with a lead of just one percentage point over her main rival, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz. Evidently disgruntled, Mofaz, a hawkish former military chief of staff, said Thursday he would take a break from politics in a move Israeli media called a "bombshell."
Senior Kadima figures described Mofaz's decision as "crushing the party," the Maariv daily said, amid media speculation he could return to the right-wing opposition Likud Party that he, Livni and Olmert left in 2005.
Livni, a 50-year-old former Mossad spy who has been leading the US-backed peace negotiations with the Palestinians, will have 42 days to form a new coalition if early parliamentary elections are to be avoided. At the Kadima meeting, marked by the absence of Mofaz, Livni said she hoped to maintain the current alliance with the center-left Labor Party and the religious party Shas. "There is no reason to change the set-up of the coalition," she said.
Labor members have reportedly sent out mixed messages, with some demanding a renegotiation of coalition agreements and party leader Ehud Barak, the defense minister, calling for snap elections.
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09/21/2008
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Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman has said the caretaker government has not moved away from its goal to establish a sustainable democracy through holding a free, fair and credible election before the end of 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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"Bangladesh not going back to chaos"
When did they leave chaos?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 11:09
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Thursday. They had a day pass.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/21/2008 12:35
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ROFL!
You're good, Steve. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 13:22
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Israel Defense Forces and Border Police troops on Saturday killed a Palestinian teenager trying to infiltrate the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar while carrying a Molotov cocktail and a knife. He was later identified by his parents, who said he was 14. In that case he should have been home doing his homework instead of skulking around with a Molotov cocktail.
The Palestinian approached the area by car. He then got out of the car and advanced toward Yitzhar by foot, intending to throw a Molotov cocktail at the West Bank settlement. Soldiers manning an IDF observation post saw him in action and directed ground troops to the area. When the Palestinian noticed the Israeli forces he lit the Molotov cocktail and aimed it at them. In response, the soldiers shot and killed him. A subsequent search of his body revealed a knife.
The boy, Suhayeb Saleh, was from the village of Assira al-Kubliyeh, near Yitzhar. His parents identified his body at a nearby hospital. An IDF spokesman said it did not know how far the boy was from the soldiers or the settlement.
Suhayeb's parents said his older brother was killed by IDF troops in 2002, after he opened fire on an army patrol near Yitzhar and wounded four soldiers.
No further casualties or damage were reported in the incident. IDF troops in the area have been on high alert since last week's infiltration of Yitzhar by a Palestinian militant, an incident which sparked a settler rampage in the nearby Palestinian village of Assira al-Kubliyeh. During the infiltration last Saturday, a 9-year-old boy was lightly wounded when he was stabbed in the hand.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared after the incident last week that Israel's government will not allow settlers to carry out "pogroms against non-Jews in the State of Israel."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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nice - self-wiping that Saleh family line from the gene pool
fooking idjits.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/21/2008 8:23
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The head of the main journalists' association in Iraq survived an assassination attempt on Saturday when a bomb exploded outside his office in the capital Baghdad, his colleague said. Muayad al-Lami, the chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Union, was rushed to hospital after he was wounded in the blast at the gates of the union building in the northern Waziriyah neighborhood. "He was seeing off three guests when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded in front of the gate," colleague Hassan al-Abudi said. "He was wounded and taken to hospital along with his guests who were also wounded."
"Some vehicles outside caught fire and it shattered all the glass in the building," union member Hassan al-Aboudi, who was in the building at the time, said. Police said six people had been wounded in the blast. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Lami's predecessor, Shihab al-Timimi, died four days after being shot in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad in February. Lami was elected as the head of the union at July elections.
Iraq is regarded as the one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists. According to the Iraqi Journalism Freedom Observatory, an organization for the defense of media workers' rights in Iraq, at least 243 media workers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. In one of the worst attacks, gunmen kidnapped and shot dead three Iraqi reporters from Iraq's Sharqiya TV station and their driver in the volatile northern city of Mosul a week ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) NWFP on Saturday launched its "protest week" against military operations in Bajaur and other tribal areas. In this connection, a protest demonstration was held in Peshawar which was led by the party's provincial chief Sirajul Haq. Similar protest rallies and demonstrations were held on divisional level throughout the province.
Scores of JI activists, carrying banners and placards inscribed with anti-America slogans, gathered in front of Peshawar Press Club (PPC) to mark the first day of their protest week. They were chanting slogans against America and asked the government to put an end to military operations in Bajaur and Swat as well as stop US forces from violating Pakistani borders. Addressing the protestors, Sirajul Haq said two operations were conducted in Bajaur during Musharraf era in which a total of 100 civilians were killed. However, the tally of civilian casualties reached 625 in the agency during the first eight months of the present government. Siraj said the present elected government was busy accomplishing the unfinished agenda of the Musharraf regime by using the military and arms against its own people to appease the United States. Lashing out at the Awami National Party (ANP) government in NWFP, Siraj said it had lost the writ in many areas and people were feeling themselves unsafe even inside their houses. He said the NWFP government was restricted to the Governor's House and Chief Minister's House while the ministers and other high-ups could not dare to come out of well-guarded houses and see the pathetic condition of the people who pushed them to the corridor of power.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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A suitcase filled with $800,000 in cash has embroiled Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in a scandal which has fuelled claims of corruption and cover-up at the heart of his self-styled socialist revolution.
A court case involving wiretaps and explosive testimony has lifted the lid on alleged attempts to buy influence across Latin America, putting Chavez on the defensive during a torrid week of coup rumours and expulsions of human rights critics and the US ambassador. Tumbling oil prices compounded the anxiety in Caracas, which is almost wholly reliant on oil revenues, and prompted the President to warn that the government would rein in its free-spending ways.
"Sorry amigos, but we have to pay the Russians off first."
Chavez's most immediate headache came from a federal court in Miami which heard that Venezuela tried to funnel slush money to Argentina's President, Cristina Kirchner, for her successful election campaign last year. The Presidents denounced the story, which has been front-page news in both countries, as a 'garbage' attempt by Washington to smear South America's so-called 'pink tide' of left-wing leaders.
A study has found that the last Egyptian pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, was of Macedonian stock and contrary to popular belief not a beauty. I wonder how much that cost Oh goodness, they're just now figuring out that Cleopatra was Macedonian? Of course she was, she was a Ptolemy!
When Alexander the Great, who conquered Egypt, passed away in 323 BCE, the country was passed to a Macedonian nobleman named Ptolemy, who became the founder of a dynasty famous for intermarriages. We knew the rule of Egypt passed to Ptolemy after Alexander. That's probably why they called the dynasty "the Ptolemies," in fact. The dynasty itself wasn't all that out of the ordinary in Egypt for its intermarriages, since that was the way Egyptian royal families kept the throne within the family. Succession passed through the female line, and the most successful brother got to marry one or two or more of his sisters. That accounts for the prevalence of hemophilia and buck teeth and other odd characteristics among Egyptian royals. The custom was frowned on for the common folk, but in colloquial Egyptian language husbands and wives referred to each other as "my brother" and "my sister." How much did the study cost, again? Can I get in on it for a few bucks?
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica 'the Macedonian-Greek character of the monarchy was vigorously preserved' and 'Cleopatra VII was of Macedonian descent and had no Egyptian blood'. The study relied on the Encyclopedia Britannica as a primary source? Which high school conducted the study? If brother and sister and sometimes father and daughter were in the habit of marrying each other, then it's likely none of them were of actual Egyptian blood. On the other hand, there were lotsa dancing girls and the occasional concubine to be had, and the occasional daughter would be sent to the royal household to cement this or that deal, so I'd guess -- even without rooting through the Ptolomy family bible or Book of the Dead or whatever they used -- that some few of the Ptolomies did manage to mix the royal blood with some of the locals.
The first Ptolemaic pharaoh to learn the Egyptian language, Cleopatra, was also the last pharaoh of Egypt, after whom the country became a Roman province. She was the heiress, but having hooked up with Caesar and produced a single male offstpring (Caesarian) and then with Marc Anthony, introducing an asp to her bosom before any results could show up, there wasn't a good candidate to take over the throne -- I believe she was 18 when she met Julius. She also made the mistake of siding with the losing side at the Battle of Actium, hence the asp, so her kingdom kinda sorta became spoils of war.
Despite the general belief that Cleopatra was a stunning beauty, the Greek essayist Plutarch describes her as 'by no means flawless or even remarkable' and writes 'her beauty was not in and for itself incomparable'. Other writers are quite complimentary of her nose and her hair, which if I remember correctly was red.
The coins remained from her time show her as having a fat neck, a hooked nose, long ears and a prominent chin, ABC reported. The art of coinage portraiture wasn't up to our modern standards way back then, so it's kind of an open question.
The queen's intelligence however is an undeniable fact. She was highly educated, could speak nine languages, had a compelling charisma and had a powerful regal presence from an early age. She was also good looking enough to seduce Julius on the first try, and he was not only no dummy but could pretty much have his pick of the girlies. Though he pretty much nailed any woman he could ...
The French leader Napoleon Bonaparte looted the mummy case of Cleopatra VII, which was found by workers in the 1940s, and emptied it into the sewers.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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There's a lot more to sex appeal than strictly physical beauty. And even there, tastes vary....
#2
Also she could be a beaty at fourteen, when Caesra met her and no longer ten or twenty years later when she killed herself. Roymas have access to far too many delicacies for theior own good.
#3
Persians still nursing that 2500 year old slap down by the Greeks.
ABC = Arab Broadcasting Corp? I always suspected it.
The French leader Napoleon Bonaparte looted the mummy case of Cleopatra VII, which was found by workers in the 1940s, and emptied it into the sewers.
Iranians discover time travel? Perhaps they will locate the madhi next.
Posted by: ed ||
09/21/2008 7:06
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Persians still nursing that 2500 year old slap down by the Greeks. LOL - yup.
The Iranians have learned that the West has this powerful activity called 'science' so they decided to get some of their own. Not clear on the concepts yet, though.
#5
*rolls eyes* The Egyptian Book of the Dead was not a record of those who died, but a guidebook to instruct individuals on the path from this world to the Judgement Seat, and what to expect based on the verdict. It was believed that the soul that learned stuff in this life would be able to apply that knowledge in the journey to the next.
My on-line nym, Ptah, was selected when I first visited another website where some of the members also selected Egyptian-god names as nyms. I selected it as a means of reminding people of the very poor way we treat those dieties who do us well: Ptah was the Architect of the World and the primal creator. When man was created, it was Ptah who initially set up the Egyptian worship system and devised the ceremony that, after death, separated the soul from the corpse and initiated its journey to the Judgement Seat and the Afterlife. As a "reward" for creating everything and sparing the souls of men from the horror of being trapped within a rotting corpse, he was relegated to being a Janitor worshipped in Memphis in a catch-all temple while other egyptian gods were made the bosses, ran things, got cities named after them, and got all the sacrifices made in elaborate dedicated temples. Kinda like the way the engineers in a company who actually get the shit done are treated while the managers bask in the praise, get the credit, and get all the goodies and fat bonuses.
One interesting thing about the Book of the Dead: the reader was supposed to memorize spells that would transform the soul into various creatures and entities to help them overcome obstacles and defeat hostiles during various parts of the Journey. There was only one spell that transformed the soul into one of the Egyptian gods.
That god was Ptah.
Figures. Live in the world he made worshipping every god except him, start the Journey using a ceremony devised by him, and when your soul is in deep shit and you need some real firepower to get your soulish butt out of that sling, you run, not walk, to the guy who built everything.
#13
"*rolls eyes* The Egyptian Book of the Dead was not a record of those who died, but a guidebook to instruct individuals on the path from this world to the Judgement Seat..."
Seems there's always somebody who's going to be offended by something.
Russia is against new U.N. Security Council measures targeting Iran, the foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday after the White House warned of a new round of sanctions. The comments came after talks between majors powers over a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran ended with no firm commitment on Friday.
At a meeting with senior diplomats from the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany on Friday, Russia said "it was against the development at this stage of additional measures in the U.N. Security Council," the statement said. The foreign ministry statement, which comes as relations between Moscow and Washington are severely strained over Georgia, said that for now Moscow prefers dialogue with Tehran, "On the Russian side, we underlined the necessity of continuing efforts to include Tehran in a constructive dialogue aimed at launching a process of talks," the ministry said. "In this context we spoke against the development of extra measures by the U.N. Security Council at this stage."
The United States, Britain, France and Germany are pushing for harsher measures over Tehran's defiance of U.N. demands for full disclosure and a halt to uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military purposes. Russia and China however have been resisting such moves.
In Washington on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rice called on the West to resist what she labeled as Russian "bullying" and said Moscow had taken a "dark turn" towards authoritarianism.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#2
and said Moscow had taken a "dark turn" towards authoritarianism.
Russia, "dark turn, authoritarianism..." Thank you Rice, so very perceptive but not surprising for someone who finds Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo charming, and a "good friend."
A suicide car bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, killing at least 60 people and turning the hotel into an inferno, police said. As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, police said there were still people trapped inside.
Latest reports say 80 dead, and that might not be all.
Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, a few hundred meters to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.
Al-Qaeda-linked militants based in hideouts in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces. The hotel has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001. Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre.
Brought the ceiling down
The explosion brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
The owner of the hotel said the vehicle carrying the bomb was stopped at the front barrier and was being checked by guards after a bomb-sniffing dog raised the alarm.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the United States and had earlier vowed to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan's commitment to the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, even though it is deeply unpopular. In his address to parliament, he said Pakistan must stop militants from using its territory for attacks on other countries.
Interior ministry official Rehman Malik told reporters the government had received word of a possible attack near the parliamentary offices. "We had intelligence reports two days ago that some incident might take place," Malik said.
Pakistan, the world's only Islamic nuclear power, has faced a wave of bombings and other attacks for more than a year. Tribal areas along the Afghan border are believed to be a new stronghold for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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#1
"As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners."
Other than the media and Chicoms on business, you have to wonder who vacations in Islamabad.
#2
"Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, a few hundred meters to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out."
Put up or shut up, Z.
Mehbee you'd better practice announcing how our aircraft and drones on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan are really part of a joint taskforce with the Pak army to root out and kill the terrorists. Use a mirror until you can say it with a straight face.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/21/2008 0:47
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I am interested in the reaction of the Pakistan "street." Do they like being bombed? I know this is an infidel hotel, but methinks when stuff is blowing up in your own capital would not be a reason to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/21/2008 7:39
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After she blew, I saw not one fire hose. Did you ?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2008 19:46
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I knew of a couple of field grades who had a tough time with weight issues. They were built like, possibly had been, pulling guards a small college football team. Sort of like, as one guy said, a beer barrel walking on two fire plugs. But little fat. Very little.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
09/21/2008 23:42
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(VOI) -- Deaths from Saturday evening's earlier suicide car bombing attack in a football pitch Talafar district rose to three and the wounded to 25, according to a local police source. "The death toll rose to three and the wounded to 25. The ages of the bombing victims range between 15 and 25 years," the source, who refused to have his name published, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI).
Earlier in the day, a security source said that a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vehicle in a football pitch inside Talafar, killing two people and wounding 17 others, including six in serious condition. "The blast occurred in a football playground that was crammed with young men from al-Mualimeen neighborhood, central Talafar, killing two and injuring 17 others," the source, who asked for anonymity, told VOI.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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South Africa's ruling party said yesterday that President Thabo Mbeki had agreed to resign after being asked to step down, a move that could heighten turmoil in Africa's economic powerhouse.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/21/2008
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Communism is indeed alive and well. Zuma bears close watching.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.
A Taliban ambush on a French platoon killed 10 soldiers in August. Now, a secret NATO review shows that the French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front said on Sunday more fighting would most likely happen at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan if the military were to continue punitive operations against its forces in Mindanao.
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that Iran's military will "break the hand" of any aggressor that target his country's nuclear facilities. Addressing a military parade broadcast live on state television, he said: "If anyone allows himself to commit even a tiny offense against Iran's legitimate interests, borders and sacred land, our armed forces will break his hand before he pulls the trigger."
Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar announced on Saturday that Israel is militarily so weak that could be [sic] a threat to Iran. We do not consider Israel as a threat at all, the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony arranged to bury three soldiers martyred during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Israel should resolve its internal problems first.
our nation has no worries about the threats by Israel and its ally America, Najar remarked. 
You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.
Indian Mujahideen - the group that claimed responsibility for last week's deadly bomb blasts in New Delhi - is being supported by Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, Delhi police said on Saturday.
Hangu police on Saturday announced the arrest of two would-be suicide bombers. Police said that the two wanted to target lawmakers from the FATA, particularly Munir Khan Aurakzai, and senior officials of Hangu police. The two arrested men were identified as Ghaffarullah and Ahmed Ali. Ghaffarullah told reporters that he was educated in Waziristan and in madrassas in Khushab and Lahore. He said he was trained in Chargap area of Waziristan, and was tasked to attack Munir Aurakzai and police officials, adding that he belonged to Baitullah Mehsud's group.
A listed terrorist ...
(SomaliNet) A party official said on Thursday that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and prime minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai are deadlocked over appointing cabinet ministers after reaching a power-sharing agreement. 
The driver of a truck carrying a United States consignment was killed and his brother injured when unidentified men opened fire on the truck in Tedi Bazzar area of Jamrud on Saturday.
(PTI) At least 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed and a dozen injured today when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into an army convoy in the country's restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The convoy of over 30 vehicles was going from Bannu in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal agency, when the attack occurred.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was opened on Saturday to allow hundreds of Muslim pilgrims to leave the besieged territory ruled by Hamas, Palestinian officials said. The crossing will be open on Saturday and Sunday, an official said, adding some 3,000 Gazans had registered for departure during the two days.
The powerful Egyptian business tycoon-- accused of ordering the murder of a Lebanese singer--spoke out for the first time since his arrest earlier this month and vehemently denied the charges against him, press reports said Saturday. In a letter written from prison, Hisham Talaat Mustafa said he is innocent and accused "enemies" of fabricating the case against him, Egypt's pro-government newspaper Akhbar al-Youm reported.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sought on Friday to restore unity within her governing Kadima Party as new divisions emerged in the wake of her narrow victory in this week's primary. Livni met top party members in a bid to stress the need to close ranks as the centrist party seeks to form a new coalition government. After the meeting, Livni told journalists that she wanted to form a government "as soon as possible, as long as everybody acts responsibly."
Israel Defense Forces and Border Police troops on Saturday killed a Palestinian teenager trying to infiltrate the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar while carrying a Molotov cocktail and a knife. He was later identified by his parents, who said he was 14. 
The head of the main journalists' association in Iraq survived an assassination attempt on Saturday when a bomb exploded outside his office in the capital Baghdad, his colleague said. Muayad al-Lami, the chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Union, was rushed to hospital after he was wounded in the blast at the gates of the union building in the northern Waziriyah neighborhood. "He was seeing off three guests when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded in front of the gate," colleague Hassan al-Abudi said. "He was wounded and taken to hospital along with his guests who were also wounded." 
A study has found that the last Egyptian pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, was of Macedonian stock and contrary to popular belief not a beauty. 
Russia is against new U.N. Security Council measures targeting Iran, the foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday after the White House warned of a new round of sanctions. The comments came after talks between majors powers over a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran ended with no firm commitment on Friday.
A suicide car bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, killing at least 60 people and turning the hotel into an inferno, police said. As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, police said there were still people trapped inside.
