Al-Qaida-linked militants strapped explosives to the bodies of two kidnapped Chinese engineers and threatened to kill them unless they are given safe passage to their leader, officials said Monday.
"Sahib Big walks, or the Chinamen get it!"
The militants captured the Chinese, who were working on a dam project, in the lawless South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border on Saturday. The militants believed to number four or five were holding the engineers in mountains a few miles from the remote village of Chagmalai, about 220 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad. Security forces have surrounded the area. Negotiations between the kidnappers and a delegation including tribal elders and a local lawmaker failed to secure the captives' release Sunday, and elders were meeting in the nearby town of Tank on Monday to consider their next move. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said earlier the kidnappers were demanding safe passage with the hostages to meet with their leader Abdullah Mehsud who is reportedly hiding in nearby hills. "We are dealing with terrorists who have mines and other detonating material tied to their bodies and as well as to those of the Chinese victims," said Sherpao. Noting Pakistan's strong ties with China, he said: "We don't want any harm caused to the Chinese engineers." Sherpao said Mehsud is a former U.S. prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is disabled in one leg, an injury suffered during fighting in Afghanistan.
Tell the Chinese to send their thanks to Human Rights Watch...
Next time we keep both legs.
Beijing has appealed to Pakistan, a longtime ally, to work for the release of the two engineers, who are among between 70 and 80 Chinese working for a Chinese state construction company on the Gomal Zam dam in South Waziristan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
9:51:19 PM ||
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#1
More empirical evidence that the Gitmo Grads are not reformable and next time we take no prisoners, or extract the intel and dispose of these murderers in a manner similar to dealing with toxic waste.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:19
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#2
Piss off the Americans - check.
Piss off the Russians - check.
Piss off the Chinese - check.
#3
AP-
Technically, Mehsud DID reform - he had the good sense not to attack us this time.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/12/2004 11:41
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#4
I guess that big steps start with small steps, Mike. Heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 15:09
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#5
"Ah, so. You wish to play with big boys? Very fine idea! We will send, immediately, a full million game-players from People's Liberation Army to play piddly games with your brains!"
A government official said Tuesday that the "Martyr Hammoud Al-Masri Battalion," which claimed to be part of al-Qaeda's network in Southeast Asia, warned if Korea didn't pull its troops out from Iraq in 14 days, it would attack Korean troops in Iraq and facilities in Korea. The warning was posted on the Arabic-language site "Montada" on Sunday. In a post entitled, "Warning to the Korean Government," the group said it would "make Korea suffer" if Korean troops were not pulled out of Iraq in 14 days. It said if the warning weren't heeded, it would attack Korean troops in Iraq "one by one" as well as facilities within Korea. The warning also claimed the group's forces weren't far from targets in Korea and it had a base in Seoul.
A government official explained that the group said it had posted the message on Sept. 30, but in fact, it had been confirmed the message was posted on Oct. 10. Accordingly, the official said it wasn't clear on which standard the government should base the deadline; authorities were still trying to determine the reliability of the threat. He said neither the group in question -- the Martyr Hammoud Al-Masri battalion -- nor the website were well known, and the government was in the process of collecting information on the group, website and the veracity of the terrorism warning. The government, paying attention to claims that the group had a "base in Seoul," has heightened security at major national facilities and highly populated districts and strengthened security checks on those entering and leaving the country. The Ministry of Defense has informed the Zayitun Unit in Iraq of the threat as well and asked it to strengthen security.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
10/12/2004
9:35:21 AM ||
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What to do? No Muslims, no terror. That was easy.
Mortuary attendants in Durban were shocked this week when a man, who had been declared dead by paramedics and taken to a government mortuary, suddenly started breathing and woke up in front of them. "AAA! It's alive! It's alive!"
Gale Street Mortuary Unit Commander Thegran Moodley said: "The man had been involved in a car accident somewhere in the Umbumbulu area at the weekend. After the paramedics had certified him dead, my staff were called in to fetch the body." After arriving at the mortuary the attendants had been preparing to label the body when the man had started breathing heavily and had woken up. Surprise meter nearly broke the needle, it jumped so fast.
"The attendants ran away because they were shocked," said Moodley.
"Feet, don't fail us now!"
Surprise meter dropped back to zero.
... along with heart rate.
"We called the paramedics to come and attend to this person who had regained life.
"We ain't goin' back in there! Youse go in there!"
They took him to King Edward VIII Hospital for treatment." "You can make it. You can make itâŠ"
Hospital staff confirmed on Thursday night that a man had been sent to the hospital from the Gale Street mortuary, but refused to give any details. Moodley said the attendants were being treated for shock.
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
10/12/2004
9:17:46 AM ||
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Given the prevalence of "traditional" beleif I don't wonder at the attendants reaction. Either that or they saw a slasher/zombie flick previous night and took the natural precautionary action.
I'm not sure what i'd do in that situation.
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 18:27
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A group trying to stop a bear hunt in Maryland sent 600 postcards to landowners in Garrett County claiming that 40 percent of the sportsmen with permits to take part in the hunt are alcoholics, drug addicts or mentally unstable. The postcards were mailed out by the Institute for Public Safety, a citizens group from nearby Montgomery County, urging residents to exercise special caution during the state's first black-bear hunt in 51 years, which is set to begin Oct. 25. The Institute for Public Safety? Hmph! Calling hunters mentally unstable doesn't secure one's saftey. Just a thought....Say, just where did they come up with these numbers?
Earle Hightower of outer space Rockville, Md., a real estate agent who serves as chairman of the institute for alien life forms, told the Associated Press that the group simply made up the statistic(emphasis added). "We were just working from general population figures," Hightower said. "If you get 200 people, a certain number are going to be somewhat undesirable." Hey, I can play this game too. Watch. Over 90% of members of the MSM are _________ .
Posted by: Dragon Fly ||
10/12/2004
8:50:13 AM ||
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I used to live in Montgomery County, MD. The average citizen there is somewhere to the left of Mao and crazier than an outhouse rat. Mr. Hightower calling hunters "mentally unstable" is an instance of pot-kettle-blackness.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/12/2004 10:03
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In other news, Achenar accused Atrus of insanity.
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
10/12/2004 10:59
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Oooooh. Better pay attention. He's a real estate agent. Surely, he operates at a higher plain then any of us...
#6
Mr. Hightower might be more effective if he led a delegation of his fellow Montgomery Countians out to Garrett County, where most of the bear hunters probably reside, to go door to door explaining in person why they should prefer to keep the hunters out and have more bears in thier lovely county.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 12:00
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No surprise. Everybody knows that 67.5% of statistics are made up on the spot...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004 16:32
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#8
....and all the others are outside of one standard deviation.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 16:35
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Hightower is maybe 3-4 standard deviations to the left of center. Maybe even further out on the extremes in the dingbat, light in the loafers category. He must be in bed with Rebecca Peters who was instrumental in disarming the Aussies. The gun control crowd is dangerous.
Posted by: A. Bungfodder ||
10/12/2004 16:53
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#10
I recall a similarly named outfit - the "Committee for Public Safety" they were.....
Robespierre, Marat, et al.
#11
I would quote a huge statistic but I can't get my rectum to open that wide. So I'll make one up too. 99.9% of the members of the Institute for Public Safety are LLL moonbats. Worse yet many are space cadets who are not homeless yet due to personal good luck.
I suggest these people should all go hug a live bear. That will cure them.
#12
Matt - he also made mention of bringing his trusty double barrel 12 gauge during such hunts.....in the latest field and stream he no shit states he had an encounter with what was at least a 16 point buck.....that must've been the one they shot & killed for x-mas dinner up in cambodia back in '68. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Eight more Congolese soldiers have disappeared from army barracks in Elsenborn, bringing the total of AWOL officers to 12, it was reported on Monday. Four Congolese soldiers who made another break for freedom last week have now officially been described as 'smart' 'deserters.'
A group of California women aged from 51 to 84 posed for a racy calendar to raise money for their local firehouse, but the town turned down the cash as too hot to handle. The women raised $30,000 to help fix up Carmel-by-the-Sea's firehouse because the upscale town was short of funds, calendar organizer Patty Ross said on Friday. "I learned we were $2.2 million in debt and thought it would be a fun idea," said Ross.
She said she had obtained permission from the mayor to use the firehouse and its equipment as props for the "Carmel Fire Belles" calendar, which features some partially nude shots. "One of them is a school teacher, one is a business owner," said Ross, who is Miss November. "We're just hard-working members of the community who thought we were doing a nice thing."
Carmel's mayor was not immediately available for comment, but City Attorney Don Freeman said town officials decided that taking the group's money would open the town to potential lawsuits. "It would open us up to workplace causes of action such as sexual harassment and hostile environment and things of that nature," Freeman said. "This is the kind of thing that just can't be done in the workplace ... It runs the risk of offending people."
With its white sand beach, Carmel has long been a favorite vacation spot for California's rich and famous. Many also keep homes there, and actor and director Clint Eastwood once served as the town's mayor.
Carmel is a lovely little town, full of lovely people with no sense...
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/12/2004
8:37:03 AM ||
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Yemen's public prosecutor demanded Sunday that five Yemenis convicted of the 2002 bombing of the French super tanker Limburg be sentenced to death, at the opening of an appeal hearing here. Omar Said Hassan Jarallah, Fawzi Yahya Hababi, Mohammad Said al-Amari, Fawzi al-Wajih and fugitive Yasser Ali Salem al-Madari, who were sentenced to 10 years in jail on August 28, should be sentenced to death for "taking part in an action which led to the death of a crew member," the prosecutor's representative said. He told the court that Madari, who was tried in absentia, had "set up an armed gang with the aim of perpetrating criminal and terrorist acts that are detrimental to the interests of the state."
Guess Madari was "Too Important To The Movement" to be captured with the cannon fodder. Who's guest house is he living in?
The court is also looking into the appeals of 10 other Yemenis sentenced at the same time for the Limburg bombing and other attacks. One was condemned to death for killing a policeman, while the others received sentences ranging from three to 10 years for forging documents and for attacks against foreign targets. Two were also sentenced to 10 years in jail for the Limburg bombing, but the prosecution did not demand capital punishment for them at Sunday's hearing.
Why not? Their victims got it, didn't they?
The convicts, aged between 23 and 27, had been accused of forming an armed group to undermine security in Yemen through attacks including the bombing of the Limburg as it prepared to enter Ash-Shir port off Yemen's southeastern coast in October 2002. One Bulgarian crew member was killed and 12 other crew were wounded when an explosives-laden boat rammed the tanker and blew up. The prosecution also demanded the death sentence for another convict, Fawaz Yahya al-Rabei, who is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and is believed to be the ringleader of the whole group. "There is evidence of his (Rabei's) participation in the murder of a Yemeni policeman," the prosecutor's representative said. The August 28 sentences were contested by both the defence, which said they were unjust, and the prosecution, which said they were too lenient.
"You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!"
"You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!"
The hearing, which was suspended for about 15 minutes on Sunday when the convicts protested at the prosecution's call for harsher punishment,
"Hey! Youse can't do dat! We protest!"
"Shuddup! Bailiff! Beat him senseless!"
Next month's international conference on Iraq in Egypt should be open to all who are prepared to give up violence, the French foreign ministry said Monday. "(The conference) should be extended to include all Iraqi players who reject violence or who would make the decision to give it up," spokesman Herve Ladsous said. Two weeks ago Foreign Minister Michel Barnier caused some concern in Washington and within the Iraqi interim government when he said the conference should include members of the insurgency and discuss the departure of American troops. The summit, to be hosted by Egypt on November 25, will be attended by Iraq and its neighbours, the G8 group of industrialised nations, the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
France gets style points as usual for sneakiness and doublespeak. I assume this means that the US would only be welcome if we renounce "violence" as well.
#2
Because Bush is being multi-lateral. But note that the conference begins November 25.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 2:45
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I'm not surprised they were invited (member of G8, UN, Arab League), but does that mean they are running it? They seem to think so. We are French, of course we are in charge!
Just ignore them as usual. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Posted by: chicago mike ||
10/12/2004 13:14
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yellow cake - from Niger
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 13:28
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#7
It is just a gab fest, so who gives the rear end of a rodent? Only thing is who is fotting the bill? That is where Rantburgers and the American public come in if we are paying for this little conference.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 15:15
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Sorry, can't make it. We need to do real work.
Posted by: Capt America ||
10/12/2004 16:39
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A new anti-Semitism
By James Carroll
THE ORIGINAL sin of the Christian church, and the culture that derives from it, is contempt for Jews, a disorder that continues to infect religious belief and popular attitudes. Discussions of the contemporary resurgence of anti-Semitism focus on such phenomena as the anti-Jewish bigotry of many Muslim preachers or the ready leap from criticism of Israeli policies toward Palestinians to an undermining of the entire project of the Jewish state.
But this year, a startling manifestation of foundational hatred of the Jewish people has occurred in the very heart of well-intentioned Christian faith. When the blockbuster DVD of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" was released a few weeks ago, the astounding appeal of an already hugely successful film was made clearer than ever. For many, this portrait of the suffering and death of Jesus is a powerful religious experience, despite its hyper-violence and despite a blatant portrayal of "the Jews" as Satan's allies in the murder of one revered as the Son of God. The film exacerbated problems already adhering in anti-Jewish Gospel texts by drawing on eccentric anti-Jewish "visions" attributed to a 19th century German mystic named Sister Anna Katharina Emmerich (1774-1824).
When the film was released last spring, Gibson's Braveheart sensibility, imposed on the memory of Jesus, was what disturbed, but now the question moves to the huge population of those who affirm that sensibility as their own. This is the background for the extremely worrying event last week, when, at Vatican ceremonies, Sister Emmerich was "beatified," brought to the threshold of sainthood.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Weird Al ||
10/12/2004
8:04:52 AM ||
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Hmmm. If one is seeking to take aim at anti-Semitism, I'd suggest pointing the guns at any of the major newsrags in Europe before Gibson's movie even makes it into the top 5,000.
Also, I can't think of the last mass I attended where the priest blamed the Jooooos for anything.
Anti-semitism is not dead by any stretch, but I can't think of a time or place in history where Christians have been more accepting and supportive of Jews than in today's US of A.
#2
I've never quite got this "Christ-killer" thing.
If I understand the Christian religion correctly, Jesus had to die to save other people from their sins. (A discussion of that concept is best left for another day - or century.) I've never heard anyone saying he was supposed to commit suicide, or die of old age or in a chariot wreck (and since he could walk on water a sinking boat wouldn't have done the trick), so it looks like he had to be killed by someone.
So shouldn't Christians thank the Jews for Jesus' death? Without it, they wouldn't even have a religion.
On the other hand, if they want to blame and hate the people who killed Jesus, shouldn't they blame and hate the Italians? After all, the Italians (Romans) were in charge; they did the killing. Pontius Pilate said he couldn't find that Jesus had done anything wrong, but agreed to kill him anyway. That to me is more egregious than what the temple priests did.
Just wondering, 's all.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 14:14
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This guy's history is seriously mucked up: Anti-semitism could NOT possibly be an "original sin" of a religion that was started by a Jew, propagated by Jews, and dominated by Jews for many decades. Anti-semitism was an infection the Church picked up from the afflicted Romans as it gained converts. It WAS a sin to not hit down harder on it, but it was hardly "original".
#4
Carrol is a Catholic, and the RC church and its heritage IS his issue, not fundie Protestantism. And Gibson, BTW, is also RC, and his position with relation to Jews has to be seen in relation to the the RCC and particularly the pre_Vatican 2 RCC, despite Gibsons widespread support from evangelicals.
Note Carrol says "potentially lethal" - hes not hunting post film pogroms, but looking at broader issues.
Im told Carrol may NOT be top notch as a historian, but he raises important issues, IMHO.
As for whether the jewish origin of christianity innoculates against antisemitism, I think thats more complex than Ptah makes out. Theres plenty of disdain for non-Christian Jews and for Judaism from the gospel authors, and from Paul, despite their being Jews by birth, and perhaps even continuing to see themselves as Jews. Certainly theres no shortage of antisemitism from later converts to Christianity. Not all antisemitism is racial. In fact pre-1900 hardly any was (with the possible, disputed case of Spanish persecution of conversos)
Though id say this is not a priority right now. Christian antisemitism right now is a theoretical concern, for the most part (and is fought hard by many Christians, including Catholics AND evangelicals). Jihadi-Salafi extremism OTOH is an immminent threat to us all, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddist and Secularist.
#5
I think the original Christian problem with the Jews had less to do with the crucifixion than with the confusion over how the Christ could be a Jew yet the Jews didn't become Christians enmass.
Sort of the "you don't want to join our club, well screw you!" angle on theology. I think a lot of Jew hatred can also be traced to the fact that the Jews don't go around trying to convert people. "Hey, do they think they're too good for me? Screw them!" It's all wrapped into the same big hairball and it will probably never actually be solved as long as idiots need someone to blame for their own self-inflicted problems.
#6
Oh please...passion plays have been going on for the last 500 years without any butchering of Jews. Every Good Friday, Catholics reenact the passion of Jesus and I don't every remember going out to commit a Krystalnocht. The Holocaust was perpetrated by a bunch of pagans and fought by Christians of all stripes, including my father (a devote Catholic). Pope Pius XII was credited, by Italian Jews, in personally saving 300,000 Jews by letting them stay in Vatican controlled facilities. Anybody who saw Gibsonâs movie and saw anti anything (other than anti sin) should really see a shrink. Youâve got problems with transference.
Posted by: John Simmins ||
10/12/2004 15:26
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Carroll is a "former" priest who now is married and attends the same church as JF Kerry. He finds Kerry's Catholocism just dandy and feels Kerry's misunderstood and a victim of the Republicans. Anything from Carroll needs more salt than all of Debka's articles put together.
#8
No, John, Passion Plays have been going on for at least a millenium, with the audience/congregation coming roaring out afterwards to kill all the Jews they could find. That's why the Jewish leadership in this country was so very nervous about Gibson's film. And, to be sure, early indications (violently anti-semitic phone messages, letters and e-mails) supported their concerns. Fortunately, Christians with Ptah's sensibility predominate here.
#9
John, TW is absolutely correct. Historically, when problems have arisen in Christendom and the powers that be have needed to take the populace's mind off them, Jews have been the destraction of choice. Had it not been the crucifiction of Jesus, another excuse would have been found. The sensibility expressed by Ptah and LH is of relatively recent origin. I'll wait several hundred years before I believe Christians have put this behind them.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 17:54
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#10
The foreign versions of Gibson's Passion restored a blatantly anti-jewish scene that Gibson cut from the US version. Hitch's account:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096323/ Apparently seeking to curry favor, Gibson announced a few weeks ago that he had cut the scene where a Jewish mob yells for the blood of Jesus to descend on the heads of its children (a scene that occurs in only one of the four contradictory Gospels). Gibson lied. The scene is still there, spoken in Aramaic. Only the English subtitle has been removed. Propagandists in other countries will be able to subtitle it any way they like.
Wonder how it's subtitled in Egypt and Syria? Or Russia and Poland?
#11
I posted this for comment, and am glad to see it forthcoming. I have not seen the movie, and feel no need to do so. I make no assumption that catholics are either more or less prejudiced against jews than anyone else. I think that is a personal individual mind set. My reason for putting this up is specificly directed against the top level hierarchy of the church itself, which I personally think is one of the most corrupt organizations on the face of the earth. These are the same people who recently gave cardinal Law control of one of the six most important churches in Rome.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
10/12/2004 20:52
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This is the background for the extremely worrying event last week, when, at Vatican ceremonies, Sister Emmerich was "beatified," brought to the threshold of sainthood.
It's only "worrying" if you're a Jew. The Catholic Church has a pretty dismal track record when it comes to "worrying" about the Jews. This only provides additional proof of that.
More explicitly, why is the Vatican, in honoring this nun, affirming some of the most un-Christian aspects of the Gibson film?
Waning popularity and the need to have another go at their traditional scapegoat? It's difficult to see why else the Vatican would nail their smile to Gibson's mainmast.
Indeed, how can this beatification not be taken as a kind of post-facto imprimatur for "The Passion of the Christ?"
It can't. The delay is merely a feeble attempt at plausible deniability.
And given Gibsonâs open disregard for Vatican II, with its firm repudiation of the "Christ-killer" charge, how can the church embrace this rejection of one of its own most important contemporary teachings?
I sincerely doubt that the Vatican's about to give anyone a straight answer regarding this vital question.
Ignoring the potentially lethal consequences of such visions, are the leaders of an ever more defensive church attaching themselves to this perverse pop-culture success for their own parochial reasons?
Ummm ... yes. I would wager that they are hoping to sneak under the radar currently focused upon Islam's even more vicious anti-Semitism. All in all, a rather despicably callow move.
This whole sad story suggests that we Christians -- we Catholics -- have barely begun to uproot anti-Semitism from our tradition. And make no mistake, anti-Semitism begins here.
Yes and yes. Witness the lack of vigorous disclousure surrounding Vatican activities during the Holocaust.
Who could have imagined that, returning to square one of the reform, we would have to be insisting again that the "Christ-killer" charge against the Jewish people is a lie?
That would be anyone with sufficient spiritual backbone to resist the insistence upon blind allegiance being commanded by a corrupt religious leadership whose sole intent is retaining it's remnants of pseudo-political power and naught else. True human spiritual uplifting be damned if it interferes with the Catholic Church's goal of supremacy. This is called "spiritual materialism" and represents an absolute death knell for any sort of enlightenment.
A 10-year-old Asian pupil threatened to behead a seven year-old schoolboy with a Stanley knife after watching gruesome TV images from Iraq.
Asian, was he? Those Chinese — they lose control so damned easily!
I dont know about the UK but the gruesome images dont get broadcast in the US. I think his proud parents deliberately showed him the video from the internet. A boy has to have hero's you know.....
Paul Williams told how the young thug threatened his grandson Nathan outside the gates of Highgate Primary School in Woodside, Dudley where both were pupils. The 10 year-old was subsequently arrested by police and it is understood that he has now been expelled. Sounds like he was also released. Wonder if they allowed him to keep his knife.....
His victim was uninjured but is now receiving counselling after suffering sleepless nights over the chilling incident. Grandad Mr Williams said: "The 10 year-old was pretending to be an Iraqi assassin who was going to cut Nathan's head off like the American hostages.
Now, now! "Assassin" is so harsh. "Role model" would be much nicer...
"Nathan has been in bits since. He's really shaken up and hasn't been able to sleep properly. He has been having counselling because it upset him so much."
First contact with barbarism, was it?
News of the school attack came just two days after it was announced that British hostage Ken Bigley had been executed in Iraq. Mr Williams, from Dudley, claimed the young knife attacker had previously targeted Nathan's 10 year-old brother Martin. "It had always previously been Martin who was subjected to bullying by this boy and two of his friends," he said. "We have been told that the parents of the 10 year-old lad actually condone him carrying the knife and say that it is for his own protection."
And for the protection of Islam, no doubt...
Its parents are probably so proud of him too...
"Three of them approached him, including the ringleader who had a Stanley knife. Nathan said he ran the knife down his arm and then down his front, telling him that he would use it. Typical bully - even with a knife it is afraid without a couple of thugs to back him up.
A Dudley Council education spokesman said: "We are always very concerned when we hear of violent incidents involving pupils. No school condones violence. Except for bullying apparently.
"This is now a police matter and we will work with them during their investigation." A West Midlands Police spokesman said: "The incident was reported to us at 3.40pm on Friday, September 24. We were told that a 10 year-old boy had threatened another boy aged seven. Officers attended and arrested the 10 year-old." Investigations are continuing into the incident.
No source on this, though it reads like The Sun...
#1
âThree of them approached him, including the ringleader who had a Stanley knife. Nathan said he ran the knife down his arm and then down his front, telling him that he would use it.
That would be what's known in the US as a "box-cutter". This little twerp's a regular wanna-be jihadi.
Boil him in oil before he kills someone.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 20:05
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No school condones violence.
Unless the kid is bookish, non-athletic, or just plain weird, of course. Traditions must be upheld, you know.
A German journalist admitted yesterday that bodies buried in a mass grave at the Kosovan town of Racak during the Balkan wars had been "rearranged in order to photograph them better".
Franz-Josef Hutsch, testifying during the defence of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav President, at his trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, said that he went to Racak in January 1999 with an official involved in ceasefire monitoring. He said that they had discovered the bodies in a gully. Mr Milosevic has said that the crackdown on Albanians was a legitimate war against Kosovo Liberation Army Islamic extremists, that Racak was a KLA stronghold and that those killed were fighters not civilians. He argued during the prosecution case that the scene had been tampered with. Mr Hutsch said it was clear that the 45 people who had been killed were not potential KLA recruits: two thirds of the victims were men over 50. The trial, which has resumed after a month to give the defence time to prepare its case, continues.
#1
Why not? Matthew Brady and his assistants did the same thing after Antietam.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/12/2004 22:19
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How stupid was it to arrange the bodies to "better photograph them". What is wrong with journalists these days. Why is it that they believe it is their duty to shape the news, rather than report it.
If that journalist worked for me, I'd fire him and enjoy doing it. Freaking idiot. More harm than good, he did.
Here's a look at some of the attacks that were part of a surge in violence in Iraq during the holy month of Ramadan, which ran from Oct. 27 to Nov. 24 last year:
Oct. 26th, 2003: Just one day before the start of Ramadan, insurgent gunners bring down a Chinook transport helicopter west of Baghdad, killing 16 Americans in what was until then the bloodiest single strike against U.S. forces since the war began March 20.
Oct. 27th, 2003: Suicide bombers strike the Red Cross headquarters and three police stations across Baghdad, killing about 40 people and injuring more than 200 in a coordinated terror spree that stuns the Iraqi capital on the first day Ramadan.
Oct. 29th, 2003: A hand grenade blast in the southern city of Karbala wounds Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Shiite Muslim leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Oct. 30th, 2003: An explosion rocks a row of shops in Baghdad's Old City, killing two people.
Nov. 2nd, 2003: An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashes apparently shot down by insurgents killing all six U.S. soldiers aboard and capping what was until then the bloodiest seven days in Iraq for Americans since the fall of Baghdad.
Nov. 8th, 2003: Guerrillas attack a convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, killing one soldier and wounding six others.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
6:38:57 PM ||
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Islamic courts in Nigeria sentenced two women to death by stoning for having sex out of wedlock, but two men whom they said they slept with were acquitted for lack of evidence, authorities said Tuesday. Both sentences, which were passed within the last month in the northern state of Bauchi, have to be confirmed by the state governor before being carried out, and they are open to appeal. Nobody has been lawfully stoned to death in Nigeria since 12 northern states introduced Islamic Sharia law in 2000, because all such sentences have been overturned on appeal. Hajara Ibrahim, a 29-year-old woman, was sentenced on Oct. 5 by an Islamic Sharia court in the Tafawa Balewa area of the state, having confessed to having sex with 35-year-old Dauda Sani and becoming pregnant, the court said in a statement. "The court has however handed the woman convict to her guardian to take care of her until she delivers the baby before the sentence will be executed by stoning her to death according to the provisions of the Sharia penal code," the court said. "There is no evidence to link him with the allegation and consequently the court acquitted him for lack of evidence."
The second woman, 26-year-old Daso Adamu, was handed the same sentence on September 15 by a Sharia court in Ningi area of Bauchi state, said judge Ahmed Musa Wurojamel. Adamu admitted to having sex with a 35-year-old man 12 times, and is now in custody in Ningi prison, the judge added. Sharia judgments often go unreported in Nigeria because they are handed down in small, remote court houses and local media interest is limited. Previous sentences of death by stoning for adultery in 2002 and 2003 were overturned by higher Sharia courts after international appeals for clemency. The adoption of Sharia law in northern Nigeria has polarized Africa's most populous nation, whose 130 million population is split roughly evenly between Muslims and Christians.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 21:10
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#2
What a wonderful religion!
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004 21:25
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I bet somebody could have a LOT of fun if they could get some DNA from the father and present it as "proof" of paternity. At first they would deny that such a thing was possible, and then they would panic at the thought of killing a male for fornication. They would also want to kill whoever presented the evidence. But it would unnerve the heck out of them.
If anyone out there knows of other attacks on GOP/Bush headquaters please post this information.
The Republican Party campaign office in downtown Spokane was broken into and vandalized by perpetrators who tried to steal a computer, party officials said Monday. State Republican Chairman Chris Vance immediately said the attack on the Victory 2004 office appeared to be politically motivated, coming on the heels of last week's vandalism of the party's office in Bellevue. "One more time, I call on the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign to urge their supporters to stop," Vance said, although he offered no proof that Democrats were involved. "It is time for the leadership of the Democratic Party to issue a public statement condemning these break-ins," Vance added.
State Democratic spokeswoman Kirstin Brost denied that any party staff members would have been involved in a break-in. "We don't need to break into their offices," she said. "That's despicable and we wouldn't do that."
Vance said the attack occurred between 6:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Monday. On Sunday, about 4,000 people gathered inside the nearby Spokane Arena for a rally in favor of heterosexual marriage. Scores of protesters gathered outside the arena calling for legalization of gay marriage. Jon Wyss, vice chairman of the Spokane County GOP, said the vandals pried the jamb off a back door of the building and then kicked a hole in a gypsum wallboard wall to get into the GOP office. The vandals dumped contents of desks onto the floor, but did not touch a printer that was the most expensive item in the room, Wyss said. They also left a donation jar holding $103.18, Wyss said. They moved a computer and a television, but left both items, he said. Those are being checked by police for fingerprints, Wyss said.
Wyss said the office would be back in action later Monday. There was no message or other communication from the vandals, Wyss said. Wyss declined to speculate on who might have caused the damage. "The thing we say is if they don't agree with our politics, take that to the polls," Wyss said. The downtown office features posters for President Bush, GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, U.S. Senate candidate George Nethercutt and others. Wyss said it was the first problem the office has had in three months of operation.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
6:20:43 PM ||
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#1
'Bush Campaign Protests Union Violence Against HQs' 2nd related story
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 18:47
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A campaign office in Canton, OH was broken into.
That makes a string of Donk crimes along I-77 from Cleveland: around 1,000 fraudulent registrations in Cleveland, around 800 in Akron, now this.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 18:53
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...the [Bellevue WA and Spokane WA] break-ins are part of a broader attack on the president's re-election offices around the country, including a burglary in Canton, Ohio, last night, gun shots fired in West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and union protestors storming offices in three Florida cities and Minneapolis.
We know that the AFL-CIO coordinated nationwide assaults. What are the chances that the DNC is not coordinating national attacks as well?
#8
Kerry's already mobilized a strike team of lawyers all over the place. I'm thinking it is going to be for the purpose of defending these *ahem* questionable registrations.
#9
Somebody did a Bellevue on a Democratic county office in the Toledo area, and there have been arson fires in Louisiana (Democratic) and NE Pennsylvania (nutbar Socialist Workers Party, even so). Even my local Democratic county office had someone smash the storefront window with a slingshot or something last month.
It's no fucking joke, and people ought to be working to restraint the assholes on their own side right now. I was pissed last week, but now I'm worried. Decency is better than revenge.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/12/2004 19:54
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Links, Mitch?
Not saying I don't believe you, just saying cites would be appreciated.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 21:16
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OK, the Toledo break-in. The Socialist Workers Party arson. The Louisiana double-dip arson. (Huh. Actually reading that article, Mike Tottenâs cite of that as "two arsons" is stretching things beyond all recognition - somebody burning a sign on your doorstep isn't arson, that's intimidation.) As for my local incident - I've been on that recently. I'm at the point where there's enough pissed-off for everybody.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/12/2004 22:59
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The gospel according to St. John Edwards I guess....
Edwards: "We will do stem cell research," he vowed. "We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases. America just lost a great champion for this cause in Christopher Reeve. People like Chris Reeve will get out of their wheelchairs and walk again with stem cell research." Saw this first on Drudge then did a google search to find this link.
#3
Took em all of 24 hours to use his death for political gain....much slower than I had expected.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2004 18:34
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Now Rex, you know Kerry had to flip/flop four or five times on the issue. If Edwards was still a lawyer, there would be fewer doctors to help people to walk or any other thing.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 19:50
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Lessee... stem cell research is possibly good for Parkinson's or damage after a stroke. There hasn't been any evidence of it being good for Alzheimer's nor spinal cord damage. The deal with spinal cord damage is in defeating the scar tissue that forms and the proteins that come from that tissue which actually inhibit the repair of nerve fibers. That's where the research is, not with stem cells.
#7
According to Mr. Kerry, the President is also responsible for the shortage of flu vaccine. I guess if Kerry were President he would somehow have control over British government agencies to insure we have enough vaccine.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/12/2004 20:18
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We will stop juvenile diabetes, ....
This is just one more example of the evil of Bushitler(tm) and Chainey; that they could travel back in time and stop these diseases from being cured decades ago.
I hate to seem petty, but with all these really great plans to cure disease, end war, make the French act nice, etc; is anything written down anywhere? Talk is cheap.
#9
The only "laying on of hands" these jokers will do, is to lay hands on your wallet.
Posted by: A Jackson ||
10/12/2004 21:49
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Couldn't Edwards even wait until Christopher Reeve's body was cold before using his death for his own political gains?
Not to sound disrespectful but I think it would be some trick for Kerry to get Christopher Reeve (or people like him - i.e. dead) to get out of his wheelchair and walk considering he died.
In the late 1980s, when 37-year old Jabril Hough was a Methodist who attended church every Sunday, he began having religious doubts about Christianity's Holy Trinity and the worship of Jesus as the Son of God. "I searched for an authentic Christian Bible that had not been altered or tampered with, but couldn't find one," Hough recalled. Then after the Gulf War broke out in 1991, Hough became aware of Islam and began studying the religion. "Islam's monotheism began making sense to me," Hough said. "The religion says God is one and he has no partners, parents, sons or daughters." Today, Hough, one of approximately 4.5 to five million Muslims in the US, is chairman of the national board of the Islamic Political Party of America (IPPA), the country's first and only Islamic political party. With about 4,000 members and chapters in 12 states, the IPPA seeks to encourage Muslim Americans to become more involved politically.
"We need to organise politically because we are living in the most dangerous period in our history," said Ali Abdur-Rashid, the IPPA's national coordinator and one of the party's three co-founders. "Muslim Americans are scared. We know what happened to the Japanese during World War II, and we don't want that to happen to us." The party was founded in April 2001, five months prior to 9-11, but IPPA officials said that Muslim Americans were facing serious problems like religious profiling and hate crimes long before the event happened. "The U.S. government was putting Muslims in prison on the basis of a secret evidence law," Abdur-Rashid said. "Remember that famous case of al-Najjir? He was put in prison for several years and the government didn't even have to explain why." The US government arrested Mazen al-Najjir, a former University of South Florida professor, in 1977 on charges of overstaying his visa and having ties to terrorist organisations. Al-Najjir was released in December 2000, only to be arrested again in November 2001 and then deported in August 2002. IPPA officials said none of the political parties have taken the Muslim American community seriously. "When it comes to Muslim Americas, there is no balance in American politics," Hough said. "Look at that first presidential debate between Kerry and Hough. They both talked about the War on Terrorism and Iraq being about ensuring Israel's security."
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#1
A religious party? Run for the POTUS? You want open revolution? Go right ahead, really...please do.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2004 18:33
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We will work with a non-Muslim group so long as they agree with our principles. ..and if we disagree you'll just saw our heads off, right?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2004 18:46
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"We will work with a non-Muslim group so long as they agree with our principles. ..and if we disagree you'll just saw our heads off, right?"
Our principles INCLUDE sawing your heads off.
"I searched for an authentic Christian Bible that had not been altered or tampered with, but couldnât find one," Hough recalled.
Mr. Hough, do you often worry that common household items have been "tampered with", or "adulterated"? Do you find personal messages in the morning paper? Have "they" been leaving cryptic clues in the evening broadcasts on CNN?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/12/2004 20:00
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MOSCOW, Oct 12th, 2004 (AFP) - George W. Bush once said he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw the former spy's soul -- a gaze of lasting impression that many here believe has left the Kremlin gloomily apprehensive about prospects of a Democrat making the White House his home.
"I've got a good relation with Vladimir, and it's important that we do have a good relation because that enables me to better comment to him and to better -- to discuss with him some of the decisions he makes," Bush said during his first debate with John Kerry in September.
His Democratic rival was more blunt: "Mr. Putin now controls all the television stations. His political opposition is being put in jail," said Kerry before adding: "Freedom on the march? Not in Russia right now."
With foreign policy -- albeit mostly concerning Iraq -- a trigger issue in a US presidential election for the first time in decades, Russia is treading water lightly as November 2 nears.
"We are glad to see that all of the candidates agree on the need to develop dialogue between Russia and the United States," a Kremlin official told AFP. "We respect the choice of the American nation."
But conventional wisdom in Moscow is of strong opinion that Bush -- the man who Russia feared in 2000 because of his missile defense and NATO expansion plans -- is the far more pliable option here than a Democrat concerned with how Russia itself is actually run.
Russia's last experience with a Democratic White House in the 1990s saw economic advice -- delivered by US economists shipped to Moscow -- that at one stage fed hyperinflation and later introduced the sell-off of prized state property to insiders for a song.
And Kerry's saber rattling about Putin's recent authoritarian streak -- including his proposals for the president to pick and sack both regional governors and judges -- has seen Russian lawmakers rise to the Kremlin's defense.
"Kerry has long surrounded himself with people who never had a very balanced view about Russia," said nationalist Russian lawmaker Dmitry Rogozin.
The Democrat's criticism has also been largely ignored by Russia's state-controlled media.
"I think that Putin really supports Bush and he would expect few unpleasant surprises from the Republicans," agreed Dmitry Simes of the Nixon Center in Washington.
"Meanwhile Kerry's staff includes many people from the Clinton administration involved in Russia's early democratic reforms -- and who often resorted to direct pressure," Simes wrote in Vremya Novostei daily.
Simes said some of those advisers were closely linked to Russia's so-called oligarchs who made fortunes in the Yeltsin era but who fell into disrepute under Putin's regime.
The Putin years meanwhile went hand in hand with those of Bush -- and of a Russian economic boom that for the large part relied on rising global oil prices rather than on Moscow's own economic strategy.
Putin also became Bush's ally in the war on terror -- using the September 11, 2001 attacks to justify his own war in predominantly Muslim Chechnya that had been roundly condemned at its start in 1999.
Republicans say that Bush has learned over the years to "engage" former KGB spy Putin rather than criticize him as Democrats would likely be tempted to do.
Some Republican advisers said Bush would rather trade a clampdown on media freedoms here in exchange for Putin's passive acceptance of the war in Iraq and potential US investments in Russia's lucrative energy market.
"Bush and Putin have been working together on different issues for four years," said Thomas Harvey, who has worked in various Republican administrations, including that of the elder George Bush.
"The two men and their two teams know each other and that is important," said Harvey.
Democrats meanwhile agree that Bush would probably have been as strong in his criticism of recent Putin policies as some of his European counterparts had he not relied on Putin in strategic spheres like oil and his anti-terror campaign.
"I doubt that Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry will be terribly different in regards to Russia," said Donald Fowler, former co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
"My guess is that if Mr. Bush was not dealing with Iraq he would be dealing with some of the issues here" in Russia, he said.
But Fowler added: "I feel that Mr. Kerry would be an activist just like president Clinton was."
Meanwhile the latest polls show that Russia's warm embrace of all things Western that came in the first chaotic post-Soviet years has turned far more tepid.
A recent Romir poll said that 60 percent of Russians feel that Americans have a negative effect on their country and less than one third of respondents have a positive view of the United States.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
5:27:33 PM ||
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Democrats meanwhile agree that Bush would probably have been as strong in his criticism of recent Putin policies as some of his European counterparts had he not relied on Putin in strategic spheres like oil and his anti-terror campaign.
In other words, "If US security and economic health didn't depend on Russia, Bush would have been less diplomatic."
Which candidate is supposed to be the bumbling fool, and which is supposed to be the sophisticated internationalist? It's getting hard to tell.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 18:05
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Meanwhile the latest polls show that Russiaâs warm embrace of all things Western that came in the first chaotic post-Soviet years has turned far more tepid. A recent Romir poll said that 60 percent of Russians feel that Americans have a negative effect on their country and less than one third of respondents have a positive view of the United States.
Simply laughable. Russian antipathy has nothing to do with Bush. For Russians, Clinton was almost certainly the most hated president of recent history. Why don't the clownish authors of this article compare today's survey results with Russian sentiments in April 1999, when the Clinton admin bombed the bejeezus out of their brataslavyanskiye in the balkans? At that time, english-speaking foreigners were attacked on the streets of Moscow, shots were fired at the US Embassy, and Russia's elite university students at MGU marched under banners with slogans such as "Monica! Sharpen your teeth!"
Russians' basic distaste for not just America but also western Europe stems from two facts evident long before 9/11:
--the degrading experience of being viewed by western consular officials and all and sundry as a mafioso or a 'ho every time they even so much as wish to travel to the west, and
-- the now-obvious western complicity in their nation's slide into Third World status (as Havel put it, "better a sick Russia than a healthy Soviet Union)."
hahaaaa.. I really believe that Americans and Russians can get along. Ok..so screw Lennin and Marx. They forced themselves on the poor Russian people anyways. Ok..ok...so they are a bit more cruel than we are...but what do you expect with all of those murading raiders constantly passing through. Pukin is supporting Bush, which highlights the obvious. We have common goals - despite our differences. Just like, together, we sent Hitler to his grave, we can send bin Laden and his ilk to theirs...not that some of them are not already there.
In a wierd sort of way, I think it will be Russia and Germany (as well as the Britian, Australia, Poland...and others excluding the genetically inferior French) who, with the US, will send the Islamic fanatics packing...
The islamics are cave men in the 21st Century and as such don't stand a chance. While they can hurt us in much the same way that a car can run us over, they are just dying beasts flailing with dangerous claws before they become extinct.
An Islamic militant suspected of devising a 1998 plot to crash an explosives-laden plane into a major Turkish landmark was extradited from Germany on Tuesday. Muhammed Metin Kaplan will face treason charges in Turkey for allegedly trying to destroy the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish state. Turkish authorities allege Kaplan plotted in October 1998 to smash an explosives-laden executive jet into Ataturk's mausoleum, which covers an entire hilltop in Ankara. The attack, officials say, was to happen when thousands of officers, students and foreign dignitaries were visiting the site for a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the secular republic. German officials say Kaplan chartered a jet for the attack, but the alleged plot was foiled when Turkish police arrested 23 suspected members of Kaplan's group the day before the ceremony. German authorities detained Kaplan, dubbed the ``Caliph of Cologne'' by his supporters, earlier Tuesday at an Internet cafe after a court approved his extradition. Germany has outlawed Kaplan's Caliphate State group, which calls for the overthrow of Turkey's secular government and its replacement with an Islamic state. Kaplan has denied the allegation. He has, however, declared a jihad or ``holy war'' against the secular Turkish republic. Officials say Kaplan has about 800 followers in Germany.
Kaplan has been free since May 2003 after serving a four-year German prison sentence for incitement in the killing of a rival cleric in Berlin in 1997. He has been required to report to Cologne police weekly. Kaplan foiled German police attempts to arrest him in May by disappearing for several days after another court ruled he could be extradited. The arrest warrant was called off when a federal court granted Kaplan an appeal, which is pending. The Cologne, Germany, court ruled Tuesday that Kaplan remains ``an identification figure for Islamic extremism'' and that his interest in staying in the country is ``outweighed by the public interest in an immediate deportation.'' Kaplan had asked the local court to reinstate his status as a political asylum seeker, but in Tuesday's decision it refused. The court also claimed that his appeal in federal court in Leipzig does not justify keeping Kaplan in the country. It rejected Kaplan's argument that he was too sick to travel. His extradition had been delayed by concerns that his followers have been subjected to torture in Turkey and that he could face political persecution.
Kaplan's extradition to Turkey was made possible after Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002. Turkey has introduced measures to crack down on torture to meet European Union conditions for membership, but rights groups say torture still occurs. Turkey last year assured the German government that Kaplan would get a fair trial. No connection has been established between Kaplan's group and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. But German investigators have said that some members traveled to Afghanistan to meet with supporters of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 1996 or 1997.
#3
I imagine he will get differential treatment once he is in prison. He is a muslim cleric. He also will still be spewing his incitement and recruiting in prison. Yes death is preferable.
#4
Prison time won't do any good for people like this guy, who is driven by ideology and radical fanaticism. He thinks about killing others (infedels) 24 hours a day. There is no way around it but to kill him. If you don't, he will create a thousand more radicals.
#7
sounds like a cell with 24/7 lights on, cameras, and no privacy would unwind this POS nicely
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 23:07
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Can't have the cake and eat it..lol
This time the authorities acted fast enough to prevent another court from messing things up again.
He can still appeal.. hehe.
By ALAN FREEMAN
Members of the small mosque located behind Porter's Paint store in a strip mall along 167th Street come from a string of countries and speak several languages, but most agree on one thing: voting against U.S. President George W. Bush on Nov. 2. "With the Democrats, we would not have this chaos we have all over the world. When [former president Bill] Clinton was there, we felt as if we were all equal," said Mustapha Lymouri, a Moroccan-born businessman who blames Mr. Bush for creating divisions in American society.
"I'm going to vote for John Kerry. We need some change," said Jamal Hagos, a 42-year-old airline worker who is a native of Eritrea and who opposed the war in Iraq. "I feel for the young American soldiers who are dying every day for nothing."
Sofian Abdelaziz, director of the American Muslim Association of North America and a leader of the mosque, said everyone he knows voted for Mr. Bush last time. But most have turned against the Republican President, upset by the invasion of Iraq, by what is seen as the administration's bias in favour of Israel, and by moves they interpret as a concerted attack on their civil rights. It is a pattern that is emerging across the country among Arab-American and Muslim voters.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:56:24 PM ||
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They didn't vote for Bush in 2000, they voted against Lieberman. Odd that the reporter failed to note this little tidbit.
#2
And he carries, at worst, 1/3rd of Moslems. In that it is somewhat better than African-Americans voting for republicans, I wouldn't say that as a group Arabs and Moslems hate him. How do they stack up beside Hispanics and Asians? In all fairness, what's the big hoop-dee-doo?
Whether or not it is, in the technical sense, a "joke", I find myself, with the benefit of hindsight, in agreement with Billy Connolly's now famous observation on Kenneth Bigley — "Aren't you the same as me, don't you wish they would just get on with it?"
Had his killers "just got on with it", they would have decapitated Mr Bigley as swiftly as they did his two American confreres. But, sensing that there was political advantage to be gained in distinguishing the British subject from his fellow hostages, they didn't get on with it, and the intervening weeks reflected poorly on both Britain and Mr Bigley.
None of us can know for certain how we would behave in his circumstances, and very few of us will ever face them. But, if I had to choose in advance the very last words I'd utter in this life, "Tony Blair has not done enough for me" would not be high up on the list. First, because it's the all but official slogan of modern Britain, the dull rote whine of the churlish citizen invited to opine on waiting lists or public transport, and thus unworthy of the uniquely grisly situation in which Mr Bigley found himself. And, secondly, because those words are so at odds with the spirit of a life spent, for the most part, far from these islands. Ken Bigley seems to have found contemporary Britain a dreary, insufficient place and I doubt he cared about who was Prime Minister from one decade to the next. Had things gone differently and had his fate befallen some other expatriate, and had he chanced upon a month-old London newspaper in his favourite karaoke bar up near the Thai-Cambodian border and read of the entire city of Liverpool going into a week of Dianysian emotional masturbation over some deceased prodigal son with no inclination to return whom none of the massed ranks of weeping Scousers from the Lord Mayor down had ever known, Mr Bigley would surely have thanked his lucky stars that he and his Thai bride were about as far from his native sod as it's possible to get.
RTWT
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004
3:51:43 AM ||
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I think the Telegraph was right not to publish it. I think he could have made this point without blaming the victim:
None of the above would have guaranteed Mr Bigleyâs life, but it would have given him, as it did Signor Quattrocchi, a less pitiful death, and it would have spared the world a glimpse of the feeble and unserious Britain of the last few weeks. The jihadists have become rather adept at devising tests customized for each group of infidels: Madrid got bombed, and the Spaniards failed their test three days later; the Australian Embassy in Jakarta got bombed, but the Aussies held firm and re-elected John Howardâs government anyway. With Britain, the Islamists will have drawn many useful lessons from the decadence and defeatism on display.
#3
The Telegraph's decision is a reflection of the decadence and defeatism on display in Britain. Mr. Bigley's status is exactly the point of the column. He was not a victim, he was a combatant.
One of the great ironies of this war is that those who are in the uniformed services are volunteers and the rest of us are involuntary draftees. And there is nothing we can do about it, except get it over with as rapidly as posible. Mr. Bigley's conduct, prior to and after his abduction did not contribute to this goal.
Our enemy wants to destroy us all. It will continue to do so until we have done unto them as they would do unto us. Those who see Bigley as a victim deny this reality and wish to see this as a war fought by European standards or even as a law enforcement problem. Were this the case, Bigley would be a victim. But it is not. We are in a total war, whether we wish to be or not; and we do not yet. It is a war still awaiting a Sherman because we would not yet accept him even if we could find him.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 10:40
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I would have run the column, but I would have delayed it a bit, to a point when emotions weren't so high and emotions so raw.
"If youâre kidnapped, accept youâre unlikely to survive, say âIâll show you how an Englishman diesâ, and wreck the video. If they want you to confess youâre a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq â so say yes, youâre an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you."
{He he he ...}
I LIKE it!
If you are captured, before you suffer your Quattrocchi fate, you act like the brave Italian... if any more Americans end up in this situation...
Tell the man with the knife...
"Yeah there is all those boys from Dearborn and Buffalo mosques hangin' out with you in Fallujah who are workin' with me & the CIA... Allah akhbar, baby..."
#6
"That being said, I think he's speaking the truth - it's just that this truth is too painful to be in print."
All the more reason why it NEEDED to be said.
" I would have run the column, but I would have delayed it a bit, to a point when emotions weren't so high and emotions so raw."
No! Clamp the lid on, close the safety valve and crank the fire up! The sooner our society loses its collective patience, the better. Only then will we finally make the decisions necessary to do what has to be done.
Ultimately, it is going to be necessary to exterminate Islam.
Peabody
Posted by: Mr. Peabody ||
10/12/2004 12:04
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#7
I read the previous article about an American in London and then read this. The column needed to be run and the Brit population (not Blair) need to wake up to the threat that is within their midst.
Posted by: remote man ||
10/12/2004 12:26
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#8
Re decadence, the Telegraph last week ran a brilliant opinion piece from one Dr Anthony Daniels that was actually much more scathing than Steyn's, and without the rather tasteless retelling of the Billy Connolly remark.
Our reaction to Mr Bigley's death is immature, dishonest and decadent
By Dr Anthony Daniels
(Filed: 10/10/2004)
It goes without saying that Mr Bigley's days of agony and terror were such as no human being ought ever to endure. It goes without saying that sympathy is due to his family, especially to his aged mother.
However, what goes without saying ought to go unsaid. The very fact that we so often seem compelled nowadays to spell out the obvious, by means of public gestures and protestations, by breast-beating and generalised mawkishness, suggests that, far from having deep feelings for one another, we live in a world without any genuine feeling. Mawkishness is the tribute that indifference pays to solidarity.
...Thousands of people, in effect, will work themselves up into a state of grief. But it will only count as true or real grief if they express it in public.
Leaving aside the question as to whether maximum public effect is precisely what the killers of Mr Bigley are aiming for, and that therefore each flower laid (other than by his family and friends), and each teddy bear bought, is a triumph and encouragement for them, what does this outpouring of imitation-emotion tell us about ourselves and the condition that we are in?
...What was done to Mr Bigley was not wrong, nor was it even made worse, because he might have been an exceptionally good man; it was wrong because it was barbaric, because no one should be treated in this fashion, and it would have been wrong to do so even if Mr Bigley had been a very bad man.
To dwell on his good qualities in public is therefore not merely beside the point and grossly sentimental, it is morally very wrong: for it is to imply that, had he been (for example) a drunken embezzler, it might have been morally justified to treat him in such a way. He was an innocent man, we were told ad nauseam: if he had been guilty, then, should he have had his head sawn off with a knife by a group of heartless psychopaths?
... What kind of population ... would fail to understand that the holder of one of the great offices of state such as Jack Straw's cannot, or at least ought not to, devote himself to futile gestures of ersatz emotional support for a single grieving family? What kind of population fails to understand that the policy of the country, whether it be right or wrong, cannot be determined by the fate of one man, however horrible that fate might be? And this is so, irrespective of one's view of the Iraq war.
The politics of the individual case is the politics of gusts of intense but shallow emotion. It is incompatible with the rational pursuit of long-term interests. There are several words to describe such a politics: immature, dishonest and decadent would do.
#9
This is a perfect reply also to those weak, if not morally decadent, and foolish critics of Bush who complained he was not visiting and indulge in sob session with bereaved families of Iraq War casualties.
We are a great nation upholding a proud and strong civilization. We are not victims, and we do not weep when savages take the lives of our citizens. We repay, and in spades.
Those who suggest we should do otherwise are admitting defeat. Shame on such weak and cowardly fools.
#10
Steyn's column was brilliant in that it said what many were afraid to. As for me I aint going quietly or sheepishly. I live in a pretty quiet part of the U.S. (Northern California) but we have a very large Muslim population. To date I have not seen an incident that raises their loyalties to question. However I have seen many normal non-Muslims go over to the other side because they think this is some type of adolescent game. Also given the recruitment of Muslims itâs only a matter of time before we see another Hamdi or John Lindh try to start something within our (U.S.) borders. What Steyn should have added that Islamofacists only prey on the weak or easy. Most are poorly trained and are just a step above common thugs. Have a gun rack in your truck, put NRA stickers on the windows, and if you can carry a personal weapon. If you look like your are a difficult target, they will go look for someone else. If you donât want a gun get a tazer, pepper spray, or a knife. And learn how to use them and teach your kids how to use them! If nothing else we should learn that these Islamofacists care little about the whether you wear a uniform or not. Just look at that school in Russia and that should tell you enough.
#12
I don't necessarily disagree with all of the comments above - but if I were the editor, I still would not have run it. Agree with rj that it would have been best to wait.
Mr. Bigley is a human being and his family are real flesh and blood. He didn't ask to be made a symbol of the war, even if he became one. Regardless of how true Steyn's words are, it's more civilized to respect Bigley's death than it is to use it to further our own cause. Put yourself in the family's shoes. How would you feel if everyone was blaming your brother and using his death to further their own political agendas.
I love Steyn. One of the very best writers around, but it was wrong for him to piss on this mans grave before the grass even had a chance to grow.
#13
I disagree. I think the danger of creeping Bigley-ism is a far greater threat to us than any jihadist ever could be. This teddy bear tendency needs to be stopped cold in its tracks before we start going the way of the Spanish.
#14
Imagine how the jihadists must be interpreting Bigley's dying words: âTony Blair has not done enough for meâ.
Do you think the jihadists and the muslim fellow travelers listening to that whimper are likely to be discouraged and dissuaded from further attacks?
Osama contrasted the "strong horse" and the "weak horse", and said the muslim population of the world would place its bet on the strong horse. Little did he imagine a whinnying, pitifully cowering old nag.
#15
This teddy bear tendency needs to be stopped cold
How about we let the body get cold first?
Look - I understand what you are saying - and I'm not disagreeing with your overall point. But, someday, someone important to you will die - and you will feel embarrased by your mean words.
#16
But, someday, someone important to you will die - and you will feel embarrased by your mean words
One of my best friends was a contractor who disappeared from the area near Tikrit (his broken-down car and laptop were found) a year ago today. He was probably kidnapped, and is almost certainly dead.
Aside from a wire service report, I have not seen any journalist's account of him or his fate. Nonetheless I have no doubt he died a brave man.
I cannot say the same of Bigley or many of his compatriots. So here's my question to you: what lesson would you want your children to take from the Bigley affair?
As for me, I will teach my son that the memory of a free man's honor, no matter how obscure that man was, outweighs the media-induced tears and sympathy of a million strangers.
#17
Where's our Lincoln? I think he's in the White House. Both came to the White House after a deeply divisive election whose legitimacy some question. Unlike Lincoln, Bush came to the White House expecting to deal with problems different than those which have confronted him. But he has played the cards dealt him well. History is changing the world rapidly around him as it did to Lincoln. Because of the divisions in the nation, Bush has had to show a Lincolnian constancy and resolve. I'd imagine this has not been easy; not nearly as easy as being able to flip flop like Kerry. Thus the grimaces at the first debate. Bush has doen a good job of keeping the focus on our enemies, who try to hide from us and disguise themselves. If in 8 years Bush can deal successfully with Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and either Iran or North Korea, and "allies" in France and Germany, I suspect history will be kind to him. But one bad afternoon, and I'll change my mind.
Where is our Sherman? The American people are not ready to accept one. After the next domestic mass civilian atrocity, things may change. I strongly recommend The Soul of Battle for an excellent discussion of liberating military leaders in history, including Sherman, by VD Hanson. If Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld can manage this conflict properly, perhaps we will not need a Sherman. If we do, woe is the Midle East and Islamofiscism.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 17:41
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#18
Perhaps we have a Sherman now somewhere near Fallujah or Ramalla but GW "Don't take the gloves off" Bush is less of a Lincoln than you suppose?
#19
Hell,is this woman on the level with her article? I've been to England and Ireland several times in the last ten years without encountering this sort of s**t. Bulldog, Howard UK does this sound right to you?
Text deleted -- remember folks to check to see if the article you're posting has already been posted.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:40:13 PM ||
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QUESTION-Why is Pakistan, a country that was near bankrupt on Sept. 11, 2001, now so flush with money and confidence that it can practice sabre-rattling?
ANSWER-George Walker Bush made the stupidist alliance in the history of recorded diplomacy.
#2
Was it really stupid, or is it a way to secure this pro-al-Qa'ida Islamic hot spot. If the jihadees were pull off a coup and then gain control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal it would be beyond a nightmare for a number of geostrategic reasons.
Has there been a history of major problems with the current Paki government in terms of nuclear data being sold to the highest bidder? Yes, but it could be a lot worse if the Islamo-nuts take over.
Pakistan is right up there with Iran as far as being a ticking time bomb thus warrenting our close monitoring of the daily situation from the ground level.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 16:05
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I wonder how long before the Indian Government approaches Israel about ABM systems or turns its not insignificant engineering talent loose on the problem
#5
George Walker Bush made the stupidist alliance in the history of recorded diplomacy.
Even though GW is our beloved Commander in Chimp(tm), somehow I doubt this. But it does bring up the question "What was the stupidest alliance in recorded history?". Let the ranting begin!
#7
For you Civil War experts: England's support of the Confederacy (or were those just trade agreements to get cotton for England's mills?) Although I suppose it wasn't the Confederacy being stupid.
The Israeli army believes that al-Qaida carried out three car bombings in Egypt last week that killed at least 34 people, Israel's military chief said Tuesday. Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon told parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the army's intelligence latest assessment is ``the international jihad'' carried out the attacks in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, participants in the meeting said. The participants said Yaalon was referring to al-Qaida. The attacks occurred at sites popular with Israeli tourists, and at least 13 Israelis were among the dead. Egypt has not said who it believes was behind the attack. Its investigators have been questioning dozens of Bedouin tribesmen detained after the attacks.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:35:14 PM ||
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China illegally supplied Saddam Hussein's regime with missile technology and other weaponry and was a major beneficiary of the U.N. oil-for-food program, according to a CIA report. The report by the Iraq Survey Group also stated that China, along with France and Russia, was bribed by Saddam with oil sales and weapons deals into working to end U.N. sanctions. One sale took place in 2001 and involved an intelligence officer in Beijing, Abd al-Wahab, who bought 10 to 20 gyroscopes and 20 accelerometers from a Chinese firm that was not identified by name. The equipment was to be used in Iraq's Al-Samud missile program, said a former high-ranking official of Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission, which was in charge of arms procurement.
China was the third-largest recipient of oil vouchers from Saddam's regime, the report said. Russia and France were the two largest. The Iraqi government used the voucher system to siphon off $11 billion through contracting kickbacks and other corruption in the $64 billion humanitarian program, which operated from 1996 to 2003. The program was designed to get food and medicine to the Iraqi people, despite international sanctions. China also supplied rocket guidance software to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 2002 that was labeled "children's software" to mask its military nature, the report said.
The report sought to clear the Chinese government of a direct role in the illicit trade by stating the CIA had "no evidence" suggesting Beijing approved the exports. However, the report noted that the companies involved were "state-owned" firms that were newly privatized and were willing to circumvent U.N. monitoring in supplying goods illegally. Chinese Embassy spokesman Sun Weide said China's actions under the oil-for-food program were "totally legal." He also said Beijing complied strictly with U.N. resolutions regarding arms technology transfers to Saddam.
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Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:29:01 PM ||
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China's sudden transfer of more than 30,000 Chinese troops to border areas with North Korea is apparently intended to block a massive influx of North Korean defectors, a Japanese newspaper reported on Oct. 7. The North Korean army has also dispatched elite forces along the border in response to China's deployment, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing sources informed on Chinese issues. The Japanese government has confirmed military movements along the Sino-North Korean border by using satellite photographs and is monitoring the situation using its intelligence network.
The deployment of Chinese troops was so sudden that there were not enough barracks available and soldiers are being quartered in farmhouses. The rapid deployment was ordered because of growing signs in North Korea of an impending mass defection, the newspaper reported. The troop movements followed widespread rumors that North Korean soldiers manning the border would flee the North en masse. Chinese troops were sent to the region ahead of the winter season when North Koreans can easily cross the frozen river into China, the newspaper reported. It quoted sources as saying that China is concerned about the possibility that armed North Korean troops might escape due to food shortage and assault homes and citizens in local cities bordering the North.
A diplomatic source in South Korea also said the military movements by China and North Korea seemed aimed at blocking mass defections of North Koreans. The Sanhe-Kaishantun-Nanping region in which the Chinese troops were deployed is near one of main routes through which North Korean escapees can make their way to China, according to the South Korean sources. North Koreans can cross the narrow river with relative ease, especially when it is frozen. The report also raised that possibility the deployment was in response to preparations against a possible civil war in North Korea over who would be the country's next leader. Meanwhile, the South Korea Defense Ministry said China would send about 400,000 troops to fight alongside North Korea should war break out on the Korean peninsula. China rescued North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War, sending some 1 million troops to fight with North Korea against South Korea and the United States.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:25:33 PM ||
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#1
Dibbs on the popcorn concession.
In all seriousness, I hope hundreds of thousands of NorK refugees somehow make it to freedom, in spite of the ChiComs and their looney-tunes "leader."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 15:28
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#2
The North Korean army has also dispatched elite forces along the border in response to Chinaâs deployment
"Elite" in this context means "not quite as hungry as the regular troops".
#4
Well, at least the US quit giving the Norks aid of any type (except 60,000 tons of wheat or something recently). The sooner the Norks fall, the quicker the people can be rescued from their horrible fate at the hands of the Nork leaders.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 16:33
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#5
The report also raised that possibility the deployment was in response to preparations against a possible civil war in North Korea over who would be the countryâs next leader. I didn't realize the leadership position was in play.
#6
I don't believe these "reasons" for a minute. I think that tensions are sky high between the two over the Nork development of nukes, and refusal to bow before China's demand to cut that crap out. As a model, I would look to the China-Vietnam spat in 1979. Except this time, the stakes are much higher.
#8
One would hope that this isn't 1979 come again. The Vietnamese kicked Chinese ass. I don't think we need a victorious, starving North Korea straddling the Yalu.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/12/2004 16:56
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#9
China v North Korea take China's attention off Taiwan for a while.
This probably is just to deal with the refugee situation, though the bit about the "next leader/civil war" in NK is interesting.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
10/12/2004 17:05
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#10
Remember that the Vietnamese in 1979 had a battle hardened, resolute corps of soldiers. What do the Norks have? A Maginot line facing south and 2 million starved pointed stick carriers. The Chinese have a huge surplus of pointed stick carriers and traditionally is willing to expend them at truly Asiatic rates to make a point. What could it easily deploy against the Norks? 4 million?
China is concerned about the possibility that armed North Korean troops might escape due to food shortage and assault homes and eat citizens in local cities bordering the North
..... preparations against a possible civil war in North Korea over who would be the countryâs next leader dinner.
Frozen Yalu river - oh, good - nutritious ice cube and sawdust sandwiches = mmm, mmm good......
#13
I don't think we need a victorious, starving North Korea straddling the Yalu.
Straddling a river is a good way to find out that the other guy has a hell of a lot more troops than you.
Seriously, unless they (God forbid) went nuclear, there's no way the NorKs could stand against the Chinese. How much fuel do they have? I'd bet they have a week or two -- a month on the outside -- for their army, but that's assuming they're willing to burn through it all and leave the DMZ immobilized.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 18:51
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#14
I didn't realize the leadership position was in play.
There have been rumors that a portion of the NK military leadership is unhappy with Kim-Jung-Il. Initial news reports shortly after the train explosion mentioned this.
The civil war is a remote, very remote possibility. 30K PLA troops sounds more like a border guard, and NK elite troops coming north might be to squelch defections.
#15
RC,the scary thought is if China starts overrunning N.Korea the S.Koreans get involved.
China most likely sent troops to border based on some credible urgent info.(The NBA has sent 2 teams for a couple of exhibition games this week,so I doubt China is doing anything preplanned.)The action does raise questions about the new top Chinese military leadership.Is the new guy panicking,or trying to show he's strong?Or is he letting his generals run things?
As KJI is supposed to be paranoid,if the Chinese put troops on his border,I would think he would want to put reliable troops opposite them.
Posted by: Stephen ||
10/12/2004 22:30
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#16
This report appears to be straight up - and good news for the good guys. This will be a long cold hungry winter for the axis of evil. I guess hell will freeze over.
#17
This is all the result of Kim's portrayal as a poofy haired idjit with a lisp and Harry Caray glasses in Team America - World Police. That portrayal isn't true. He's not really a marionette
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 22:58
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#18
I think that tensions are sky high between the two over the Nork development of nukes, and refusal to bow before China's demand to cut that crap out.
I wouldn't bet a plug nickel on China wanting North Korea "to cut that crap out." Kim's nuclear posturing is exactly what the Chinese want, and always have wanted, as a drain on American resources in the region.
...the scary thought is if China starts overrunning N.Korea the S.Koreans get involved.
This is a lot closer to the truth. There is no way in frozen hell that China wants a reunited and more powerful Korea perched on their border. The politburo would sooner annex North Korea than allow the South to claim a single rice paddy from across the DMZ.
China only does what is good for China. Attributing even the least sort of magnanimous intentions to the communists is worse than stupid. North Korea has always been China's Rotweiller. Lately, feeding their rabid pet has become a slight strain so they are merely getting ready to clean its cage and replace the current occupant with another trained lap dog.
China only does what is good for China. Attributing even the least sort of magnanimous intentions to the communists is worse than stupid I'll buy that.
Big thing is that China does not want any Nork refugees coming over the border That seems to be what is driving their self-interest.
A top Iranian dissident living in Paris says up to 800 clerics and theology students from Iran are in the process of infiltrating cities in neighboring Iraq in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins Friday. Ayatollah Jalal Ganje'i, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime, said in an interview with The Washington Times that the influx is part of continuing efforts by Tehran's power brokers to exploit the crisis in Iraq in order to set up a sister fundamentalist Islamic republic. The religious leaders, dispatched by the Islamic Propaganda Organization, plan to use the holy month to propagate militant Islamic views, he said, with the goal of strengthening Iraqi political groups whose philosophy and aims coincide with those of Iran's theocratic regime.
The cleric said the religious leaders will take their message into Kut, Nasariyah, Amarra, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad, joining a massive network of other Iranian agents already in Iraq, many in armed underground cells. "I expect the violence to increase, and this will also set the stage for further meddling in upcoming Iraqi elections," said Ayatollah Ganje'i, who is affiliated with the National Council of Resistance, a State Department-designated terrorist group. Also known as the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran, the group was the first to reveal details of Iran's nuclear activities. "Iran is hoping to use the January elections to bring its own Islamic fundamentalists to power," the cleric said. He did not specify which leaders Tehran was working with in Iraq.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld similarly said there has been "a lot of meddling" by Iranians in Iraq. "They clearly want to affect the outcome of the election, and they are aggressively trying to do that," he said. "They're sending money in, they're sending weapons in, and they're notably unhelpful." Mr. Rumsfeld said millions of refugees and pilgrims regularly travel between the porous border separating Iran and Iraq, adding, "There's no way we could stop the flow of these pilgrims." An official at the Iranian Interests Section in Washington referred a request for comment to a telephone number in New York, which was out of service.
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Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:24:04 PM ||
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Anyone with half a brain knows that this sort of shenanigans is right up the Mullahs' alley - taking advantage of our sometimes perilous tendency for being fair and nice (undeservedly, I might add) in order to undermine our efforts. The question is, what is going to be done about this?
#2
Well, they don't generally call me before starting operations, but it occurs to me that the swarms of pilgrims go both directions. Problem=Opportunity?
Posted by: James ||
10/12/2004 20:54
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"Whoop! There goes another one now! Make that 100,001!"
Saudi authorities have intercepted at least 100,000 infiltrators from Iraq and Jordan during 2004, Saudi security sources said. The insurgents included a range of North African nationals. The security sources said the effort was meant to prevent insurgents from crossing the borders with Iraq and Yemen. They said Al Qaida has used both countries for the smuggling of weapons and insurgents into the kingdom. "Saudi Arabian border forces have turned back tens of thousands of infiltrators from Iraq this year," Saudi ambassador to Bahrain, Abdullah Bin Ibrahim Al Quwaiz, said.
Have you considered shooting a few of them?
Saudi Arabia has also been used as a way-station for Al Qaida to enter other Gulf Cooperation Council states, the sources said. They said Al Qaida and its aligned groups have entered Saudi Arabia from Iraq on their way to Kuwait. Al Quwaiz said most of the infiltration to and from Saudi Arabia was comprised of Saudi nationals. The ambassador said the infiltrators also included Chadians, Moroccans, Somalis and Yemenis.
No Samoans? No Lapplanders? No Veps? I wonder why?
On Sept. 28, Saudi authorities reported detaining a ship loaded with weapons off the coast of the southern kingdom at Jazan. Officials said the ship included 543 AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles and large quantities of ammunition and was heading from Yemen to Sudan. At the same time, the sources said Saudi forces were on heightened alert along the southern border with Yemen. They said Saudi security forces had been warned of an Al Qaida attempt to smuggle two vehicles loaded with weapons and explosives from Yemen. Yemen was said to be cooperating in the Saudi effort. The Saudi ambassador said Al Qaida has stayed clear of Saudi military and security targets because of improved protection. He said Saudi Arabia has expanded instruction and training in counter-terrorism to military and security forces. "Some universities and security and military colleges are now teaching specialized courses on how to combat terrorism," he said.
The course of instruction doesn't include shooting them, evidently.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
3:01:30 AM ||
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Even taking into account the customary exaggeration, that's a heckuva lot of people. If we add in the fact that the Saudi military and security forces are thoroughly penetrated by al Quaeda, it verges on the miraculous. What happened to all those people, I wonder...
#2
"Turned back" Huh? Please define.
TW, I'm with you. What happened to these folks? 100,000? Show me the docs. Sounds like the PR machine is on steroids.
Posted by: chicago mike ||
10/12/2004 12:56
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I personaly suspect that the 100,000 is a symbolic number. Remeber that pre-industrial iron age cultures do not place a great deal of value on precision/accuracy. These guys are just blowing smoke, trying to make themselves look good.
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 14:13
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Ok, Fred. I know what Samoans and Lapplanders are but, please, what is a Vep???
A large explosion has gone off near the convoy of a Palestinian security chief, Moussa Arafat, reports from Gaza City on Tuesday evening say. The blast happened as the security convoy was leaving a Palestinian security building. There was no immediate word on whether Moussa Arafat, a relative of the Palestinian leader, was injured. His appointment as overall commander of Gaza security several weeks ago was greeted by protests.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
2:55:58 PM ||
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wow....too bad *snicker*
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 14:57
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Guaranteed that someone, somewhere close by is saying, "Ah #%$&#@!!, missed again!"
President Ion Iliescu said Tuesday the war against Iraq was "moral and legitimate" after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is in the country to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers. "Being a country that for half a century was under a totalitarian regime (we consider) the intervention in Iraq was moral and legitimate," Iliescu told reporters. The Romanian president also said his government condemned "the barbaric practice of taking hostages. It is a dangerous development that cannot be justified."
Romania has more than 700 troops serving in Iraq and has not suffered any casualties among the troops. Rumsfeld, who said he last visited Romania in 1971, praised the changes, saying Romania had a "vibrant democratic society and robust economy," noting that Romania had joined NATO earlier this year. Romania threw off communism in 1989. Rumsfeld said the U.S. valued the "stalwart support" offered by Romania in fighting terrorism.
Rumsfeld arrived on Monday in the Black Sea port of Constanta, where he visited a base used by as many as 3,500 U.S. troops, who were stationed here in February and March 2003 to prepare for the start of the war in Iraq. U.S. Army paratroopers based in Italy used Constanta as a staging base for their airlift into northern Iraq in the opening days of the war. It also was used as an air transport hub by the U.S. Air Force during the Afghanistan war. No U.S. troops are based here now. Rumsfeld will attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday and Thursday where the role of the alliance in Iraq and Afghanistan will be discussed.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
2:53:29 PM ||
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Being a country that for half a century was under a totalitarian regime
Romania would sure as hell know about that.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 19:36
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By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES
President Bush yesterday seized on Sen. John Kerry's remark that terrorism should be reduced to a "nuisance" like prostitution that doesn't define Americans' lives, saying it showed his ignorance of America's most urgent national-security imperative. "Senator Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to quote nuisance end quote; and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling," Mr. Bush said. "I couldn't disagree more.
"Arrest them and bring them to justice!" It sounds good, but who's issuing any arrest warrants? Whose cops are rounding them up? I simply haven't seen any yet, except within individual countries. There ain't no UN Command for Law and Enforcement.
"Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance," he added. "Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorists and spreading freedom and liberty around the world."
It warms my heart that G.W. has started saying "liberty" and "freedom," rather than "democracy." Democracy's a reflection of liberty, but not necessarily vice versa...
The Kerry campaign defended the "nuisance" quote, which was published in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, and said the administration was taking it out of context. "John Kerry is going to hunt and kill the terrorists before they can come after us, and no amount of selective editing by the Bush campaign can change that basic fact," said Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer. "Once again, the Bush campaign is insulting the basic intelligence of the public by resorting to tired and desperate tactics to cling to power," he said.
Bush's comments don't insult my intelligence. His comments illustrate the basic difference between the two positions. JFK's going to "hunt and kill the terrorists"? How's he going to do it? Keep in mind that he said he'd have done everything differently from Bush.
The full, unedited quote, which the New York Times interviewer called "remarkable," revealed an approach to terrorism that contrasts sharply with the president's belief that it will remain a global war for the foreseeable future. "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," Mr. Kerry said.
Alas, poor Klinghoffer! Done in by a nuisance! And didn't hunting down and killing Abu Abbas work well?
"As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise.
Except that we're not talking about organized crime here. We're talking about SPECTRE, and the Council of Boskone, and the Learned Elders of Islam, and the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu...
It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life," he concluded.
Terror networks seem to be a binary condition: they're either a threat to the fabric of your life (because of the threat to life itself) or they're non-existent. There's no middle ground. That's why they don't call it "nuisancism." Loud drunks on the sidewalk in front of your window at 2 a.m. are a nuisance. Having the airplane you're taking to Disney World explode is terrorism.
The president, stumping in New Mexico before traveling to Denver, called the remark "new evidence that Senator Kerry fundamentally misunderstands the war on terror."
He misses the point entirely, as far as I can see...
He added: "Earlier, he questioned whether it was really a war at all, describing it as primarily a law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering operation, instead of a threat that demands the full use of American power."
Law enforcement is a tool to be used domestically, and for other nations to use domestically. Intelligence is essential, otherwise we're working blind, and it reveals the international nature of the problem. Diplomacy is another tool strange, that Mr. Kerry, with his fixation on diplomacy, didn't mention it. But that might be because the logical extension of diplomacy is military action, which represents the least-preferred tool to the Publicans, the forbidden tool to the Dems.
Vice President Dick Cheney also hammered Mr. Kerry for the "nuisance" remark and said it was part of a pattern of the Massachusetts senator's minimizing the war on terror. "This is naive and dangerous, as was Senator Kerry's reluctance earlier this year to call the war on terror an actual war," he said at a rally in Medford, N.J. "He preferred to think of it, he said, as primarily an intelligence and law-enforcement operation."
No doubt he was just being nuanced, even though the statement is stoopid on its face, unless one slept through 9-11 and is still most interested in who killed Chandra Levy...
Even before the president and vice president went after the "nuisance" remark, their campaign raced to air a TV spot highlighting the quote. "First, Kerry said defeating terrorism was really more about law enforcement and intelligence than a strong military operation," says the ad's narrator. "More about law enforcement than a strong military? Now Kerry says we have to get back to the place where terrorists are a nuisance like gambling and prostitution. We're never going to end them. Terrorism a nuisance? How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?"
If he's elected president, he can fumble around and pass gas in summit after summit until the terrs manage to fly a plane into the White House while he's there and then we can start the whole process all over again, with new leadership.
Mr. Singer said the ad is "a dishonest and disingenuous way to campaign for president and another pathetic way to play the politics of fear." He also alluded to an interview that Mr. Bush gave to NBC's "Today" show on Aug. 30, in which he said "we can't win" the war on terror in the next four years.
True statement. It'll probably take ten years with the kind of leadership Bush has provided, 40 or 50 assuming we don't lose with Kerry's...
"Considering that George Bush doesn't think we can win the war on terror, let Osama bin Laden escape and rushed into Iraq with no plan to win the peace, it's no surprise that his campaign is distorting every word John Kerry has ever said," Mr. Singer said. The Kerry response ad, titled "Can't Win," accused Mr. Bush of not doing enough to inspect cargo ships that enter the United States, giving $7 billion in "no-bid" contracts to Halliburton for Iraq reconstruction. "And on the war on terror, Mr. Bush said, 'I don't think you can win it,' " the Democrat's ad says. "Not with his failed leadership. It's time for a new direction."
More like, it's time to take the gloves off. But if they come off, that means casualties, and the Dems'll leap on the casualties to make their cheap political points...
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the new Kerry ad takes Mr. Bush's words out of context. After he made his remarks, the president told radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh that he meant to say that terrorists will never formally surrender to America, as Japan did at the close of World War II. "They throw out these baseless charges whenever the senator's words are highlighted," said Mr. Stanzel, who accused Mr. Kerry of having a "September 10th mind-set." "They seem to have the most negative reaction when we simply repeat things John Kerry has said."
He utters gross stupidities often enough to make that a common occurence...
Mr. Cheney also accused the Democrat of not having learned from the September 11 attacks. "This is all part of a pre-9/11 mind-set, and it is a view we cannot go back to," he said in New Jersey. "This is a global conflict. If we fail to aggressively prosecute the war on terror, destroying terrorists where we find them and confronting governments that sponsor terror, the danger will only increase." so true
The campaign will enter the final stage after tomorrow night's final presidential debate in Tempe, Ariz. Both campaigns expect the race to be close, just like in 2000, but the small lead that Mr. Bush enjoyed after his early September convention seems to be holding. An ABC News-Washington Post poll conducted Friday through Sunday put Mr. Bush at 51 percent and Mr. Kerry at 46 percent among likely voters nationwide. A Rasmussen daily tracking poll gave Mr. Bush 49 percent and Mr. Kerry 45 percent. Two other polls, however, give the Democratic challenger a slight lead. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of likely voters gave Mr. Kerry the support of 49 percent to Mr. Bush's 48 percent. And a Zogby International/Reuters poll gave Mr. Kerry a 47 percent to 44 percent lead, just outside the margin of error of 2.9 percent.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
2:30:45 AM ||
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#1
I thought it was Bush who said that this war on terror can not be won. Approx. a month ago.. He did flip-flop the next day, yet, i think he was genuine in his evaluation of the problem : Terrorism will never be totally rooted out, and if it would become a 'nuisance', I think it would already be a great succes.
#2
(lyot) Why don't you locate some scared-for-life victims of 9-11, caused by Islamic terrorists, and try feeding them the Kerry 'nuisance' rubbish as you stare at their various skin graphs.
While your at it you may also want to seek out the multi-thousands of international terrorist related injury victims caused by the followers of the 'nuisance'.
Here is a short list to assist you in finding the world's victims of the 'nuisance': Indonesia, The Philippines, Spain, Turkey, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Russia, Nigeria, Yugoslavia, India, The Sudan, Thailand, along with the scores of other nations in which the barbaric Islamic 'Terrorist Inc' enemy has chosen to slaughter the innocent, to further their monstrous goal of total world-wide domination through targeted extermination of millions of 'infidels.
Remember now, be sure to cast your vote for the same 'nuisance' candidate the jihad boys & the French are cheering for!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 4:37
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M.E, you must have understood me wrong.. I don't think it's possible to speak of contemporary terrorism as a 'nuisance'. Yet, through policy it should become no more then a 'nuisance'.. Eradicting terrorism 100% is not possible imho, yet managing it so that it becomes no more then a nuisance should. That I think is what George Bush meant a couple of weeks ago, and I truly think that's also Kerry's conviction.
If Bush had stated, lets say some 8-10 months ago 'we have the hardcore tangible proof that Saddam did indeed transfer his chemical & gem warfare weaponry (WMD) to Assad's Syria, then soon after portions were distributed in various mountainous regions of northern Lebanon, under joint Hizballah-Syrian control, with deep Iranian involvement.
Bush then declares to the American public; 'Based on the known threats (including nuclear) and recent published documentation, American and her allies have agreed are going to engage both terrorist promoting Syria and Lebanon, plus Iran, if or when they become aggressive against the allies!
Would you have supported these global anti-terrorist measures, even though it would mean broadening the the geographic area concerning the overall objective of hitting the heart of the 'terrorist empire' and defeating the greatest threat to international economic stability.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 6:15
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Mmark, if the threat is credible and there's good intelligence to back it up, sure I would not have anything against such anti-terrorist measures in Syria/Lebanon. The spread of WMD to these groups is unacceptable and must be crushed as much as possible. I'm not sure about attacking Iran, as crushing the Hizballah already equals waging war with Iran, be it by proxy.. One would guess they get the messsage by then. Only if every other option fails, Iran should be attacked. One hotbed (Irak) is enough for the moment..Iran needs a soft revolution and I hope it will happen.
#7
Lyot, I know what you are saying and you have a point re: that terrorism will never be eliminated.
Go read Belmont club for a great and fair analysis of Kerry's comments. Then when you're done - go read what Giuliani (instapundit or LGF) had to say about it.
#9
No terrorism will never be defeated - but we can defeat the nations that use terrorists as a tool of national policy.
The lone (or small group) loonies with no national support will always be around - but our country will not be hit like 9-11.
Posted by: Dan ||
10/12/2004 11:21
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#5 Why should we not attack iran? A country which as has been attacking us for 25 years?
You stated that crushing the Hizballah already equals waging war with Iran, be it by proxy
Is this not what iran is doing against us? Iran has been waging war agaisnt us. The only difference is that no us president (dem or rep) has had the moral fortitude to fight back.
One hotbed (Irak) is enough for the moment..Iran needs a soft revolution
so since iraq is a hotbed (due to in large part to iran) we should back off? This is exactly what the mullaha's intended.
Posted by: Dan ||
10/12/2004 11:27
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It seems to me our quarrel is not with Iran as such, but with the Mullahs and their tools. A couple of missiles aimed at Revolutionary Guard barracks and the home addresses of individual Mullahs before dawn, followed by destroying the Parliament building and dropping a few bunker busters on their nuclear development facilities might well do the trick.
I realize we don't know where all the secret facilities are, but even reducing their nuclear development capability will impact the urgency of dealing with the issue.
#12
Yes I agree are battle is with the Mullahs but taking the clinton approach and sending over some missiles will not do the job. It will just entrench the mullahas.
Our fight in WWII was agasint nazism/fascism but it took destroying/occupying the german people to finally defeat nazism.
Just as the the german people of the 30's supported hitler the people of iran supported these asshats (at least in the begginning).
This is a defining moment in history-
either we tackle this regime or we leave the region to them.
They are actively working towards this while we debate humanities.
Posted by: Dan ||
10/12/2004 13:16
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Lyot, did you say typos? You are aware of the anti-Typo regulations governing comments in here? Look at all of mine, the typo-king... lol
Although these days we do not hear the term 'oil embargo', something associated with the 1973-4 & 1979 Arab/Iranian oil embargos directed at America bring about the severe recession of the 1970's. Do people have such short memories of Khomeini holding 'America hostage'? His fanatical followers are still in the divers seat.
There are a number of options the President shall have in his 2nd term to deal with defeating those national 'terror' states. One of them, in relation to 'invading' Iran, would be to enforce a total Iranian oil blockade from exiting the Persian Gulf. A sustainable reduction in Iran's Opec oil revenue will further incite the Iranian public against the ruling mullahs. Hard economic times would begin domestically for Iran, greatly reducing the mullahs ability to continue supporting Syria, Hizballah & Hamas Iran is surrounded this second on almost all fronts. Somebody in the White House had a workable plan for the eventual downfall of the world #1 state purveyors of Shi'ite jihadism.
As 'trailing wife' as stated "A couple of missiles aimed at Revolutionary Guard barracks and the home addresses of individual Mullahs before dawn" has worked before in removing this form Jihad cancer.
Israel has the most to lose from a nuclear Iran, and in the past took swift action to knock out potential Middle Eastern nuclear threats like Saddam's back in 1981. I would not be a bit surprised if Israel takes the initiative very soon. Our troops & others in the Coalition are suffering now from Iran's exporting of Muslim terrorists.
We have the power to deny Iran the ability to earn millions for global terrorism and remove this Islamic terrorist nuclear threat by toppling the mullah dictatorship. The only question is, do we have the will as 2004 enters into 2005?
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 13:26
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Dan, you are of course right as far as the tactics required to defeat Germany. However, we have been reading here for some time about mass marches of students against the regime, and in the past few days about specific attacks on the businesses and property of the Mullahs. Given the youthful skew of the population, I was thinking that if we remove the ability of the ruling class to physically intimidate the populace, the kids may be able to handle the rest themselves.
Sabotage caused power loss for 17,000 customers in Wisconsin.
Oak Creek - Stopping short of calling it a terrorist act, officials said Sunday that the weekend collapse of two electric transmission towers was caused by someone purposely removing bolts that held the towers in place... The bolts in question either held legs of the tower into a concrete base or connected parts of the tower to each other.. As the 80-foot towers collapsed, they brought down at least one nearby power line, which was still draped across the tracks Sunday. A southbound Canadian Pacific freight train stopped on the tracks about 75 yards north of the downed lines. It was still on the tracks Sunday... Bauer said the tracks were expected to be cleared and opened to rail traffic sometime Sunday night. FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Troy said his agency has issued a general warning to municipalities to watch for tampering with infrastructure and that FBI offices nationwide had been alerted.
Similar to earlier incidents:
In February, a 62-year-old Spokane, Wash., man was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for removing bolts in legs of about 20 electrical transmission towers in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The man, Michael Devlyn Poulin, said he tampered with the towers to show how vulnerable America is to terrorist attack. Troy said transmission towers had been targeted by other people in other regions as well... ...Details would be nice, but instead we get the sad story of all the train passengers making their way home...barefoot, through 18'deep snowdrifts, in the dark, with the hand of every man against them...you get the picture. I'm sure it wasn't fun for them being unexpectedly stranded, though.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/12/2004
2:14:36 AM ||
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$.05 says its some trustafarian, overaged radical, or wanabee revolutionary who was just smart enough to do the deed without getting himself killed. He (and it is probably a male) is prolly wetting himself with excitement/fear right now. We'll see more incidents like this untill this ninny gets caught.
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 8:54
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Sounds like those Earth Liberation Front assholes at work again.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 9:24
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N Guard - Or, let's hope maybe he'll touch the wrong thing next time and end up charred dust in the wind... {sizzle}
Save trial espenses of the bozo if all that's left is a belt buckle, some gold teeth, and a little pocket change melted into the concrete slab holding the tower.
#4
A major Philadelphia highway was shut down a day ago due to a metal box with "ELF" written on it, attached to an electrical tower. Stranded motorists for hours while the bomb squad blew it up.
A British school boy claims to have grown the largest pumpkin in the country, by nurturing it on beer. According to The Sun, Joe Hallam, 13, has claimed that he has grown a record 700 pound pumpkin by feeding it beer. "A pint a day really helps its size," Hallam was quoted as saying. He has now reportedly hired a crane to lift it from his garden for a show.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:58:15 AM ||
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It works with people too... I reckon it's called "beerguts"... hummm, beer...
There was a report in California yesterday some guy had a 1,000 pound pumpkin. I think you need radiation and steroids to get one that big, and you gotta be very careful not to make it mad.
Hat tip: Murdoc Online ...The Stryker flipped over one and a half times and skidded about 30 feet. This bomb was so powerful that it knocked out lights in the rooms of soldiers at a base 2400 meters away. There were four soldiers in the Stryker, and none were hurt (aside from a ringing in the ears...). When the Stryker was flipped back upright, it was still able to move under its own power.
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004
1:56:11 PM ||
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It seems to me the Stryker vehicle, after all the controversy, has turned out to be very worthwhile. We should have more of them, and faster.
The Stryker appears to be filling the gap between Humvees and Bradleys--providing the survivability and armament of a track with the stealth and reduced maintenance of a Humvee. I hope so anyway--many hybrid vehicles seem to claim they provide the best of both parent classes, when they actually provide the worst.
That's the way I feel about those hybrid SUV/pickups--don't have the cargo capacity of a pickup and don't have the passenger capacity or comforts of an SUV.
I guess altogether that's actually 4¢!
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004 14:35
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Dumb question Dar, but how do you make the cents symbol? I've been writing $.02 and your way seems better.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 14:56
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There's also the AMPERSAND+keyword+SEMICOLON combination. Type "¢" in your comment to get "¢". The same thing with "trade" instead of "cent" gets you "â¢".
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004 15:08
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That first "¢" should have read "¢".
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004 15:09
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Argh--it looks right in preview but doesn't come across on the page the same way. It should appear as "&" + "cent" + ";" concatenated into one word.
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004 15:10
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#9
I hope the soliders got a chance to change shorts before they continued their patrol.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 18:07
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Fantastic picture at the link. Is the grate around the vehicle standard equipment or an in theater customization? Hard to believe not flat tires!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 18:11
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You haven't heard about the Birdcage? It was added for Iraq to catch RPG's before they strike the vehicle. Apparently it has been very effective.
Posted by: Patrick ||
10/12/2004 18:36
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How many of these are we producing now? Do we have enough to provide some to the Iraqi forces before the election?
#15
Hey idiot, its based off the LAV III which is General Dynamics Land Systems (they MANUFACTURE the vehicles in Canada), get your talking points at least in order ya dang troll.
Iran and Russia are close to finalising the agreement on return of spent nuclear fuel, paving the way for Iran's first atomic power plant to become operational, reports Xinhua. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov made an announcement to this effect at a joint news conference in this Iraqi capital Sunday. "The agreement on returning spent nuclear fuel is in the final stage. I think it will be signed soon," Lavrov said. The Bushehr nuclear reactor is being built with Russia's help in a Persian Gulf island in the southern province of Bushehr. Russia has, however, specified that the spent nuclear fuel be returned in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons with the spent fuel. Western countries such as Germany and Spain were formerly aiding in the construction of the plant.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:52:46 AM ||
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Sorry about that..the heading is:
'Iran, Russia deal on spent nuclear fuel in final stage:'
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 1:54
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Iran and Russia are close to finalising the agreement on return of spent nuclear fuel,..
Pinch a little here, pinch a little there, and soon there'll be enough to create a few explosive devices...
Go ye there and check out the documents. In original Arabic with English translations.
When CNSNews.com published an article Monday, Oct. 4, entitled, "Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties," we decided against publishing all 42 pages of the Iraqi intelligence documents in our possession and on which the article was based. We published only the first page, fearing that if more were made widely available on the Internet, they might end up being altered or otherwise manipulated. We offered credentialed news organizations and counter-terrorism experts the opportunity to view and receive copies of the documents so that they might check for themselves on the authenticity of the documents and judge their importance in the debate over whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and/or had ties to international terrorist organizations.
Several news organizations did just that. But in light of other assertions on Wednesday, widely reported by the mainstream media, that Saddam did not pose any significant threat prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we felt it was time to publish as many of the Iraqi intelligence documents as possible. What follows are copies of 24 of the 42 pages that are in our possession. Pages 21 through 26 were not published because they contain a list of terrorists trained at a camp belonging to the Iraqi Intelligence Directorate. CNSNews.com hopes to glean more information about the individuals on this list and provide updates in the future on their activities and whereabouts. Pages 29 through 40 were excluded because they replicate, though in a different person's handwriting, earlier documents. Upon clicking on the individual pages of Arabic documents, readers will have an opportunity to click on the unedited English translation of those documents. We hope this serves to further illuminate a very important element of the ongoing debate. snip. Go to website to see links to individual pages.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/12/2004
1:51:28 AM ||
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Background info here confirms what a lot of us have been saying.
PARIS — A top Iranian dissident living in Paris says up to 800 clerics and theology students from Iran are in the process of infiltrating cities in neighboring Iraq in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins Friday. Ayatollah Jalal Ganje'i, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime, said in an interview with The Washington Times that the influx is part of continuing efforts by Tehran's power brokers to exploit the crisis in Iraq in order to set up a sister fundamentalist Islamic republic.
The religious leaders, dispatched by the Islamic Propaganda Organization, plan to use the holy month to propagate militant Islamic views, he said, with the goal of strengthening Iraqi political groups whose philosophy and aims coincide with those of Iran's theocratic regime. The cleric said the religious leaders will take their message into Kut, Nasariyah, Amarra, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad, joining a massive network of other Iranian agents already in Iraq, many in armed underground cells.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:50:42 AM ||
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Didn't al Sadr just get sent home with his tail between his legs? Truly, insanity is repeating the same action in the belief of a different outcome. November 2nd is not far away, and if Bush loses he is even more free to do as he deems necessary, as he won't have to deal with the fallout past Jan.20th. As the ancient Greek wrote, "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad."
San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis was speaking to 7,000 Bay Area Muslims last year at the end of Ramadan, Islam's holy month of fasting, when he suddenly realized that they had gone hungry when he had not. And they were celebrating an experience he did not know. ``It just dawned on me,'' he recalled. ``If I am truly going to understand the nuances of this religion, I should join them in this fast.'' So this week, Davis will join the world's nearly 1 billion Muslims in forgoing food and drink from sunrise to sunset in the monthlong observance of Ramadan. Leaders in law enforcement and the Muslim community say they have never heard of a police chief fasting for the entire month. Last year in the United Kingdom, the highest ranking police officer at New Scotland Yard fasted for one day.
Davis' decision carries enormous weight with Muslims, who remain worried about racial profiling, continued backlash from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and, most recently in San Jose, the fatal police shooting of a Bosnian Muslim outside a coffee shop. ``It is a remarkable gesture,'' said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C. ``The fact that a major law enforcement figure in the country is making this gesture will help bridge some of the gaps in this country.'' During Ramadan, Davis plans to break the fast nightly with a different Muslim family, and will extend an invitation to eat at his home. The police chief, who is a Mormon, said his decision to observe Ramadan is not motivated by politics or publicity but by a desire to ``truly understand.'' Davis made the commitment when he was the deputy police chief and now, as the chief, he believes fasting can help him connect with a community that is growing in the South Bay. ``Everyone needs to know that the chief is the chief for everybody -- not just the majority, not just for those in power,'' Davis, 47, said. ``I need to be a chief for everybody, particularly for those who've felt marginalized.''
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#5
"It just dawned on me," he recalled. "If I am truly going to understand the nuances of this religion, I should join them in this fast.
Why not join them in a beheading instead? You'll learn more nuances that way.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 15:37
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San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis :
"It just dawned on me,if I am truly going to understand the nuances of this religion, I should join them in this fast."
EVERYONE : Remind me not to try to call 9-1-1 if I am ever in San Jose and there is an emergency...
#7
This is the kind of thing that "enlightened" people end up doing when they consider religion to be some cute little pageant that these funny little people engage in. It's not even dhimmitude; he just thinks he's being nice to some poor dumb slobs who don't realize they're sheeple.
Posted by: A. Bungfodder ||
10/12/2004 16:12
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You know. It's commentary like this that makes me slide a little more towards the "Americans are a decadent, racist, immoral, monstrosity" side of the argument every single day.
And I'm a f**king Canadian. I used to like you folk. Now you're all acting like savage hayseeds, drunk on human blood.
#17
Were there US officials "observing" German National celebrations in outreach to Nazis during WW II?
Still, that gives me an idea: seek to undermine the meaning of Ramadan by turning it over to Disney, street parades, and food festivals. It is time for us to use any weapon available to attack and undermine the Moslem habits and beliefs.
#22
By gawd BH you've inspired me. Not tonight of course, but this weekend a fresh pork shoulder! Into the the black burka BBQ. I figure about 18 hours of fun.
#24
hey Hupereger Ebbigum6422 - i actually never liked canadians! totally dependant on the US and too ignorant to admit your on failings!
Posted by: Dan ||
10/12/2004 18:33
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#25
Guys, I kinda thought the chief's view on the isssue showed his superiority. And all here showed that to be so, no Moose-limbs will attempt his offering in kind.
H.E. it's easy to be superior when you're nation exists because of U.S. (you reap the benefits without the expense). Put your ass on the line some...
Nobody's interested in your sex life, asshole. Keep it to yourself.
You're disgusting.
Right back atcha, jerk.
Are you sure you posted to the right thread? Your reaction to this one is WAY over the top.
However, I won't hold your idiocy against all Canadians. Most of them are pretty good people. We have our leftist, liberal, touchy-feely assholes too.
Go play in traffic, loser.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 19:48
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Has anybody heard if the San Andres fault has shown sign of becoming active again? I am sorry and I apologize if there are rantburgers from California here but I do not think it is possible to save the state. The best thing it could hapenned to it is to become detached from the mainland and to forever float on the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean.
#30
the dumb fuck--he's going to grow payas,get himself circumsized and drink manichewitz wine for passover--does he try to hump the female deputies to empathize with rapists
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
10/13/2004 0:05
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#31
Did someone tell him that you shouldn't have sex during Ramadan?
Iraq on Monday released 130 Iranians arrested for crossing the border illegally, but another 270 remain behind bars, Iran's top diplomat in Baghdad told state television. Washington and some officials in Iraq's interim government have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs and allowing weapons and fighters to cross their long border. Iran denies this accusation. Iranian Charge d'Affaires Hassan Qomi described the detainees as pilgrims who had tried to visit holy Shi'ite Muslim sites in Iraq without the proper documentation. He said the 130 Iranians freed on Monday had all been held in the town of Kut. Another 71 were expected to be released in coming days. Before Monday's releases more than 400 Iranians were being held in various jails in Iraq, he added. "In the next month we hope to solve the issue of Iranian pilgrims travelling to Iraq," Qomi said.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:47:00 AM ||
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Yeah, next month Bush wins and they stop the "pilgrim" flow or he does.
Posted by: Tom ||
10/12/2004 15:54
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A Swiss engineer suspected of helping Libya obtain nuclear weapons technology has been arrested in Germany, prosecutors announced on Monday. The engineer is believed to have been part of a clandestine international network, which helped supply equipment for the Libyan government. Authorities allege that 39-year-old Urs Tinner oversaw machine work in Malaysia on gas centrifuge parts that were intercepted by Western intelligence last October on a ship bound for Libya, and trained Libyans in their use. Treason charges are being prepared against the suspect, who was arrested Thursday in Hesse state, German federal prosecutors said.
George W. Bush pulled himself together sufficiently in St. Louis on Friday night to avoid losing the presidency to John Kerry on debater's points and got down to his foremost task. The Republican president concentrated on imprinting the scarlet letter ''L'' (for liberal) on his Democratic challenger's chest. Whether or not he succeeds may determine who is elected.
It seems like a lifetime since July 1991 when Sen. Kerry declared: ''I'm a liberal, and proud of it.'' Thirteen years later, the L-word is forbidden language for Kerry. He is attempting what only Bill Clinton among recent Democratic candidates has accomplished: covering left-of-center policies with a facade of moderation. Kerry, less skilled than Clinton as a political dancer, is burdened with a 30-year record of nearly unbroken liberal votes.
NEW YORK (AFP) - Human Rights Watch listed the names of 11 senior Al-Qaeda suspects it said were held by the CIA in secret locations overseas, where some had reportedly been tortured.
"Hambali who? KSM who? Nope. Nope. Never heard of those guys."
They never say who it is that is "reporting" this torture.
Tusk, tusk. Torturing al-Qaeda suspects. Terrible. Yep. Boy howdy, that's too bad.
The suspects were detained with no notification to their families, no Red Thingy Cross access and, in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, the New York-based watchdog said in a 46-page report. Can I get a big whaaaaa! Terrorists got caught and are held where people like you clowns can't get at them. To bad for you. Who are you to have say over their treatment anyway? You gave no assistance in their capture. You instead prefer to protest their arrest and detention even thought they have admitted they are complicit in the acts they are held for. Somtimes even before they were captured.
"'Disappearances' were a trademark abuse of Latin American military dictatorships in their 'dirty war' on alleged subversion," said Human Rights Watch special counsel Reed Brody. Oh forgot commie and leftists terrorists are your pals too, that makes you even more ignorant and clueless.
Obligatory reference to the "desaparecidos" so that you'll buy everything they're saying, ya know ya know.
"Now they have become a United States tactic in its conflict with Al-Qaeda," Brody said. A good tactic for the US as well you asshats
Detainees profiled in the report included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged principal architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks and Abu Zubayda, reputedly a close aide of Osama bin Laden. Oh we should let you all carry messages back to Ben Laden frin him? I don't think so.
I wanted to insert the homing probe into his brain and let him go, but Emily wouldn't let me -- said I was being a wuss, as usual.
Steve, that's 'cuz the other cabdrivers will point and laugh.
Mohammed, among others, has reportedly been tortured in custody, according to the report. Again with the "reportedly" phrase. Who is reporting it besides these clowns? Other clowns? No source is named.
While barely recognizing the United States' right to gather anti-terror intelligence, Human Rights Watch argued that the secret incommunicado detention of suspects violated the "most basic principles" of a free society. They just don't get it and never will. This is not public information. They have no authority to requese anything. Thay are a distraction in the WoT
Guess they never heard the phrase about "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."
"Those guilty of serious crimes must be brought to justice before fair trials," said Brody. "If the United States embraces the torture and 'disappearance' of its opponents, it abandons its ideals and international obligations and becomes a lesser nation." These people were not picked up on the street by the LAPD or by your Local FBI agents here in the USA. Their is no inherent right to a trial for these terrorists. They may never get a trial. They don't deserve trials.
Calling on the United States to bring all detainees, wherever they are being held, under the protection of the law, the report demanded that the International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross be given unrestricted access to all those held pursuant to anti-terrorist operations. I am calling on sane people to examine your real motives and who you wre really trying to protect. Seems to me you sure care a lot about terrorists and there access to communicate with the outside world. Perhaps the spotlight should be on you, your membership and sources of funding.
Here's a quarter, HRW. Call somebody who cares.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom ||
10/12/2004
1:33:43 AM ||
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#1
I can't proof read very well. Oh well, stuff happens.
#2
This has nothing to do with the WoT and everything to do with the election. Don't expect to hear about this after November 2.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 2:51
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I would like to take credit for their disappearance. Please tell their families that they can be found chained to trees in my backyard wrapped in bacon, its bear season you know.
#5
Yeah -thats right - tell Al Qaeda who we have detained so they know where their network has been compromised and all the cells know who has been compromised.
This bunch of idiots will have blood on its hands.
Just liek the ACLU that sued and prevented the police from doing watches and searches on the Washington (state) ferries because it was "dsicriminatory" against Arab looking people.
#6
The suspects were detained with no notification to their families, no Red Thingy Cross access and, in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, the New York-based watchdog said in a 46-page report.
Huh. People who aren't protected by the Geneva Conventions aren't getting any of its benefits.
Whoda thunk it?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 8:11
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I wanted to insert the homing probe into his brain and let him go, but Emily wouldn't let me -- said I was being a wuss, as usual.
Considering the "homing probe" is best known as a fence post, it would have stood out a bit.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 8:12
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#8
I would love to see an honest poll on this. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubayda can be hung from lamp posts in NYC without trial as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Tom ||
10/12/2004 8:15
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#9
It's ashame that these fools have kept themselves so busy protecting the rights of mass-murdering terrorists. Otherwise they might been able to muster more than a few weak, "someone must do somethings" re: Sudan, North Korea, etc., etc. etc., where totalitarians and despots cause human suffering on a mass scale.
I can understand it though. To complain about Sudan or North Korea, you actually might need to do something, like put down your latte and go over there to interview people and record the atrocities...icK! How dirty! How depressing!
Much easier to feel important talking about the "bigger picture" of smaller issues at the those wine and cheese fundraisers. Don't want to spoil the event by talking about rape of children or mass starvation. Ruins the appetite.
#11
Let's see...11 Al-Q who can't be found, a couple hundred people from the WTC who can't be found. Somehow, I'm just not sensing a real problem on the part of HRW.
Oh, and if they're in NYC, take them kicking and screaming if necessary to Ground Zero, then make them stand up publicly with a bullhorn and make their statements.
If they live, let 'em go home.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/12/2004 9:10
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and this is a bad thing?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 9:30
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#13
hmmmm - wanna bet HRW receives money from THK's Tides Foundation? Calling Karl Rove! Ad buy!
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 9:32
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#14
Disapperance'is a good tactic.Think about it.
Abu:Have you seen Mohomar?
Mohamad:Not for 2 or 3 days.
Abu:(with a tremolus voice)Wonder what happen to him?
#15
They will beat their gums incessantly over the lowest of scum, but if something like a Washington State Ferry is sunk and people drown due to terrorists, these vermin will slink back into the shadows like cockroaches.
Here is some intel on Human Rights Watch, including their 990.
Their game:
Initiatives: Academic Freedom, AIDS, Business and Human Rights, Emergencies, Film Festival, International Justice, Lesbian and Gay Rights, Prison Conditions, Refugees.
Leadership: Kenneth Roth, Executive Director
Bruce Rabb, Secretary
Jonathon Fanton, Chairman
Annual * Revenue: $20,366,031
Here is the link to the IRS form 990, in .pdf format. There are contributers with big 7 figures, but no names, dammit. So, Frank, we cannot answer your question about who gives the money. OldSpook, any ideas?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:45
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good post. I'm guessing what they are really all about is that $20,366.03 and that they are now for sale to the highest bidder.
Posted by: AP ||
10/12/2004 9:58
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HRW ethos:
Better to kill thousands of innocents than to detain one terrorist incommunicado.
Amnesty International is very concerned about an overly large order of panties, purchased from Victoria Secret, and paid for with a government credit card with a billing address of Langely, Virginia...
"If we can find where those panties were shipped to, we can find the al-Qaedas who disappeared!"
Human Rights Watch listed the names of 11 senior Al-Qaeda suspects it said were held by the CIA in secret locations overseas, where some had reportedly been tortured.
1. If it's so secret, how do they know?
2. Assuming everything they say is true (and that would take a big ASS), what's the problem exactly?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 11:12
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Hi. It's agent Smith, here on a Herculess plane
flying at the hight of 30000 ft over North Atlantic.
Sorry about the noise---its the open door. Anyway, I can categorically state that we do not have any Al Qaida suspects in custody.
A politically conservative broadcasting company has ordered its 62 television stations - which together reach almost a quarter of the nation's households - to air a documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry's antiwar activities after his return from Vietnam more than three decades ago.
The 41-minute film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" is to be shown on stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group barely a week before the election. The film, made by Harrisburg, Pa.-based journalist Carlton Sherwood and financed by Pennsylvania veterans, shows former prisoners of war accusing Kerry of worsening their plight in Vietnam by engaging in antiwar activities. It focuses on Kerry's 1971 testimony before the U.S. Senate, during which he recounted stories of American atrocities.
#2
Oh I love how the VP has invited a special guest, JFK, to be on the program. Yep, get it out now. Later we can discuss whether it's fair or not.
There's no sympathy from me as Joe Lockhart still hasn't explained his phone call to the Texas forger, and all at the request of the 60 Min producer. Joe was on Stephanopolous show on Sunday. George had a great op to put Joe on the spot. Nada, rien, nothing.
The DNC, Kerry, Edwards, are just babies, "girlie-men" Sorry female readers if any offense is taken, but isn't meant to be given. Stick up for your country, in other words. Forget about how to make European vacations more palatable to American tourists. Tell them to smile and learn a little of the language. Always works for me.
"The way we were" Nusiance. I'll go to the UN to let it know a new day has dawned when I'm elected. Allawi's a puppet. Richard "Ever" Clarke.
I could go on, but stream-of-consciousness isn't my strong suit. But I hope you get my drift.
Posted by: chicago mike ||
10/12/2004 14:11
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Hat Tip DRUDGE on the below...
Kerry Senior Advisor Chad Clanton to SINCLAIR Broadcasting: 'They better hope we don't win' [said on FOX NEWS DAYSIDE]...
Veiled threats. The Democrats are truly becoming like the Mexican PRI.
#4
Sherwood said he made the film during the summer out of rage that Kerryâs antiwar activities were, he felt, being undercovered. "For 33 years, Vietnam combat veterans, especially POWs, were told to sit down and shut up," he said in a phone interview. He called Democratsâ complaints "a blatant attempt at censorship."
Amen to that Sherman baby! Payback's a bitch and she's in heat.
Democrats counter that the film should not qualify under the news-program exemption because it is a prolonged advertisement for Bush. "Nobody is against them telling their story," Sandler said. "The issue is the personal attacks once again on Senator Kerry and his service." DNC officials acknowledged Monday that they probably would not have time to prevent "Stolen Honor" from being broadcast but said they wanted it known that Sinclair was a partisan company.
Well, that's one company against several others.
The loud over the top whining is what happens when a media company decides to broadcast material that will help take away the Viet Nam cudgel the left has been using for 30 years against the brave people who held the line despite the traitrous conduct by the left and their allies.
It's time the left sits down, shuts up and takes the lumps over Viet Nam that are coming its way for once in their wretched lives.
The question why American Jews vote Democrat against their interests has been discussed extensively by the inmates of the 'burg. I've extracted the relevant statistics from this article.
But political rhetoric aside, surveys show that Republicans are making inroads in a group that once regarded their support of the Democratic Party as natural as their attendance at temple on Saturday and their support for Israel. A recent survey by the American Jewish Committee found that younger Jewish voters are much more likely to support Bush than their older counterparts. Bush was favored by 33 percent of Jewish voters under 40, according to the survey. By comparison, he snared the support of 25 percent of Jewish voters between 40 and 50 and a mere 19 percent of those over 60. My aged parents have reached the "a pox on both their houses" stage.
Further, support for Bush is even more pronounced in certain segments of the Jewish community: those from the former Soviet Union and Orthodox Jews. A whopping 60 percent of Orthodox Jews surveyed said they supported Bush, compared with 26 percent who said they would vote for Kerry.
Although various surveys, including the one taken by the Jewish committee, show Bush will get only 24 percent to 30 percent of the Jewish vote overall, that is up from the 19 percent he got in 2000. It is also within reach of the record 39 percent Ronald Reagan got in 1980. More important, the push for Jewish voters is strategic. The fight is being waged in Florida and other battleground states where the shift of a small number of voters could make a difference. Florida, New York, New Jersey, and lots of Israelis in California - the climate is so like home! Any other states I missed?
Although Jewish voters make up only 4 percent of the electorate nationwide, their turnout on Election Day far outstrips any other racial or ethnic group. While about 50 percent of Americans vote in presidential elections, the turnout is 80 percent among Jews. "It's part of the Jewish dictum that is written in the Talmud, that you should vote," said Rabbi Dan Levin at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton. I didn't know that. I thought voting was part of being a good citizen, like praying that our leaders act wisely, our country be blessed, and peace come to all the world.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/12/2004
1:28:03 AM ||
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Itâs part of the Jewish dictum that is written in the Talmud, that you should vote," said Rabbi Dan Levin at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton.
Too bad this rabbi didn't cite his source. The Talmud doesn't say "you should vote". In fact, there is no Aramaic word for 'vote'. There are a number of talmudic statements obeying the laws, etc. that could be interpreted that way.
#6
Florida, New York, New Jersey, and lots of Israelis in California - the climate is so like home! Any other states I missed?
Jewish vote's important in Illinois and potentially important (if the swing from D to R is great enough) in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. If I were one of Rove's men I'd be combing the Southfield/WestBloomfield Michigan and Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Philly Democratic voter lists now for jewish Lieberman supporters.
VOTE : from L. votum "a vow, wish, promise, dedication," noun use of neut. of votus, pp. of vovere "to promise, dedicate." The meaning "accepting or rejecting a proposal, candidate, etc." is first recorded c.1460. The verb in the modern sense is from 1552.
#8
I should have said "no Talmud Aramaic way to say 'vote'".
There are some Syrians (only a few thousand) who today use Aramaic in their daily speech. This group may have a word for 'vote'. If they do, however, it probably is a loan word from another language.
#9
Most thinking Jewish voters and those living or regularly visiting Israel understand all too well when a Muslim lunatic with bombs attached under a coat & self detonates in a public square, it is far more then a 'nusiance', it's death.
Of course there will be the self hating types which are Super Glued to the Dems/Kerry's leftwing agenda.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 16:13
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#5 Shipman - "Terrorism" is not the word Frank G's talking about. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 19:59
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Security is tight in this tourist centre on the island of Bali as ceremonies begin to mark the second anniversary of bomb blasts that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. More than 100 police, many carrying rifles, were deployed around the site of a memorial where nightclubs were blown to bits late on a busy Saturday night on October 12, 2002. The ambassador of Australia and relatives of 88 Australians who died in the attack, blamed on Islamic militants, were among those expected to attend the day's ceremonies. "We have to prepare for the worst," Bali police chief I Made Mangku Pastika told reporters. "Terrorism is a borderless crime, a crime against humanity, so we consider the enemy as the enemy for all people." Terrorists could do the same thing again if given the chance, Pastika added. "They think in Bali there are many foreigners. In their mind all white men are Americans."
But such threats should not keep tourists away, he said. "Not being terrorised is a way to fight terrorism." Pastika headed the investigation that brought the arrests of scores linked to the bombings, which authorities say were planned and carried out by Southeast Asia's al Qaeda-linked militant group, Jemaah Islamiah. The Bali attack was followed by a car bomb at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta the next August, which killed 12, and a blast outside the Australian embassy in that city last month which killed nine. Both were blamed on Jemaah Islamiah. Since Bali, there has been a sea change in Indonesian attitudes toward terrorism, U.S. ambassador Ralph Boyce said in Jakarta on Monday. He said "the country has now very much faced up to the challenges of this age we're all living in".
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:27:50 AM ||
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"In their mind all white men are Americans."
Hey France/Spain/Germany: this is your reward for choosing dhimmitude!
#2
Yes, look what's happened, you cowardly fools! They don't CARE that you were nice to them. They've already FORGOTTEN that you were nice to them. Better hurry up. Get a deep suntan, get a Koran, grow a beard or put on the veil, study Arabic like crazy and CONVERT TO ISLAM!
But just make sure you convert to a major radical offshoot of Islam. That will reduce your chances of becoming a target!
A definite untruth. The jihadis understand the difference between Americans, Australians, Spanish, etc. That's why they kidnap certain folks in Iraq, trying to drive wedges between us and our allies, some of whom have more wobble in their legs than others.
Beirut, Updated 11 Oct 04, 10:34 Warning Hizballah, cool it with the rockets into Northern Israel or we will 'Gaza' you next!
Israeli fighter-bombers staged massive mock assaults on south Lebanon Monday as the army moved troops and tanks onto the Fatima border checkpoint in a surprise move that panicked many residents of the volatile region, Beirut media accounts reported. Jets repeatedly sent thunderous booms sweeping through Marjayoun, Hasbaya and the Shabaa farms zone as they mounted low altitude supersonic runs at mid-morning, while ground troops were conducting the Fatima buildup, the reports said. No reason was given to the sudden flare of tension, which followed reports in the Beirut press that a rocket was fired from south Lebanon in the direction of Jewish settlements. It landed harmlessly somewhere in northern Israel, the reports said. An Nahar said Lebanese security forces which rushed to the suspected rocket-firing scene between the tiny border hamlets of Jibbine and Yarin discovered two other rockets at the western sector of the U.N.-carved Blue Line.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
12:54:04 AM ||
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A new movie supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq makes the case that a weapon of mass destruction was indeed found during the war — and he's sitting in prison awaiting trial on war crimes charges. "WMD — The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein" is intended to remind Americans that Saddam Hussein was himself a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of 1.3 million of his own people during his brutal 30 years of rule.
The documentary, set for theatrical release this week, is the first for Brad Maaske, a California businessman troubled by works like Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the efforts of some uninformed Hollywood filmmakers. In fact, in "WMD" Michael Moore gets the ambush interview treatment he often reserves for others. The filmmakers staked out his New York residence for days until he came out to meet the camera. But the hard edge of "WMD" are eyewitness accounts and never-before-seen footage of chemical attacks, murders and torture leveled agains the Kurdish population of Iraq dating from Saddam Hussein's rise to power and spanning more than two decades.
Pivotal to Maaske's decision to develop "WMD" was his meeting with Jano Rosebiani, an award-winning Kurdish movie director who had documented the atrocities in his film "Mass Graves." Rosebiani had lost family members during "Anfal," Hussein's carefully orchestrated campaign of genocide targeting Kurds in northern Iraq from 1986 to 1988. "When I saw Jano Rosebiani's film, it broke my heart," Maaske said. "I knew this was a story that had to be told, but until now, no one had stepped up to the plate to tell it."
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EFL
The Mesopotamian's site has good news on the Sadr militia disarmament (of course don't expect to see this on CNN or Al J)
...The first day seems promising and weapons are being surrendered seriously... There is little doubt that the majority of people everywhere, including trouble spots are longing for peace. I have not been in Sadr City lately, but it is said, that the entrance of I.P. and ING was met with "ululation" (remember the word?) from women and general satisfaction...
So the material that, according to all who opposed the war, Saddam never had is disappearing?
Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq (news - web sites) but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday. Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council. Equipment and materials helpful in making bombs also have been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite pictures, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said.
Posted by: Anonymous4724 ||
10/12/2004
12:41:14 AM ||
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"So the material that, according to all who opposed the war, Saddam never had is disappearing?"
For el cubo, there is no contradiction. One second, there is this "No WMD--illegal war, Bush Lied, people died" and the next second "Bushitler did not secure WMD material!".
Must be corpus calosum missing. Or some unknown affliction that causes extemely fast MPD switch oscillations.
#4
Listening to BBC, I was highly amused by the following train of "thought" apparent in interviewer and interviewees:
- Iraq was "proven" by the Duelfer report to not have WMD programs
- nevertheless, we need to be alarmed that Iraq is missing materials related to these WMD programs
- and, the US itself is one of the prime suspects in the disappearance of these scary materials from a program that never existed
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
10/12/2004 12:22
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To be perfectly honest, I believe the US is behind the stuff "disappearing". They are most likely making sure it goes away and most likely told someone in the IAEA and the memo was "misplaced" and now the UN is crying about the Evil Americans and their "lack" of control over the stuff.
Last week, Tanik Kuizev buried a niece who was among hundreds who died after a North Ossetian school was seized by raiders that included members of the rival Ingush ethnic group. After Wednesday, he vows, he will bury an Ingush to be killed in retribution, Associated Press reports.
Fears are high that Ossetians will seek bloody revenge for the more than 330 people —- more than half of them children —- who died in the maelstrom of gunfire and explosions at the school on Sept. 3. Russians traditionally observe 40 days of mourning after a death. Wednesday is the 40th day, and Ossetians say the end of the mourning period could herald an outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in days to come.
"There will be violence. It won't be noisy. It will be quiet —- one person at a time,'' Kuizev said as he wandered through the burned-out husk of the school, stepping over flowers and stuffed animals left in memory of the victims.
#4
hell kill more than 1 for every victim then maybe they wil think about it the next time the next generation of thugs starts planning this type of thing
Posted by: Tom ||
10/12/2004 15:16
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#3
I predict if America elects this fool as its President, he will be so despised after four years that he ends up being the last Democrat elected to the office, EVER.
The people are gonna get real sick of this idiot, real fast.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 15:19
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"I once performed an emergency tracheotomy using only a pocketknife and a ball point pen!"
#7
In Unfit for Command the then Jr Lt suggested to his superiors that psyops be used in the delta. His fellow officers thought this was not a wise move since broadcasting on a loud speaker would bring the Cong like flys to shit. It did. The Swift boats lost whatever stealth they had and were subsequently fired on. Another brainstorm from Hanoi John.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
10/12/2004 19:53
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#8
I got laid in the fourth grade.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/12/2004 20:25
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#9
DB - O/T - Sigh. It was the seventh for me. Three years wasted on sports, religion, TV, and running numbers for the local "mafia" to make money. Damn! Of course, once they thought I was "man enough", they took me along to see Candy Barr one night in Dallas, so...
#10
Heck yeah, I mentioned this in another post. I was camping this weekend and was reading the latest F&S I picked up at one of the truck stops on the way. I read that little ditty about the 16 point buck on the cape and almost fell into the fire lmao. My wife asked what the hell was a matter w/me, I told her it was another JFK "fish story" - she just shook her head when I gave her the low-down.
By Gov Zell - man I love this guy. EFL - read the whole thing.
What if today's reporters had covered the Marines landing on Iwo Jima, a small island in the far away Pacific Ocean, in the same way they're covering the war in Iraq? Here's how it might have looked:
DAY 1 - With the aid of satellite technology, Cutie Cudley interviews Marine Pfc. John Doe, who earlier came ashore with 30,000 other Marines.
Cutie: "John, we have been told by the administration that this island has great strategic importance because if you're successful, it could become a fueling stop for our bombers on the way to Japan. But, as you know, we can't be sure this is the truth. What do you think?" Clueless talking head. How odd - I'm shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you, the CIC or at a minimum the CNO did not clearly explain it all to Pfc. Doe.
Pfc. Doe: "Well, I've been pinned down by enemy fire almost ever since I got here and have had a couple of buddies killed right beside me. I'm a Marine and I go where they send me. One thing's for sure, they are putting up a fight not to give up this island" ...
Cutie: "Our military analysts tell us that the Japanese are holed up in caves and miles of connecting tunnels they've built over the years. How will you ever get them out?"
Pfc. Doe: "With flame throwers, ma'am."
Cutie (incredulously): "Flame throwers? You'll burn them alive?"
Pfc. Doe: "Yes ma'am, we'll fry their asses. Excuse me, I shouldn't have said that on TV."
Cutie (audible gasp): "How horrible!"
Pfc. Doe (obviously wanting to move on): "We're at war ma'am."
(A Marine sergeant watching nearby yells, "Ask her what does she want us to do — sing to them, 'Come out, come out, wherever you are. Pretty please.' " Don't you just love a smart-assed SGT?
Cutie to camera: "No one has yet really confirmed why this particular battle in this particular place is even being waged. Already, on the first day, at least 500 Marines have been killed and a thousand wounded. For this? (Camera pans to a map with a speck of an island in the Pacific. Then a close up of nothing but black volcanic ash). For this? For this?" (Cutie's sweet voice becomes more strident as it fades out.)
DAY 2 - At 7 a.m., Cutie's morning show opens with a shot of hundreds of dead bodies bobbing in the water's edge. Others are piled on top of each other on shore. After a few seconds, one can see Marines digging graves to bury the dead.
Cutie: "There is no way the Marines could have expected this. Someone got it all wrong. No one predicted this. This has been a horrible 24 hours for our country. This is a slaughterhouse. After all this fighting, Marines control only about a mile and a half of beach and the casualties are now over 3,500 and rising rapidly. We'd like to know what you think. Call the number on the bottom of the screen. Give us your opinions on these three questions:
1. Were the Marines properly trained?
2. Is this nothing of an island worth all these lives?
3. Has the president once again misled the American people?
"After the break, we'll ask our own Democratic and Republican analysts, both shouting at the same time, of course, what they have to yell about all this. It should make for a very shrill, provocative morning.
"But before we leave this horrible — some will say needless — scene, let us give you one more look at this Godforsaken place where these young Americans are dying. Volcanic ash, cold, wet miserable Marines just thankful to be alive. And still no flag that we had been promised on that mountain. Things have gone from bad to worse in this obviously misguided military operation. One thing is certain, there should be and there will be a high-partisan — make that bi-partisan — congressional inquiry into this." And more - read it all. Zell at his best.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 15:36
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You have to love Zell Miller. He is a no bullshit Marine.
Posted by: A. Bungfodder ||
10/12/2004 16:08
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#3
This is so absolutely accurate. The same parody could be done for the months after D-Day (it was partially done by the master Victor Davis Hanson). The press are idiots who care not a whit about long term perspective. They need to be muzzled in times of war.
Posted by: remote man ||
10/12/2004 16:51
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#4
Eleanor Roosevelt really did have problems with flame-throwers and naplam and being just plain mean and brought it to the press on occasion.
#5
I had these same thoughts the other night watching a History Channel show on the Aleutians campaign in WWII. It was an absolute clusterfuck, with troops shipped in for the assault straight from North Africa-- no winter gear at all, no time to acclimate-- and it occurred to me: One battle. As many casualties in one attack as we've had in a year and a half in Iraq. A total balls-up, yet no criticism from the press.
Miller could have written the same parody, with the same effect, about any of hundreds of other WWII battles.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 18:49
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Don't forget the hopeless quagmire America was heading for in the Battle of the Bulge...
EFL.
Prince, formerly known as "the Artist Formerly Known as 'Prince,'"
now a Jehovah's witness, has toned down his mojo, but the Purple One can still pack a political punch. His new music video, "Cinnamon Girl," is a big-budget production that follows the hardships and confusions of a teenage Arab-American girl in a post 9-11 America.
Y'see, teenage Arab-American girls have it hardest. Teenage Khmer-American chicks have it easy. Teenage Hmong-American girls have it easy. And teenage Mexican-American girls. Indian-American babes? Pfeh! Piece o' cake! And we won't even mention teenage Irish-American, or African-American, or Italian-American girlies, or the garden variety Heinz 57 girls...
It stars hot babeKeisha Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") who concludes the video by imagining herself detonating a bomb in a crowded airport terminal. . . .
It'll happen eventually. We don't need to be reminded of the fact. No doubt the video wouldn't have "packed a political punch" if it had shown the girlie throwing off her headscarf and spurning marriage to her cousin Mahmoud to run off with a Knickerbocker Episcopalian named Brad to live in Nantucket. That artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince sure is a deeeeep thinker...
Prince sings, "Cinnamon girl mixed heritage/ Never knew the meaning of color lines/ 9-11 turned that all around/ When she got accused of this crime." Disillusioned and angered, Castle-Hughes' character detonates a bomb in an airport terminal, exploding herself and others. However, a reverse motion immediately following the explosion reveals that it is only a thought of hers. Oh. That makes it OK, I guess.
Discuss:
1. Does a music video depicting suicide bombing make you more or less likely to buy the record?
2. Does the individual formerly known as "the Artist Formerly Known as 'Prince,'" truly think it will sell his records, or is he just making a "daring statement" to get in good with the cool kids and/or get in the newspapers?
3. Who at the record company is going to get fired for green-lighting something this sand-poundingly facile?
Posted by: Mike ||
10/12/2004
12:09:07 PM ||
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#1
I think the less time I spend inside Prince's head the happier I'm going to be.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/12/2004 12:54
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Who at the record company is going to get fired for green-lighting something this sand-poundingly facile?
Except that Prince has his own record company now ... npgmusicclub.com
(Btw ... saw Prince in his most recent home-town concert series in the Twin Cities this past summer. He is extremely entertaining in concert. However, the new CD -- Musicology -- doesn't have much good to it. "Cinnamon Girl" is one of the more coherent/enjoyable *melodies* ... too bad the lyrics went astray.)
Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon told members of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday afternoon that the IDF has managed to foil an al-Qaeda attempt to enter the territories. According to Ya'alon, "We view world terrorism as a threat to Israelis, wherever they are, including in Israel. Al-Qadea tried to create a stronghold in the territories but we prevented it from doing so. Dealing with al-Qaeda requires international cooperation".
Deputy chief of military intelligence's research department told the MKs that the Sinai terror attacks had been perpetrated by local cells of the worldwide Jihad. "It takes two years to plan such an attack", he said. According to the officer, such terror cells operate in Europe, Africa and other places in an attempt to attack Arab and Muslim governments they perceive as infidels due to their dealings with Israel and the US. Regarding Operation Days of Penitence in the northern Gaza Strip, Ya'alon said that contrary to media reports, the army has not requested to end the operation. The only request we made, he said, was to change the deployment of the forces in the area.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/12/2004
1:20:59 PM ||
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Karl Rove is behind this. It's his continued efforts to take the focus off the election!!! If earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and asteroids won't do it, well, we'll throw in a brand new ape!!!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 15:16
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#3
I already saw that movie, dammit! But the scene where he climbs the Empire State building, and the biplanes are buzzing around him, is really neat...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004 15:16
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#4
I thought this was another posting about John Kerry.
#5
Actually, this is fairly old news, and after the first round of articles had come out, there were releases of some genetic studies done of mitochrondiral DNA that showed these creatures as just another subspecies of Pan troglodytes, if it is a subspecies.
Fred: these apes have been known, but not well-known and not really well observed and sequenced, for about a century. They really were the basis for the fictional killer apes in the Michael Crichton book/movie "Congo."
The guy who rediscovered them, photographer and conservationalist Karl Ammann, has his own website:
His recent activities seem to be centered around fighting the Bushmeat trade; he is the coauthor of two recent books, Consuming Nature, and Eating Apes.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
10/12/2004 17:39
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#6
His recent activities seem to be centered around fighting the Bushmeat trade; he is the coauthor of two recent books, Consuming Nature, and Eating Apes.
I hear his next one is titled "To Serve Man".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/12/2004 18:08
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#7
I really miss The Twilight Zone.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/12/2004 20:20
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Iraqi police arrested a suspected member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror group in Najaf, the Shi'a shrine city's police chief said. "We arrested a member of Al-Qaeda, who had false papers identifying him as 'Abu Hussein' and seized weapons, including a Global Positioning System," said General Ghaleb al-Jazairi. Jazairi said the man was a foreigner but refused to give his nationality. He also claimed Iraqi border guards clashed with al-Qaeda members on Iraq's frontier with Saudi Arabia. The gunmen had damaged a border guard vehicle before escaping, Jazairi said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/12/2004
1:19:50 PM ||
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Hey, who decides who gets the rack and who gets the pliers ?
#3
"He also claimed Iraqi border guards clashed with al-Qaeda members on Iraqâs frontier with Saudi Arabia."
This is interesting since Saudi Arabia just published a report claiming that they have had approximately over 100,000 infiltrators.
The US Democrat presidential hopeful John Kerry has warned that if he wins the Nov. 2 election there will be no reprieve for sidelined Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The United States, like Israel, has refused to deal with Arafat, and Kerry entered the debate late Saturday by warning that if he won next month's election there would be no reprieve for the veteran Palestinian leader. "We have been at this for a long time. Mr. Arafat has proven his unwillingness and incapacity to be able to act as a legitimate partner in the peace process," Kerry said in a Florida campaign rally. Kerry also said his job as president, if elected, would be to "hold those Arab countries accountable that still support terrorists — Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Aqsa Brigades and others." The Democrat hopeful also praised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his "courageous" plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip next year. (Sure you will John, just like on Iraq...)
Speaking two days after bombings at two Egyptian Red Sea resorts that killed at least 34 people, most of them Israelis, Kerry warned that the Jewish state was under attack. "People are trying to continue to create havoc... Israel remains under assault, kids blown up on buses, people sitting at restaurants, trying to live their lives," Kerry said. "I will not give one inch in our efforts to do that," he said.
President George W. Bush has riled US allies in Europe and the Middle East by refusing to deal with Arafat, saying he had links to terrorism and could not be trusted to make peace. On Friday, in the second presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri, Bush repeated his stern line on the Palestinian leader. "I wouldn't deal with Arafat because I felt like he had let the former president down and I don't think he's the kind of person that can lead toward a Palestinian state," Bush said.
Another flip-flop for Kerry.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
1:17:18 AM ||
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#1
Kerry hopes to fool some US Jews. He already has said US support for Israel is on the table.
#4
Kerry must be assuming the Muslim vote is in the bag. Certainly they dislike Bush's actions enough that they already declared against him. However, if Kerry keeps this up, they're going to sit out the election. And, with the Jewish vote split, he needs those Muslim votes. I wonder what he'll promise the Muslims to bring them back into the fold?
#5
"I wonder what he'll promise the Muslims to bring them back into the fold?"
Two hundred eighty million hostages.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 6:51
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"I wonder what he'll promise the Muslims to bring them back into the fold?"
That he'll convert to Islam as soon as he becomes president. The promise will be delivered in Arabic through an interpreter.
#9
Don't mis-judge Kerry. You'll see the man don't waiver if you look for all the nuances in his carefully chosen words. See if he's properly nuanced, the enemy can't figgure out what his position really is an he will always have the element of surprise. He is not ever bound down to a position or belief and this gives him flexibility.
#10
Hank, you may be tongue in cheek, but you make it sound like Kerry being nuanced is part of a strategy for dealing with foreign policy. Isn't he nuanced because he does not want voters to know what he really believes, lest they not vote for him?
#11
Hank could be right, a nuanced lab/lib might be just the hombre to deal with the curvy knife guys, throw 'em off guard, steal their women, mess with their souls.
#12
It all boils down to the same thing. Kerry is nuanced cause he don't want voters to know what he is, "lest they not vote for him", and he don't want the curvy knifeds to know cause he's yeller. Just like I said about the feller from Spain, the new prime minister, he is yeller too. He and Kerry are both yeller fellers. (But don't tell no one, cause they don't want no one to know.)
The Spanish government has sparked a fierce row by inviting a soldier who fought with Hitler's Wehrmacht to share the podium at the national day military parade today with a republican veteran of the Spanish Civil War. The defence minister, Jose Bono, who was once caught on microphone calling Tony Blair a "complete dickhead", said the presence of the former member of the Spanish Blue Division, recruited to fight for the Nazis in the Second World War, was part of the reconciliation process between the two opposing sides in the 1936-39 civil war. The two men will stand with King Juan Carlos on the podium during the parade.
Left-wing parties denounced the decision as "offensive". Dolors Camats, of the Catalan Green Party, said reconciliation was already a fact, and the inclusion of someone who fought for Hitler would "cause offence and an historic injustice... The government should not put on the same platform soldiers who fought against democracy and those who defended it." The Socialist government's radical Left-wing nationalist ally in the Catalan regional assembly, the Catalan Republican Left, was also critical and said the regional premier, Pasqual Maragall, would not attend. Mr Bono said the presence of the two veterans was to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Allies' liberation of Paris, in which Spanish republicans who fled to France after the civil war took part. French soldiers have been invited to join the parade, though the defence minister created a diplomatic spat when American soldiers were left out. They had been included in the parade since the September 11 attacks.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004
11:56:20 AM ||
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Spain's government sellouts are really demonstrating their true colours.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 15:16
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I wonder how the US military position is with Spain nowadays. Wasn't the Navy going to move from Naples to some place in Spain? With all the skidaddling from Iraq, how can we look at Spain nowadays as a NATO ally? Though I am reasonably certain that we still work closely with Spanish intelligence. I am sure that they are frustrated as hell with their government and political leaders.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 15:29
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#3
Spain has squandered all the political capital heaped up by Aznar, one of that country's few serious, modern, adult politicians.
Goodbye, rising power that can project global influence and credibility. Hello (again), southern European banana republic.
Arsonists started a small fire at a Sydney mosque early yesterday, but none of the worshippers in the building was injured, police said. The attackers set fire to wooden planks at the back of the Rooty Hill Mosque in western Sydney, damaging a door and carpet, police said in a statement. There were no immediate arrests. There were worshippers in the mosque at the time of the fire, but nobody was hurt. Police said an investigation was under way.
Muslims in Sydney have said there has been an increase in anti-Muslim attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. Stepan Kerkyasharian, chairman of the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural New South Wales condemned the attack. "Attacks on places of worship are always contemptible because they strike at people's deepest beliefs and can leave them feeling rejected and despised," he said in a statement.
#1
I'd like to hear Bulldog or some of the other UK Rantburgers comment on this. Is the author over the top? Is what she claims the real deal among the chattering classes (as it is this whom she appears to hang out with) or is it more pervasive. This enquiring mind would like to know.
Posted by: remote man ||
10/12/2004 12:28
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#2
Tipper - might I suggest changing the title to something discriptive of the contents of the story, that will get more people to open it? Perhaps even excerpt it for those who won't read the whole thing?
(Full disclosure - I was going to post it, but saw you beat me to it.)
I'd be interested in the British and European R'burgers' take on this also. I never ran into this when I lived in Europe (I did hear of anti-Jewish sentiments in Germany, but not so overt as in this story), but then I came home in 1973. No more than the usual "anti-Ami" crap - there are assholes everywhere - when I went back to visit, but the last time was 6 months before the Berlin Wall fell so I'm probably out of touch.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 14:02
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#3
Full disclosure - I was going to post it, but saw you beat me to it.
Same here. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but accumulated over decades from a London-based expat, and consistent with my and my friends' experiences.
Sad to say it but combine the disgraceful national reaction in the Bigley affair with the British public's clear trend toward demonizing of Israel and America-the-fanatically-religious, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Britain is in serious danger of going down the Spanish path of moral confusion and cultural decadence.
#4
I know this is a peculiarly American way of looking at it, but I can't help but wonder whether the rise of blatant anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism (and general moonbatiness) in Britain correlates to their loss of self-defense rights.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 14:18
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#5
A charitable explanation for the repeated abuse heaped on the head of this obviously anglophiliac woman by her London neighbors, acquaintances and even friends (!) is that your average Briton, like your average, no-better-than-he-should-be citizen anywhere, resents being dragged into, as he sees it, someone else's quarrel. In other words, blame the "troubles" on the mere existence of that sh*tty little country and its American protector.
The sentiment, if not the logic, is perhaps understandable. A red-headed Irish American encountered a milder, more innocent version of this kind of weary resentment on his travels through Britain in 1980-81 ("what's in that bag of yours?"). One can sympathize with that era's Englishmen who were annoyed that "bloody Irish sods" were "bringin' all their troubles over 'ere."
And we of course have long had our Father Coughlins and other "limey"-bashers who preyed on fenianism and a certain kind of pigheaded midwestern isolationism. Today's jew-bashing and demonizing of "neo-cons" is perhaps only the European version of the Pat Buchanan/midwestern US/isolationist gripe about Israel having an "amen corner" in the White House. Combine that with the British/European media's ridiculous bleating about how BusHitlerAshcroft have transformed the US into a theocratic police state, and you get paranoia of the sort that greets Ms Gould and many other American expats in London these days.
But there's another explanation, one that Mark Steyn and Dr Anthony Daniels, whose Telegraph opinion piece was printed, have suggested: Blair's Britain is increasingly a morally decadent nation incapable of summoning a proper emotional and intellectual response to this war.
#6
A nation that heaps up teddy bears for the whimpering victim of fascist monsters while heaping scorn on those who would seek to destroy that fascist scourge. No other word for it but decadence.
#7
I think the British national psyche needs some time on the therapist's couch. Scratch that. What it needs is to stop acting out and get on its damn bike. Steyn and Dr. Daniels have got it right. Much of the current behavior of the Brits is downright embarrassing. Compare and contrast with the Australians.
#8
Decadent, yes; but we may wake up three weeks from tomorrow to find we've gone just as decadent ourselves.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 14:50
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Yes, portions of this country already have gone down the decadent path. Probably most of those living in the tonier parts of Manhattan, Cambridge, Hollywood, San Fran/Marin, Seattle and all the College Towns With a Foreign Policy.
But I would contend there remains a vast majority of Americans, not all of them religious or gun-owning or Republican-- or even pro-Bush-- who would fight these fascists with every ounce of their being. The ornery, anti-federalist, anti-bully "don't tread on me" spirit still holds sway in this country, as does an ability to make elementary moral distinctions.
#10
The only thing that would enable Kerry to be elected IMHO is a $0.30+ spike in gas prices at the pump. I seriously doubt that this race will be close, if only because those voters who at this point are undecided are the ones who pay attention only to pocketbook and character issues. The economy's at worst a glass half-full: advantage Bush. As to character, what needs to be said?
#11
I mean the economy's at worst a glass half-empty. This election will really come down to a gut decision by millions of non-ideological, non-partisan voters as to which man is more trustworthy, likeable and reassuring in a deeply unstable, insecure era. And this decision will likely be made during the last 48 hours of the campaign.
I could be wrong, but I can't imagine that more of these voters will decide at the 11th hour that Kerry is more reassuring and likeable and reliable than Bush.
#12
Millions of people who haven't figured this whole thing out yet, exposed to a non-stop barrage of anti-Bush, anti-Republican propaganda from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NYT, MTV, and just about every Hollywood star you can name? I don't have much confidence in them.
As for the economy, the plain fact is we had a brief recession that was barely even detectable-- yet millions of idiots STILL buy the Democrats' "worst economy since the Great Depression" bullshit; look at the polls where people were asked what issue was most important to them.
Frankly, I find the notion that John Kerry could get more than about 5% of the vote to be utterly appalling.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 15:47
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#13
Look, here's my essential point: I do not doubt that a large number of registered Democrats and a majority of independents in this country have more cojones and more contempt for fascist bullies than the British public have shown.
The average American today faces two sources of massive insecurity: a turbulent global economy characterized by shocks such as high oil prices and rapid technological change, and a murky, unprecedented global struggle against the jihadists.
The key social distinction here is not between Democrat ves Repub, or liberal vs conservative, or religious vs secular, but between those who are willing to fight for liberal western civilization vs those who would rather appease and make self-hating excuses for the jihadists. I have no doubt the most Americans fall into the former category. No doubt whatsoever.
#14
but between those who are willing to fight for liberal western civilization vs those who would rather appease and make self-hating excuses for the jihadists. I have no doubt the most Americans fall into the former category. No doubt whatsoever. true lex....but not enough for my comfort
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2004 16:58
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Rex,
If the president were elected by direct popular vote, I'd share your sentiments, but fortunately the dynamic of the Electoral College still gives an edge to the martial culture states of the South and West. Take courage.
#16
Thank God for the EC!!!!
For me, courage = a loaded 12 gauge riot pump and a tall beer. I do think that more Merkins are coming around to their senses, aided by the outright moonbattery of the LLL crowd. It'll just take time.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2004 17:31
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#17
There was also an article at RB from the Spectator by Niall Ferguson some days ago that advanced the thesis that the British were becoming more European with time and had been since the endo fo WWII. Ferguson goes inot some detail of how we contributed to this terrible situation. We really should readdress our policies toward Britain and Europe.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 18:07
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#18
Mrs D,
Ferguson's more of a provocateur than anything else. I suppose he's a kind of idea entrepreneur who launches his latest intellectual product via OpEd pieces to gauge how well they'll sell in the media world.
First Niall was off on his rant about how the US needs to admit reality and openly embrace imperialism. This Ferguson rode, fairly hard, for about two years after 9/11, when he was visiting prof at NYU.
Then he sent up a trial balloon in a recent NYT piece alleging that Americans work harder than Euros because we're more religious (he says he's working on a book about this). I sent him and the NY Times a mildly sarcastic email pointing out that the longest hours are pulled in those bastions of American irreligiosity, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and that it's the pro-family religious types who always manage to get home by 6pm. (Ferguson had the class to respond and thank me for "my thoughts.")
I suspect ol' Niall's just stirring the sh*t with his anti-Special Alliance piece as well. Think about it: what kind of crude analysis is it that posits a firm alliance based on the NYLON (NY-London) jet passenger traffic and then concludes that the alliance is in trouble because the vast majority of yanks and Britons do not cross the pond?
Anyone with a feel for the people can see that all this "people's Princess" touchy-feely Bigley BS came directly from the US! It's the anglicization of Oprah, the culture of sensitivity and narcissism. Anyone who visited Britain 25 years ago and goes back today will see Britain's become far more Americanized in many crucial senses: more capitalist, more racially integrated/multicultural, more open to the outside world, more cosmopolitan generally. I'd guess that Niall didn't even cross the Hudson in all his time at NYU, let alone get a feel for the South or the West.
The key to Britain is the calculations of the political elites. The British people are far more like Americans than they've ever been. What annoys me so much about the Bigley nonsense is the fear that our own media elites would likely play the same games (though the public reaction would likely be different). Yellow ribbons are a manifestation of creeping Bigley-ism.
Creeping? Bigley-ism. Not in the Nation held hostage by Nightline for 400 days a quarter century ago. You are correct that the yellow ribbon thing is a bit much, expecially in blue country. But the People's Princess thing did set an international standard we have yet to meet.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 20:02
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#20
Agree on the People's Princess. Hope you're right on the rest.
...It found Muslims had the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications. In most respects Muslim women fared worse than Muslim men. Compared with people from other religious groups, Muslims lived in the biggest households and were the least likely to own their own homes. They were five times more likely to marry by the age of 24 than the British average.
The figures were, to some extent, explained by the fact that Muslims - the second biggest religious group - were the least well-established. More than half were born outside the UK and only 65% described their national identity as British, English, Scottish or Welsh.
Muslims had the youngest age profile of all religious groups, with 34% under 16 compared with 25% of Sikhs, 21% of Hindus and 18% of Christians. But the extent of Muslims' deprivation was the key finding from the ONS data, with implications for community relations. In 2003/4 Muslims had the highest unemployment rate. Among men it was 14%, compared with 4% among Christians. For women it was 15%, almost four times the rate among Christians. Muslims aged 16 to 24 had the highest unemployment rates of all at 22%, compared with an average for Christians of 11%. Muslim men and women were more likely than other groups to be economically inactive: not available for work or not seeking it. More than two-thirds (68%) of Muslim women of working age were economically inactive, compared with 25% of Christians and no more than a third of women in other religious groups...
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 11:57
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#2
It found Muslims had the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications. In most respects Muslim women fared worse than Muslim men.
Compared with people from other religious groups, Muslims lived in the biggest households and were the least likely to own their own homes. They were five times more likely to marry by the age of 24 than the British average
explains the seething, don't it? (/sarcasm)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 12:06
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#3
Got to keep the people poor and uneducated, so you can grow more bomber's. They want to bring the world back down to thier backward lifestyle, instead of using thier energy to better themselves. The only time they seem to use todays modern resources, is when they try and hurt us. Use that knowledge for themselves, and they'd be much richer.
#6
I would love to see these factors analyzed by Country GNP. My suspicion is that even countries that have no major exports, industry or fund of natural resources do better on these measures than oil-rich arab countries.
Which would force a conclusion that it's not economics, but culture/religion that causes these conditions to prevail.
#7
This has nothing to do with Muslims' "plight" or with them being "deprived", and everything to do with them being unwilling to make a positive contribution to their host country.
They aren't "victims" of poverty; they're perpetrators of poverty.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/12/2004 14:19
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#8
Something about a culture that conditions its members to believe that life is a zero sum game, just causes suffering. I wonder what?
#9
Dave and Anonymous6092. My thoughts as well. If they had thier way, we might be advanced to the printing press about now, if anyone who could work the machine had two hands left.
#10
Hell, no wonder they're not getting an education or "actively seeking employment". For what? When they know Robert and Mary down the street work hard to pay taxes for their free lunch. From what they made from their native lands, it must seem like they won the lottery.
We have the same thing in the states, but all races, colors, and religions, etc participate in the Great Government Free Lunch Giveaway(TM).
#11
Michael Moore and the "left hate America crowd" are most likely wringing their hands, fretting, and whining about the Muslim plight being our fault. Freedom, democracy, and dumping despot corrupt monarchies and leaders might improve their lot considerably. Iraq and Afghanistan should change the mid-East dynamic and hopefully set a long-term trend for change.
Posted by: A. Bungfodder ||
10/12/2004 16:20
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#12
Which all goes to show just how vital the rote memorization of lengthy religious tracts proves to be if one seeks a professional career that is supposed to last longer than it takes to actuate a detonator.
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Police in Al-Najaf have reportedly arrested an Al-Qaeda operative in the Shi'ite holy city of Al-Najaf, Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reported on 12 October. Al-Najaf police Major General Ghanim al-Jaza'iri told RFI that the man was found in possession of a map detailing the border area between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as well as modern German-manufactured communications equipment. The individual, who is not Iraqi, was also carrying forged Iraqi identification documents. He allegedly identified himself to police as an Arab national and has reportedly confessed to having direct connections to Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, RFI reported. Al-Sharqiyah television quoted Jaza'iri as saying: "I cannot disclose the identity and nationality of this person because that could lead to a diplomatic crisis with his country."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
11:39:33 PM ||
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"I cannot disclose the identity and nationality of this person because that could lead to a diplomatic crisis with his country."
Like Saudi Arabia as first choice ?
AN al-Qaeda-linked group posted a video on the internet today showing the beheading of a Shiite Iraqi man it accused of spying for US forces in Iraq. A statement posted on the group's website named the man as Ala al-Maliki and described him as "a rejectionist (a term used to refer to Shiite Muslims) who belonged to the Sadr movement" of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The video showed Mr Maliki being beheaded after he was shown confessing to spying for American forces in Iraq.
Posted by: tipper ||
10/12/2004
11:37:05 AM ||
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An Indian paint company says that marker pens with indelible ink supplied for Afghanistan's elections cannot be blamed for cases of election fraud. Some candidates maintain that many people cast their vote more than once after removing supposedly indelible ink marks from their fingers. But the company says that the problem arose because of confusion among election staff in some voting centres. ...
Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited, a public sector company based in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, told the BBC that the problem had arisen because of confusion among election staff in some voting centres. "They used marker pens meant for paper and not the pen with indelible ink on voters' fingers," said C Harakumar, the company's marketing manager. "How can we be held responsible for mistakes of the election staff?" he asked. ....
The United Nations Representative Sam Vidana Gamachi visited the company factory in Mysore before placing orders for 50,000 marker pens instead of ink bottles. While 50,000 pens were sent to Afghanistan, voters in booths set up in Pakistan used indelible ink from bottles for the presidential election. Company officials say 22,000 bottles of 80ml indelible ink were sent for use in booths set up in Pakistan for Afghan refugees. ....
Company officials say that UN officials insisted on the marker pens even though they were recommended to use ink from bottles. It was the first time that Mysore Paints manufactured indelible ink pens. For this week's election in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, officials decided to use ink bottles in preference to ink pens, a decision which under the circumstances seems to have been entirely justified.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
11:22:05 PM ||
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Egyptian investigators have only just begun peeling off the layers of an extremely complex and sensitive search for the hands behind the bomb blasts that hit three holiday resorts in Sinai last Thursday, October 7. The peninsula is popular with Israelis, a quarter of a million of whom frequent its beaches, hotels, campsites and mountain trails every year. Of the total of 31 or 32 victims, 12 were Israelis, the largest national group. Not all the bodies found have been identified. One of the targeted sites, Nuweiba on the Red Sea, was discovered Monday, October 11, not to have been struck by suicide bombers but by two booby-trapped cars detonated by remote control. This was confirmed by the two suspicious figures seen making off in the dark by a local guard and a baker who are now helping the Egyptian police put together identikits.
Of the total of 31 or 32 victims, 12 were Israelis...I'd *snicker* that less than half were joooos...but I feel bad for all of the victims, so I won't.
Severely EFL. Hat tip: Instapundit
It was a regrettably typical comment from an American reporter in this part of the world. "At least it's news," he said of the Afghan election scuffle over the weekend. "Otherwise, this is just a success story." [Emphasis added.]
God forbid it be a success story. Yeah, the leftist media hate that. Unless it's the "success" of fascists and communists destroying lives.
But that's what it was here, no matter how hard the international media tried to spin it. And brother, did they try. If we could hook a dynamo to the worldwide media's spin, we could get rid of oil.
There were no car bombs raining body parts all over the polling stations. There were no last-minute assassinations. There were no drive-by shootings. And the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) HATED that.
The best they could come up with for "news" was grumbling from hopelessly trailing opposition candidates about washable ink and threats of a boycott. The media's disappointment was palpable. To their eternal shame. If they had any.
Much more at the link; the author lived in Afghanistan in the early 1970's, before the Soviets destroyed it. We've given Afghans the opportunity to make their country bloom again. No thanks to the "I want you to have pain so I can feel it" LEFT.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004
11:06:20 AM ||
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Fred - I forgot to change the default category before posting. If it matters, can you move this to the correct category? Or not.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/12/2004 11:15
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Hat tip: James at Hell in a Handbasket. These are my own words:
Four years ago today the USS Cole (DDG 67) was attacked while refueling in Aden Harbor, Yemen, taking the lives of 17 sailors and wounding another 37 and leaving a 40' x 60' gash in the hull. As we honor the memory and sacrifice of our sailors, let us also not forget that this was just another pre-9/11 "nuisance" that John Kerry would like us to return to. Additionally, take a moment to read the biography of Sergeant Darrell S. Cole, USMC, the bugler--yes, bugler--posthumously awarded the MOH for his actions at Iwo Jima, and for whom the Cole is named.
Posted by: Dar ||
10/12/2004
11:03:40 AM ||
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Can you imagine what today's MSM would have reported about Iwo Jima? If they thought Abu Ghraib was big stuff, their knickers would have twisted right off reading the Marines' after action reports.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/12/2004 11:31
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funny you should mention Iwo Jima ... ol' Zell Miller writing on that subject today: Zell Miller_Wash Times
#3
"25 days before the last Presidential election when Bush said: âI hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act [to kill 17 Americanâs on the USS Cole] and take the necessary action. There must be a consequence.â (Page 201..911 Report)." Yet, when we found out who was responsible for the USS Cole this President had a failure of leadership. One prior Clinton administration holdover urged âThe fact that the USS Cole was attacked during the last Administration does not absolve us of responding from the attack.â Report 212. But "Exchanges with the President, between the President and Tenet [CIA Director] and between herself {Condilezza Rice] and Powell and Rumsfield âhad produced a consensus that âtit-for-tatâ responses were likely to be counterproductive.â And so my friendsâ¦al Qaeda was permitted to attack our Country on 9-11. without interference from the Bush Administration
A voluntary morality teacher at a Peterborough mosque has been jailed for hitting an 11-year-old pupil with a 3ft stick during a lesson. Mohammed Abdullah, 44, was convicted last month of assaulting the boy, who cannot be identified, at the mosque. Father-of-four Abdullah, of Millfield, Peterborough, who worked as a cleaner at Peterborough Crown Court, denied common assault but was found guilty. On Tuesday Peterborough magistrates sentenced him to four months in prison. The court heard Abdullah hit the youngster, bruising his arms and neck, after discovering a "rude picture" in an exercise book in April. Passing sentence, magistrates' chairman Peter Marshall said: "Because of the seriousness of the offence, aggravated by the breach of trust and the use of a weapon on an 11-year-old child, we feel there is no alternative to a custodial sentence." Lawyers for Abdullah told the court they would be appealing against the conviction and sentence. Magistrates heard Abdullah had lost his cleaning job at Peterborough Crown Court after being convicted of assault and had been permanently suspended from teaching at the mosque.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
10/12/2004
11:03:21 AM ||
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Lawyers for Abdullah told the court they would be appealing against the conviction and sentence
His life isn't worth a cent in prison after word get around he's a child abuser...
From South Asia Analysis Group, an article by Dr. Subhash Kapila, an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.
Pakistan completes five years of military rule by the Pakistan Army in October 2004 under the dictates of general Pervez Musharraf. It was on 12 October 1999 that a clique of Islamic fundamentalist generals who staged an 'in-abstentia' coup in favour of General Musharraf. Sadly enough post-9/11 under United States pressure, General Musharraf had to do away with the very Generals who brought him into power.
Pakistan, at a first glance of five years of Army rule (the Pakistan Army does not 'co-opt' the Air Force and Navy) gives a picture of a nation far more internally divided than it was under civilian rule. Vast sections of the Pakistani Society view general Musharraf as an American stooge who has bartered away Pakistan's self respect for his own continuance in power in Pakistan. This view is widely shared in the Islamic world all over, whose leadership Pakistan has always tried to claim. Much elaboration, ending with this conclusion:
General Musharraf and the Pakistan Army are not tired even after five years of strict military rule. Ironically it has been the history of Pakistan that Pakistani Army Chiefs have never relinquished power voluntarily. They have been pushed out of power by another Pakistani General or assassinated and engineered from within the ranks of Pakistan's Armed Forces.
Pakistan's democracy can only be restored when the United States wills it so. It is ironic that while the United States espouses democracy in Pakistan's neighborhood in Afghanistan and Myanmar, successive US Administrators have shied away from demanding democracy in Pakistan. The Pakistan Army has traditionally exploited this weakness of the United States for its continuance in power i.e. by engineering their indispensability to US strategic interests.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
11:01:53 PM ||
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blah, blah blah. So what do they want us to do - go in and occupy them so that we can force elections. (sigh, shake head)
Ironically it has been the history of Pakistan that Pakistani Army Chiefs have never relinquished power voluntarily
and pray tell me, when did anyone, who ever achieved similar rank EVER agree to relinquish power. Super DUH! Super DOH!
You can see the little cubicle reporter weenie that wrote this. Never had any power and has no clue about power and what that implies. Yeah, stupid. They don't relinquish power. That's why our founding fathers created a "balance of power". They understood clearly what you do not.
From Pakistan Today, an article by B. Raman
As expected, President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan announced a major reshuffle of the senior officers of the Pakistan Army of the rank of Generals and Lt.Generals on October 2 and 3,2004. The reshuffle was necessitated by the impending retirement of Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, as the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, and Gen.Muhammad Yusuf Khan as the Vice-Chief of the Army Staff, both on October 7,2004.
The details of the promotions and postings announced by Musharraf are given in the annexure available from the RHS bar.. With the retirement of Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, a Kashmiri belonging to the Sudan tribe, from the Army, the Pakistan Army does not have any identified fundamentalist officers in the rank of Lt.Gen./Gen. When Musharraf seized power on October 12, 1999, the Army had two identified "fundos" in the rank of Lt.Gen.-- Lt.Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, who was then the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), and Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, the then Corps Commander, Karachi.
Subsequently, Musharraf appointed Mohammad Aziz Khan as the Commander of one of the two Corps in Lahore and Lt.Gen.Usmani as the Deputy Chief of the Army Staff. It was the triumvirate of Lt.Gen. Usmani as Corps Commander, Karachi,, Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan as the CGS and Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, as the then Corps Commander of Rawalpindi, which had staged the coup against Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, in the absence of Musharraf from the country and paved the way for his installation as the military dictator with the designation of Chief Executive. They refused to accept Nawaz's order dismissing Musharraf as the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) and appointing Lt.Gen.Ziauddin, the then Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence ISI), in his place. They had both Nawaz and Ziauddin arrested.
After taking over, Musharraf appointed Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed as the DG of the ISI. After the 9/11 terrorist strikes, the US reportedly exercised pressure on Musharraf to ease out all the three from the sensitive posts held by them before the US military operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban started on October 7,2001. The US did not trust Usmani and Mohammad Aziz Khan because of their close proximity to the Islamic fundamentalist parties and it was annoyed with Mahmood Ahmed because of his failure to pressure Mulla Mohammad Omer, the Amir of the Taliban, to hand over Osama bin Laden to the US. Many more details about the reorganization, ending with this conclusion:
The new promotions and postings mark the climbing up the professional ladder of a new generation of officers, who distinguished themselves not in battles against India over Kashmir or in the covert jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan ostensibly to protect Islam, but in the so-called war against Al Qaeda to protect American lives and promote US interests. The fact that they did well in this war might be a good performance in the eyes of the US political leadership and policy-makers, but not in the eyes of large sections of Pakistani public opinion.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
10:57:39 PM ||
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impending retirement of Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, as the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, and Gen.Muhammad Yusuf Khan as the Vice-Chief of the Army Staff, both on October 7,2004
Ya see! YA SEE!!!! How can rantburg readers, unpaid and untrained, be expected to keep track of these guys????
To many freaking Mohammad Khans in this world. I say choose one and kill the rest. How else can we be expected to get a handle on this stuff...grumble grumble....
Gunmen riding in a taxi killed two supporters of an ethnic-based political party in Karachi on Monday, police said. The shooting occurred in Korangi, said Fayyaz Leghari, deputy city police chief. He said the victims, Mohammed Fahim, 35, a member of the council that administers Korangi, and his friend Saqib Hussain, 25, were both activists of the Muttahida Qami Movement. The victims were standing in a shop owned by Fahim when two or three gunmen drove up in a taxi and fired pistols at them without getting out of the car. Another friend of Fahim's was also injured the shooting. Leghari said police were investigating whether the shooting was politically motivated. MQM is part of the alliance that rules Sindh province. Supporters of MQM and its breakaway faction, Mohajir Qami Movement, are often accused of deadly attacks against each other in the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:57:31 PM ||
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From Jihad Unspun, an article by Ahmed Mukhtar
.... US forces conducted numerous air strikes against what they described as targets associated with Al-Zarqawi's network in and around the city. Among them was Zouba, a housing compound in an agricultural area about 15 miles south of Falluja where the US military said as many as 90 foreign fighters were holding meetings. The military said the strike, which occurred on Thursday evening, killed about 60 foreign fighters. Witnesses and hospital officials disputed the account, saying that about 30 men were killed, many of them Iraqi. They said 15 children and 11 women also died in the attack. Neither versions of the strike could be independently verified.
Falluja residents refer to the militants as mujahidin, and they never associate them with either Al-Qaeda or Al- Zarqawi. Mohamed Gharib, 25 years and resident of Falluja believes that "the Americans made up the bogeyman to kill the religious people of Falluja." His view was shared by Muath Khalid, a 27-year-old history student. "Falluja people were defending their dignity and Islam", he said. "They don't need the assistance of Al-Zarqawi that is if he existed at all."
Five months after US Marines called off their attack on Falluja, citizens of the town live under the often capricious rule of different groups of mujahidin -- ranging from Islamists and ultra-Islamists to Baathists and outlaws. The Mujahidin Shura Council, an 18-member group of clerics, tribal leaders or sheikhs and former Baath Party members now effectively run the city. Divided ideologically, the various religious groups argue over issues ranging from the proper way to finance their respective movements to the treatment of foreign and Iraqi captives. Nonetheless, residents say the groups are united on the battlefield and would fight side by side if US or Iraqi government troops were to launch a new push into Falluja -- a move that some believe likely because of the recent round of air and artillery strikes and especially after the large assault against Samaraa, 60kms north of Baghdad, another Sunni rebel town.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
10:51:58 PM ||
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Pakistan successfully test-fired Tuesday an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads as parts of its efforts to boost its defenses, a military statement said. Nuclear-armed Pakistan conducts regular missile tests, despite a revived peace process with nuclear rival India. The last time Pakistan test-fired a nuclear-capable missile was on June 4. "Pakistan this morning carried out another successful test of the indigenously produced intermediate range ballistic missile Hatf V (Ghauri)," the statement said.
It said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz witnessed the test of the surface-to-surface missile, which has a range of 1,500 km (940 miles). In March, Pakistan test-fired the Shaheen II ballistic missile with a range of 1,250 miles. It said the missile was capable of carrying nuclear warheads to every corner of India. Pakistan tested its first nuclear bomb in 1998 and says its weapons program is a response to that of India, with which it has fought three wars since both countries won independence from Britain in 1947. Ghauri and Shaheen are different versions of a Pakistani missile series named Hatf, which is a reference to an ancient Islamic weapon. Pakistan first test-fired the Ghauri missile in April 1998. India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests the following month. The Ghauri missile were formally inducted into the military in January 2003. The missile was developed by Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan's main uranium-enrichment facility, which was named for Abdul Qadeer Khan, the once-revered as the father of the country's atom bomb. Some experts say the Ghauri missile was developed with North Korean help in return for nuclear know-how, but Pakistan denies the link and says it is indigenously produced.
A little djinn action, some juche and white slag, add a monomanical laugh and presto! An imitation of a V-2 rocket!
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/12/2004
1:05:01 AM ||
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Just what Packland needs, another missle, when their real enemy, the Jiihad mentality, lies within. Pakland is a country with intercontinental nuclear missile ambitions, and a political situation held together with baling wire. Now THAT'S a model for stability.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:14
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Kashmir will likely be the flashpoint of the next nuclear exchange: One side believes in martyrdom, the other in reincarnation
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 9:49
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That is one hell of a contest, Frank. It is the Zen Koan of the Week (TM) which will win: martyrdom or reincarnation.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:55
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Doesn't it bother the Chinese at least a little bit having all this potential mayhem on their doorstep?
Nope, not at all. India is considered to be a potential threat so what better way to deal with India than to keep it preoccupied with a nuclear-armed neighbor. Of course blow-back might cause the Chinese unfortunate consequences.
A conceptual foundation for the deconstruction of mortality
Can there be any certainty in the death of Jacques Derrida ? The obituarists' objective attempts to place his life in a finite context are, necessarily, subject to epistemic relativism, the idea that all such scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions. Surely, a postmodernist deconstruction of their import would inevitably question the foundational conceptual categories of prior science — among them, Derrida's own existence — which become problematised and relativised. This conceptual revolution has profound implications for the content of future postmodern and liberatory science of mortality. Is God dead?
It was, perhaps, Alan D. Sokal who most heuristically challenged the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook in his brilliant exegesis of Derridian principles Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. Dr Sokal's inclusive review of the literature (see especially Hamill, Graham. The epistemology of expurgation: Bacon and The Masculine Birth of Time. In Queering the Renaissance, pp. 236-252. And also Doyle, Richard. Dislocating knowledge, thinking out of joint: Rhizomatics and the importance of being multiple), and his eerily exact summary of the complementarity principle (Instead of a simple "either/or" structure, deconstruction attempts to elaborate a discourse that says neither "either/or" nor "both/and" nor even "neither/nor" while at the same time not abandoning these logics either) make his reading of Derrida irrefutable. We know only two things. We do not know. And M Derrida is in no position to enlighten us.
Bravo! Bravo! The logic is irrefutable! The style is impenetrable! The estimable Scott Ott would be proud oud to have written it himself!
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:46:27 PM ||
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Seems to me that "dead" is a value judgement implying that one state of existence is privileged over another.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
10/12/2004 10:25
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History is dead. Derrida lives.
Posted by: Francis Fukuyama ||
10/12/2004 10:27
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ROTFLMFAO!
Great wahrks! This is a Classic too!
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
10/12/2004 10:41
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[i]f reading and writing are one, ...if reading is writing, this oneness designates neither undifferentiated (con)fusion nor identity at perfect rest; the is that couples reading with writing must rip apart. One must then, in a single gesture, but doubled, read and write. And that person would have understood nothing of the game who, at this [du coup], would feel himself authorized merely to add on; that is, to add any old thing. He would add nothing, the seam wouldn't hold. Reciprocally, he who through "methodological prudence," "norms of objectivity," or "safeguards of knowledge" would refrain from committing anything of himself, would not read[/write] at all. The same foolishness, the same sterility, obtains in the "not serious" as in the "serious." The reading or writing supplement must be rigorously prescribed, but by the necessities of a game, by the logic of play.
-- Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination (63-64)
Posted by: Mike ||
10/12/2004 14:28
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The reference to Dr. Sokal is particularly sly and wonderful. Sokal perpetrated a hoax on the lefties. (Among other things, the paper implied that the force of gravity was a social construction.)
His "comprehensive review" was a later book where he and his co-author exposed deconstructionist writings as empty and nonsensical.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste ||
10/12/2004 14:49
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"Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher, who has died aged 74, was the founding father of deconstructionism, a controversial system of analysis which challenges the basis of traditional western thought; the deconstructive approach argues that all writing has multiple layers of meaning which even its author might not understand and which leave it open to an endless process of reinterpretation." Source.
Sounds like he studied too many Kerry speeches.
Posted by: Tom ||
10/12/2004 15:01
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Postmodern critics have long posited that the promulgation of multiple discourses in lieu of any univocal truths reflects French historical guilt over being trounced by the Nazis in WW II. Borgboy kids you not...books have been written on the topic...
#2
"killing at least 23 people...
Some 43 people survived the accident late Sunday on Lake Kivu and were safe ashore. But an estimated 50 others were still missing"
#3
Prolly a dug-out type canoe with the optional converted truck engine propulsion system. Depending on the tree used to make it, these things can get 60-100 feet long if the builders are ambitious enough. I've seen examples in Brazil that could hold 40+ people and all their livestock and possessions.
Of course, its still a canoe, with all the tippiness implied by the design.
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 8:45
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Too bad that they did not evolve the design to include outriggers, or a second dug-out tree for a catamaran. Then the problem moves to synchronizing propulsion and to structural issues in connecting the two hulls.
And it would be considered anti-macho to wear life vests.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:24
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From Jihad Unspun, an article by Yamin Zakaria
.... Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of Islamic history would know that the borders of the Islamic state expanded from Medina to Spain, Syria, Southern Russia, China and India. This expansion is explained as the result of a series of 'defensive' wars, which is not only the apex of intellectual dishonesty but also demonstrates stupidity.
Even on the notion of defensive Jihad there is much duplicity. The moderates profess their support for the resistance but not their methods! However, they do not provide a practical alternative given the huge disparity of forces. .... Unashamedly, some [moderate Muslims] have even adopted the terms like 'terrorists' or 'extremists'. One can see undeclared alliance between the treacherous moderates and the state terrorists. In contrast, Claire Short, former cabinet member of the Blair government in the UK and a non-Muslim, categorised the Mujahideen as resistance fighters with a genuine cause.
Given the absence of the Islamic state (Khilafah) and most of the Islamic countries are under direct or indirect occupation, it is rather academic to discuss the notion of offensive Jihad. Hence, let us analyse the evidences pertaining to defensive Jihad. ....
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
10:44:43 PM ||
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Assailants fired rockets at a residential compound owned by a state-run oil company in southwestern Pakistan on Monday, and paramilitary troops retaliated, leaving at least five people injured, an official said.
"Huh huh! This is soooo kewl! Go ahead an' launch the rockets, Mahmoud!"
[Whoosh! Kaboom!]
[Bang! Bang! Bangety bang!]
"Ow! Hey! That hurt!... Ow!"
At least eight rockets were fired in the attack near an oil field operated by the Oil and Gas Development Corporation in Uch, a tribal region about 250 miles southeast of Quetta, said Mohammed Abbas, a local government administrator. Paramilitary soldiers guarding the residential area that houses workers from the oil field returned fire with mortars and assault rifles, Abbas said. He said that three rockets landed near an officers' mess in the compound and that the other rockets crashed into a nearby field.
Must be Hek's boyz.
Both oil company employees and attackers were among the injured, but the breakdown was not immediately clear.
"They got me, Mahmoud!"
"Me, too, Ahmed!"
"The exchange of fire is going on and we fear more injuries," Abbas said. No one claimed responsibility but attacks against security forces at oil and gas extracting facilities are common in the area. Authorities blame local tribesmen for launching the rockets to press the government to increase royalties for gas extracted in their territories.
So it's just the Bugtis again. Nothing to see here. Move along...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:39:59 PM ||
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Rockets: the lazy man's way of turning over the soil to prepare it for planting. So much easier than following the south end of a mule, y'know.
Police investigating a bomb attack at the Indonesian Embassy have arrested a man at an Internet cafe from where an e-mail was sent claiming responsibility, judicial officials said Monday. The man, who said he is from Cameroon, was detained Sunday and was still being held Monday. Investigators were checking his identity and background. The e-mail, sent to police in Paris and to some French media, claimed responsibility for the blast Friday that slightly injured a handful of people. Officials said the man appeared to be mentally troubled. He claimed that his former partner was among victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. The e-mail claimed responsibility in the name of the Armed French Islamic Front, a previously unknown group. Investigators said they were treating the e-mail with skepticism.
"I dunno, Jean-Pierre! I'm feelin' pretty skeptical about that email!"
"Me, too, Jean-Louis!"
Among other things, it demanded the release of Islamic militants convicted of bombings in Paris in 1995. The authors also said they would maintain a cease-fire until Jan. 30, after which "we will take new actions bloodier than ever in France." French authorities tightened security around embassies in Paris following the bombing, which loosened stones from a wall of the mission, broke windows in the neighborhood and damaged cars in the vicinity. The bomb was concocted with a canister of gas filled with gunpowder, police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:35:55 PM ||
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I'm sure Putin is just grateful as all hell for that assistance...
President Vladimir Putin should grant Chechnya special status within Russia to end a decade-long insurgency, although some Western countries would like to see Moscow trapped in the "Chechen quagmire" for years, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Monday.
Gorby knows a thing or two about quagmire, too.
Gorbachev also said there was an important lesson from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: Don't act unilaterally. "The crisis in Iraq has been a lesson, and I believe that lesson has been learned by both the United States and all of us," the 73-year-old said at a breakfast attended by journalists. "That lesson is that unilateral action is really not the way to go, is really not the way forward."
Looking at Russia's most immediate crisis, Gorbachev said the solution in separatist Chechnya must be political. Russia has twice invaded largely Muslim Chechnya on Russia's southern rim, fighting a 1994-96 war to end a self-declared independence and a second war starting in 1999 after apartment bombings that Russia blamed on Chechen terrorists. The second war is still raging, and Putin classifies it as part of the global war on terror. But at the same time, Putin is trying to make Chechnya self-governing with a native leadership.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:32:27 PM ||
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Lived in Russia, have Russian family there, and can report that Gorbachev is universally despised in Russia as a moronic hick politico whose incompetence brought down the roof on the SU.
Part of the reason I have such (perhaps unrealistic) hope for Russians is their complete contempt for this icon of the western Left.
#9
I'd like to know how e.g. Polish and other Eastern Europeans feel about Gorbachev -- namely the captive nations freed by Gorbachev. Rather than people who blame him for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, something which Yeltsin imposed, and Gorbachev strove against.
Gorbachev (whether competently or incompetently) was simply trying to let freedom through the window, for the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe both. Which makes him a person who decisively won the Cold War on the side of freedom -- freeing half the European continent from the stranglehold that his predecessors in his own nation had imposed.
Perhaps the "Western Left" has a more unbiased view of Gorbachev than the Russian people themselves, Westerners being after all people who *didn't* lose a big chunk of their empire.
#10
Aris, perhaps I'm wrong, but I always thought Gorbachev was trying to loosen the economic straightjacket of socialism, without letting go of the reins of power. However, unlike Red China, he chose to relax politically first, and lost control of the situation. I don't remember freeing the people being one of his objectives at the time.
However, I do respect the fact that when the satellite countries insisted on going their own way, G. did not send in the troops. I remember being in Wenceslaus Square in Prague one cold evening. It was very crowded, and then suddenly everyone started singing. It was lovely. Only later did I learn that the Czechs expected the tanks to come through that night (my husband often enough doesn't tell me things he thinks might upset me -- like the time he didn't quite die in India. But that's another story).
I would not describe Gorbachev as having won the Cold War, snce he did not achieve his objective of an economically vibrant, Communist Party ruled Soviet Union. But absolutely he did concede the loss gracefully, thus allowing the whole world to win. At the time we were concerned that the Soviet generals would choose to stage a Pyrrhic defeat. Then all would have indeed lost.
#11
Wow Aris. Right out of the left's own talking points about who won the Cold War. I remember reading about how several historians were changing how the Cold War really ended by saying it was Gorbachev's plan all along to end the Soviet Union and Reagan had nothing to do with it, he was just a bully by starting up SDI, massively building up our own armed forces and forcing Russia into an economic competition. Yep righto Aris try another trick this talking point is so lame it doesn't even pass the BS meter.
#12
Valentine and trailing wife, rephrase "who decisively won the Cold War on the side of freedom" to "who decisively caused the Cold War to be won on the side of freedom", if that's better for you.
And Valentine, please reread my point about Gorbachev wanting to preserve the Soviet Union (in a more free form however). Ofcourse it had been bound together by brutality for so long that any substitute-glue would have been insufficient.
I'm too young to remember on my own clearly the sequence of events in an age where playing with a Spectrum and then an Amstrad interested me more than politics, but from what I've been reading now, from his first year at the head of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev introduced freedoms of speech and press with "glasnost".
And the collapse of communism in the whole of eastern Europe was the result of the "Sinatra doctrine" in which Gorbachev said that the Soviet Union was abandoning the Brezhnev doctrine and would let each nation decide its own affairs.
That for me speaks of a WILLING ABANDONMENT OF EMPIRE on Gorbachev's part and therefore something praiseworthy. He wasn't destroying the Soviet Union but he was demolishing the Eastern bloc. Now, was this willing abandonment of empire the result of *necessity*, perhaps because Reagan put him in a position where he could do nothing else? Would Gorbachev have done it were it not for Reagan's pressure on the Soviet Union? Would he have been *able* to do it? I don't know. I'm no economist and don't know how dire the Soviet Union's economic situation was.
And frankly since I wasn't discussing Reagan that's mostly irrelevant. You seem to think, Valentine, that praising Gorbachev means dissing Reagan. It isn't.
The Soviet Union still had troops and Gorbachev said they wouldn't use them. What does that make him to you, Valentine?
Albania sent a fourth contingent of army peacekeepers to Iraq on Monday to replace troops who had served since April with the coalition force, the Defense Ministry said. A unit of 71 Albanian special army troops flew to Iraq to serve in a six-month mission under U.S.-led command. The Albanian forces are serving in a non-combat role, mainly patrolling the airport in the Iraqi city of Mosul. "After serving for six months in Iraq, you will feel that you have loaded on your shoulders part of the pain the Iraqi people are coping with to finally get rid of a dictatorial past," Defense Minister Pandeli Majko said at a sendoff ceremony at Mother Teresa international Airport. Albania, a predominantly Muslim country, was one of the most vocal backers of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Although it was unable to provide significant military support, it opened its airspace and offered U.S.-led forces the use of its bases. Albanian authorities are discussing boosting the troop numbers to 120.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:30:00 PM ||
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Tiny, dinky, dirt poor Albania is assisting in once aspect as a partner involved in the global war against jihad-errorism underway in Iraq, but France still refuses. Hats off to Albania!
"After serving for six months in Iraq, you will feel that you have loaded on your shoulders part of the pain the Iraqi people are coping with to finally get rid of a dictatorial past," ," Defense Minister Pandeli Majko said
The Mr. Majko grasps the situation in full. John Kerry would be advised to read this man's comments. Then again...
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 3:12
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#2
Albania is still recovering from her own recent history, yet can be so generous to another wounded people. I hope they are being well rewarded. But they are too unimportant, and non-French, for France to learn from their example.
#3
Albania? Isn't that the little country north of Greece that looks out over the Adriatic Sea at the boot of Italy? (I just checked the atlas). And here they are, putting major powers to shame.
#4
This is pretty remarkable. Has anyone read P.J. O'Rourke's bit on Albania (it was in either Eat the Rich or Give War a Chance, I think)? That place was totally f*cked up for a long time. Seem to be getting their act together.
From Jihad Unspun, a declaration by By Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad
After the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Eastern camp, the USA has led the world unilaterally. After they declared the new world order, they moved forward very quickly in an attempt to control and destroy Islam as the only real enemy for her and then increased her animosity towards the Muslim Ummah, i.e. a 5th of Humanity. In fact the USA was very close to establishing her dominance .... many who were besotted with the Western culture - behind her mask under which she used to hide her hatred towards Islam and Muslims - suddenly we saw the magnificent operation of 9/11 .... The operation of 9/11 upset everything that the USA was enjoying and planning: her plots and conspiracies whose magic had affected many. 9/11 made her reassess many things around the world. The mask fell down and out came the joint crusaders — the Jews, Christians, Mushriks (idolaters), the atheists and secularists, all of whom declared a new war against Islam and Muslims under the leadership of USA, under the pretext of fighting terrorism and Wahabbisim - as a war against the Jihadis in order to seduce the remaining people. .....
This pushed USA to have a new ground of alliance with communist countries like China and to play a new role of threatening and persuasion with the Muslims in the East and in the West. They hoped to gain the hearts of the Muslims so that they would not sympathise with the Mujahideen and so that they would leave the global crusade to terrorise Muslims with new laws and to imprison and mass arrest them. So that they could seize their properties and wealth and pressurise them to distort Islam and its rules and to eliminate any opposition to the USA's policies. ...
After declaring Tawheed in Allah (SWT) and in his beautiful names and attributes exclusively and in response to the command of Allah (SWT) who calls for unity and standing together: in response to the call of salaf al-saalih and those who follow them — we have decided to dissolve the movement called Al-Muhajiroun, with fill Tawakkul in Allah (SWT). In light of the new reality after the blessed 9/11, the evil forces having united against the Ummah and Islam and fighting us all using the same bow — there is nothing left except that the sincere Muslims who fight with their lives, flesh and wealth unite for the sake of Allah (SWT). ....
I believe that the situation the Muslims face has alerted a lot of Islamic activists and Islamic leaders to think deeply and to work seriously to reach a formula that can unite their stance and war and take them out of the circle of disagreement which is not allowed Islamically. .... However, this requires a brave decision and the moulding together of all the Islamic movements and groups and the propagation of the Jihadi notion of the Ummah, for the sake of uniting the body/lines around the world.
Therefore, I represent myself first, and on behalf of all the members of Al-Muhajiroun I truthfully and sincerely declare for the sake of Allah (SWT)'s pleasure — the dissolving of the entity of Al-Muhajiroun, whether it's administration, culture or departments around the world. We are keen for the safety of the path to the way of the salaf and in support of the Mujahideen and Jihad, and for the sake of keeping the clarity of al wala wal bara free from any defection of partisanship and with a broad width for the true meaning of following the salaf and not to innovate in the time of the khalaf and in order for us to become a real and practical example for others to revive the meaning of names and structures. And Allah (SWT) guides to the straight path.....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
10:28:01 PM ||
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I meant to put this on Page 1.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004 22:34
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An Islamic judicial system has been introduced in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh as part of increased autonomy granted to the staunchly Muslim province by Jakarta. "The head of the Supreme Court is currently in Aceh to inaugurate the operation of the Sharia Court there," said Andi Syamsu Alam, deputy chairman of the Supreme Court for religious court affairs. Alam said Supreme Court chairman Bagir Manan inaugurated the system in the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Monday. Under the new system, 19 district/municipal religious courts and one appeal court based in the Acehnese capital will hear cases in addition to the existing network of secular courts. "Cases involving non-Muslims are still handled by the (secular) judicial court," Alam told AFP. The Sharia Court, he said, would not use the penal and civil code but will be based on qanuns, decrees governing formal and material laws on particular issues that are formulated by local government. Alam said that the Supreme Court remained the highest court of appeal in the Sharia court system. The government of Indonesia in 2001 accorded broad special autonomy for Aceh as part of efforts to curb dissent and separatism there. Aceh is currently under civilian emergency status and the military has launched an all-out offensive to crush separatist rebels there since May last year. Under the autonomy scheme, Aceh gets a larger share from its natural resources, can gradually implement sharia, and can have its own education and judicial system.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
10/12/2004
10:24:24 AM ||
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A powerful rebel leader told tens of thousands of supporters who gathered Monday for his first public appearance in more than 20 years that they must grasp political power for themselves if their government is failing them. The rally in this southern Indian village in Andhra Pradesh state came four days before the first direct talks between Akkiraju Haragopal'sPeople's War Group and the state government. The rebels have agreed to seek an end to a two-decade rebellion that has killed more than 6,000 people. "The state government should stop borrowing money from the World Bank and start distributing agriculture land among small peasants," Haragopal said. Haragopal, who looked frail and sick and coughed repeatedly during his half-hour speech, said People's War — which advocates armed struggle — was taking people's demands straight to the government and that he hoped the government would respond. "If the government fails to do so [hrarf! hack!], people should prepare themselves [wheeze!] to take political power [hack! hack! caff!] into their hands," he said. "We have come forward [wheeze!] to discuss people's issues [hrarf!] with the government. We are ready [hack!] to hold talks but if necessary we can also [wheeze!] fight."
"Well, maybe I can't, but youse guys can! [hack!]"
Haragopal and other commanders from People's War and another communist guerrilla outfit, Janashakti, were unarmed and wearing civilian clothing. They are scheduled to hold their first direct talks with the state government on Friday. The peace talks were made possible after the newly elected state government lifted an 8-year-old ban on People's War and declared a cease-fire in June. The rebels claim to draw inspiration from Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
That's because his programs worked so well...
They began fighting government forces in 1981, demanding a communist government and land redistribution. They are active in six Indian states, but Andhra Pradesh is their stronghold.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:23:47 PM ||
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#1
People's War â which advocates armed struggle
lol - duh!
"Let that be a warning to you! You bomb a McDonald's, we take out the International House of Cous Cous!"
A U.S. warplane early Tuesday destroyed a popular restaurant which the U.S. command said was a meeting place for members of Iraq's most feared terrorist organization. The 12:01 a.m. blast demolished the Haj Hussein restaurant as well as nearby shops, residents said. There was no report of casualties and the restaurant was closed at the time, but two night guards were missing, residents said. Ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene. The U.S. military command in Baghdad made no mention of the restaurant but said the target was "a center" for the Tawhid and Jihad terror network, led by Jordanian-born extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Following the engagement, secondary explosions were reported, indicating the strong likelihood of weapons caches and explosive devices," the statement said. "Terrorists frequently planned operations from this location. Plans included targeting Iraqi governmental leadership, Iraqi security forces, coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/12/2004
10:20:42 PM ||
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#2
Zarqawi is avoiding schools for his meetings, due to the 'kiddies' ratting his men out, during the 'candy give aways' by the Coalition! That leaves only mosques, private homes and restaurants for the skullduggery!
#3
Do terrorists have a favourite type of restaurant? Sorta like the Mafia prefer to eat Italian? This information would prevent us from unnecessarily shooting up too many kosher delis.
#4
Do terrorists have a favourite type of restaurant?
Mabe it was Alice's Restaurant! After all, you can get anything you want...
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 6:57
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#5
Do terrorists have a favourite type of restaurant?
Mabe it was Alice's Restaurant! After all, you can get anything you want...
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 6:58
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#6
Sorry about the double comment there.
Sorry about the double comment there.
Hey, there's an echo in here!
Hey, there's an echo in here!
Posted by: N Guard ||
10/12/2004 7:01
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#7
Why would a restaurant require night-guards? I thought the strict religious regime now observed in Fallujah should dissuade the populace from petty thieving? Mmmm... more secondary explosions, could've been a wedding nearby?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/12/2004 7:34
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#8
Why would a restaurant require night-guards? I thought the strict religious regime now observed in Fallujah should dissuade the populace from petty thieving? Mmmm... more secondary explosions, could've been a wedding nearby?
Posted by: Howard UK
Now, now Howard .. . that was just the supply of extra hot sauce they stored for special occasions . . . like passing American convoys . . .
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
10/12/2004 7:43
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#9
WTF - we bomb a terrorist meeying place when it is empty and closed????
Where's the fun in that?
I can think of a much more productive approach toward bombing terrorist hang-outs - like when they're chock-a-block full of jihadis and their spawn.
In the immortal words of Bernard Goetz: "Hey, you don't look so bad - here, have another .........(blam)"
#12
"...secondary explosions were reported..."
It's the Haj Hussein version of a "baker's dozen".
Posted by: Tom ||
10/12/2004 9:23
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#13
WTF - we bomb a terrorist meeying place when it is empty and closed???? Where's the fun in that? I can think of a much more productive approach toward bombing terrorist hang-outs - like when they're chock-a-block full of jihadis and their spawn
Unlikely the mooks meet during noontime lunch or happy hour. Two night guards were probably lookouts for the late-night-turban dinner party. Hope they died slowly
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2004 9:54
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#14
I do not think that they died slowly, Frank. These guys were parted out by the JDAM or the secondaries into hors d'ovres for tomorrow's lunch.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 10:06
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#15
Mahmoud's Deli, where the lunchtime special... is DEATH!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 10:58
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#17
As he was "traveling" to meet his virgins, one terrorist, who was a customer at the restaurant complained:
"Blasted infidel dogs! I wanted to order the goat kabobs, not become goat kabobs! ... Oh, I here? Which one of you girls can do me a batch of goat kabobs with tzatziki sauce?"
Muslim leaders are launching a new drive to teach British schoolchildren about the true meaning of Islam. The initiative, backed by the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, will see books on Islam going into schools nationwide. Organisers hope it will help overcome barriers to how non-Muslims understand the faith. And Mr Clarke said the project would help strengthen a multi-faith, multi-cultural society. The "Books for Schools" resource packs include books, videos and CDs. It aims to inform debate among both teachers and pupils and is designed to fit into Key Stages 1 and 2 of religious education - primary schooling. Most of the pack focuses on group work where pupils use the materials to learn more about the key pillars of Islam and the tenets of Muslim life.
Any word on a new book from the Arch-Druid?
The scheme has the backing of educationalists in many areas, who had approached the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) to help with their teaching on Islam. Islam appears in the national curriculum as part of teaching on world religions. But many Muslims say schools do not provide non-Muslims a sufficiently detailed introduction to how the practicalities of the faith, such as ritual charitable giving and fasting. Many schools also rely on materials which are outdated, they say. They hope the new packs, which cost £250 each, aim to change that and follow a similar scheme introduced in the United States. Charles Clarke said he supported the scheme's aims. "It is only through understanding that this country can move forward as a true multi-faith and multicultural society," said Mr Clarke. "We must ensure children grow up with a better understanding of their friends and neighbours. "The Muslim Council of Britain's initiative, books for schools, brings us much closer towards that goal."
Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the MCB, said education was "the key" to creating a vibrant and understanding society. "These resources, developed by our educationalists, aim to overcome the barriers to the teaching of Islam experienced by so many of our teachers by making available creative, engaging and child-friendly resources on Islam and Muslims. "Effective RE teaching and learning plays a positive role in a child's spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Books for Schools provides resources on Islam to deliver this part of the curriculum effectively."
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
10/12/2004
10:18:14 AM ||
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#2
You gotta start early to teach proper beheading technique. Lets see, the courses for first grade:
Beheading 101
Infidel Jews 101
Other Infidels 102 (the second semester)
Suicide bomb wiring 101
Introduction to Martyrdom 101
Rights of Women 101 (the short course - covered while waiting in line for lunch on the first day)
#3
True meaning of Islam = perverse shariah, second class status for women, terrorism, beheadings, limb hacking, wife beating, foreign aggression, genocide, etc ad nauseum.
#4
"The initiative, backed by the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, will see books on Islam going into schools nationwide. Organisers hope it will help overcome barriers to how non-Muslims understand the faith."
How do non-Muslims understand the faith? I've only been reading about Islam since 911, and I think I need to go to a school in the UK so someone can explain this religion to me. The most vocal advocates of the religion are, I assume, poor examples. Maybe it is because the news media only likes the sensational, but there is no other image of Islam in the news giving another picture, showing another side. As non-Muslims, we are left with a picture of hatred, murder suicides, kids strapped with bombs, kids shot in the back, curvy knives and subjugated women whose only role is as concubines. Is there another side to the religion? If there another side, it is so weak and so timid that it allows the other to be the image of Islam. What are they going to teach to "stregthen multi-faith, multi-cultural society?"
Posted by: Carlos ||
10/12/2004 16:13
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#6
The Japanese have Katanas, the Chinese have Daos (and Michelle Yeoh), and the Nepalese have Kukris, and none of them are like that. So it's got to be something besides the curvy knives.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
10/12/2004 17:50
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#7
Carlos, your questions:
"As non-Muslims, we are left with a picture of hatred, murder suicides, kids strapped with bombs, kids shot in the back, curvy knives and subjugated women whose only role is as concubines. Is there another side to the religion?"
What you see is what you get.
"What are they going to teach to "stregthen multi-faith, multi-cultural society?"
From IntelWire, from the first of a series of articles by J. M. Berger. The first article is titled "Secret Agents of Islam"
.... al Qaeda operatives routinely take on deep cover roles in order to infiltrate an enemy's society. This isn't simply a pragmatic decision to disregard the tenets of Islam in order to accomplish a goal. Rather, it's a specific, traditional practice, justified through an elaborate theological framework. The approach was first employed in the 11th century, by the Assassins, a notorious cult of Islamic extremists. Today, the practice is continued by a similar sect, known as Al Takfir Wal Hijra, which represents a key faction in the top leadership of al Qaeda.
There are numerous similarities between the Assassins and the Takfiri - including operational structure, strategy and theology. But the sects are separated by a centuries-long chasm of deep sectarian conflict. But, then and now, these men shared a common vocation - secret agents for an extreme vision of Islam. They were - and are - the ultimate infiltrators, unbound by moral restraint. These men are not subject to any meaningful cultural repercussions for their acts. Nor are they subject to an inner moral conflict. The are amoral machines by design, licensed to kill.
The modern Sunni Islamic sect known as Al Takfir Wal Hijira is a nearly perfect ideological vehicle for terrorism. The Arabic name translates roughly as "anathema and exile" or "excommunication and emigration." A theologically extreme extension of fundamentalist Islamic doctrines, Takfir is dedicated to restoring the Caliphate, the Islamic political empire that once spanned the Near and Middle East. Takfir differs from establishment fundamentalists (such as Saudi Arabian Wahabbism) in two major respects. First, Takfiri cultists practice an extreme form of assimilation. And second, they openly embrace of violent, evangelistic jihad.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
10/12/2004
10:09:42 PM ||
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A book of condolence opened in tribute to the murdered Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley has been stolen. Thieves also took a framed photograph of him, candles and some sympathy cards from Birmingham Central Mosque. The book, believed to have gone on Saturday, was due to go to Mr Bigley's family to show the mainstream Muslim community's condemnation of his death. Earlier this year a book of condolence for the victims of the Madrid bombings was stolen from the same mosque. Nice folk, ain't they?
Two condolence books gone missing from the same mosque? That's an odd coinkidink, dontcha think? And nobody knows who dunnit. If it was me, I'd check the jihadi websites. Bet they're paraded around for the camera.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/12/2004
10:02:44 AM ||
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A Dutch local broadcaster said on Tuesday it had received a warning there was a bomb was on board a Chicago-bound plane that departed from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport soon after 11am. RTL Holland said an email warned that the bomb had been placed on a United Airlines/Scandinavian Airlines plane and a United Airlines spokesman said the terror threat was being taken "absolutely seriously". But the spokesman could not give any information about response efforts. The military police at Schiphol could not comment either, news agency ANP reported.
A United spokeswoman could not immediately confirm whether the airline had decided to carry out an emergency landing, French news agency AFP reported. Flight SK 3909 flew above Ireland at 12.45pm. The email — suspected to have been sent from Germany — said in English: "Bomb to America". It then said in Dutch: "Flight SK3909 from Amsterdam to Chicago has a bomb for Iraq. America will see. Message for you".
#1
But the spokesman could not give any information about response efforts.
Thank goodness we are finally getting smart. I have to believe that these are "dry runs", testing the system - or that the terrorists are doint it so often that it's not taken seriously.
#2
We can only hope that W changes on this issue, plus others respecting to the 'Crude Kingdom' which supplied it's nationals. How many? 15 or 16 out the 19 which were able to board four U.S. passenger airliners on a clear September morn.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 5:42
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#3
Bush isn't going to do anything incendiary until Iraq's oil output increases enough to be a significant factor. Imagine if Saudi oil production were to shut down now due to civil war now that its at $50/bbl....
#4
Bush is awfully quiet on this matter? SMN, you liberal troll, you are so confused. First the MM crowd complains that we are illegally occupying Iraq and tries so hard to explain why Afghanistan is a failed adventure. The MM left expresses no optimism or joy that both of these countries will now allow women to vote. More women are running for office in Iraq, than are running here in the US.
Are you implying that somehow Bush hasn't made it clear that he believes women should be able to vote? Give me a break. So what exactly is Bush supposed to do in your confused mind? Threaten war if the Saudi's don't allow the women to vote??
I swear to the good Lord above - when he handed out logic, you guys must have been awol.
#5
smn: maybe we can help out the Saudi women now that we've addressed the issue of Afghan women who were actually GETTING THEIR F*CKING BRAINS BLOWN OUT. But it would help, y'know, if the Moore-ons don't try to hold our arms back this time.
#7
What can W do? Not a thing except to ask Naive to reconsider. But why even do that? Look, analyzing Saudi is like peeling the layers of an onion. There's always one more. In Saudi's case, one more layer of nuance to analyze. But it's a never-ending analysis.
You want women to vote? The Saudis would be impressed by their Moroccan, Tunisian, Iraqi, and Afghan sisters who have taken the lead in emancipitation. The rulers would automatically have a knee-jerk reaction if W or an ambassador made public statements. A phone call? Maybe. But at the end of the day, the princesses will have to get their husbands on board to make sure the vote is available. There's plenty of time. It's not called the Magic Kingdom for nothing. BTW, a proverb I often heard there was "The man rules the house, but the woman rules the man." Well, we'll see. If they don't get the vote, it's no skin off my nose. I prefer focusing on the terrorists in the MK.
Posted by: chicago mike ||
10/12/2004 12:53
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#8
I'm not sure how the Saudis election rules are any of our business. Blaming Bush is as ridiculous as Michael MooreOns fantasy movie that you get excited about. You paid to see his movie?
#9
1. Municipal elections without women voting is still better than what the Saudis had before, which was NO elections.
2. Whether Bush's policy on KSA is good or not depends on how much behind the scenes pressure they are putting on them. Which by definition is "behind the scenes" and is impossible to know for sure, despite pundits dropping hints. Ultimately, like Bushs plans for Iran,its a matter of faith. I have more faith in Bush than most Dems do, and less than most folks here do. But who said life was gonna be simple?
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004
00:59 ||
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#1
Crude oil should be $60 a barrel by the end of October (3 weeks) with current price trending due to numerous winter supply concerns.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 4:08
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#2
Do you have any for sale?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/12/2004 4:24
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#3
60.00 bucks a barrel is about where it should be. It's the only way we will ever free ourselves from mid east oil. Cheap oil will continue to make us slaves to unstable supplies owned by folks we don't get on with.
#4
Mrs. D,
Being that crude oil has indeed jumped above $54 a barrel, if one holds long crude oil contracts which were purchased in late 2003 or even early 2004 they are worth a bundle. You could peel off (sell) some contingent on return and amount, or ride this market higher, all the way to $60 to $70+ which is projected, since the supply data indicates will continue climbing most likely until at least Christmas.
There are no real bearish energy market indicators out there, after all winter is around the corner...but. recall nothing goes up forever, the bearish ride down, when it transpires, and contingent on how much she drops, in my opinion will be even more rapid, and a greater, quicker profit then the current panic driven bull run which is being fuelled by various supply related justifications and the fact the speculators are throwing gasoline in the trading pits. Pun intended.
Think of this, what would the energy markets do if there was a devastating supply disrupting attack on the principal Saudi oil field of Gahwar? $100, $125 a barrel, nothing can be ruled out and should not be either. One other item, back in 1999 crude oil sunk like a lead weight all the back to $11 a barrel and then shot back within one year to over $30.
Different portions of the global economy, depending on which regional sectors most effected, will eventually be forced to scale back or just cancel costly imported energy products & certain high priced commodities out of necessity, and this will in turn start a general economic slow down. Bonds would then rise further and stock indexes would do the reverse. Depending on how hard a particular nation is being adversely effected by soaring energy costs, the greater the deleterious sell off in there paper markets.
Sock,
There is a basket of economic reasons behind this run up in oil/energy prices. One of the primary is Mainland China's building boom, thus demanding natural resources as never before, and once again, the is no visible end, if any thing, short of a major jolt in the global economy, China will expand its hungry demand of commodities and tasking international supplies of not only energy, but construction related metals such as copper, plus grains, as in soybeans ( for some reason there are more Chinese restaurants over there then any other type) :)
One passing thought; Back in March I posted my two cents worth on oil heading for $50 plus and listed the reasons why before the end of 2004. Some people online & off got a real kick out of that, had some laughs and said I was a 'promoter of bad economic news' plus a '******* idiot'. That's ok ....I wonder where they are now? At the local Sunoco station?
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 5:21
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#5
I have long been prepared to a long term increase in energy prices. I think it's a good thing. Short term it will have a negative impact but I think long term it will spur new inovation in energy production and more effective use of energy. That is good for us here in the US and our ecconomy. I expect China to keep increasing it's demand on resources and driving thoses prices up. I don't see 60 dollar oil as long term bad. Short term it is bad, long term it plays to yankee strengths. But I can walk about every place I need to go locally to. Most people can't.
#6
Sock's right. The price of oil now, if sustained, will encourage serious work into petroleum alternatives, as well as alternate petroleum energy sources. The Saudis know this, hence all the brouhaha about pumping to increase the supply of crude. It will be painful, but I think that it will be good in the long run. We will not change as a civilization until we are forced to, because of political considerations.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/12/2004 9:52
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#7
Has anyone looked at the worldwide consumption numbers? I see articles mentioning that the tight supplies are due to high demand, especially in China. Could it be that China is actually stockpiling into a reserve, as part of a plan for disruption of supplies when military action is attempted over Taiwan?
#10
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3654060.stm China's oil imports for the first eight months of 2004 rose by nearly 40% compared with the same period last year, according to state media reports.
China imported a total of 79.9 million tonnes of oil between January and August, a 39.9% increase on the year, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The figure reflects a slowdown in domestic oil production at a time of rapid economic expansion.
Total oil imports for 2004 are set to reach a record 110 million tonnes.
That's about 3M barrels a day.
Posted by: ed ||
10/12/2004 13:11
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#11
One more point: this short-term spike is potentially disastrous for Bush.
The voters who've yet to make up their minds are precisely the types whose vote depends on pocketbook issues. No more immediate or visible pocketbook issue than the price of gas at the pump. If that price increases another ~30 cents a gallon by Nov 2, Bush will be in serious trouble.
#14
what would the energy markets do if there was a devastating supply disrupting attack on the principal Saudi oil field of Gahwar? $100, $125 a barrel, nothing can be ruled out and should not be either.
Acc to former middle east spook Bob Baer, these fields and especially the two main Saudi production facilities are easy targets for the jihadists.
Mark,
Do you hear any market participants factoring in the likelihood of such an attack in near future? If so, what probability do they assign to it?
#15
If probability of such an attack is greater than 30%, then it's perhaps time to consider seizing those oilfields and placing them under protection of US forces.
#16
Lex, the wild market card is what will Iran do when 'confronted' over the nuke issue, after the election, being that Iran is on the other side of the Persian Gulf and in easy range of those Arabian oil fields. Recall the mullah mindset if they think time is almost up for them.
I would have to say the main supply related trending factors are Nigeria, the coming winter, Norway's oil strike, the damage the hurricanes caused, China's consumption of energy products and heavy hitters wanting to make even more dough playing options & futures on the entire energy complex, plus other related contacts.
The Saudi oil fields for are of course a big unknown and not even on the radar for 'most', but 'not all' traders. If the Saudi supply is withdrawn during a cold winter, price hikes would be wild as in 73 & 79.
Baer is correct, since they enemy would attack in frame work of 'total jihad', i.e. go for broke.
In late 2003 some traders (granted just a few) foresaw the tangible potentials of $50+ oil in 2004, and even less acted, locking in prices but also having to wait & wait for the ride upward.
Many people jumping in now now are chasing this market and that is not always kosher, since she can crash and crash quickly when the reversal gets underway, once the big players start cashing in there chips for profits, which is what happened during the Iraq war in early 2003, when it became known Saddam's Scuds were 'no longer a threat' to Israel (broadening the war). That information was issued to the large volume traders, triggering a large block selloff, very quickly, leaving the little guys wondering what happened.
Ship, 'Danger, danger, Will Robinson, crude oil is only $52.28 as I send this...lol'
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 19:39
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#17
Analyst warns of Saudi oil dropoff (link)
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 19:49
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#18
I heard an energy analyst saying $10.00 in the increase is due to pure speculation and has nothing to do with current reality. It may be the oil futures traders being nervous over a Kerry win along with other international factors.
#19
Sock, that figure sounds in order. Maybe a little broader, $8 on the low end and $12 on high end.
The 'fear factor' plus 'the speculation factor'& the 'supply factor' which is directly linked to the 'winter factor' makes for a very nervous market, which is the 'main factor' in driving these type of markets up or down.
Volatility is the key. The more the better for broad price gyrations. Markets stuck in sideways mode do not benefit call or put traders.
There should probably be a 'geostrategic volatility index' to compile & chart critical data relating to historical price trending influenced by extremes governing prices, which would greatly assist in the prognostication of future trends if the same cyclical indicators are demonstrated in relation to international or regional zones effecting certain segments of key commodity markets.
Indexing data in this fashion, such as oil, could be a valuable trending guide when similar situations arise for those attempting to gage future price adjustments.
Sock, your overview is most welcome.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 20:36
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#20
Anonymous6176, As to your question, the linked charts/data should help. plus there are other web sources if needed.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
10/12/2004 20:42
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#21
..you do not require a lot of money to join energy traders in the largest price jump in history.
I don't know what that means. I'm not some kind of expert or in possession of any knowledge of the intricacies of the trade, so I'm just going on what I've read.
My beef is that these various "factors" on the part of oil traders regarding supply concerns is nothing but speculating on something that may or may not happen. If these scenarios don't play out according to their "fears", then will we not all have paid more for crude oil derived products than was really necessary? Why can't these people wait until a problem actually exists instead of creating one in their heads and transferring it into our pocketbooks?
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