From The Iran Press Service
One of Iran's most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only". "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran. ....
In a lengthy speech to mark the so-called "International Qods (Jerusalem) Day" celebrated in Iran only, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who, as the Chairman of the Assembly to Discern the Interests of the State, is the Islamic Republic's number two man after Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, said since Israel was an emanation of Western civilization colonialism therefore "in future it will be the interests of colonialism that will determine existence or non-existence of Israel". ..... He said since Israel is the product of Western civilization colonialism, "the continued existence of Israel depends on interests of arrogance and colonialism and as long as the base is helpful for colonialism, it is going to keep it. ....
"War of the pious and martyrdom seeking forces against peaks of colonialism will be highly dangerous and might fan flames of the World War III", the former Iranian president said, backing firmly suicide operations against Israel. ..... "Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world", Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani warned, blaming on the United States and Britain the "creation of the fabricated entity" in the heart of Arab and Muslim world. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
9:46:13 PM ||
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#1
well, at least he's honest...to hell with the Religion of Peace act, eh?
#4
Interesting to contrast how NO leader of any western country ever, ever, calls for the annihilation of any other country, yet these scumbags complain that the west is attacking the muslims.
"Damages only." Doesn't he realize that destroying Israel is signing the death warrant for the entire region? Hell....even ATTACKING Israel would mean the end of their regime.
#5
Foreign Policy in Iran is as clear as glass. I don't give them credit for honesty, however, for it is a matter of not knowing how to effectively lie like dogs, not realizing we're paying attention, that we have been lied to by the best - Advertisers - so one must be extraordinarily wily to slip one over on the TV generations... So no, it's not a point of honor that he speaks frankly. Ol' Raffy speaks his mind secure in the belief that his shit doesn't stink and that we're all stupid - nothing more.
#6
I think he must be mistaken if he thinks his country will still exist if Isreal is hit with a nuclear weapon. His thinking however is standard for the moon cult of death.
#7
Anyone see this on the evening news? I bet is Sharon said Israel will nuke Iran (or Germany) it would be the lead story. Could it be our beloved press corps has one code of conduct for ourselves and another for those who will destroy us?
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 22:59
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#8
Someone needs to make it crystal clear that, should Israel take even a single nuclear hit, all other surrounding Islamic nations would be left uninhabitable for centuries, if not millennia. Even if Israel's arsenal were somehow crippled, western nations should retaliate in their stead out of sheer principal.
How Europe can countenance this sort of bellicose rhetoric and simultaneously convince themselves that Iran has no aspirations for nuclear weapons goes beyond incredible. This sort of outright rallying cry for nuclear conflict must be regarded as the threat to regional stability that it is.
Having been sucked into the power vacuum created by Saddam's expulsion, the Iranian mullahs are outgassing at a ferocious rate. The ever-expanding ferocity of their diatribes should be taken quite seriously. Even if it is only to provide a convenient excuse for bombing the living shit out of them.
From The New York Times, an opinion article by William Shawcross, author of Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe and the War in Iraq.
The growing demands that Kofi Annan resign as secretary general of the United Nations are preposterous. For him to do so would be extremely damaging not only to his organization but also to the United States.
I say this as someone who strongly supported the American-led effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein; as someone who, despite the heartbreaking mistakes, still supports the coalition's attempt to build a decent society in Iraq. I also think that the United Nations has repeatedly failed the Iraqi people. But I know that Kofi Annan feels the same way. Years ago, when I was writing a book about the United Nations, he told me that in 1992, he had warned the newly elected secretary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, that the United Nations had to do far more to resolve the Iraq situation.
The situation was this: After the Persian Gulf war, the Security Council had imposed sanctions on Iraq until it could verify that Saddam Hussein had disposed of all his weapons of mass destruction. He refused to cooperate, so sanctions remained, impoverishing and starving ordinary Iraqis, but not the Baathist elite.
To redress this, in 1996 the Security Council created the oil-for-food program. Over the next six years, the program undoubtedly helped keep alive millions of Iraqis. But, as was shown in the recent report by Charles Duelfer, the Bush administration's top weapons investigator in Iraq, the opportunities for corruption were immense and Saddam Hussein took full advantage of them.
Who was responsible? Not Kofi Annan. The United Nations officials who ran the program reported not to him but directly to the Security Council and to the oversight committee created by Resolution 661, which in 1990 authorized the removal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait by force. Why did the Security Council members, particularly the United States, not do more at the time?
It is alleged that some of the United Nations officials in charge of the program may have been corrupt. If true, this is deplorable and they must be brought to account. But again, member states were responsible for oversight, not Mr. Annan.
Now it has been revealed that Mr. Annan's son, Kojo, received money from a Swiss company involved with the oil-for-food program for years after he told his father he had severed all connections. This has caused Mr. Annan obvious grief, but is what we used to call a "Billy Carter problem" - the sins of a relative being visited on a high official. Kojo Annan's actions should not be cited, as some right-wing Americans are doing, to assert that the secretary general should resign. Kofi Annan is too honest, and too intelligent, to have influenced the procurement process in favor of a firm that had an association with his son.
In any case, far greater corruption was being practiced by many member states themselves. The Duelfer report showed that Russia, China and France were bending the rules as far as they possibly could in order to secure huge contracts for their companies. Kickbacks were flowing in every direction.
So why did Saddam Hussein's enemies, particularly senior American officials, not deal more robustly with the miasma that was developing?
Part of the reason was that Iraqi propaganda claiming that sanctions were killing millions of Iraqi children was extremely effective, and the Security Council members were therefore very anxious that the oil-for-food program continue. At the same time, of course, while everyone knew there was some corruption, no one knew the immense scale of it.
In the end, one must look at the entirety of Mr. Annan's record. The United States was correct in 1996 when it denied Mr. Boutros-Ghali a second term and helped elect Kofi Annan. Mr. Boutros-Ghali was a poor secretary general and was peevishly anti-American. Kofi Annan was a longtime admirer of the United States, and he quickly restored the United Nations' strained relations with Washington - even making peace with Senator Jesse Helms, the Republican most hostile to the organization.
Since then, he has done a great deal to restore morale within the organization and to raise its prestige; it was fitting that in 2001 he, and the United Nations, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, the war in Iraq, opposed by a majority of the Security Council, has put him in an impossible position. And many of his finest staff members were murdered by a suicide bomber in Iraq in the summer of 2003, and others have been reluctant to return.
Yes, he made a mistake recently by criticizing the American mission to clear Falluja of its terrorist nests. But at a time when the United Nations is trying to ease the American burden in Iraq, it would be unwise for Washington to have a falling-out with the organization. Further, Mr. Annan is about to start a serious effort at reforming the United Nations itself, along the lines of the report from an in-house panel released this week.
Iraq remains a deeply divisive issue. The Bush administration knows this, and should be doing everything to engage the world, not to diminish a man whom millions around the world see as their champion. If Kofi Annan is forced to leave by an American claque, the results will be catastrophic not just for the United Nations but also for Iraq - and the Bush administration's hopes of a successful foreign policy in its second term.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
9:37:31 AM ||
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#1
Kofi Annan is too honest, and too intelligent, to have influenced the procurement process in favor of a firm that had an association with his son.
Yeah, we can trust him. He's not like the others.
Keep trying, Mike.
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004 9:57
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#3
Mike, look, if it was just one thing like his son's involvement in that Oil-for-Food scam, even painting it as generously as it is done here, you'd be right.
But add in the fact he did nothing about Rwanda, is doing virtually nothing about Darfur, is giving France a pass on their behavior in the Ivory Coast, whitewashes the harrassing behavior of one of his top people towards the UN staff (he's the only Secretary General to have a no confidence vote from the staff, think about that, Mike)....precisely why should he stay there?
I can sum this whole article up with this: "Yeah, he's incompetent, but the next guy will REALLY not like the US, so you better shut up and be thankful!"
No thanks.
#4
Mike cites the NY Times, defending Kofi. Anyone else hear an echo here?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 10:10
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#5
Part of the problem with Anan is that, like many in the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, he has never held elected office or in any other way been accountable for making hard decisions with real consequences. He doesn't begin to have the moral stature or the experience of Dag Hammerskald, for instance.
He has way overstepped his authority by announcing, for instance, that our presence in Iraq is "illegal". That is not the official role of the Secretary General and he has not earned the stature to speak out at a personal level. Indeed, his role in Rwanda and Sudan suggest a significant cowardice on his part.
I have less than full confidence in Mr. Anan's reported future efforts to reform the UN. I've seen way too many bureaucracies try to do that from within and the results are, shall we say, predictable ....
#6
Here are some of the problems, from this entry on today's RB:
In the eastern Congo, scene of an operation that began as an EU military display under French leadership and is now one of the U.N.âs biggest peacekeeping missions ever, the blue helmets have apparently been routinely sexually abusing pre-pubescent refugee girls, creating a camp full of 13-year-old mothers. Months ago, the U.N. promised to issue a report on the situation. It was finally released two weeks ago, according to the BBC. The outcome: Kofi Annan released a statement saying "it is vital that the investigations be speeded up."
Uh huh. One would think Mr. Anan had no responsibility for that investigation, for the pace at which it proceeded or for speaking out on behalf of oppressed black GIRLS being abused badly by troops under UN auspices.
What is at stake is much larger than Anan or the UN per se. It is a pigpile of willful ignorance, tolerance of corruption and short-term thinking among the comfortable elite who don't mind seeing suffering continue so long as their perks and pensions aren't affected.
In Germany, the International Herald Tribune is reporting that the abuse of German army conscripts is part of a widening scandal. "The accusations involve stories of instructors dressed in Arab costumes beating recruits, giving them electric shocks and dousing them with cold water," the paper reports, even though none of the recruits are Iraqis. The report comes after scandals surfaced in German defense spending. Meanwhile, Spiegel reports that a couple of U.S. leftists have been welcomed into German courts to file a suit against Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes" committed by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
... you could be forgiven for thinking that opposition to U.S. policies in Iraq and elsewhere is a consequence of ideological or strategic disagreements. But there is no ideology any more. Thereâs only anti-Americanism, scandal, and corruption. And of course stupidity(or willful ignorance on the part of an entire culture): According to a survey of 4,000 Britons under the age of 35 reported in the Independent, 60 percent of them have never heard of Auschwitz, and of those who thought the name was familiar, three quarters really didnât know much about what had gone on there. At least theyâll never forget.
Indeed. But they are likely to repeat it as a result, if they last that long.
#7
I'm sorry. I forgot to take my gullibility pills this morning!
Kofi Annan is a crook, a thief, a liar, a fraud, and a generally unpleasant person. He is directly responsible for the oil for bombs program. He is partially - indirectly (thru his deliberate and calculated inaction) responsible for the Rwanda Genocide and the current Genocide occuring in western Sudan.
There is a reason for the vote of no confidence from his own staff.
Not only should he step down but he should be charged.
#9
If he's so impotent and inocent, why are the investigations being impeded so well by the UN stonewall?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004 11:25
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#10
It's interesting how the LLL, proclaiming the existence of conspiracies all around the world -- Halliburton, Chaney, Bush, Iraqi oil, multilateral corporations, etc -- have so far missed the odiferous whiff of conspiracy in Koko's scam.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2004 12:40
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#11
Shawcross is the 'journalist' who blamed Nixon for the creation of the Khmer Rouge. Shawcross is another LLL, an apologist for the Khmer Rouge and now an ally for the enemy coalition now at the United Nations.
All this is likely a major reason why this garbage was published.
#14
Shawcross has mellowed out a lot since "Sideshow". I think he has backed off a lot over what was in that book. And he was pro-war on Iraq. On the other hand, he is quite wrong about Annan.
#15
"...the LLL, proclaiming the existence of conspiracies all around the world..."
It's very simple, Steve, let me explain it to you:
Liberals do not believe in moral absolutes aside from "liberal is good" and "conservative is evil". So they, being the good guys in their own eyes, "cooperate" in groups. On the other hand, those nasty conservatives don't cooperate with each other -- they only "conspire" with each other. Thus Kofi must be good and you must be part of a Rantburg conspiracy to frame him.
That also explains why it's a conspiracy for the Vice President to discuss energy policy with energy company executives. He should only discuss energy policy with people so liberal that they wouldn't take jobs in the energy industry. Who better to influence energy policy than people with no energy experience?
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 13:27
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#16
Tom - "Liberals do not believe in moral absolutes"
Spot-on - they (or I should say their teachers / professors) missed Plato's points - and his prejudices dating from the enforced death of his mentor Socrates. In this interesting syllabus, check out "Lecture One: Plato" running through pages 5-12... Mildred Espree phreakin' "gets it"... sadly, many of her peers do not.
Ms Espree, among many others, employs John Leo and Meg Greenfield (believe it or not) to update the discussion of relative and absolute truth into contemporary terms. Both are heavily quoted in the uninsane academia for "getting it". Leo's Absolutophobia and Greenfield's Why Nothing is 'Wrong' Anymore (and no. I can't locate the text for either - sorry) are apparently frequently considered as a set in logic and critical thinking class syllabi - especially as a follow-on to Plato.
Here's an article with a condensed version of Leo's article to illustrate: "The "nonjudgmental," "no-fault sin," generation has been taught that each person establishes his or her own values for his or her life, and those values depend upon the situation in which one finds him or her self. Maybe this generation cannot read, write or compute, but they do know not to be "judgmental" of the sodomites, nor of those in high places."
and...
"Miss Sommers points beyond multiculturalism to a general problem of so many students coming to college "dogmatically committed to a moral relativism that offers them no grounds to think" about cheating, stealing and other moral issues. Mr. Simon calls this "absolutophobia"--the unwillingness to say that some behavior is just wrong. Many trends feed the fashionable phobia. Postmodern theory on campus denies the existence of any objective truth: All we can have are clashing perspectives, not true moral knowledge. The pop-therapeutic culture has pushed nonjudgmentalism very hard. Intellectual laziness and the simple fear of unpleasantness are also factors."
Heh, heh.
If anyone has or locates the Greenfield article - PLEASE post the text or link - THANX! These are "old" (dinosaur days) print pieces dating from the prehistoric Greenfield - Newsweek, 1986 / reprinted in Reader's Digest, 1986; Leo - US News & World Report - 1997)
#17
If I recall, Kofi DOES have the power to order people to release information concerning the current scandals, BUT REFUSES TO DO SO. Seems to me if he wants to clear himself, he'd start opening up and airing everything out. I mean, isn't THAT what the MSM and liberals the world over think conservatives in scandal should do?
Isn't sauce for the goose also sauce for the gander?
#19
At the risk of saying anything else "spot-on" and risking responsibility for osteoarthritis in .com's typing finger, let me add this:
The U.N. itself is a classic example of this entire morality issue. Scads of diplomats and bureaucrats do a complicated verbal dance designed to obscure the unpleasantness of any moral absolutes. Hence Saddam could defy the Gulf War peace agreement, defy resolution after resolution, and loot the Oil for Food program. Meanwhile the French, the Russians, and Kofi Annan's son -- to name just a few -- were on the take, conspiring (yes, conspiring) with the Saddam. So George Bush, known for straight talk and absolutism, gets painted as the bad guy because he has the unpleasantness to confront all this in terms of right and wrong and us and them.
And for that reason, Mike Sylwester, the U.N. and Kofi Annan are basically useless. You cannot take the high moral ground or make things right by making deals with the devil.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 16:03
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#20
Ptah - spot on! All he would have to do to prove he's willing is allow Volker's committe to subpoena and provide docs to Coleman's Senate Committee. The fact he won't provides a basis to suggest his culpability (and Kojo's) in malfeasance or cowardice to expose his allies
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 16:05
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#21
Read the title, knew who posted it.
What a shame Mikey's mind is so small and predictable.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/04/2004 16:08
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#22
Kofi Annan: Americaâs Man at the United Nations
#24
I heard an interview with Senator Coleman a day or 2 ago. He's definitely a good guy trying to get to the bottom of the UN oil for food scam. He was disheartened to say the least at the White House's limp wristed request that Kofi fess up.
I think it's safe to say that not all files will be opened regarding this scam that Saddam had going. It's not only Kofi's son who is implicated in the doo doo. Some Americans are said to be involved as middle men in the scam, including Marc Rich and his pal, Ben Pollner. These two jerks were given pardons by Clinton, yes, but only after pressure was brought to bear on the situation by some high profile Israelis. No one in the White House wants to go that route in the quest for truth, especially as it relates to our credibility with Iraqis starved to death by Saddam and Israeli families who lost family and friends to suicide bombers, financed by Saddam Hussein, who made a fortune through the oil for food venture. Some stones are not meant to be over turned.
#25
GC7327 I hope you nave links for all those unsubstantiated charges. Mike S will want to review them at 9:00.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004 20:47
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#26
Liberals do not believe in moral absolutes aside from "liberal is good" and "conservative is evil".
Utter bullshit. Why don't you say we drink the blood of newborn children while you are at it?
On my part I've generally seen liberals be much more absolutist in their morality than conservatives. For example realpolitik is generally considered a conservative game, and realpolitik is probably the antithesis of moral absolutism. On the other hand vegetarianism for ethical reasons tends to be considered liberal practice -- and that's a case of moral absolutism.
On another matter, it's generally been conservatives who've failed to condemn torture or atleast hesitated before doing so -- it's generally been conservatives who always estimate the results of an action and whether it helps or hurts "our side" before passing judgment on it.
Or the phrase "My nation, right or wrong". This expression of utter moral relativism (or even complete amorality); it's generally not considered a *liberal* expression.
#27
However, the war in Iraq, opposed by a majority of the Security Council, has put him in an impossible position
Not really. This isn't a balancing act but a choice between those nations pledged to uphold UNSC resolutions and those UNSC member states that were determined to undermine and thwart sanctions, thus helping achieve the eventual goal of springing Saddam from the box that they themselves and the rest of the UNSC, and Kofi, had pledged to keep him in. The latter made a mockery of UNSC resolutions, of Oil for Food, of containment, of international law.
Perhaps Kofi is simply no better than he ought to be: not terribly smart, not terribly strong, not terribly scrupulous as a manager. But don't we demand better from a Nobel Peace Laureate?
Speaking of which, why does the UNSC get blamed for UN failures while praise for UN success attaches to Kofi? Nice work if you can get it.
#28
Aris, the most egregious practitioners of realpolitik in our time have been those on the left-- not the same as liberals, agreed, but the point here is that liberalism in the US and Europe has been hijacked by the admirers of Che and Chomsky and Trotsky. They're the ones who apologize for Milosevic, who stood up for the poor Taliban against those evil bullies Rumsfeld and Bush, who refer to jihadist fascist neck-sawers and child-killers as "minutemen", the brave heroes of the Iraqi "resistance" against the wicked US hegemon.
I consider myself a liberal and I'll be the first to admit that it's long past time that liberalism cleaned its house of the smelly little fascist apologists like Jimmy Carter and the French journalist Colombani and Chomsky and Chomsky's retarded little brother, Mikey Boy.
#29
Re #28 (Lex) I consider myself a liberal and I'll be the first to admit that it's long past time that liberalism cleaned its house of the smelly little fascist apologists like Jimmy Carter and the French journalist Colombani and Chomsky and Chomsky's retarded little brother, Mikey Boy.
Lex, I know it's Saturday night, but put the bottle away for now. You can have some more tomorrrow. Other people are watching.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004 22:10
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#30
yep, and we agree, Mikey
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 22:17
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#31
Pardon me, Aris. I meant the liberals with whom I am familiar here in the U.S., not world-class liberals like yourself. By the way, do you drink the blood of newborn children?
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 22:19
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#32
Mikey, Aris and Gloming Crank all at once. I'm gonna walk my dog down to the bar.
#33
"The growing demands that Kofi Annan resign as secretary general of the United Nations are preposterous. For him to do so would be extremely damaging not only to his organization but also to the United States."
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 22:49
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#35
Tom> Only when I run out of puppies to slaughter and nuns to rape.
Pardon me, Aris. I meant the liberals with whom I am familiar here in the U.S.,
Yeah, those were the liberals I was referring to also (American ones), and likewise with the conservatives (American ones again). Easier to compare within one nation. If I used my own nation, with four big parties ranging from conservative liberalism to socialdemocratic progressiveness to communistic authoritarianism, the comparison would be much more elaborate and confusing. I'm simplifying.
lex> I've seen apologia of dictators and murderers on both sides (right-wing apologia for Putin's actions on Chechnya for example, right-wing apologia for the Shah of Iran, Pinochet, the Contras, even the Apartheid).
The kind of far left that would support the Islamofascists isn't any more indicative of mainstream liberalism than the KKK is indicative of mainstream conservatism.
#36
The kind of far left that would support the Islamofascists isn't any more indicative of mainstream liberalism than the KKK is indicative of mainstream conservatism.
You're blind to what's happened in the US Democratic Party during the last two years. Take another look at the 2004 US Democratic Convention's guests of honor: one has traveled to and praised lavishly the wasteland that is North Korea, the other praises Zarqawi's fascists as heroic "minutemen" who will inevitably triumph over us. And also look at the positions of what has become one of the most influential grass-roots organizations for the Democratic Party, MoveOn.org.
Before you respond, you should learn more about he history of the anti-communist liberal Democratic Party wing that triumphed in Truman's day over the communist-appeasing Wallaceite wing.
Read carefully Peter Beinart's piece on this in the latest issue of The New Republic before you reply. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041213&s=beinart121304
Government supporters in the west African nation of Ivory Coast are threatening to stage mass demonstrations to demand the withdrawal of French peace-keepers.
"Pack your cheese and get the hell out!"
Armed youths known as the Young Patriots are calling on French troops responsible for the killing of civilians to leave Ivory Coast. The supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo say France can no longer be regarded as a neutral force.
Earlier this week, France admitted that its soldiers killed up to 20 people during violent demonstrations in the commercial capital Abidjan in November. South African President Thabo Mbeki has arrived in Ivory Coast on a four day peace mission. Mr Mbeki is holding talks with Government, rebel, opposition and French officials and he will report back to the African Union.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
9:30:18 PM ||
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#1
"Pack your cheese and get the hell out!"
Oui! Truer words were never said...........Fred, heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/04/2004 3:22
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Islamic fundamentalism is causing a 'clash of civilisations' between liberal democracies and Muslims
DAYS before she was due to be married, Ghofrane Haddaoui, 23, refused the advances of a teenage boy and paid with her life. Lured to waste ground near her home in Marseilles, the Tunisian-born Frenchwoman was stoned to death, her skull smashed by rocks hurled by at least two young men, according to police.
Although the circumstances of the murder are not clear, the horrific "lapidation" of the young Muslim stoked a French belief that the country can no longer tolerate the excesses of an alien culture in its midst.
A few days ago, pop celebrities joined 2,000 people in a march through Marseilles denouncing violence against women, particularly in the immigrant-dominated housing estates. The protest against Islamic "obscurantism" and the "fundamentalism that imprisons women" was led by a group of Muslim women who call themselves Ni Putes ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissive).
The movement, which emerged three years ago to defend Muslim women, is spawning similar groups across Europe, supported by a mainstream opinion that has recently abandoned political correctness and wants to halt the inroads of Islam.
From Norway to Sicily, governments, politicians and the media are laying aside their doctrines of diversity and insisting that "Islamism", as the French call the fundamentalist form that pervades the housing estates, is incompatible with Europe's liberal values.
The shift is not just a reaction to exceptional violence such as the Madrid train bombings, or the murder of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamic Dutch film-maker, by a Dutch-Moroccan. It stems from a belief that more muscular methods are needed to integrate Europe's 13-million strong Muslim community and to combat creeds that breed extremists and ultimately, terrorism. With mixed results, governments are trying to quell the scourge by co- opting Muslim leaders to promote a moderate European Islam.
In Germany, with its three million — mainly Turkish — Muslims, and France, with its five million of mainly North African descent, television viewers were shocked when local young Muslims approved of Van Gogh's murder. "If you insult Islam, you have to pay," was a typical response.
"The notion of multiculturalism has fallen apart," said Angela Merkel, leader of Germany's Christian Democrat opposition. "Anyone coming here must respect our constitution and tolerate our Western and Christian roots." Italy's traditional tolerance towards immigrants has been eroded by fear of Islamism. An Ipsos poll in September showed that 48 per cent of Italians believed that a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and the West was under way and that Islam was "a religion more fanatical than any other".
Similar views can be heard across traditionally tolerant Scandinavia — and no longer just from the populist rightwing party's such as Pia Kjaersgaard's People's Party in Denmark. The centre-right Government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has equipped Denmark with Europe's toughest curbs on immigration, largely aimed at people from Muslim countries. In Sweden, where anti-Muslim feeling is running high and mosques have been burnt, schools have been authorised to ban pupils who wear full Islamic head-cover, although the measure comes nowhere near France's new ban on the hijab in all state schools.
In Spain, with a rapidly rising population of nearly a million Muslims, the backlash has been less visible despite the bombings, but thousands demonstrated in Seville this week against plans to build a mosque in the city centre. The Government has also won approval by sending 500 extra police to monitor preachers and Muslim associations.
Police across the EU are closely watching prayer meetings in makeshift mosques in cities and housing estates, and media accounts of the jihadist, anti-Western and anti-semitic doctrines of the imams are fuelling public anger. In Germany, pressure is growing for sermons to be preached in German rather than Turkish or Arabic. Hidden TV cameras recently broadcast an imam in a Berlin mosque telling worshippers that "Germans can only expect to rot in the fires of hell because they are nonbelievers".
The debate over the limits to free speech is loudest in France, which now acknowledges the failure of its "republican" approach to integration whereby immigrants were supposed to blend harmoniously into society and not exist in separate communities.
Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister, is deporting foreign imams who support wife-beating and other uncivilised practices. This week the Government moved to ban a Lebanon-based television channel for anti-semitic broadcasting. The left wing, which long shunned criticism of Islam as the stock-in-trade of Jean-Marie le Pen, the far-Right leader, now denounces the "totalitarian", anti-feminist, antisemitic doctrines of the fundamentalists. Jacques Julliard, a leading left-wing commentator, said the Left's longstanding tolerance had been used as "an agent for the penetration of Islamic intolerance".
Some on the Left have also taken strong exception to the concept of "Islamophobia", a supposed sin defined by EU anti-racism watchdogs as akin to anti-Semitism.
The French consensus was symbolised by the 80 per cent public support for the head-scarf ban, which started with little trouble in September. While many Muslims felt stigmatised, the Government took comfort from the approval of the ban by a substantial minority of the 10 per cent of the population that is of immigrant origin.
Among them is Fadela Amara, a Muslim town councillor from Clermond Ferrand, who heads the Ni Putes, Ni Soumises movement. "The veil is an instrument of oppression that is imposed by the green fascists," she says. Mme Amara, who led the Marseilles march, advocates an "open Islam, an Islam of French culture a bit Gallic around the edges". This is also the aim of the state, which two years ago created a national Muslim Council to promote moderate mainstream Islam. The council was set up by Nicolas Sarkozy, the then Interior Minister, who now heads the UMP, President Chirac's centre-right party.
M Sarkozy has just caused a stir by going a stage further, proposing that France's rigorously secular state fund the building of mosques. "Whether I like it or not, Islam is the second biggest religion in France. So you have to integrate it by making it more French," he said. To general dismay, however, the national council is coming increasingly under the effective control of radicals.
#2
Islam is the second biggest religion in France. So you have to integrate it by making it more French
or by making France more Islamic. Which will it be?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004 11:31
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Mrs. Davis, if the author of this article is to be credited, his take is that Islam will have to be more French. Otherwise, the worm will turn, with the result that the Muslims are going to discover, by hard, first-hand experience, how the Jooos feel when they get persecuted.
Not, of course, that they would actually LEARN anything from it...
#4
It will be interesting to see what happens in the recession thats coming in Euroland. People will tolerate things in good times that they are forced to do something about in bad times.
#5
..the horrific âlapidationâ of the young Muslim stoked a French belief that the country can no longer tolerate the excesses of an alien culture in its midst.
Problem is, that paricular "belief" isn't held as strongly as the belief that the filthy, uncivilized Americans must be opposed by the Phrench as much as possible, wherever possible.
sigh... No gloating here -- these people are so clueless they deserve our pity more than our scorn. Again, it's really very very simple: our religious minorities succeed brilliantly here because the state does not get in their way.
What the Europeans simply can't grasp is that the ultimate solution here is not bogus, corporatist attempts at co-optation (like Sarko's ridiculous notion of state-dominated mosques) but a liberalized economy and flexible labor markets.
Give entrepreneurs and small business owners and small banks and lower-income workers real opportunities to get ahead. End the unions' stranglehold on entry-level employment that causes absurd unemployment rates for young immigrants. Get the state out of the way, and give huge incentives for hardworking, entrepreneurial strivers. Deport resenters. Shower opportunities upon the strivers.
In the eastern Congo, scene of an operation that began as an EU military display under French leadership and is now one of the U.N.'s biggest peacekeeping missions ever, the blue helmets have apparently been routinely sexually abusing pre-pubescent refugee girls, creating a camp full of 13-year-old mothers. Months ago, the U.N. promised to issue a report on the situation. It was finally released two weeks ago, according to the BBC. The outcome: Kofi Annan released a statement saying "it is vital that the investigations be speeded up." Meanwhile, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, an effort to investigate the atrocious killing of at least 20 civilians in Ivory Coast by French soldiers operating under a U.N. mandate is being opposed by a member of Chirac's party. Bruno Jose Lebeau's blog draws the instructive parallel between what the French army did in Abidjan and what went on in Abu Ghraib.
In New York, Kofi himself is the star of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal, of course. The world's biggest humanitarian heist is playing to amused readers in Paris. Le Monde reports that every European's favorite bureaucrat (along with the sacred bureaucracy for which he works) was under fire from the likes of Sen. Norm Coleman, National Review, and a roster of conservative allies. Since the French role in the scandal has been largely unreported, Le Monde's story has a taint of the witch-hunt about it. Besides, according to an AFP report on expatica.com, Chirac and Schroeder are behind Annan 100 percent. (Annan is frantically looking for his wallet.)
In Brussels, fraud is, as always, on the rise in the EU, according to the EU Observer. The report glosses over the EU's detention of Stern investigative reporter Hans-Martin Tillack and the seizure of his files. Tillack's reporting focuses on EU corruption. Two weeks ago, I noted here news reports that showed that almost none of the EU's spending could be warranted to be fraud-free.
In Germany, the International Herald Tribune is reporting that the abuse of German army conscripts is part of a widening scandal. "The accusations involve stories of instructors dressed in Arab costumes beating recruits, giving them electric shocks and dousing them with cold water," the paper reports, even though none of the recruits are Iraqis. The report comes after scandals surfaced in German defense spending. Meanwhile, Spiegel reports that a couple of U.S. leftists have been welcomed into German courts to file a suit against Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes" committed by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
I haven't even gotten to the EU-Palestinian money scam and all the rest, but I just can't go on — mostly because I'm not paid by the word. The point is you could be forgiven for thinking that opposition to U.S. policies in Iraq and elsewhere is a consequence of ideological or strategic disagreements. But there is no ideology any more. There's only anti-Americanism, scandal, and corruption. And of course stupidity: According to a survey of 4,000 Britons under the age of 35 reported in the Independent, 60 percent of them have never heard of Auschwitz, and of those who thought the name was familiar, three quarters really didn't know much about what had gone on there. At least they'll never forget.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
9:24:48 AM ||
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From The New York Times
A Pentagon investigation of interrogation techniques at military detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq concludes that senior defense officials exercised little or no oversight of interrogation policies outside of Guantänamo Bay, leaving field commanders to develop some practices that were unauthorized, according to a draft summary of the classified report. The inquiry by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church, the naval inspector general, found that by January 2003, military interrogators in Afghanistan were using techniques similar to those that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had approved for use only at Guantänamo Bay. They included stress positions, and sleep and light deprivation.
But when the command in Afghanistan submitted in January its list of techniques to the military's Joint Staff and Central Command, as requested, and never heard any complaints, it "interpreted this silence to mean that the techniques were unobjectionable to higher headquarters and therefore could be considered approved policy," the summary said.
Nor did Pentagon or Central Command officials offer the high command in Baghdad much help in developing its interrogation procedures, the summary said, noting that by September 2003, the headquarters "was left to struggle with these issues on its own in the midst of fighting an insurgency."
The investigation, ordered in May by Mr. Rumsfeld, also reaffirms two important findings of previous military inquiries into detainee abuse: that at least 20 substantiated cases of abuse occurred during interrogations, contrary to the Pentagon's original claims; and that the Central Intelligence Agency kept some 30 "ghost detainees" at Abu Ghraib prison and at other detention centers in Iraq off official rosters. Other investigations have found this practice was to hide the prisoners from Red Cross inspectors.
The Church report, however, does not blame the detainee abuses in Iraq and elsewhere on the flawed interrogation policies, blaming mainly a breakdown in "good order and discipline." It found no evidence that senior Pentagon or White House officials pressured interrogators to use abusive tactics to wring information from recalcitrant detainees to help fight the insurgency. .....
A December 2003 report on intelligence-gathering operations in Iraq criticized the treatment of high-value prisoners like Tariq Aziz, a former top aide to Saddam Hussein, who were held at Camp Cropper, a secret detention and interrogation center on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport. Its author, Stuart A. Herrington, a retired Army colonel who visited Iraqi in 2003 at the request of the military's top intelligence officer in Iraq, called the prisoners' accommodations "primitive." He said this treatment was not only counterproductive to gaining information from high-ranking prisoners, but might also violate the Geneva Conventions' protections for treating prisoners with regard to rank and stature.
The report also disclosed that C.I.A. officers in Iraq were ordered to stay away from a separate military interrogation center operated by a secret unit of Special Operation Forces, Task Force 121, because agency officials feared the military might be abusing prisoners. The concerns about abuse were passed up the chain of command, but in February, an investigator, Lt. Col. Natalie Lee, found no evidence that the unit had abused detainees. .....
The Church report, which based its conclusions on more than 800 interviews with personnel who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba, contrasted the rigorous review of interrogation techniques at Guantänamo Bay with a much more haphazard process in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Church report concluded that despite their similarities, "these techniques did not migrate from Guantänamo Bay to Afghanistan," as another inquiry by an independent panel headed by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger suggested in August, the summary said. Instead, it said, the techniques were developed independently by interrogators in both places who took a broad reading of the Army's field manual for interrogations.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
9:24:28 AM ||
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#1
military interrogators in Afghanistan were using techniques similar to those that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had approved for use only at Guantánamo Bay. They included stress positions, and sleep and light deprivation.
Can we all agree this is unacceptable? We must go back in history to the only "good war" according to leftists. So none of this "stress positions, and sleep and light deprivation". Back to the acceptable field interrogations done by knife and pistol, followed by summary field executions. Oh, and shoot any Japanese jihadi trying to surrender. It's only a trick to get the G.I.s close enough to explode a hand grenade.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 12:29
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We must go back in history to the only "good war" according to leftists.
The Red vs. the Whites?
From an American point of view, here's the most astounding thing about George Galloway's libel action against the Daily Telegraph for printing captured Iraqi documents that purported to show that the left-wing Member of the British Parliament had requested and received large sums of money from the Saddam Hussein regime: Galloway never challenged the authenticity of these documents.
Galloway has won 150,000 pounds plus costs because under British law, it was not enough for the documents to be genuine. Under British law, the Telegraph was obliged additionally to prove that the claims in the document were true: ie, that Saddam not only said he'd paid the money to Galloway, but that he actually had paid the money to Galloway.
Such an investigation would of course have taken many additional weeks or months after the discovery of the documents: weeks or months in which the public would have been denied knowledge of the documents' contents or even existence.
According to the judge in the case, Justice Eady, the Telegraph had a qualified privilege to print the documents without first proving them true — but only if it reported them "responsibly." Responsibility of course is a quality found very much in the eye of the beholder, and judges may well have a different definition of "responsible" journalism than do journalists or their readers and viewers.
Absorb all this for a minute. It's true of course that the British press can be awfully hysterical. You can understand why a judge might want to express his displeasure at the media's excesses. But can it really be the case that the courts of a free country expect that captured enemy official documents of vital public moment be left to languish in prolonged secrecy — or else be handled as if with asbestos tongs by reporters who decline to take a stand one way or another on the documents' contents?
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
9:20:50 AM ||
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#1
Turning Rathergate on its head - real but discredited.
#2
Responsibility of course is a quality found very much in the eye of the beholder
And it's fuzzy laws like this which allow judges to award victory entirely according to their own political agenda. No one reading the Telegraph's reports was obliged to accept the Telegraph's interpretation of the documents as the only valid one. Did the Telegraph actually extrapolate so much that it is known to have lied? No! Not at all.
I'll bet the Telegraph and others are burrowing into Galloway's dirty dealings as we speak. The next crop of exposes will be devastating and watertight. Galloway's bought himself a bit of breathing space, that's all.
#3
What Bulldog said. The real investigation's only just beginning, and this time it's not just a few journalists but a Senate Committee with a huge staff and full subpoena power. Plus we can expect NY State Atty Elliott "Pitbull" Spitzer getting his chops into this at some point as well. This man brought Sandy Weill and Citigroup low; Galloway will be child's play for him.
IF Democrats want to run around like fools trying to persuade voters in red America that they are kissing cousins to Billy Graham, Minnie Pearl and Li'l Abner, that's their problem. Pandering, after all, is what politicians do, especially politicians as desperate as the Democrats. But when TV news organizations start repositioning themselves to pander to Nascar dads and "moral values" voters, it's a problem for everyone.
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004
9:14:03 AM ||
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#1
This dude needs to travel to Florida for some P.E.S.T. treatment.
Mwaahahaha!
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004 9:16
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Oh, just in case some of you have yet to hear of P.E.S.T. it stands for "post election selection trauma". :D
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004 9:18
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as a pundit on world news, politics, and foreign policy, Mr. Rich is an excellent former theater critic. Peter Principle writ large
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 9:33
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#4
I'ma here a waiting until you see that I am you're rightful Leige Lord and return the Mighty Hemi into it's rightful place.
Meanwhile have Goodies.
Posted by: Richard I ||
12/04/2004 11:01
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#5
Don't listen to Richard, he's been running on the high side way too long! Crazy! Nutz! Damn it, give me back my crayon. Damn! The place is full of screeching NASCAR newbies, make 'em stop! Where's Bobby I? Bud Moore? Help!
#6
In the past, they ignored the average American and set their sights on the Christian right. We all see how effectively they villified them. They will now proceed to do the same to the "Average American". Expect to become ashamed that your family fights over a remote and shops at KMart or WalMart. Do you take weenie dishes to pot-lucks? Expect that dish to be viewed as white-trash, instead of tasty. And soon, at local pot lucks, it will disappear as no one wants to be scoffed at.
Don't think they can do it? Think again. Look how the jet-set, living in 6,000 square foot mansions made the average joe feel ashamed and guilty about driving an SUV.
It's a shame. They can and will do it. They will begin to spew their most vicious venom before they exit, poisoning anything and everything they touch. The ordinary American is now their target, and they will poison the very waters we drink. Count on it.
One of the secondary benefits of Wâs victory is watching weasels like Rich corkscrew themselves into the ground with righteous (lefteous?) indignation not merely that they could have backed the wrong horse, but that there are people (peasants!) in fly-over land that (quelle horreur!) might not recognize their obvious mental and moral superiority.
â¦most Americans continue to tell pollsters that the nation is on the wrong trackâ¦
Really, Frank? Which polls are those? What were the relevant questions? And who exactly performed these polls â maybe the geniuses that did so well at the poll exits on election day?
â¦the networks were often cautious about challenging government propaganda even before the electionâ¦
They were too busy concocting their own, Frank, and doing a damn poor job of it too.
Kevin Sites, the freelance TV cameraman who caught a marine shooting an apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque ⦠avoided any snap judgment pending the Marinesâ own investigation of the shooting, cautioning that a war zone is "rife with uncertainty and confusion."
By calling the Iraqi âan apparently unarmedâ¦prisoner in a mosqueâ you do manage to sneak in your own snap judgement rather nicely. From what Iâve seen of that film, there was nothing apparent about whether the Iraqi was unarmed, whether he had surrendered already, or whether he intended to surrender.
Thatâs it Frank. Keep it up. Iâm sure youâll have no problem maintaining this insufferably arrogant screed until at least the next election. Dismissively describe the supporters of the President as âNASCAR fans,â not just now, in the aftermath of the election, but at every opportunity that feces-flected rag of a newspaper gives you. Being treated with utter contempt and preening condescension by the likes of you is so very persuasive.
As of right now, I figure the 2006 mid-term election is Wâs to lose.
Posted by: Darth VAda ||
12/04/2004 12:08
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listening to the Left I am reminded of General Burgoyne after the Battle of Saratoga. He couldn't believe that his beautiful army (which was going to cleave the Colonies and end the Rebellion) had been beaten by "a rabble in arms".
#10
Here's a contrarian view: Frank Rich is pretty idiotic on most subjects but he does know media, and he's dead-on in his larger point, which is that the MSM's born-again posture is complete horsesh*t. No more convincing or serious than Kerry boasting about how he shot a goose (or did he?).
I think Rich would respect these blow-dried idiots more-- I know I certainly would-- if they would simply do as NPR does and tacitly say, "Hey, we're going to give you a liberal slant because that's who we are and what we're about, and if you don't like it, flip the dial over to Fox or Rush."
The corollary of this kind of brutal honesty is a certain humility: instead of saying, "We're the Almighty MSM that tells you how to think, that brings down presidents and turns military victory into ignominious defeat", the little man behind the curtain recognizes that he competes with Tom Wretchard and VDH and LGF and Kos and the rest of us. If he does a bang-up job, then he'll win the respect of red-state AMerica, and probably blue-state America as well. If he continues to serve us superficial slop with heavy dollops of NYTimes left-lib groupthink, then he'll join the ranks of the Air America nobodies.
Sounds like how a marketplace for ideas should work, doesn't it? Good for Frank Rich. Bring it on, and may the man with the best ideas and the best reporting and the sharpest commentary win.
#11
Peggy Noonan nailed it in her latest WSJ piece on Rather-- he used to be her boss, in 1981-1984, and she's actually somewhat sympathetic to him.
In her view what Brian Whatshisname and Peter Al-Jennings are doing is repeating the mistake that young Dan Rather, a Jacksonian son of the South if ever there was one, made forty years ago. Instead of trusting his Jacksonian instincts and superb nose for news, young Danbo was so eager to cast off the redneck taint and gain acceptance in Manhattan media circles that he adopted their cloistered point of view, whole cloth. Had he been content to be a rather sensationalist muckraking man of the people, Rather could well have become a truly independent, interesting, unpredictable reporter-- ie what every reporter is supposed to be. As opposed to being a shill for Proper Manhattan-Beltway Opinion.
Hundreds of people have fled the towns of Latifiyah and Mahmoudya, southeast of the capital, Baghdad, Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) officials told IRIN, as US and British troops continue to battle to flush out insurgents. The towns' streets are empty and people from the area said that basic supplies such as water were hard to come by. Dr Jaffer Hussein, a medical official from the main hospital of Latifiyah, told IRIN that they had run out of medicines and surgical materials. Since the insurgents had taken control of the hospital two weeks ago, they had not received any help from the government, he said. Also many injured people had to be taken to Baghdad because they couldn't perform surgical procedures due to the shortages. "We are receiving help only from NGOs like the IRCS and the International Committee of Red Cross [ICRC]. They are the only groups that are sending us some material," Hussein said.
He added many children were suffering from dehydration and malnutrition and pregnant women were forced to give birth at home due to insecurity.
The fighting has been taking place across the towns for two weeks and insurgents insist they will only leave when US and British troops leave the area. Nearly 100 families have taken refuge in a mosque 10 km from the city and are receiving supplies from people in the neighbourhood and the IRCS. Last week a convoy carrying potable water, food and medicine left the IRCS office in Baghdad bound for those in the mosque and some 1,500 others camped in areas 10 km south of Latifiyah. "It is very critical and we don't know how long we can supply those people in the mosque. God bless them. Every day more families are coming and asking for help," Sheikh Muhammad Jamal, from the Arassul mosque where the displaced are staying, told IRIN.
The insurgents have taken control of police stations in the towns and explosions and attacks can be heard from a distance. "We hope that the government will take urgent action over this situation," Sheikh Jamal added.
The headline suggests that W doesn't seem concerned about Binny. It's about Perv's visit to the US. He oftens gave high profile gifts whenever Powell or Rummy visited Pakland. Maybe he delivered the big prize in person?
Bush Mum on Pakistan's Hunt for Bin Laden
By JENNIFER LOVEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Saturday defended Pakistan's cooperation in the hunt for Osama bin Laden despite the inability of U.S. and Pakistani troops to find the al-Qaida leader who, Bush once declared, was wanted dead or alive.
The trail has gone cold in the more than three years since U.S. forces toppled the Taliban, bin Laden's patrons in Afghanistan, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bin Laden, who masterminded the strikes, is believed to be hiding in the wild mountainous region along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Oval Office meeting between Bush and President Pervez Musharraf came just days after Pakistan's army said it was pulling out of one important area along the border. Still, Bush had nothing but praise for Pakistan and Musharraf as critical to the search and the overall fight against terrorism.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/04/2004
8:38:32 PM ||
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#1
Probably not.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/04/2004 23:10
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Is the IAEA the German army in a sequel to Hogan's Heroes?
The world nuclear watchdog dropped a claim that Iran bought large quantities of a metal used to trigger explosions in atomic weapons after bowing to objections from Teheran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency at first accepted Western intelligence reports that the Islamic republic had bought "huge amounts" of beryllium from "a number of nations", but removed the claim from its final report on Iranian compliance with nuclear non-proliferation rules, published 10 days ago.
An earlier draft of the IAEA report, seen by The Telegraph, said that Iran had manufactured material to use with the beryllium that it had purchased as a "nuclear initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons".
A spokesman for the IAEA conceded that the agency had removed any mention of beryllium from its report, but said that the change was insignificant. She said: "There are all kinds of technical details in first drafts which are later removed. That's part of the drafting process."
Jacky Sanders, the American ambassador to the IAEA, however, said that Iran's assertions that it has never acquired or used beryllium were no longer reliable.
The climbdown by the IAEA reflected Teheran's insistence that it had never acquired or used beryllium, and helped Iran escape immediate referral to the UN Security Council over its nuclear ambitions. Instead, the IAEA board passed a resolution demanding that the country suspend uranium enrichment while the agency inspects declared nuclear sites.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004
8:38:08 PM ||
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It would be impossible to hold elections in Iraq in January if the security situation remains as precarious as it is, U.N. adviser Lakhdar Brahimi told a Dutch newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. How nice of the UN to decide when Iraq can hold elections. As if the UN has any part of turning Iraq into a decent country.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process. They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them," Brahimi, architect of the political process leading to elections in Iraq, told NRC Handelsblad. Given how much the Indians like to blow each other up, maybe we should be occupying them, as clearly they aren't ready either.
Asked if it was possible to hold elections as conditions exist now, Brahimi said: "If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so. It is a mess in Iraq. The international community, hopefully together with the Americans, must help the Iraqis to clean up this mess. If you let it deteriorate, the situation will become even more dangerous."
In the latest strike against Iraq's shaky security forces, twin suicide car bombs blew up outside a police station near Baghdad's Green Zone on Saturday, killing at least three people and wounding more than 40. Many among Iraq's 20 percent Sunni Arab minority -- from which the insurgency draws the core of its support -- have called for a delay in the elections, saying that violence in Sunni areas will prevent the polls being free and fair. Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule, fear they will be marginalised in the new Iraq, as the 60 percent Shi'ite majority exercises new found political clout. Shi'ites insist the elections should go ahead on time, arguing that any delay would be a surrender to terrorism. Iraq's Kurds in the north say they are ready for elections, but would accept a delay if others wanted it. You know, we'll take the UN seriously when they actual do something other than involve themselves in the worst vices of humanity. I guess that means never though. Hatip - Drudge
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 23:23
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I would rather see the US spend the money it contributes to the UN on something useful like building a new wing on the Lawrence Welk museum than for paying the salary of dolts like this.
From Compass Direct
An Egyptian Christian jailed without charges since March 2003 has become emotionally disturbed and lost vision in one eye from torture and lack of medical treatment, his widowed mother declared last week. Initially detained for 52 days at Lazogly, Cairo's notorious State Security headquarters, Hany Samir Tawfik has been continuously jailed since he was re-arrested 21 months ago, on March 3, 2003. Tawfik, 28, was arrested at the Cairo international airport upon his return from Saudi Arabia on June 15, 2002. Saudi authorities had reportedly deported him back to Egypt, saying the Coptic Christian had been suspected of wanting to marry a Muslim girl and convert her to Christianity. .....
However, no known charges were filed against Tawfik before an Egyptian court. So after nearly two months of what the young man's family and acquaintances described as "severe mistreatment" at Lazogly, he was set free. But seven months later, he was again arrested by security police, who sent him to Torah Prison near Helwan, outside Cairo. Several months later, he was transferred to Al-Gharbaliat Prison, located in the desert near Alexandria, where he now remains. According to Tawfik's family and church sources, police re-arrested him when he refused their demands to spy on an evangelical Christian pastor known to be ministering among Muslim converts to Christianity. "Hany said after the police picked him up, they showed him the house of this pastor and said they would only release him if he agree to spy on him and his activities," his mother told Compass. "When he refused, they put him in jail."
The pastor in question confirmed to Compass that he had known Tawfik three years ago, when he began attending a Coptic evangelical church. "I consider him my spiritual son," the pastor said.
Although Egypt's constitution and laws do not specifically prohibit proselytizing, individuals suspected of helping Muslims convert to Christianity are subject to heavy police harassment and regularly arrested for either "insulting heavenly religions" or "inciting sectarian strife." First registered as a political prisoner, Tawfik was re-classified in January 2004 under criminal statutes. His most recent case file number, issued by the Abbassiya Police Station in Cairo on August 3, was listed as No. 13826. Although lawyers have submitted court objections to Tawfik's detention without charges, the police have used Emergency Law regulations to re-arrest him every 45 days, minutes after the court orders him released. Security authorities approached by the local press and diplomatic missions claim Tawfik remains in jail awaiting a decision from the interior minister on his case, which allegedly involves issues of "national security."
Tawfik's mother said State Security officer Ahmet Mustafa told her bluntly, "Forget your son!" But he refused to say why he was under arrest. The officer claimed he had no jurisdiction over her son, whose case he said was being handled in person by Egypt's interior minister, Habib el-Adly. Tawfik's mother has appealed directly to Interior Minister Habib el-Adly to release her son in an open letter published by two Cairo newspapers. Watani newspaper printed her letter of appeal on October 17, followed by the liberal El-Osboa weekly on November 8.
His mother's persistence to win her son's release has brought repercussions from State Security officials. Once last year, two police officers knocked at her door at 4 a.m., forcing her to get up and accompany them to the police station to "discuss" her son's case with them. "I have been suffering over my son for nearly two years now, without any hope," Tawfik's mother said.
Her son has been brought back to a police station in Cairo's Shobra district at least twice, presumably to appear briefly in court. Although unable to visit him since he was moved to Al-Gharbaliat, his mother has been allowed to meet him a few times in the police station, she said. Tawfik complained of "black water in my right eye" this past spring in letters shown to Compass which he wrote from prison. "He has lost complete use of his right eye now," his mother said. Tawfik's mother said her son told her the police had taken away his Bible and destroyed it in front of him. "He cried when the authorities ripped it up and then went on to hit and beat him," she said. "He said they told him he was a 'special' case, so they had been told to give him extra suffering." ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
6:00:30 PM ||
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From Compass Direct
Members of a Protestant church in Indonesia are still waiting for resolution on an incident with Muslim neighbors, who attacked the church on October 24. The church was then closed down by authorities. According to Komintra News, the violent incident was the third since the Nusantara Indonesia Christian Church was established in 1997 in Puri Kosambi, Karawang. Approximately 500 attackers identified in press reports as members of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI) vandalized the church, causing damage to the roof, sound system, pews, doors and windows. As a result, the congregation ceased to hold meetings. A day later, the FPI approached local authorities and asked that the church be closed permanently. Meanwhile, results of a survey published in The Jakarta Post showed that 40.8 percent of Muslim respondents do not agree with Christians conducting worship services in a majority Muslim neighborhood.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
5:30:51 PM ||
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Please correct "Indonesial" to "Indonesian".
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004 17:58
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The Jakarta Post showed that 40.8 percent of Muslim respondents do not agree with Christians conducting worship services in a majority Muslim neighborhood.
Evidence gained by torture can be used by the US military review panels deciding the fate of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the US Government has conceded. Lawyers acting for Australian detainees in Cuba have called on the Australian Government to renounce the practice. About 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled evidence gained through torture was inadmissible. Deputy associate Attorney-General, Brian Boyle, has told the District Court in Washington DC, that the Guantanamo review panels are allowing such evidence. Michael Ratner, a human right lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, says he was shocked with the Bush administration's admission. "Never in my 30 years of being a human rights lawyer would I ever expected to be in the state that we've arrived at," he said.
Mr Ratner says the Howard Government must condemn torture and the use of evidence produced from it. Two Australians, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, are being held at Guantanamo Bay. The US military lawyer appointed to defend Hicks, says the Australian Government should do more to ensure his client gets a fair trial. He says Mr Hicks will not get a fair trial before the Commission and the Australian Government is not doing anything about it. He says there must be rules of evidence. "This Military Commission system is designed to allow evidence that could have been obtained under torture to be used as evidence against people," he said. "Rules of evidence and procedures have been designed to keep uncredible evidence out and credible evidence in". Maj Mori says Australia should protest against the Commission process like Britain has and hold an inquiry into its legal standards. Major Michael Mori is in Melbourne for a seminar on legal tactics.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:45:26 PM ||
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#1
I've not looked at any of these guidelines, but Iâll bet there is a two level analysis going on.
1. Evidence gained through torture would be admissible before a tribunal determining whether a detainee is an âenemy combatantâ who should be held at least until the end of hostilities; and
2. In any trial on the merits of criminal charges (none of which have been brought against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, yet, if Iâm correct) such evidence would be suppressed.
Weâre still at the stage that is equivalent to a bail hearing, where all kinds of questionable evidence can be relied upon, and where the tribunal has incredible discretion.
#2
First off, I don;t think these individuals have any legal status under U.S. law. And under the geneva convention we are allowed to interrogate prisoners. The Human Rights Watch declared most (if not all) of our iterrorgation methods to be forms of torture. This is a crock and most of the world knows it.
#3
No CS it doesn't know it because most of the world doesn't know what torture even is. The average person just gulps down the crap these LLL orgs and the media spew out. The average person never even looks into what they are calling torture. If they did most of this crap would go away.
#4
Other things frowned upon by the chain of command, via AE Brain. Personal favorite:
203. âTo conquer the earth with an army of flying monkeys" is a bad long term goal to give the re-enlistment NCO.
About 150 people, backed by D-day veterans, have demonstrated against plans to build a garbage dump near a site of the 1944 allied landings. During the war, parachutists and British commandos landed at Maizeret. The demonstrators, who include local politicians and former soldiers, have waved banners demanding that the site be preserved as a "place of memory". The association of veterans of the 46th Royal Marine Commando have also expressed their concern in a letter to the regional governor. They say that as the recent 60th anniversary of D-day commemorations showed, thousands of Normandy veterans are still alive and would be distraught at seeing a dump at a place where French and allied lives had been lost fighting Nazism. Maizeret lies just outside Sannerville, which was evacuated of its civilian population and then totally destroyed in a massive bombing raid in July 1944 designed to assist a breakout from the landing beaches.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:39:10 PM ||
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A group of 10 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are waging a legal battle over their detention have no constitutional right to do so, US Government lawyers said and urged a judge to dismiss their cases. Lawyers for the men being held as enemy combatants at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, argued that their clients have the right to a fair trial and should be given the proper opportunity to defend themselves. They urged US District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green to deny the Government's motion to dismiss the cases and to declare invalid the current military tribunal process at Guantanamo because it fails to provide due process of law.
Government lawyers told Judge Green the prisoners - who have all been deemed "enemy combatants" by a US military tribunal, which means they are not entitled to the protections normally given to prisoners of war - did not have the right to be heard in court. "We think that the enemy petitioners... have no constitutional rights," said Brian Boyle, principal deputy associate attorney-general at the Justice Department. "They are enemy combatants."
Human rights groups and lawyers for the prisoners say the tribunals are unfair because they do not permit the prisoners to see the evidence against them or allow them access to legal counsel. The International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the US military of using tactics "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, a claim the Pentagon rejects. Judge Green focused on the concept of "enemy combatants," and she posed a series of hypothetical scenarios to Mr Boyle over who could be considered an enemy combatant. In one answer, Mr Boyle said an old woman in Switzerland who unknowingly gave money to an Afghan charity that passed the money to Al Qaeda could be viewed as an enemy combatant and therefore could be jailed and subject to a military tribunal. "The Government showed its true colours today," said Barbara Olshansky of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, one of the attorneys who argued for the prisoners. "If under this definition of enemy combatant a Swiss granny who gave money to charity can be detained indefinitely at Guantanamo, then anyone who unintentionally acts in a way the Government finds suspicious is in danger of losing their freedom," she said.
More than 500 people are being held at Guantanamo Bay, after being detained during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and in other operations in the US "war against terrorism". Most of the suspected Al Qaeda members and Taliban fighters being held at the facility have not been charged or named as eligible for trial in a military tribunal. The tribunals, formally called military commissions, were authorised by President George W Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Thomas Wilner, one of the detainees' lawyers, cited a Supreme Court ruling in June that terror suspects had the right to use the US judicial system to contest their confinement. "The world is waiting to see if American justice can work," Mr Wilner said.
Joe Margulies, an attorney representing another prisoner, said the current military system to determine whether or how to charge the prisoners was inadequate. "The (tribunals) are the perfect storm of procedural inadequacy," he said. "The evidence against most prisoners consists largely of uncorroborated statements made to their interrogators."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:37:50 PM ||
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The Australian Greens say they are concerned that new anti-terrorism laws being debated in the Senate allow for the "political black-banning" of defence lawyers at terrorism trials. Greens leader Bob Brown says the bill gives bureaucrats in the Attorney-General's department the right to decide which lawyers are suitable to appear in some courts, by conducting background checks to ensure they do not pose a risk to national security. The legislation is expected to be passed with Labor's support. Senator Brown says aspects of the bill allow for the "extraordinary politicisation" of Australian courts, and should be stopped. "Release the list of prohibited lawyers - the black-banned lawyers," he said. "At least give the numbers of lawyers who have been put onto that list and the criteria for black-banning lawyers from Australian courts which is used by the Government to politically determine who is or who isn't suitable to come before Australian courts," he said.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:35:44 PM ||
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#1
Well all the "Green" lawyers will be banned if anyone has a brain.
Genetic testing has shown that an animal scientists thought was the common ornate wobbegong is actually a new species of shark. Charlie Huveneers says scientists originally thought that the dwarf-like shark was a juvenile wobbegong. "We first thought the small wobbegong was a juvenile of the large ornate wobbegong shark but then realised there were some differences with the major one," he said.
The new species has so far only been found on Australia's east coast. Now that scientists have confirmed that there are three types of wobbegong that call Australian waters home, they now want to see how many more are out there. Luciano Beheregaray, of Macquarie University, says that numbers of the species are in decline, and action needs to be taken to preserve them. "The numbers are one-third of what they used to be 10 years ago," he said. "It's important for us to understand how these populations are distributed along the east coast in order to propose effective management strategies."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:31:00 PM ||
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Just remember... fish are friends, not food!
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
12/04/2004 23:08
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"I am a sick man. ... I am a wicked man." This is how Dostoevsky's nameless anti-hero begins his Notes from Underground, the prelude to a series of five extraordinary novels on the fate of modern man.
Through the last decade, excellent new translations of the major works of Dostoevsky and Gogol have been coming from the (married) team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky. They have been making clear what other translators, from whatever motive, had been making opaque.
Previous translators of, for example, the quote above, avoided the word "wicked", and usually put the word "spiteful" in its place. A moral assertion was thus replaced with a psychological one. But Dostoevsky is a moral, not a psychological writer, and the word he used in the original Russian, "zloy", does not mean "spiteful". It is the root of that word, and it means "bad, evil, wicked". The word for "spiteful" is instead "zlobnyi" -- and Dostoevsky, who had some idea what he was doing in the Russian language, did not use it.
There you have our post-modernity in a nutshell: an unthinking elision of the moral into the psychological, creating a "nuance" where no nuance exists. And by so doing, the previous translators externalized the evil that Dostoevsky's character had discovered in himself. The old Christian thing was to do good, in the knowledge that we are capable of terrible evil. But the "new man" believes that he is good in theory, and thus does not recognize the evil in his deeds. We make a desolation and call it peace.
Though to be fair, the anti-Bush demonstrators in Ottawa yesterday did not even make an impressive desolation. They did not have the numbers or the energy to do to Ottawa what their organizers promised. Of course, security was extraordinarily tight. Yet by their threats alone, they were able to summon that security, and turn the long-delayed state visit of the President of what was once Canada's closest ally into a furtive eat-and-run.
Said the upbeat CBC reporter: "There are people here representing a wide range of opinions, from anti-globalization, 'no to Star Wars', support for Palestine, Marxism, not to mention exclamations like 'Queers hate Bush'." . These are not, in fact, a wide range of opinions, but rather, alternative ways of articulating the same void.
It is hard to imagine what President Bush or anyone could say that would please the many people in this county (or any other, for that matter) who truly abhor him -- but can't explain why without using parrot-like slogans, and referring knowingly to non-existent "facts". Who, moreover, would not even dream of formulating a coherent alternative to what the Bush administration is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, or Dubuque.
Not that no coherent alternative could exist. There were intelligent, if finally rejected arguments made against each of Mr. Bush's decisions in turn; there is room for informed disagreement over every question of public policy, from persons of goodwill. But the world is constructed in a curious way: so that goodwill and coherence tend to leave simultaneously. The people on the streets in Ottawa yesterday, looking desperately for a way to harm the object of their hatred, were beyond mere argument, their conclusions having long preceded their premises.
Nor would I suggest it is impossible to oppose Mr. Bush for good reasons. But these do not require hatred of the man. In the Congress of the United States, for instance, there are a couple of hundred reasonably intelligent Democrats, prepared to make the case against Mr. Bush temperately, most of the time. They only just lost the election.
What we see on the streets of Ottawa, instead, is an almost pure fanaticism -- that radical spirit of alienation that ultimately motivates the Jihadis, too. This nihilism is the splinter in the heart of our modernity; it rejects everything; it proposes, finally, nothing in its place. It is the devil himself speaking out of his void, leading finally to the silence of Iago.
To understand it, we must look into the very faces contorted with rage, and the mouths uttering the vilest obscenities. The evil is not coming from outside them: it is instead welling from the void within.
And yet the tragedy of these people -- whose fanaticism puts them beyond the pale of give-and-take in party politics, and whose views, should they spread, would take the whole democratic order down with them -- is that they know even less about themselves than they know about the world they condemn. They are angry, but finally they don't know why.
They don't believe in evil, as a category; yet it haunts them externally on every side: "Bush" being only the straw man of the moment. And unlike the actual Mr. Bush, they do not believe in grace, either. They see evil everywhere. They rail, and they rail.
You could call them spiteful, but that would be psychologizing.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
4:30:49 AM ||
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#1
Wow. Righteous rant from Mr. Warren. He lives in Ottawa. This probably hit home for him.
#3
The Russian word zloy covers quite a wide range, from "angry" to "wicked". I think that the translation "spiteful" would be reasonable in some contexts.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004 14:17
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#4
ITLP -- Idiots That Love Parades. These folks are anti-war but well defended, anti-energy but use electricity and oil 24/7, and anti-globalization but offer no viable alternative. Most of them got there in gasoline-powered cars traveling on federal interstate highways and wearing third-world-sewn clothes. Its all about signs and costumes and puppets. Everybody loves a parade, especially these idiots. What have they done for us lately?
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 14:34
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Washington's policy on the legal status of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba is unacceptable, a senior British minister said. "I myself regard it as wholly unacceptable that you could seek to put people beyond the reach of the law, and it was argued by the United States of America that that was what the effect of placing detainees in Cuba had done," Lord Charles Falconer, secretary of state for constitutional affairs, said.
Lord Falconer, a close ally of Prime Minister Tony Blair, welcomed the US Supreme Court's ruling in June that said prisoners have the right to challenge their incarceration in civilian courts. "The US Supreme Court has said those detainees are within the reach of the law, so the totally unacceptable position of people being beyond the reach of the law has now been brought to an end," he told reporters. Britain now awaited the conclusions of the American courts in relation to what procedures will be used to deal with the detainees at Guantanamo, Lord Falconer said.
Four Britons are being held at Guantanamo, which was set up in January 2002 to hold combatants captured in Afghanistan and others suspected of association with Al Qaeda. Guantanamo is an ongoing headache for Mr Blair, under fire from his Labour Party and the British public for failing to make progress on the issue despite his close relations with US President George W Bush. Earlier this month, Mr Bush was dealt a further setback when a Washington federal court judge ruled that Guantanamo tribunals should not continue in their present form and that many of the 550 detainees were probably prisoners of war, eligible for rights under the Geneva Conventions. The Pentagon has also flatly rejected accusations - contained in an International Committee of the Red Cross report - that US military used tactics "tantamount to torture" in Guantanamo. The ICRC memorandum was leaked to the New York Times.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:29:35 PM ||
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#1
Is there a war on? Yes.
Were your beloved citizens Nigel and Ian caught in a war zone? Yes.
Were they caught in battle or with weapons? Yes.
Were they in uniform in the service of a combatant country? No.
What does your European written Geneva Convention say about this? Unlawful combattant. Summary execution.
Lord Falconer, as an ally and minister sworn to uphold the law, would you like to fire the first executioners bullet?
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 23:06
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#2
Actually I think we should just put a bullet behind an ear and give them back in an urn.
I really think these fools don't understand the Geneva Conventions that the US has signed on to. That is not all of them BTW.
Up to 17 Kurdish militiamen have been killed in a suicide car bombing in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul, exacerbating fears that a rising tide of violence could derail Iraqi elections in January. The deadly attack came just hours after a double car bombing in Baghdad killed at least four policemen and wounded 49 others, and 13 other Iraqis were reported killed on Saturday in a wave of attacks across the country. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) chief in Mosul, Saad Pira, told AFP that 17 peshmergas fighters were killed and more than 40 wounded when a suicide car bomber rammed their convoy as they were travelling through the Karama neighbourhood of Mosul. "An Opel car slammed into the convoy and exploded against the minibuses, two of which were totally gutted by fire," he said. The attack took place near the PUK headquarters in Karama.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:28:55 PM ||
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The lawyer for an Australian inmate at Guantanamo Bay says a leaked version of a Red Cross report alleging torture at the prison camp is consistent with inmate statements. The New York Times newspaper published leaked details of the report, which accuses the American military of beating some detainees, as well as using physical coercion described as "tantamount to torture". Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are among the 550 men held at the facility.
The report, which the Red Cross is yet to confirm, says some prison doctors violated medical ethics by helping plan interrogations. Stephen Kenny, the lawyer for Australian detainee David Hicks, told the ABC's AM program that the accusations were consistent with previous reports. "What it does is confirm the treatment and the allegations that have previously been made by not only David to us, but by others who have been released," he said. Mr Kenny says it appears the US has set an unwelcome new standard in the treatment of prisoners. "I know from the people I've spoken in the International Red Cross is that they say other countries where we know their human rights records are appalling, all they say to the Red Cross is 'well we are just following the rule of Guantanamo Bay, we're just doing what the Americans are doing'," he said.
Hicks's father Terry says the report backs up his claim that his son was tortured. Mr Hicks says he was told of the tortures when he visited his son in August. "He was subjected to sound, cold, strobe lights and stress and duress tactics in Guantanamo Bay. He did say he endured 10 hour lots of beatings in Afghanistan," Mr Hicks said. The Pentagon says it is not mistreating detainees at Guantanamo Bay. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has defended the US Government's treatment of detainees. "They're treated humanely and in accordance with standard international, relevant international practice," he said.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:25:34 PM ||
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#1
Tell them to shut up or they will be sent to Pakistan were real torture is practiced.
The Red Cross will never get another dime of my money. All the pure sheite I have heard over the years would be enough but this "leak" tops it. They should be banned from contact with any prisoners held by the US anywhere including Saddam and kicked out of our country for giveing aid and comfort to our enemies.
#2
He was subjected to sound, cold, strobe lights and stress and duress tactics
Sounds like a night at the local disco. But I see where muslims would be aghast when the soap bubble machine is turned on.
I allege Mr. Kenny Sr. is not the father of lawyer Kenny. Of course, I as a layman without the fancy powdered wig, is expected to actually produce some evidence. So lawyer Kenny, show us the evidence of torture. Show us the missing limbs, the skin ripped from their faces, the chopped off ears and fingers, the bloody pulp that used to be their faces, the videos of them pleading for their lives and their severed heads. What's that fancy lawyerin' term for, you know, show us the body?
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 22:39
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Just a clarification:
The American Red Cross and the Int'l Red Thingy are absolutely separate entities. Period. Full Stop.
The Int'l bunch is just as you imply, FB.
The American bunch spends every dime on American needs - nothing is shared with the Int'l asshats, no money or resources.
Believe me, I had to eat some crow when I found out - I was painting them both with the same brush.
#4
The American Red Thingy does supply some cash to the International Red Thingy, but withholds a portion in protest of the International idiots not recognizing the Magen David Adom.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/04/2004 23:25
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#5
And the US RC played three card Monty with the 9/11 monies, so my RC donations just go to the local chapter when local disasters hit and to supply local RC teams deployed in support of national disasters.
Posted by: Don ||
12/04/2004 23:41
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PALESTINIAN Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei condemned Israel today, saying their continued military raids were hampering efforts to restart the peace process.
Hopes have been high that the peace process, stalled by four years of violence, would take off following Palestinian presidential elections on January 9 to replace Yasser Arafat.
This morning, Israeli troops raided the West Bank city of Tulkarem, arresting a senior Hamas militant, the army and witnesses said.
The raid comes a day after Israeli troops shot and killed an Islamic Jihad militant during a similar raid.
"Unfortunately, Israel continues with its assassinations," Qurei said at the weekly Palestinian cabinet meeting.
"It is therefore sending a clear message that it does not want to give a chance for things to quiet down and bring the (peace) process back on track," he said. "At a time when we are moving towards democracy, unfortunately...Israel continues with its assassinations," Qurei said, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to end the raids.
Since Arafat's death, both Israel and the Palestinians have scaled down the violence and Israel has promised to redeploy its troops from Palestinian towns to allow the elections to take place.
But Israeli officials rejected Qurei's comments, saying that while Israel has promised not to initiate any new military offensives, it would continue to go after Palestinians it believes are planning attacks.
"These raids were carried out based on specific intelligence that these men were planning on carrying out suicide bombings, " a senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In the raid, troops surrounded a building in Tulkarem, forcing all the residents to leave and firing in the air before the Hamas militant, Rami Tayah, 26, and another man surrendered to the soldiers, witnesses said.
The army said Tayah was the head of the militant group Hamas in the town.
Peace efforts received a boost in recent days with Hamas indicating it was prepared to accept a cease-fire.
Also, the international community has stepped up efforts to mediate between the two sides.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer was the latest diplomat to visit the region. Fischer arrived today for a two-day visit in which he is expected to meet with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, as well as Qurei and new PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:22:48 PM ||
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A MILITARY judge today ordered the former commander of US prisons in Iraq to testify at the trial of a soldier who says he was ordered to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib. The judge, Colonel James Pohl, said Brigadier-General Janice Karpinski's testimony at the trial of Sergeant Javal Davis would be limited to conditions at Abu Ghraib and the interaction there between guards and military interrogators. Davis told investigators military intelligence personnel appeared to approve of the abuse. "We were told they had different rules," he told investigators, according to an army report.
Karpinski has denied knowing about any mistreatment of prisoners until photographs were made public at the end of April showing hooded and naked prisoners being tormented by their US captors. In an interview with The Associated Press, Karpinski said a "conspiracy" among top US commanders left her to blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A report issued by an independent panel of nongovernment experts blamed Karpinski for leadership failures that "helped set the conditions at the prison which led to the abuses".
The hearing came as the navy said it was investigating new photographs obtained by the AP that appear to show navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees. Other photos show what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head. Davis and Specialist Sabrina Harman had pretrial hearings in Fort Hood, Texas, today that were originally scheduled to begin next year in Baghdad. Charges against Davis, a native of New Jersey, include conspiracy to maltreat detainees, assault, dereliction of duty and lying in official statements. He has acknowledged stepping on the fingers and toes of detainees, but denied hurting anyone and said he was ordered to "soften them up".
Harman, of Virginia, is accused of photographing some of the abuse, participating in sexual humiliation of naked prisoners, writing "rapist" on the leg of a detainee who then was forced to pose naked with other prisoners, and placing wires in the hands of a detainee and telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box. She was photographed standing behind naked, hooded Iraqis stacked in a human pyramid and also shown next to a dead body packed in ice giving thumbs-up signs with Specialist Charles Graner Jr. Graner, described as the ringleader and the father of the child of Private First Class Lynndie England, is set to appear in court on Monday. He is expected to seek dismissal of charges on grounds of undue command influence.
The three are among seven members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company charged with humiliating and assaulting prisoners at the Baghdad prison. Graner, of Pennsylvania, is scheduled for trial beginning January 7. Davis's trial will begin on February 1. Harman's trial date has not yet been determined, according to Fort Hood officials.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
4:21:32 PM ||
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The "rapist" episode did happen. What this story does not tell you is that the 5 Iraqis raped an 18 year old man/boy. Instead of writing "rapist" on their bodies and shaming them, the guards should have collapsed a wall on the 5. Either that, or give the 18 year old to the 5 as their butt toy. Either seems acceptable in the Arab world.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 23:19
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The Al-Jazeera network's recent insult of the Iranian nation was totally unacceptable.
The Arabic network, which broadcasts its programs from the little Arab country Qatar, has recently posted an insulting cartoon about the Islamic Republic of Iran on its English site.
In the cartoon, a cleric, who is the symbol of the Islamic Republic of Iran, indifferently passes by various scenes of the current problems in the Islamic world, but reacts strongly when he sees that the name of the Persian Gulf has been changed to the unacceptable "Arab Gulf".
Iranian officials made a prompt denunciation of this very amateurish and dishonorable measure, which has its roots in Al-Jazeera officials' animosity toward Iranians.
The Al-Jazeera network was founded in 1997, ostensibly to create a new movement in the static media of the Arab world, which are mostly government controlled, and was initially welcomed.
Many media experts believed that the new network would create a revolution in the field of information dissemination, particularly in the Arab states on the Persian Gulf.
However, at the same time, rumors arose suggesting that the network was established by U.S. and Israeli agents in order to present a bad image of Islam to the world.
Some regional experts expressed doubts about the allegations though, because the establishment of a media outlet with the aim of promptly informing Arab nations about the latest world news seemed to be a good idea.
But the actions of the network gradually revealed the fact that Al-Jazeera officials, on the orders of Zionist agents, are trying to divide Islamic countries and tarnish the image of Islam.
After Al-Jazeera broadcasted some distorted news reports about Saudi Arabia, tension rose between that country and Qatar, and the two Arab states almost cut off diplomatic relations.
Yet, instead of adopting a defensive stance toward the negative propaganda of the network, Saudi Arabia took an innovative measure and established the Al-Arabiyya network to confront Al-Jazeera.
At the beginning of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera became the tribune of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups in order to give the world the impression that those terrorists represented real Islam.
In addition, since the occupation of Iraq began, ethnic tension has risen and there have been clashes between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, partly due to the efforts of Al-Jazeera.
By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.
Following the advice of U.S. and Israeli experts in psychological operations (psyops), Al-Jazeera took actions which gave Westerners a negative image of Islam and Muslims.
In fact, the Al-Jazeera network was founded at exactly the same time when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami introduced his Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative as a logical strategy to bring the West and the Islamic world closer together.
Of course, the Zionists were not pleased at the idea because they believe that increased proximity between the Islamic world and the West is not in their interests. And that is why they founded the Al-Jazeera network to tarnish the image of true Islam.
Now, after seven years, it has become apparent that the real strategy of the network has been to create divisions between Islamic countries, to give the impression that Islam is a threat to the West, to present a negative image of the real Islam to the world, to isolate Muslims residing in the United States and other Western countries, and to create sectarian divisions between Shias and Sunnis in the Middle East.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
4:18:17 AM ||
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#1
Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf, both names are obsolete. Its the Gulf of Rumsfeld now.
#2
Shatt al Arab, Qatar? Strait of Hormuz with its little gunboats buzzing around? You're talking about the Old Gulf. I'm talking about New Gulf. The Gulf of Rumsfeld, as we call it in the DoD. I OWN that diyach...
Posted by: Donald ||
12/04/2004 14:04
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Let's see ... The Holocaust, 9-11, al Qaeda and now al Jazeera are all Zionist plots. Is there nothing on earth that is not a Zionist plot?
#4
Well, Zenster, I used to run out of coffee frequently and always figured it was due to the fact that I forgot to pick some up on my last shopping trip.
Recently however, I have come to believe that this is part of a Zionist plot.
I run out of beer a lot, too, but I don't believe the Zionists are behind it.
That one I blame on the Masons.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
12/04/2004 17:28
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There's outrage at the United Nations. A U.N. worker was accused of genocide and yet was allowed to stay on the U.N. payroll.
The carnage was horrific. Some 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in 1994 by rampaging Hutus in Rwanda. Among those alleged to have done the killing is an employee of the U.N. in Rwanda — a Hutu named Callixte Mbarushimana. Today, Mbarushimana remains a free man, living in Paris. But there are troubling questions about his conduct in Rwanda a decade ago and the actions of the United Nations.
"They killed on his orders," says Tony Greig, an investigator with the International Criminal Tribunal. "They manned road blocks, they killed people, they got rewarded with cows and beer."
Greig says eyewitnesses directly linked Mbarushimana to more than 30 murders, including killings of fellow U.N. workers. In witness statements obtained by NBC News, one eyewitness says, "Mbarushimana... shot [a man] in the head as he was standing up." Another claims Mbarushimana "told his [men] to shoot them. The people on the ground were all then shot whilst they were sitting down."
Among those Mbarushimana is accused of killing is a woman and other fellow U.N. employees. "He was a U.N. employee," says Greig. "He abused his position in the U.N. to kill other U.N. workers."
So what did the United Nations do?
After learning of the allegations in 1999, the U.N. kept Mbarushimana on its payroll. In fact, when he was arrested for genocide, he was working for the U.N. in Kosovo — on a project to stop genocide.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Mbarushimana condemns genocide and denies wrongdoing. "I am innocent of any of the allegations," he says. "No, I have not murdered anybody. I have not participated in the ordering of killing of anybody."
"Lies! All lies! Really! You gotta believe me!"
The charges against Mbarushimana eventually were dismissed. Prosecutors say the evidence wasn't strong enough. Investigators dispute that and say prosecutors decided to focus instead on leaders of the genocide and considered Mbarushimana a mid-level figure.
An employee of the UN giving orders to kill people is a "mid-level" figure?
"The decision not to prosecute him was made on the grounds of expediency, not legal grounds, however the U.N. wants to dress it up," says Greig. "He killed many, many people."
This year, investigators were further outraged when a U.N. tribunal ruled that Mbarushimana had been treated unfairly because he was not re-hired after charges were dropped. The tribunal awarded him 13 months of back pay.
Mbarushimana says the accusations have ruined his life. He has been separated from his wife and three children for six years and forced to live as refugee in Paris, where he has no job and has not actually received any compensation to date.
Quelle horror! A refugee in Paris. He prolly ran into Suha on the party circuit. Wonder if they compared notes?
"My family has suffered a lot," he says. "They have suffered because of the lack of financial assets and the education of my children — who are very young — has been interrupted."
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard says the U.N. has to abide by the tribunal's ruling, even if awarding back pay to a man accused of genocide and of murdering U.N. employees seems absurd. "It certainly does [seems absurd]," says Eckhard. "But again, the tribunal considered that this person had not been proven guilty. And, in fact, he hasn't."
Many U.N. officials are furious and embarrassed and some investigators are looking for some way to bring Mbarushimana to trial.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
4:13:27 AM ||
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#1
Well, maybe it was just "ethnic cleansing". I think the UN cuts them some slack for that.
#6
I think Mike S is a worker of MORAL MAGICK (tm). Using MORAL MAGICK, he and his co-magicians can declare a man guilty via elaborate chains of "reasoning", but when it comes to those that they support, they wave their arms about, clap their hands, and POOF! THEY'RE INNOCENT.
#6
Haven't we been buying up all the old, decommisioned Sov Block warheads from Ukraine, etc? IDing the source of a nuke detonation mostly depends on the particular (no pun intended) mix of isotopes and impurities in the core, I unnerstand...
Ba a damned shame if those darned Chechens slipped a stolen warhead into Tehran, huh?
#7
If the attacks are top secret, does that mean we'll never even know they happened? I mean, if they used nuclear or chemical missiles, we'd not only notice, we'd be seriously annoyed; if terrorists started shooting up shopping malls and subway stations, we'd respond strongly. What kind of attack would be top secret?
Certainly not our own. Should Iran push things too far, our response might be visible (and audible) for several hundred miles.
It's almost gratifying to watch Iran continually provide an endless stream of causus belli for our military. Not that we haven't had a standing excuse for decades now.
Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian politician who was forced to withdraw as a candidate for EU commissioner, has confirmed to the BBC that he plans to set up a Christian coalition in Europe.
At the beginning of November, newspapers reported rumours that he planned to form a religious lobby group to "battle for the freedom of Christians". Senior aides to the Italian minister told the Sunday Telegraph that the new Christian network would not take the form of a political party, but would be a kind of "movement or association" committed to a greater role for Christian principles in public life.
They added that the political professor, who will remain in the Italian government, was inspired by the role of Christian voters in the US Presidential election. One close adviser said: "Mr. Buttiglione is thinking of a novel idea: a kind of resurgent Christian political movement in Europe. The success of President George W. Bush in mobilizing the Christian vote in America...is a sign of what can be done."
I suggest a name for the new party: the Christian Republicans.
The comments will raise fears of a European version of the US Christian Coalition or Moral Majority which has recently been revived by fundamentalist Jerry Falwell in a modified form. The group campaigns predominantly on issues of homosexuality and abortion.
Mr Buttiglione's nomination as EU justice commissioner came under fire after he expressed views condemning homosexuality and abortion, with opponents accusing him of bringing prejudices into the political process. But he told BBC World Service's Reporting Religion programme that he would now be forming a Christian lobby group dedicated to bringing 'Christian principles' into the European decision-making process.
And he claimed he had "enormous" support for this proposal. "When I resigned, my political career was over, and I was alone," he said.
"All of a sudden, I found an enormous number of people sending me e-mails, calling me by phone, clapping their hands when they met me in the street. "Some friends organised a moment to meet me in Milan - and there were thousands and thousands of people."
Mr Buttiglione also claimed he had support from many European countries, naming the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Latvia. "It is quite apparent that a free Europe is one in which homosexuals can do what they want - but also we are free to say that what they do is wrong," he argued. "A Europe in which one of these two pillars is missing is no longer a free Europe."
At the time of the controversy over Mr Buttiglione's nomination, fellow EU commissioner-designate Peter Mandelson said Mr Buttiglione was "unwise" to express his views on homosexuals at an EU committee hearing. Mr Buttiglione himself later seemed to apologise for his comments, saying, "I deeply regret the difficulties and problems that have arisen."
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi finally withdrew him, naming foreign minister Franco Frattini to replace him.
Mr Buttiglione told the BBC he felt that Christians were being "discriminated against for having the moral position of the Church," and that they were "no more first-class citizens in Europe." But he also said that his lobby would not present the case only for Christians. "We need a liberal lobby, liberal not in the modern sense but in the traditional sense, a lobby for the freedom of conscience and the freedom of speech," he said.
He said he felt his views had been "falsified" by other people. "Many people believe that I introduced the concept of sin into political debate - I didn't," he said. "I've always said that I may think homosexuality is a sin, but it has no impact on politics because I stand in politics for non-discrimination."
Seems like that's a nuance that the "nuanced" left can't understand.
But Labour MEP Michael Cashman, the former EastEnders star who hit the headlines by performing the first homosexual kiss in a TV soap in the late 1980s, commented: "Mr Buttiglione is once again misleading citizens. If he 'stands in politics for non-discrimination', why did he propose an amendment to delete 'non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation' from the Charter of Fundamental Rights ?
"He failed to explain this to the European Parliament and was therefore rejected because of actions and not his personal beliefs."
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
4:00:09 AM ||
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#1
Time to get out the crayons and try to divide Europe into flyover country and the coastal elites.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004 9:15
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#2
Time to get out the crayons and try to divide Europe into flyover country and the coastal elites
Doesn't really work. From what I understand the division line in USA is more or less the same across several criteria with few exception or abnormalities in each -- donor states vs beneficiary ones (Texas a notable exception), urban areas vs rural ones, socially liberal states vs socially conservative ones, Democratic states vs Republican ones. Add in the regional criterion of coastal-vs-central, and you have the makings of a meaningful division that extends through several issues.
In Europe, however, no single issue seems to divide countries across the *same* lines. For example:
Donors-vs-beneficiaries: UK, Germany, France, Benelux ---Portugal, Greece, eastern Europe
War on Iraq: UK, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, eastern Europe --- France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Greece, Scandinavia
Social conservatism: France, Benelux, Denmark --- Italy, Greece, Ireland, Poland, rest of eastern Europe.
And so on. The only point where issues seem to converge is that the more Europhobic countries seem to be wealthy nations of the North -- UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway.
The United States will ultimately lose the war on terror because of its policies in the Middle East and because of concerns over the human rights of militants worldwide, the former head of the CIA's team that hunted Osama bin Laden said Friday.
In a conversation with United Press International's reporters and editors, Michael Scheuer, newly revealed as the author of the bestselling book "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror," said bin Laden was now possibly the Arab world's most popular leader, adding al-Qaida's domination of the Internet in the Muslim world was leading to the United States losing its battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/04/2004
3:46:18 AM ||
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#1
The United States will ultimately lose the war on terror because of its policies in the Middle East and because of concerns over the human rights of militants worldwide ....
That's an extremely fair statement as far as it goes but it fails to take into consideration the societal changes that will ensue as it becomes apparent that we're losing. Since a loss would entail the Islamization of the United States, I'd wager that we'll see F117s bombing mosques in San Francisco before we'll "lose" the War on Terror. What he really means is that our current kid gloves policies will prolong the war and make it far bloodier (on all sides) than is necessary. That's a shame but that might well be the price humanity must eventually pay for our unwillingness to apply overwhelming force.
#2
Pathetic idiot, so the militants are somewhat better than US in human rights and when US saved Muslims in Kosovo, helped muslims fight Soviet Union, etc doesnt count. What outside country ever helped Muslims and Arabs?
#3
Like Richard Clarke and Joe Wilson before him, "Anonymous" finds himself slipping out of the headlines, and says something provocative to get more ink. "Notice me! Notice me!" he cries, stamping his tiny feet in impotent rage.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/04/2004 6:42
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#4
He said the war on Iraq, unpopular in the Muslim world,...., and the continuation of "tyrannical" regimes in the Arab world. - This is such a jumbled mishmash of ideas its hard to know where to start to analyze it. Bottom line is AQ may be popular, but then so was Che Guevara after he was dead. The issue is AQ's capacity to launch terrorist attacks and that seems severely limited outside the Arab world.
#5
good point, Mike. Speaking of slipping out of the limelight: Anybody hear anything new about Sandy Berger's stealing classified documents by slipping them in his pants? Nope? This is gonna be a whitewash unless if we can keep the heat on
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 8:52
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#6
What about ME! Doesn't anybody care what I have to say about anything!
Posted by: Hans Blix ||
12/04/2004 9:22
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#8
With pinheads like Soooler we would lose the war on terror. This guy was only an anal-ist, the media treats him like he really mattered.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004 10:12
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"Scheuer, who resigned last month from the CIA because of the agencyâs refusal to allow him permission to grant media interviews." After 20 years in the business I can tell you that NO SANE agent wants to do interviews with the press. This guy sounds like one of the many LLLs that the CIA needs to cut loose. You can't conduct analysis or investigations through the press. I think Mike hit the nail on the head.
#10
Nothing worst than a guy who always talks about losing, like a traitor. Even if we did have a problem in foreign policy, the CIA should be smart enough to guide us. He wrote this book awhile back, but I think the US has gained momentum with electons coming, Fallujah pacified, and even Hamas accepting a ceasefire. The title of the book is telling, and scaring Americans and planting doubt is how he can get more sales.
#12
There is always one line which exemplifies the core of the entire message. This is it, ""Theyâre attacking us because of our unqualified support for Israel." America is far better off cleaning house of the U.N. types lurking within our national security agencies.
With Bernie Kerik at the helm of Homeland Security, a man who does NOT share the pro-terrorist views of the EX-CIA man, house cleaning has yet to begin!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
12/04/2004 11:15
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#13
With Bernie Kerik at the helm of Homeland Security, a man who does NOT share the pro-terrorist views of the EX-CIA man, house cleaning has yet to begin
Just because Scheuer states unpopular truths, it hardly means he has "pro-terrorist views." The example you quote as being all telling of Scheurer's "pro-terrorist" message ie. re: AQ hating us because of our unqualified support of Israel makes no sense. Arabs hate Israel and from their point of view, the US gives Israel too much support. Bin Laden has reiterated this message over and over again. So how is Scheurer lying or being "pro-terrorist? As painful as it is to see in print, he's on the mark when he says Bin Laden is not attacking us because of our freedoms and life style - that's a bunch of State/WH feelgood bull. AQ is attacking us because of our policies, and since it's unlikely we will or can change our policies in the near future, we will ultimately lose the war. We will not have the numbers or the passion. Bin Laden will be able to recruit an unending supply of terrorists because his message will resonate more clearly with Arabs/Muslims because it's believable to them. You may not like to hear what Scheurer says, but he's hardly "pro-terrorist." Actually he's the type of guy that the CIA should have kept on. He's not a yes-man or a standard bearer for whichever party is in power. I read his book, and Scheurer is hardly an appeasement, milque toast kind of guy. In fact, he was very very critical of Clinton's regime.
As for Bernie Kerik, the guy has some baggage, so I'd hold back on your rah rah until you see this guy on the job for a while. Google Ellis Henican's article on Kerik for example.
#14
yeah, Ellis is the voice of reason. Dem hack is more likely
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 12:56
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Mr. Glomosing
(1) Has the US scored any successes against Al Qaeda in the last three years? What were they? Conversely, what successes has Al Qaeda scored against the US since 911?
(2) My understanding of President Bush's policy toward the Arab-Israeli dispute is that the US will support a two-state solution if the Palestinians stop their terror attacks. What part of that policy do the Arabs regard as excessive support of Israel?
Posted by: Matt ||
12/04/2004 13:09
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#16
Ellis is the voice of reason. Dem hack is more likely
So you believe that Hennican wrote lies about Kerik because he's a Democrat and discrediting Kerik helps his presidential candidate...oops, the election is over isn't it, so what does Hennican have to gain? OTH, you believe that journalists who only wrote sentimental goo-goo stuff about Kerik's abusive childhood were telling the gospel truth, because they, of course, are non-partisan. Yah, right...
#17
"Mr Glomosing" has a woodie for Kerik. Fine - post it on a thread about Kerik.
This article, this thread, is about EX-CIA fuckwit Sheurer. He jes' be tryin' to hawk his retirement book, ju know, mayne? He's EX for a damned good reason: he's an incompetent hand-wringing self-aggrandizing toolfool of the Camelot II Clintoon Era - in the "great" recent tradition of Dickie Clark, et al.
#18
AQ is attacking us because of our policies, and since it's unlikely we will or can change our policies in the near future, we will ultimately lose the war. We will not have the numbers or the passion.
Your statement assumes that US policy is static with respect to fighting terrorism. A few more 9-11s and I'd wager there'll be a rather noticeable sea change in exactly how the WoT is being fought.
"No. It canât be won. Weâre going to eventually lose it. And the problem for us is that weâre going to lose it much more quickly if we donât start killing more of the enemy."
Although he, too, mistakenly posits a static policy, Scheuer is essentially on the money. We need to start killing the terrorists at an accelerated pace. Iran must be toppled, other Mid-East terror sponsors must undergo regime change and known jihadist concentrations need to be eradicated, be they the Janjaweed, JI or other groups.
Terrorism has a substantial genetic component. Its networks rely upon familial ties for security and its doctrine is transmitted through relations and their acquaintances. The sooner we kill off a substantial portion of those who promote terrorism, the more quickly that sort of mindset will no longer be biologically propogated or taught.
We need to attach a serious price tag to preaching jihad. Whether it be targeting imams who advocate militant Islam or simply wiping out entire factions like the Janjaweed, only when the general population sees that participation with such factions brings hasty and unpleasant DEATH will things begin to change.
The West continues its mistaken mantling of violent jihad with the sanctity of religious privilege. Only when the American administration's fundamentalists overcome their aversion to criticizing or acting against Islamic fundamentalists are things going to improve.
The United States has undergone a sufficient degree of erosion in its separation of church and state whereby it is no longer able to make clear distinctions about just how poisonous theocratic authoritarianism is to personal liberty and freedom in general. When this administration finally gets over its own over-inflated sense of religiosity and sets about protecting Americans, one and all - instead of merely their own ideological kith and kin - then we'll see some forward progress.
Until then, we'll see this restrained and politically correct crippled approach to killing those who most dearly want to murder us. Not exactly a recipe for success, is it?
Scheuer, who resigned last month from the CIA because of the agencyâs refusal to allow him permission to grant media interviews ...
This sort of "glamour" mentality about a post that requires the utmost of discretion is nothing more than grandstanding. It has no place in our intelligence community.
#21
Matt, terrorist actions by AQ are 5 years in the planning, so the verdict is still out regarding AQ's "failure" to strike us again.
As for the US success story you will likely claim in Afghanistan - it's tentative at best there-we've disrupted obvious AQ training camps, but in return for the warlords' "co-operation" in the WOT, we had to allow the warlords to cultivate their poppy crops which causes huge negative effects on our society. The Afghans are primitive agricultural type tribes, they are not rocket scientists. The Taliban curtailed poppy field agriculture when they were allied with AQ. Now we allow poppy fields to flourish to the detriment of our society but we've driven the Taliban/AQ underground or to Pakistan. Mixed victory, I'd say. As for Iraq, do you think a viable democratic government will ever exist there? I doubt it. Consider that Europe,just a stone's throw away, has had democracy in place for thousands of years, yet somehow the ME countries, apart from Israel, have managed to avoid democracy. It's not like Arabs don't read newspapers that they have never heard about democracy. In Iraq we deposed a wacko dictator but I suspect we will ultimately need to install a benign one, like Allawi, to keep the restive Iraqi masses from killing each other and blowing up their oil pipelines. If we don't install a guy like Allawi,who can rule with an iron fist, we'll have 150,000 troops there forever and the Iraqis on the US taxpayer tit for the same length of time. That's not exactly a success story, either way.
Like it or not what Scheurer says is true. We will lose the war on terror, maybe not today but perhaps 25 years from now and perhaps through a combination of terrorist intimidation as well as exploding population of "true believers" gaining political clout in various Western democracies.
Unless we see drastic changes in our policies, there are too many factors against our being victorious. For one thing, we have civil rights laws in place and activist judges in Western democracies that are in conflict with being more ruthless than the enemy to win wars. That's not going to change while the ACLU and JAG are around. For another thing, our country uses considerably more fossil fuel energy than we have resources, so we are dependent on resources that are in Muslim dominated countries. We are unwilling to become energy efficient. We are unwilling to drill for oil in our own country, nevermind even build new refineries. We are unwilling to pay high prices for the gas and oil owned by ME countries. We need to support Western friendly tyrants in these Muslim countries[not religious mullahs like Bin Laden would like]in order to get access to the fossil fuels. That's not going to change. Thirdly, we will continue to support Israel because the alternative is what...no Israel? That's not going to change. And lastly, tribal loyalty, which goes hand in hand with religious identification, runs deep in Muslim societies. GWB is not going to change those 'tudes with either high tech might or with free elections. In Iraq the people will "vote" along tribal lines, not for the best man. That's not a democracy.
As for Bush's support of a 2 state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, how is that supposed to make the Arabs feel warm and fuzzy about the USA? Here's what the Arabs see -the main donor of foreign aid to Israel each year since its founding has been the USA. The main donor of military technology to Israel all these years has been the USA. In every war with an Arab country the US has supported Israel.
A 2 state solution is a nice equitable sounding concept but it cannot supplant memories of US policy/behavior, which in Arabs' minds are patently unfair and biased in Israel's favor. It's the Arabs'perception (or misperception) of reality that is key to neverending hatred of the USA.
To believe that giving Afghans and Iraqis free elections and Palestinians their own state are answers to making the USA and US interests safer from terrorism is pretty naive, I think. Being realistic is not being pro-terrorist, btw.
#22
So, if I hear you correctly, not only are our current policies doomed to failure, but there are no policies we could adopt that would afford a chance for success?
Posted by: Matt ||
12/04/2004 14:51
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#23
GC7327: "It's all over. There's no chance to prevail. All successes are mirages or lies."
I reject that, and you. Pessimism to the point of psychosis is not my cup of tea Jack Daniels, and you offer no alternatives.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 14:58
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Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 15:06
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#26
The head of the CIA team that hunted bin Laden until 1999, Scheuer said the United States needed to change tracks from viewing al-Qaida as a terrorist movement to seeing it as an insurgent group so it could recognize the order of battle that would allow the recognition of the organizationâs structure and composition.
Well, he had his chance, AND FAILED.
Should point out that MOST of those chances happened during Clinton's watch.
More on Crong later. However, I think that success will not come if we indulge in co-dependent behavior to make people feel good or to make them like us, to kick our friends to make THEIR enemies like us, to change our SUCCESSFUL way of life to make them comfortable with their UNSUCCESSFUL way of life, and to violate OUR sense of fairness by indulging in patently unfair behavior to make them think we're being fair TO THEM.
Crong's long on criticism, but short on constructive alternatives, mainly because s/he knows nothing is perfect in this world, and thus can find something to criticize that we would agree with, since we're the true realists. S/He knows what WE rantburg regulars would recommend, but we, of course, don't know what S/HE would recommend.
#27
Sounds like we're winning, and someone's upset with the progress. There's no one so disillusioned as an "analyst" whose pet theory has been totally debunked. Sour grapes always give a person a bellyache. The "conventional wisdom" has been debunked (VDH talked about that on NRO), and those that continue to want to push it are getting pretty mean-spirited. "We" - the "unwashed masses" don't understand just how "brilliant" these self-declared intellects are, and they're PO'd. Maybe they should go peddle their message at the UN, another center of unbelief.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2004 15:43
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#28
I invoke Lileks' Maxim: if Patton were alive today, he'd be slapping civilians. There is only one way we can "lose" this war: by a failure of will.
Right now we are trying to solve the problem with a minimum of violence and a maximum of optimism over Arabs'/Muslims' capacity for self-improvement, on the theory that if their culture can be introduced to democratic self-government and thus prosperity, the hatreds which propel their aggression will abate.
That is the theory, anyway. It may be correct, or it may not be. We will not know unless we test it, and that is what we are doing right now.
But if our experiences in Afghanistan and/or Iraq end up convincing us that there is no point in trying to reform these sick puppy cultures, then future terrorist attacks will trigger a response far more violent than these present wars of liberation and reform: we will see wars of conquest and subjugation, or even a war of outright annihilation.
In extremis, we could conclude these proceedings quite abruptly and permanently with a 20-minute "war" that would eliminate some 20% of the planet's population. My own guess-- and it's only a guess-- is that someday, that is indeed what it will come to.
But not now. We've got a lot of trying left to go, before we have any basis on which to abandon less drastic measures.
As for Scheuer, I'm glad to see him and his ossified, pre-9/11 "they hate us because of our support for Israel" thinking unemployed.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/04/2004 16:00
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#29
The odds of our losing would be much, much higher if Scheuer were still at his old job.
Remember, folks, it was his job to get bin Laden before 9/11! This guy failed horribly, and his failure led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans.
If the press were sane, they'd be asking him how he screwed up, and what he plans to do in restitution.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/04/2004 16:12
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#30
Typical LLL. "Because of Israel. . ."
"What if it's not Israel?" http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1101874928275
#31
But if our experiences in Afghanistan and/or Iraq end up convincing us that there is no point in trying to reform these sick puppy cultures, then future terrorist attacks will trigger a response far more violent than these present wars of liberation and reform: we will see wars of conquest and subjugation, or even a war of outright annihilation.
In extremis, we could conclude these proceedings quite abruptly and permanently with a 20-minute "war" that would eliminate some 20% of the planet's population. My own guess-- and it's only a guess-- is that someday, that is indeed what it will come to.
But not now. We've got a lot of trying left to go, before we have any basis on which to abandon less drastic measures.
Really well said, Dave D. I've long maintained this exact same scenario, although perhaps not quite so tersely. For such a stance, I've been accused of a "kill 'em all" attitude. I think you're right on the money and that Islam must either straighten up or fry up.
#32
Odd that so many of you are outraged with Scheuer for speaking the truth and not with the politicians you have elected in the past who have failed you and the 3000 9/11 victims because of their self-serving agendas. For example, it's laughable that you blame Scheurer, not Clinton, for whom many of you voted in 2 straight elections, for the failure to nab Bin Ladin. Unless I'm mistaken, Scheurer could not negotiate with another sovereign nation, Sudan, to get custody of Bin Laden. Taking offense at Scheurer having the "audacity" to besmerch Arabs'/AQ's/Bin Ladin's well known love of Jews and Israel is pretty humorous, too. Oh my, perish the thought that Arabs hate Israel and in turn, the USA for supporting Israel. That's not true at all.
If any of you cared to google interviews with Scheurer or even do something radical like read his book, you'd discover that Scheurer is pretty right wing in the remedies he suggests to win the war on terror. He says the choice is basically between winning the war decisively or fighting endless wars and risking ongoing losses. He advocates overwhelming force, without painful hand wringing about how such action would look to UN/Nato allies. He advocates curtailing Geneva Convention rights to captured insurgents. He advocates unilateral force,not coalitions of the willing or UN sanctioned forces, likening GWB's need for coalition pals to a teenage girl needing girlfriends to accompany her to the bathroom. I repeat, Scheurer is not a passive milque-toast type, so I don't see why he is under attack by RB'ers. Perhaps Zenster is the only one who understands what Scheurer is advocating. Scheurer says we can take the long route and still lose or take the short route and have a good chance of winning.
#33
The enemy controls the propaganda war through its dominance of the insitutional media culture. This is how such utter bullshit as "the main donor of foreign aid to Israel each year since its founding has been the USA" has become so prevalent in the Arab world.
US military and large-scale economic aid to Israel did not begin until after the 6 day war of 1967, when it was obvious that the failure to offset Soviet aid to the Arab regimes would result in genocide. It is a fact of history, for example, that Israel did not use a single American-made combat aircraft in the '67 war. The American tanks they used then were either bought as scrap and refurbished (Shermans) or provided by West Germany as reparations.
In fact, West Germany and France were Israel's leading benefactors in every respect until after the '67 war. The US did not support Israel in the 1956 war, at all. The Eisenhower administration joined the Soviet Union in denouncing the concurrent Anglo-French Suez operation and eventually forced a total withdrawal of victorious Israeli forces from the Sinai.
Today, the oil tick regimes have taken the place of the Soviets in aiding and abetting the genocide forces. Their wealth has also given them control of a large part of the academic community as well as the institutional media.
What is required is not a change in policy but a change in our society. I think that is what Scheuer is really getting at. The media-based nature of the current conflict must be recognized, the role of media in undermining the necessary actions and in spreading jihad propaganda must be analyzed and understood. Most importantly, the leadership of the West must understand that the alternative is defeat and the end of the cycle of progress that started with the Enlighenment of the 18th Century, and they must act accordingly.
Gideon-Phoenix must be instituted on a massive scale, with the entire propaganda and financial support network of the terrorist movement as potential targets.
Lawyers will yelp, as will orthodox institutional media. Fine, let them join their clients on the ash-heap of history.
#35
There is only one way we can "lose" this war: by a failure of will.
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
I find the notion of us "losing" the war, in the sense of our enemy prevailing against us no matter how hard we fight, to be just plain silly; as I said above, if Patton were alive today he'd be slapping civilians.
And I find the notion that we're "losing" because our present methods aren't yielding the desired results quickly enough, equally silly. If what we're doing doesn't work, we'll use a bigger hammer.
But the potential for losing this conflict through a failure of nerve-- by literally talking and hand-wringing ourselves out of victory-- is huge. We "lost" that way once before in my lifetime, and we're still suffering for it thirty years later.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/04/2004 17:44
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#37
The only hubris involved is on the part of this pathetic Clintonite who thinks that anyone should care what he thinks.
See, the problem is that AQ will continue attacking regardless of whatever foreign policies we might have. If it's not one thing, it will be another. Ultimately it is because they hate the west.
via Jihad Watch
Long 2 part article, but very informative and chilling insight into Islamic converts in America.
Five days before 9/11, Charles Vincent bought his first Koran. Six weeks later, while smoke was still pouring from the remains of the World Trade Center, he formally converted to Islam in the mosque attached to the Islamic Cultural Center on 96th Street and Third Avenue in New York City. ... Dressed as he is in an Islamic-style tunic and a white kufi, or cap, with an untrimmed ginger beard sprouting from his handsome, classically Californian face, Vincent may look unusual, but he certainly isn't alienated, or for that matter, alone. In the United States, there are estimated to be roughly 80,000 white and Hispanic Muslims, along with a far greater number of African-American ones. In France, there are perhaps 50,000, according to a secret government intelligence report leaked to the French newspaper Le Figaro. ... Of course, there's the small matter of why a non-Muslim would first choose to convert to a religion increasingly associated with dictatorial governments, mass terrorism, videotaped beheadings and the oppression of women. One reason might be disillusionment with wall-to-wall entertainment, jaded sexuality, spiritual anomie and all the other ailments of the materialistic West. Another might be protest.
... Vincent's conversion appears to have been a more muddled, emotional affair, but also a more dramatic one, since it took place in New York against the backdrop of 9/11. Like a lot of people who convert to Islam or any other religion, he did so after a particularly difficult period in his life in which he not only lost his "way" but also his job and his apartment, and, after a fight outside a nightclub, came close to losing an eye as well. He also had a good Moroccan friend — "the Mysterious Moroccan," as I've come to think of him, since he wouldn't speak to me — who strongly encouraged him to convert, and may even have insisted that he do so as a price of friendship. ... "Islam is a way of life. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught us everything up to how to go to the bathroom. Even when you go to the bathroom, how to go in, how to go out, how to sit, how to wash, how to take a shower. [He taught us] how to eat, how to start your food, how to treat your wife, how to treat your children, how to wake up in the morning, how to put your slippers on, how to put clothes on, how to take clothes off, what to eat, what not to eat . . . And everything had a purpose... In L.A., I had no direction. I was absolutely clueless as to what I was going to do for the rest of my life."
"But maybe kicking my country in the nuts would be a good career choice."
#3
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught us everything up to how to go to the bathroom.
You mean up till Big Mo showed up, they weren't potty trained in the Arabian Peninsula?
Eeeeeeeewww!
#10
why a non-Muslim would first choose to convert to a religion increasingly associated with dictatorial governments, mass terrorism, videotaped beheadings and the oppression of women. One reason might be disillusionment with wall-to-wall entertainment, jaded sexuality, spiritual anomie and all the other ailments of the materialistic West. Another might be protest.
maybe now he can rationalize his urges to beat women?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 8:49
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#11
AC Were you referring to the faculty, students or both?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004 8:57
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#12
I'm pretty sure converting to Islam is a prerequesite for driving a cab in New York. I also believe driving a cab in New York gives him the prestigious title of "Muslim scholar".
Posted by: Darth VAda ||
12/04/2004 10:12
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#14
He was one of the suckers the Firesign Theater was talking about with their "I think I'll find a bunch of guys who dress alike and follow them around..." line regards what to do after High School.
The relevant thing is that people like this are actually common... They lack enough "connections" (ala James Burke, heh) and internalized values to deal with the myriad choices and passing opportunities, which most of us laugh off. DB & Sea nailed him immediately.
There is a surprisingly large pool of fodder for the various "ideologies" and "causes" to draw upon... Consider the LLL and the spectrum of toolfools who fall for the cause du jour. Most grow out of it when it fails to reward their trust and faith. In a country with such freedom and a huge menu of blindly ballyhooed lifestyles, people can and do stay adrift for a loooong time - until something sticks. With just a few more connections to rational courses of action, a few more internalized values, most are steered back toward the mainstream - which is why it's the mainstrean, heh. Without them, well...
Islam, the bottom-feeder of the disaffected, dysfunctional, disgruntled, and disarmed.
#15
"Islam is a way of life. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught us everything up to how to go to the bathroom. Even when you go to the bathroom, how to go in, how to go out, how to sit, how to wash, how to take a shower. [He taught us] how to eat, how to start your food, how to treat your wife, how to treat your children, how to wake up in the morning, how to put your slippers on, how to put clothes on, how to take clothes off, what to eat, what not to eat .
And we have parents who are afraid to give thier children direction.
#17
So, nobody caught the big red warning flag regarding this guy's trainwreck-of-a-personal-life?
Like a lot of people who convert to Islam or any other religion, he did so after a particularly difficult period in his life in which he not only lost his "way" but also his job and his apartment, and, after a fight outside a nightclub, came close to losing an eye as well.
When someone of actual intelligence and rational personal philosophy voluntarily adopts Islam I'll begin to think about it. This chump was just another space cadet who was so open minded that his brain fell out.
"Isn't it funny how so many people find God only after they have painted themselves into a moral corner and made life a living hell for those around them. Nobody finds Jesus on prom night."
- Dennis Miller -
Morons who only find religion in the midst of ruining their lives (and usually everyone else's around them) count for zilch when it comes to genuine conversions. That goes for George W. Bush and everybody else on down. While finding religion may serve their own ends well enough, the sort of witness they tend to bear for their faith usually remains of the most dubious sort.
#18
Zen - You are truly one skeered SOB on the topic of religion. What is it, what event - because this is obviously very personal - gave you such a skewed vision of anyone who has some sort of faith?
Look - all of the things you post in favor of on RB, sans Gay Marriage / DOMA (a topic in which your reason deserts you), are articles of faith in serious Christian religion - 31 flavors of 'em. They eschew the stupidity, trendy relativism, and morally-frightened foolishness and call a spade a spade. They're not your enemy, but your ally in the important things: values based upon millenia of trial and error, self-regulating behavior models, good and evil - with annotations and reasoning, etc. I gut-check 'em when they fall back to "God did it so it can't be questioned!" BS, too. You don't get that here on RB - you get smart reasoned comments by committed people. Something to honor and respect - certainly in a world gone mad on relativism and weenieism.
I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm an atheist who simply recognizes that much of what's missing in the current West is common sense - and that is / was a product of non-PC nuclear families who had a goddamned bona-fide value system (90% of which I agree with) and who practiced what they preached (about 90% of the time) - creating and nurturing the core of Jacksonianism, which defends our way of life from insane people. You get so much right - how can you be so uber-sensitive that you go blind and get this part wrong?
By a huge margin, the Christian religion is a positive influence in the US. You're shooting all the dogs because some of them have fleas, it seems. Now I've gotta make a pilgrimmage to one of my religious sites, CompUSA. I'll be back later to see what you think, but it's time to get real on this topic and un-bend whatever got bent somewhere back in your past. You're too valuable an observer to lose to that painful event. Hey, I'll kneecap whomever it was - just let me know who and where, bro.
#19
I'd add to .com's comment that most people need a belief system. It's too hard for most people to work it out from scratch and too disruptive for society. Too many people end up in wacky places where trashing McDonalds or blowing up trains makes sense. I'm an atheist, but when I look around and ask myself what belief system seems to work for most people, I conclude Christianity (most flavors) does and specifically it does a much better job than tranzi PC greenie leftism.
#20
Zen - You are truly one skeered SOB on the topic of religion. What is it, what event - because this is obviously very personal - gave you such a skewed vision of anyone who has some sort of faith?
Not scared, .com, just completely fed up with blind faith and so much of the moral hypocrisy which accompanies it. Possibly, you may have missed where I previously posted about how I have had the privilege of meeting some truly enlightened Christians who thought independently and acted rationally upon their faith. I found much to admire in them, as I do in others from many faiths.
Look - all of the things you post in favor of on RB, sans Gay Marriage / DOMA (a topic in which your reason deserts you), are articles of faith in serious Christian religion - 31 flavors of 'em.
Far too many Republicans in America seem to have abandoned some of conservatism's core values, one major tenet of which is; Minimal intrusion by government into a citizen's private life. However much you or anyone else might be revolted by gay marriage, the Office of Faith Based Giving and DOMA represents nothing less than the government sticking its nose where it most certainly doesn't belong. In my mind, Mrs. Davis gets it and Ptah gets it too.
How is it that Judeo-Christianity has any sort of lock on rationality or ethics? Lucid and logical judgement was around long before Christ's advent in this world or the conceptualization of Yaweh, for that matter. Yes, Judeo-Christianity's vision of the social contract, in particular - parts of Mosaic Law, carry forward core values that seem to function rather well. Does anyone honestly think that much of this same mentality was not in practice around the world for millennia prior to its Biblical documentation?
They eschew the stupidity, trendy relativism, and morally-frightened foolishness and call a spade a spade. They're not your enemy, but your ally in the important things: values based upon millenia of trial and error, self-regulating behavior models, good and evil - with annotations and reasoning, etc. I gut-check 'em when they fall back to "God did it so it can't be questioned!" BS, too.
Where have I declared that the ones who "eschew the stupidity, trendy relativism, and morally-frightened foolishness and call a spade a spade" are my enemy? It's when members of the flock start acting like actual sheep that the alarm klaxons go off. Seeing bumperstickers which read; "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" is what makes me begin to worry.
Notice how that disturbing phrase could be attributed to a (typically fundamentalist) person of almost any faith? Quite simply, way too much killing has happened and continues to happen in the "name of God." When the individual religions get over their separate notions of spiritual supremacy, one and all, only then will I not be quite so concerned about these issues. I look for leadership by example, not a bunch of brainwashed yahoos (of any stripe) telling me how they've found the end-all and be-all solution to human existence.
You don't get that here on RB - you get smart reasoned comments by committed people. Something to honor and respect - certainly in a world gone mad on relativism and weenieism.
In the majority, yes. Although there are also some pretty rabid wingnuts around here, by and large, Rantburg contains a lot more of the lucid mentalities I seek out in this world (especially on the topic of international terrorism).
You get so much right - how can you be so uber-sensitive that you go blind and get this part wrong? By a huge margin, the Christian religion is a positive influence in the US.
I'm not blind about it, I just tend to remain skeptical of those who are so willing to condemn people they have not even taken the time to understand. Mind you, I'm not preaching any of this sort of "moral relativism" mindrot. Some things are black & white, there is such a thing as right and wrong. Take rape. When is it ever valid? Same goes for sexual child abuse, unaggravated or mass murder and numerous other acts. What you cite as a "positive influence" by a "huge margin" has brought along with it some very damaging puritanical and outdated social mores. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "If more of you Christians were like your Christ, all of India would be Christian by now."
You're shooting all the dogs because some of them have fleas, it seems.
You could not be more wrong. I will defend freedom of religion to the death. Along with that theological freedom must come freedom from religion. If the religious component of American society refuses to comprehend such a concept, they sterilize much that is of worth in their own spiritual message.
You're too valuable an observer to lose to that painful event. Hey, I'll kneecap whomever it was - just let me know who and where, bro.
If I were shooting all dogs in the name of pest control, you would have long ago heard about the many Christians who have ripped me off, comitted violence against me and other such trespasses. I'm not here to whine about poor witnesses.
Instead, I'll thank you for the support, .com. From someone of your own nature, I will hold such approbation in esteem, not that anybody's explicit approval plays a pivotal role in my life. It makes me glad that we've been able to progress well past the acrimony that our earlier interactions were so fraught with. I'll probably be accused of derailing this thread with my own personal agenda because of such a lengthy reply, but you've asked some truly pertinent questions. These topics directly relate to why I so detest Islamist theocracy (not to mention theocracy in general) and am quite willing to kill such totalitarian mentalities without awarding them a shred of moral relativism.
#23
Interesting thread. However, I would caution all you atheists to be aware that not all God-seekers have a belief system. There is an old man for whom religion is a purely empirical matter. He is very quiet, harmless, and is seldom seen or heard from unless you seek him out west of the river.
#24
There is an old man for whom religion is a purely empirical matter. He is very quiet, harmless, and is seldom seen or heard from unless you seek him out west of the river.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 20:24
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#26
Zen - Wow! You wrote a tome! This will probably be another... I'm back from Geek Heaven, installed my big bag of goodies and I'm back online with power to burn.
Okay - I won't bug you again about it - unless you get shrill, heh, but I still submit that the dangers you describe are exaggerated, especially relative to the social benefits. Much like Howard Hughes and his Mormons - there are significant values and ethics imparted to people who were raised in homes where certain mores are SOP.
I have no doubt we actually want almost the same thing - sensible tolerance anchored in pragmatic practices. My opinion regards homosexuality is rather simple: it's a genetic box canyon and 2 generations of all who feel they are gay forgoing heterosexual unions would prove it, no? I believe it's obviously a "lifestyle" choice - driven by the internal compulsion "felt" by the individual. Fine. It should receive all of the benefits and advantages offered to any "lifestyle" choice - no more, no less. I could be a disingenuous ass and say I have all these gay friends, but the fact is that I don't, anymore. Once I went overseas those acquaintances fell away... and what I witnessed first-hand, and became aware of second-hand in Arabia rather put me off the topic, if you know what I mean. If you don't, bluntly put, Arabia is overrun by homosexual behavior. The reasons are there in Islam, and everyone knows the practice is rampant, yet it is supposedly unacceptable. Yeah, right. When you're walking down the corridor of a major hotel and turn a corner to see two guys getting it on - on a couch in an alcove - well, it just loses a bit of its social elan. Okay, enough.
I have no substantive qualms with the Christians or the Buddhists - if practiced as written, they are (mostly) constructive and beneficial, though I would not chose to practice either. My knowledge of the Jews is still miniscule, although I've been reading. The Hindus - all I know is a faint memory of reading the Upanishads and The 10,000 Arms of Milarippa (or something like that) about 35 yrs ago - i.e. next to nothing. I know more about Islam than I care to - and it is the only one which I would rather see eradicated as the pathogen I believe it to be.
We may be fighting (or, at least, voting) side by side someday on the question of eradicating it. I welcome your support for the preservation of Freedom - and let Islam suffer whatever fate it deserves.
Got nothing against religion here, or religious faith. Understand and approve totally of the notion of educating one's children with an eye toward their spiritual formation. But I do have a real problem with a couple of religious sects, however, obviously the mooselimbs but also a few protestant sects in this country that somehow think it appropriate and necessary to push their particular reading of nature and man and god through the US public schools rather than setting up their own schools for that purpose, as Catholics and Orthodox jews do. And note that Catholics constitute a significantly higher share of US population-- and in the big cities, a far higher share-- than the biblical literalist protestants.
And why the extraordinary emphasis on evolutionary biology? If the goal is to present minority scientific views, then why not also demand that textbooks have warning stickers advising that Einsteinian physics has its critics? Why not highlight alternative views on quarks or neuroscience or personality development or photosynthesis or string theory?
What dispensation is it that entitles this particular sect to impose its particular reading of this particular scientific theory on my kids?
Only after America has finished with the terraforming of Mars.
We may be fighting (or, at least, voting) side by side someday on the question of eradicating it. I welcome your support for the preservation of Freedom - and let Islam suffer whatever fate it deserves.
If it comes down to a fight, I'd be right pleased to be in the same squad with you, .com. Above all, you have been utterly consistent (however abrasive - a particular quality which I am completely unknown for), and that is something I can respect.
When I was a teenager, I frequently mentioned how it was easier to deal with rednecks because at least you knew where they stood on matters. Since that time, I have come to appreciate consistency all the more. When it is accompanied by rationality the results can be, not just breath taking, but among the most productive that humanity is capable of.
I believe that, more than anything, it is America's plurality that has built its greatness. As I mentioned in another thread, it is precisely this healthy diversity that has driven our country to make more progress in barely two centuries than any other nation or culture has in so many millennia of human existence.
I cannot imagine any more fitting explanation for America's status as the world's sole superpower.
The MSM has struck paydirt again after carefully searching the entire internet
The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head. Some of the photos have date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003, which could make them the earliest evidence of possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The far more brutal practices What brutal practices? Forcing prisoners to look at Lynndie England?
photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later. An Associated Press reporter found more than 40 of the pictures among hundreds in an album posted on a commercial photo-sharing Web site by a woman who said her husband brought them from Iraq after his tour of duty. dumb. DUMB Folks. Let's get rid of this stuff for send it to JAG today.
It is unclear who took the pictures, which the Navy said it was investigating after the AP furnished copies to get comment for this story. These and other photos found by the AP appear to show the immediate aftermath of raids on civilian homes. One man is lying on his back with a boot on his chest. A mug shot shows a man with an automatic weapon pointed at his head and a gloved thumb jabbed into his throat. In many photos, faces have been blacked out. What appears to be blood drips from the heads of some. A family huddles in a room in one photo and others show debris and upturned furniture. LLL-MSM field day coming. Thank goodness the election is over.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/04/2004
2:35:10 PM ||
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#1
2 photos are attached to the article. I say Fuck Yeah! Good Job. Baath boy better be thanking Jesus it isn't Saddam's boys wearing those boots. The AP want to see some photos? Google the aftermath of a counter mortar battery or AC-130 strike. Lots of good stuff to titilate the easily offended and give the Muslims a preview of allah's whorehouse.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 15:18
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#2
Jihadi wank videos of beheadings don't seem to get much attention anymore. I guess the press figured out they piss us off too much.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/04/2004 16:10
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#3
Again this is unfortunate- Those parties involved are going to pay a heavy price during the court martial procedure. What is the point?
Do these soldier's think they are ABOVE the LAW?
If I marched in their boots- I would say "lets make a deal". To eerr is human- this is beyond an eerr.
ANdrea
Posted by: Andrea ||
12/04/2004 17:46
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#4
See Top Stories - AP Judge- Commander to Testify in Abuse Trial. By T.A. Badger, Associated press writer. Under Yahoo.com
news link 12-04-04.
Andrea
Posted by: Andrea ||
12/04/2004 18:07
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#5
Do these soldier's think they are ABOVE the LAW?
Well hey, what's a few sawed-off heads, dead Iraqi police officers, or suicide-bombed U.S. soldiers? Those insurgent-types aren't such bad people, really....
While various groups and individuals needlessly wring their hands over this whole bullshit "abuse" idea, Zarqawi and his cohorts are laughing their heads off over the abnormal amount to attention being given to it.
Unrest in Thailand's south is nothing new. But authorities are cracking down harder because the nature of the unrest is changing. The three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat once formed Pattani, an independent Muslim sultanate populated by ethnic Malays. Even after its Thai annexation in 1932, however, Pattani had its own sultans until 1902, when Abdul Qadir Qamaruddin, the last ruler, was deposed and imprisoned. Pattani was then carved up into three provinces, and administered from Bangkok.
Bangkok has since tried to assimilate the southerners into the Thai mainstream, but with limited success. Armed rebellions led by descendants of the Pattani sultans erupted in 1947 and 1948. And, in 1960, the first properly organized separatist movement, the National Liberation Front of Pattani, was formed. This movement operated from sanctuaries across the border in the newly independent Malayan Federation (now Malaysia) and worked to establish "an Islamic state, based on the Holy Quran and the Sunnah." Another group, Barisan Revolusi Nasional was also established in the early 1960s to fight the Thai government, followed by the better known and more militant Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), which carried out small-scale guerrilla war during the 1970s and early 1980s.
During the 1990s, these movements became increasingly associated with radical Islam. Purist Wahhabi teachings gained ground in the south's numerous privately-run Islamic schools, and militants who had fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan returned home. In 1995, the old PULO split, and Afghan war veteran Nasoree Saesaeng founded an entirely new organization, the Movement of Islamic Mujahideen of Pattani (GMIP). The war in Afghanistan and inspiration from Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, created a regional brotherhood of militant Muslims. Meanwhile, radically improved communications in Southeast Asia facilitated the exchange of ideas, plans, and funds.
The Thai militant groups are no longer local or isolated. The Thai mujahideen group has links with the radical Malaysian group Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM), which was also established in 1995 by Afghan war veterans. Both groups belong to Rabitat-ul Mujahideen, a regional umbrella organisation of radical groups. This organisation, in turn, is linked to Jemaah Islamiah, a predominantly Indonesian organisation that is linked to several bombings, including the devastating Bali bombings that killed 200 people.
According to documents seized by Southeast Asian security agencies, the final goal of this "brotherhood" is to establish an Islamic mega-state encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand, and the Muslim areas of southern Philippines. This objective comprises a much greater threat to regional stability than the local, isolated separatist movements of pre-Afghan war days.
It is impossible to gauge support for these ideas in the region. But even if adherents form a small minority, their ability to strike has been demonstrated on numerous occasions.
Moderate Muslim community leaders in Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat have appealed to the government to seek a political solution to the problem, warning that further repression will breed more terrorism. After the Tai Bak tragedy, Abdullahman Abdulsomat, chairman of Narathiwat's provincial Islamic committee, told the local Thai Press, "This is totally insane. Certainly, this will escalate, and who knows what will happen next." Thai authorities have since grown more willing to listen to critics. Recently Lt-Gen Pisarn Wattanawongkeeree was removed as army commander in the south to await the outcome of an official inquiry into the killings. But a similar inquiry into an incident at a mosque in Pattani on April 28, when the army killed about 100 Muslim youths, has shed little or no light on what actually happened that day.
Thai authorities may find themselves in a no-win situation in the wake of the recent beheading. Another watered-down report could yield disastrous consequences. And a frank admission that excessive violence was used to suppress the demonstration may also ignite violence. In either case, the beheading of the Buddhist village leader could indeed mark the start of a vicious spiral of violence by militants.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
2:07:49 PM ||
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My understanding is a lot of this is spill over from Aceh (about 5 hours away by small boat). But that would mean the 'root cause' is other muslims.
#2
note the gentle influence of Wahhabi Saudis - a simmering pot comes to boil every time they're involved. A mosque built with Saudi funds should be declared enemy ground based on worldwide evidence
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 16:20
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In the deadliest insurgent violence in weeks, militants stormed two police stations and a mosque in Baghdad yesterday, killing 30 people. In the northern city of Mosul, 11 militants died in street battles with American and Iraqi forces. Roadside bombs in Baghdad and Kirkuk killed two American soldiers and wounded five others, the military said. The surge in violence indicates militants still can stage attacks at will despite a US-led military campaign to quell the insurgency before Jan. 30 elections. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for a raid on a Baghdad police station and other attacks. ''The destructive effect that such operations have on the morale of the enemy . . . is clear," said the claim, which could not be independently verified. It was posted on an Islamic website.
US commanders and Iraq's interim authorities hope to boost security in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas of central and northern Iraq before the elections. Sunni politicians have urged them to postpone balloting because of escalating violence. The visiting NATO commander expressed surprise yesterday that Iraq's insurgency had proven so resilient by comparison with Afghanistan, where he said security has improved significantly. ''At the beginning I would have projected the opposite, with Iraq coming along faster," said US General James Jones, the supreme allied commander in Europe.
The attacks in Baghdad began just before 6 a.m. when 11 carloads of gunmen attacked the police station in the western Amil district with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Insurgents killed 16 policemen, looted weapons, torched cars, and freed about 35 detainees before escaping, police Captain Mohammed al-Jumeili said. Later, in the Sunni stronghold of Azamiyah, a car bomb exploded at a Shi'ite mosque called Hameed al-Najar, killing 14 people and wounding 19, hospital officials said. Azamiyah was a center of Sunni support for Saddam Hussein, and the attack on the mosque may have been a bid by Sunnis to stoke sectarian strife there. However, the imam of the nearby Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque quickly condemned the attack. ''Iraqi resistance has nothing to do with bombing mosques and churches and killing innocent people in markets and streets," Sheik Ahmed Hassan Al-Taha said in a sermon. ''The resistance [exists] to defend the country and liberate it."
Soon after, insurgents and Iraqi government forces fought for about two hours around an Azamiyah police station, officers said. There were no reports of casualties. American and Iraqi forces also clashed yesterday with insurgents in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings said. The fighting started when guerrillas fired several mortar rounds at an American base; no casualties were reported. Major General Rashid Feleih, head of the Iraqi commando force, said gunmen also attacked three Mosul police stations. The defenders returned fire, killing 11 attackers and capturing three others. Another Iraqi official said two civilians also died. Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, saw a major uprising last month that forced the US command and the interim government to divert troops from an offensive in Fallujah. On Thursday, Iraqi and US forces discovered 14 bodies in Mosul, and there were reports five more bodies were picked up by relatives. That brought to at least 66 the number of bodies -- many of them believed to be members of the Iraqi security forces or supporters of the interim government -- found there since Nov. 18.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
2:05:51 PM ||
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Later, in the Sunni stronghold of Azamiyah, a car bomb exploded at a Shiâite mosque called Hameed al-Najar, killing 14 people and wounding 19, hospital officials said. .....However, the imam of the nearby Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque quickly condemned the attack.
ââIraqi resistance has nothing to do with bombing mosques and churches and killing innocent people in markets and streets," Sheik Ahmed Hassan Al-Taha said in a sermon. ââThe resistance [exists] to defend the country and liberate it."
Yes, of course! Sunni's are great neighbors, what was I thinking!
A suspected Taleban militant was killed and two others injured when a bomb they were making exploded in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Saturday. Another suspect was also arrested unharmed and grenades, explosives, wires and remote-control devices were recovered after the blast at a house in the southern city of Kandahar on Friday, they said. "They were Taliban bomb-makers. The bomb they were making exploded and killed one of them, injured two and one was arrested unharmed," provincial police chief General Khan Mohammad told AFP by telephone. Another provincial security official said police were interrogating the arrested militants. "We hope we will be able to get more information about Taliban activities," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
2:03:42 PM ||
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Pakistani intelligence agencies have alerted the government about banned jihadi groups' plans to kidnap senior government officials, ministers and lawmakers to get detained al-Qaeda militants released. Intelligence reports submitted to the interior ministry revealed that jihadi elements, including al-Qaeda, were planning to kidnap government officials in senior positions and treasury members of the national and provincial assemblies to pressure the government to release the detained militants, local newspaper Daily Times quoted officials as saying today. "The reports stated that these jihadis are expected to use abductions 'like in Iraq' to bargain with the government for the release of their activists or to pressure the government to accept their demands, the officials said.
Following the reports, Interior Ministry ordered the home secretaries and provincial police chiefs, including the Islamabad Chief Commissioner and Inspector General of Police, to plan counter-measures, the officials said. The security around senior government officials and Parliamentarians has been increased, they said, adding the home department of the Pakistan's Punjab province also ordered deployment of the provincial constabulary personnel at the houses of senior officials. The reports also stated that jihadis would kidnap army officers and personnel of intelligence agencies themselves.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
2:02:37 PM ||
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Now, why would they do THAT when Al-Q militants are being produced in record numbers by the high-handed, illegal, imperialistic actions of the United States?
#2
Interesting to contrast this with the previous story ("Musharraf sez the back of the Pakistani al-Qaeda is broken"). Sounds like a bit more mopping up is in order.
Posted by: Old Grouch ||
12/04/2004 22:05
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The United States has admitted that the extent of the Iraqi insurgency wasn't predicted before the US-led coalition went to war in Iraq. "We heard they were going to burn bridges, light up the oil wells. There would be a humanitarian crisis, there would be a massive refugee problem. They were going to use weapons of mass destruction, so our people strapped on chemical suits every day," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said.
Beating the insurgency in Iraq is "a test of wills," but one that the US, the coalition, and most importantly, the Iraqis, are committed to winning, he said in an interview with FoxNews yesterday. Rumsfeld said it's not the US that ultimately will bring stability to Iraq - it's the Iraqi people themselves. He praised the Iraqi security forces who have suffered big losses defending Iraq, taking more casualties than the United States despite being organized for just over a year. Rumsfeld said the Iraqi people are playing an important role in helping fight the insurgents. "The people in Fallujah started giving assistance to the troops and to the Iraqi forces up there fighting," he said. "Now, they're aiding the coalition and Iraqis in Mosul." He said that Iran is proving to be "a big problem" in the war on terror, not only because it is "aiding" al Qaeda and Taliban extremists, but also because it's "developing long-range weapons." Rumsfeld accused Iranian government of being "unhelpful," harbouring al Qaeda and working to influence events "in a way that favours people that are friendly to them."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
2:00:55 PM ||
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Posted by: Andrea ||
12/04/2004
18:04 ||
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Looked for the the article as titled. Didn't find it. Did you mean General: New Photos Could Be Used As Tool? I see an Baathist or jihadi standing next to a fridge with a gun pointed at his head. That is the customary stance for someone who has just been arrested. Have you ever seen a SWAT drug bust go down? There are a lot more guns than in this picture. Or were you referring to the Elian Gonzales Cuban refugee photo. Now that looked like one scared little critter and one menacing SWAT/ATF/FBI hombre. Or were you really referring to String of Iraq Suicide Attacks Kill 16 or possibly "Militants" Kill 30 in Baghdad Strikes The explosion occurred in front of a Shiite mosque (Friday prayer) and killed an estimated 14 people while wounding more than 20. Several witnesses said a small blast had drawn people outside at the mosque, which sits near a police station, when a larger bomb detonated to deadly effect.
and you, as a fine upstanding citizen, wanted to alert the uninformed of the absolute barbarity the enemies of freedom and slaves of allah will stoop to. Well, good job citizen first class Andrea.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 22:25
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German authorities Saturday arrested a fourth man on suspicion of involvement in an al-Qaeda-linked group's alleged plot to attack Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during his visit to Berlin this week. Meanwhile, the three Iraqis already in custody for their alleged roles in the plot denied the accusations against them during questioning Saturday by a judge, Der Spiegel newsweekly reported Saturday. The judge will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against them. The fourth suspect, a man with Lebanese citizenship, was arrested in Berlin on suspicion of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, federal prosecutors' spokesman Hartmut Schneider said.
U.S. authorities have linked the group to al-Qaeda. German authorities have said Ansar al-Islam has about 100 supporters in the country. Prosecutors did not release the three suspects' names. One of them, the suspected head of an Ansar-al-Islam cell in the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, has been under investigation by Stuttgart authorities since October 2003, Der Spiegel reported. He was brought to the attention of German authorities by prosecutors in Milan, Italy, after a telephone call with a key terror suspect in Italy, the magazine reported. Before Allawi's visit, investigators who had the three suspects under surveillance noticed an increase in activity, phone calls and suspicious movements by one suspect that amounted to evidence of plans to attack, prosecutors say. The suspects' phone calls grew more hectic after initial intelligence led officials to cancel a Thursday night meeting between Allawi and Iraqi exiles in Berlin, prosecutors say. Allawi said the threat was part of his everyday life, the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily reported Saturday. "But, we will not give up, even when a few terrorists want to force us to," the newspaper quoted him as saying at a Friday evening event. Allawi left Germany later Friday for Russia, wrapping up a three-nation trip.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
1:59:18 PM ||
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A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle beside a bus carrying Kurdish militiamen in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, killing at least seven, police and Kurdish officials said. They said the victims were peshmerga militiamen linked to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish parties in north Iraq. The PUK backed the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein and is part of the interim government.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
1:57:31 PM ||
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Pakistan has broken the back of al Qaeda forces by capturing its "big wigs" even if Osama bin Laden is still at large, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday. On a visit to Mexico, Musharraf defended his country's record in the U.S.-led war on terror and said Pakistan had arrested 600 al Qaeda militants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Many are thought to have taken shelter in Pakistani tribal regions near the Afghan border, or have slipped into major cities after fleeing the U.S. hunt for them in Afghanistan. "We have sorted them out in the cities; all the big wigs of al Qaeda caught by Pakistan alone," Musharraf said. "So anyone who thinks that Pakistan is not doing anything on terrorism: if Pakistan is not doing anything, then no one in the world is doing anything," Musharraf said. "All the big names: who caught them? Pakistan caught them, 600 of them."
The Pakistani president said his country had crushed al Qaeda's operational and logistics bases. "They are on the run in small pockets. We have broken their back in Pakistan."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
1:55:47 PM ||
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The armed Basque separatist group ETA showed it was not a spent force with Friday's coordinated attacks at five Madrid petrol stations, but it also further isolated the guerrillas' closest political allies, Batasuna. The attacks ended months of relative inactivity by ETA and were the first to hit Madrid in two years, signaling the group could still kill despite a fierce police crackdown. The bombs also dashed hopes for a Christmas truce or a distancing between ETA and Batasuna, the party accused of being ETA's political wing and banned for not condemning ETA violence. Batasuna also declined to condemn the latest bombs and said on Saturday it was sticking by its proposal for peace talks unveiled last month.
Mainstream parties said that refusal was a lost opportunity. "These attacks have once again shown up Batasuna," the Basque regional government, led by the moderate Basque Nationalist Party, said after the bombs. "(Batasuna) should react politically ⊠if they don't want their public pronouncement (on peace talks) to have been a waste of paper," the Basque government said.
Friday's attacks slightly wounded two police officers and snarled traffic for hours as Madrid people left the capital for a long holiday weekend. ETA forewarned of the blasts with a telephone call, allowing police to evacuate the five bomb sites. The political class in Madrid has no time for Batasuna. But non-violent Basque nationalists, though frustrated by the party, view it as needed if Madrid should ever decide to negotiate with a group it brands as terrorist. Batasuna's last grasp on power is due to run out in May, when its seven representatives in the 75-member Basque parliament will lose their seats unless the party can become legal again and present candidates. Batasuna on Nov. 14 called for peace talks to resolve Spain's Basque conflict, possibly with an eye toward the May elections. Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi declined to condemn the attacks on Saturday and told a news conference the party still held hope for a negotiated solution. "The message from these actions (the bombs) means that the conflict persists and our position (calling for talks) is more valid today than it was on Nov. 14," Otegi said. Otegi would need to clearly condemn ETA violence if the party were to have hopes of becoming legal again.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
1:54:16 PM ||
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The 850-strong Black Watch battle group has pulled out of Camp Dogwood and returned to its base in Basra. There was controversy when its troops were deployed near Baghdad a month ago to back US operations, but Tony Blair said the country was proud of them. They are expected to return home within the next week. Five troops were killed during the deployment in central Iraq. Lt Col James Cowan who led the mission said: "Their deaths are something we will never forget." Three soldiers died in a suicide car bomb attack along with an Iraqi translator, another in a roadside bombing and one in a road traffic accident. A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister believes the country can be very proud of the job the Black Watch have done in difficult circumstances."
Lance Corporal Danny Buist, 29, from Arbroath, said: "I'm very happy to be out of Dogwood but the operation isn't over until we're back in Scotland - that's when the fat lady sings, when we are back with our families. "When we touch down in Edinburgh I'll be singing I can tell you." He added that he would like to think their mission had made a difference "for the sake of the guys we lost. I think we have done something good to hopefully make this country safer." Lance Corporal Thomas Rennie said: "I can't wait to get back to Scotland for Christmas and New Year and Hogmanay. It's going to be brilliant. I'm going to drink as much beer as possible and get the kilt on and get out on the town." Corporal Alec Wilson, 27, from Fife, who was had to postpone his wedding planning for this month said: "The first thing I'm going to do is go for a curry."
The British commander who sent the Black Watch north told the BBC last week that other British units could be redeployed to other parts of Iraq in the future. With respect to the men who gave their lives during the posting, I think it's appropriate to borrow and adapt some of Churchill's words to comemorate this occasion: Never in the field of human conflict has so much fuss been made by so many about so few...
The comparable article at the Guardian adds this quote:
"After working with the Americans you won't find a man in this company who doesn't have the highest respect for the American Marines, for the threat they face on a daily basis and the casualties they take on a daily basis.
"The support we had from them was outstanding. It felt like the whole of the Marine Corps air wing was watching over us and that gives you an enormous feeling of reassurance."
Posted by: Matt ||
12/04/2004 14:43
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"Iâm very happy to be out of Dogwood but the operation isnât over until weâre back in Scotland - thatâs when the fat lady sings, when we are back with our families. "When we touch down in Edinburgh Iâll be singing I can tell you."
This guy either reads RB or has 300 free hours at Cathy's Cliches and TermPapers.
The police chief here backed away Thursday from comments about terrorists living in Tulsa and Wichita, Kan., saying he has no evidence supporting the existence of al-Qaida "cells" in either city...He called Wichita police chief Norman Williams Thursday to apologize. "He was very gracious, and said, "I appreciate the call and don't you worry about it a bit," Been said of Williams. Wichita police Lt. Joe Dessenberger, who coordinates emergency planning and security for the city, said Been did not need to apologize and said the city's threat level remained at its routine "yellow."
"Y'all can take down the plastic sheeting and duct tape now."
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency knew dissident military officers were planning a coup in 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, according to purported U.S. intelligence documents posted on the Internet. Citing the documents, Chavez lashed out at U.S. officials on Thursday, saying they knew a coup was brewing but failed to tip off Venezuela's government. "The CIA knew that a coup was coming ... the government of George Bush knew," said Chavez, whose so-called "peaceful revolution" for the poor and close ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro have often put him at odds with U.S. policies.
CIA had damned well better know of this, and a hundred other things in Venezuela. That's their friggin' job.
The apparent declassified CIA documents are posted on the pro-Chavez Web site www.venezuelafoia.info, which contains links to other requests for U.S. documents by freelance investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood. An April 6 senior intelligence executive brief — just five days before a coup that briefly ousted Chavez — said "disgruntled senior officers and a group of radical junior officers are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chavez, possibly as early as this month." As early as March 11, another brief noted "increased signs that Venezuelan business leaders and military officers are becoming dissatisfied with President Chavez" and said if the situation were to further deteriorate "the military may move to overthrow him." The authenticity of the documents could not be immediately confirmed, though the scanned briefs, with certain portions whited out, appeared to be formerly top secret documents that are regularly circulated among top officials in the Bush administration. A 2002 State Department review of U.S. policy, however, said the U.S. government did warn Chavez of impending plots. In his speech broadcast on state-run television Thursday, Chavez said documents showing U.S. involvement in the coup "are emerging" and "will continue to surface."
"Having a government of this type in the United States is a threat to the world," added Chavez, who accused the Bush administration of actively supporting the short-lived coup. William Brownsfield, U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said differences between the two countries can be resolved, according to a report published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal on Thursday. The newspaper also said he rejected allegations that U.S. officials backed Venezuelan coup leaders or endorsed Carmona's interim government, saying Washington considers the events in April 2002 "a closed chapter." "We are willing to work with the Venezuelan government to improve relations," Brownfield was quoted as saying. The State Department in July 2002 released a review of its policy and the U.S. Embassy's actions in Venezuela from November 2001 to April 2002, in which it confirms knowledge of plots to oust Chavez. But it says that "far from working to foment his overthrow, the United States alerted President Chavez to coup plots and warned him of an assassination threat that was deemed to be credible."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2004
12:56:34 PM ||
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Whatever happened in 2002, proper US doctrine should be to shun Chavez, encourage the Venezuelan people to strive for a better government, and officially support their fight against Chavez.
Same as should be happening against Castro, Mugabe, and every dictator on Earth. It wouldn't cost anything to show some spine here.
TULKARM, West Bank - Israeli forces detained a senior leader of Hamas's military wing in the West Bank on Saturday during a nighttime raid on his hideout, witnesses said. Rami al-Tayyah, 26, identified by Israeli security sources as head of the Islamic group's armed wing in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, has been wanted by Israel since 2002.
Witnesses said Israeli forces surrounded an apartment building in Tulkarm and took Tayyah into custody. "Don't kill him, we need him alive," one resident quoted a soldier as telling his comrades.
"Avi, get the #7's! We got 'im alive!"
The security sources said Tayyah had established numerous Hamas cells that carried out dozens of shooting and bomb attacks against Israelis. Tayyah, the sources said, has evaded capture during the Palestinian uprising by hiding out among the local populace and moving from place to place disguised as a woman.
Pictures of that need to be circulated around the West Bank. Put him in a Brittney Spears outfit.
A member of the militant Islamic Jihad group and the owner of the apartment where Tayyah was hiding were also taken into custody in the raid. Troops found two automatic rifles, a pistol and ammunition at the hideout, the security sources said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2004
12:51:36 PM ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 14:38
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âDonât kill him, we need him alive.â
Seems like the Paleo lied about overhearing that. Seems a bit strange that they would talk about taking him alive during the raid. Surely it would have been made clear during the planning stage?
A Muslim rebel attack on an Indian Kashmir police camp left five police and one rebel dead in the region's biggest raid since Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited India last month, police said on Saturday. Six police were also wounded in the attack on the camp in Sopore town, 30 miles north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar.A little-known militant group, Al-Mansoorian, claimed responsibility for the attack, which began on Friday and lasted 24 hours. Indian security agencies say Al-Mansoorian is the new name of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outlawed Pakistan-based guerrilla group. "The fierce firefight ended today (Saturday) at 5.30 and the search operation of the camp building is continuing," Farooq Ahmad, a police officer in Sopore, told Reuters by telephone. Ahmad said the body of one of the militants had been recovered from the building, which was damaged in the encounter. "It is still not clear how many militants were involved in the attack," Ahmad added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2004
12:49:08 PM ||
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The Federal Government says that while torture is inappropriate, it has no intention of fighting plans by the United States Government to use evidence gained through torture in the trial of Guantanamo Bay detainees. A court in Washington has been told that military panels at the prison in Cuba can use evidence obtained through torture. Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says that while such evidence is not an accepted part of civilian trials, it is an approach used in military trials. He says it is also used in international criminal tribunals that the United Nations has established. "Military commissions, if allegations are raised that evidence was obtained inappropriately, its probative value, that is the weight you can put on it, is tested in the process," he said. "We've always known that that was the approach in the military trial arrangements."
Lawyers acting for Australian detainees in Cuba had earlier today called for the Government to renounce the practice. Two Australians, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, are being held at Guantanamo Bay. The lawyer for Hicks, Stephen Kenny, says the US Government's plan to use evidence resulting from torture will hamper any chance of a fair trial. He says any abuse of human rights by the US Government is unacceptable. "If you want to try people, give them the proper protection, give them the same rights you give your own citizens and put them before a proper court and give them a chance to defend themselves," he said. "Don't take them to a place where you're trying to hide them beyond the rule of law, which is what they did in Guantanamo Bay."
Mr Kenny says Saddam Hussein's regime was criticised for human rights abuses against defectors and the US Government should not be using the same tactics in the trial of Guantanamo Bay detainees. "For the Americans to start saying they'll do this, essentially what they are doing is behaving as a third world dictatorship and frankly that is a very great concern," he said. Mr Kenny has again called on the Australian Government to bring Hicks home and allow him to defend himself against allegations of war crimes before an Australian court.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004
12:47:13 AM ||
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Sticks and stones will break my bones,but whips and chains excite me!
#2
By all means, give them rights. Give them the rights of Hazaras who were skinned alive. Give them the rights of WTC workers who were crushed into dust or jumped from 1400 feet up. Give them the rights of Iraqis or Tibetian worker tied up and lined in a ditch as they are beheaded or shot. Give them the rights of Margaret Hassan pleading for her life before having her head blown off or Paul Johnson beheaded and his head stored in the family freezer. Give it to them.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 12:56
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Just stop giving them anti-malaria and anti-fungial medication and yellow fever immunizations. The Cuban jungle will do the rest.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2004 15:16
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ed, that's a superior rant. OP, that's a very cost-effective solution.
Posted by: Matt ||
12/04/2004 15:23
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One more time: The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay are being CALLED torture. I invite someone to show which methods the US used that Saddam also used, while acknowledging that Saddam used methods that the US never will ever use.
#6
I've heard on one fo the radio talk show I listen to that the worst "torture" was to force them to listen to Barbara Streisand. I wonder if it's true.
African forces should be fully deployed to Sudan's troubled Darfur region by the end of the year despite some delays in building the infrastructure to house them, the new head of the African Union mission said on Saturday. On his arrival in Sudan, mission chief Baba Gana Kingibe said that a joint declaration of principles should be signed within the first two weeks of Darfur peace talks, due to reconvene in the Nigerian capital Abuja around Dec. 10. "We expect that before long within a week or two the declaration of principles which was negotiated and largely agreed upon will be finalised and signed," Kingibe, a former Nigerian foreign minister, told reporters in Khartoum. "We believe that early in the new year we will be making a robust approach towards inching to a final peace deal."
"As long as the UN checks clear."
The African Union has been slowly increasing its force in remote Darfur towards a 3,300-strong contingent with a stronger mandate which includes monitoring a shaky April ceasefire, monitoring Sudanese police and limited powers to protect civilians, but Kingibe said the slow progress was not because of lack of funding or difficulties in finding suitable troops. "It is better that we synchronise the deployment of the troops to the availability of facilities on the ground. We are working on how we can speed up the provision of infrastructure on the ground to the deployment of the troops," he said. "I think that by Dec. 15 we should have quite a number of troops in. By the end of December we should have all the complements of the troops on the ground," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2004
12:47:05 PM ||
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"AU says to deploy full Darfur mission by year-end"
By which time these unpleasant, trouble making "victims" will be all dead --- thereby simplifying the mission enormously.
I think I'd use a different word other than "launch" after bombing a tanker.
Fourteen Yemenis convicted of a string of terror offences including the October 2002 bombing of the French oil supertanker Limburlaunched their appeals on Saturday. The 14, as well as one other tried in absentia, were sentenced in on August 28 to punishments ranging from prison terms of up to ten years, to death. They were convicted on charges relating to a range of terror plots including the tanker bombing, a plot to kill the United States ambassador in Sana'a, and plans to attack embassies in the Yemeni capital. The Sana'a counter-terrorism Court of Appeals heard appeal statements from seven convicts aged between 23 and 27, who have pleaded guilty to minor offences but denied any role in the Limburg bombing, or in the assassination or bomb plots.
"Lies! All lies! At least the ones that'll get us jugged!"
After hearing initial defence pleas, the appeal courts chief judge Naji Sayid al-Qattaa set next Saturday for the next court session and asked the other seven present defendants to prepare their pleas, which will be heard December 11.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2004
12:40:53 PM ||
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Why bother with appeals. The next Yemeni mass jailbreak is scheduled in 3 days.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 13:02
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The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) will not hold talks with the government until it honours the previous round of talks, which resulted in the passing of the 17th Amendment, said Syed Munawar Hassan, the secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Addressing a press conference on Friday, Mr Hassan warned that if President Gen Musharraf did not shed his uniform by December 31, he would no longer be acceptable as president to the MMA. He added, "A movement would be launched to try President Musharraf and the assembly members who passed resolutions in favour of his uniform for treason under Article 6." Mr Hassan said that although President Musharraf enjoyed a constitutional status as president till December 31, it would lapse if he violated the 17th Amendment by keeping his uniform.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:20:06 AM ||
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Ukraine's Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a disputed presidential election won by the country's prime minister was invalid. Chairman Anatoly Yarema, delivering the court's ruling after five days of deliberations, said a "repeat vote" was required. He said this ballot should take place three weeks counting from December 5 - meaning December 26 - suggesting it would be a re-run of last month's run-off vote which opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko alleged was rigged by authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:18:50 AM ||
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Pakistani intelligence agencies have discovered that jihadis (religious warriors) are planning to kidnap senior government officials, ministers and National and Provincial Assembly members to pressure the government to accept their demands, sources told Daily Times on Friday. Intelligence reports submitted to the Interior Ministry revealed that jihadi elements including Al Qaeda were planning to kidnap government officials in senior positions and National and Provincial Assembly members, particularly those of the treasury, to pressure the government to release detained Al Qaeda activists, sources added. The reports also revealed that jihadis would kidnap army officers and intelligence personnel, they said. "The reports stated that these jihadis are expected to use abductions — like in Iraq — to bargain with the government for the release of their activists or to pressure the government to accept their demands," sources said. Keeping the intelligence reports in mind, the Interior Ministry ordered the home secretaries and provincial police chiefs including the Islamabad chief commissioner and inspector general (IG) of police to plan counter measures, they added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:17:23 AM ||
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An anti terrorist team of the Sheikhupura Elite Force has arrested three mosque imams for being linked to banned militant organisation Jaish e-Muhammad and seized a large quantity of explosives and weapons. All three militants were arrested on Friday from Malyanwala village, in Farooqabad Police Station's jurisdiction. The team raided a mosque in Farooqabad, and arrested Qari Aslam, a mosque imam. During interrogation, Aslam revealed the identity of his fellow accomplices and the location of explosives and weapons. Later, officials arrested Qari Arshad and Ahmad Khan, and seized 10 foreign-produced remote-controlled explosive devices, wires, fuses and chemicals. The bomb devices were seized from a bag filled with worn out pages from the Quran.
That makes them holier, so they work better.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:14:08 AM ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:12:07 AM ||
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#1
Let's up the ante, Veto Membership, won't have any affect except dilute the French Veto. Since we have no intention of being constrained by the UN anyway. Give one to Japan, Australia and Germany too.
#2
Mmmm! Other reports are saying exactly the opposite to this Pakistani source.
"If we go to the enlargement of the permanent seats of the Security Council, I am convinced that they should have the veto power," Putin was quoted as saying by Associated Press Television News. "Otherwise, it will be a one-sided reform of the United Nations."
Putin said if there was no veto for the new members, all vetoes would have to go. "If we agree that future permanent members should not have veto power, the next step would be the abolition of veto power," he said. - Seattle Post
#3
Give vetoes to both India and Pakistan, but put them together in a separate room.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 15:06
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I thought Putin's remarks were highly significant. He doesn't want the UNSC constraining future Russian actions. Adding more veto holders or removing vetos entirely both have the same effect, to dilute the power of the UNSC.
#5
Putin like all Russian leaders is a hardcore realist who measures power strictly by what the Soviets used to call the "correlation of forces." He knows that the UNSC is powerless to constrain the US and powerless to deny him a free hand in the Russian near abroad. So this gambit will earn him great credit in the former fraternal socialist state of India, a nation that Russia very wisely is looking to develop strong ties with, while costing him absolutely nothing. Not brilliance; just common sense.
(2004-12-04) -- Wal-Mart today announced a deal to market the new 'Made in China' ballistic missile submarine through its 4,900 retail stores, adding a "big-ticket item" to help boost sales just in time for the holidays.
"It's Wal-Mart's first truly intercontinental strategic nuclear delivery system," according to a company news release. "The 094-Class sub offers better first-strike survivability when compared with land-based nuclear missile launch platforms and Wal-Mart sells it an everyday low price, backed by a no-hassle return policy."
Wal-Mart will market the Chinese submarine under the 'Faded Glory' brand name.
Posted by: Korora ||
12/04/2004
12:05:01 AM ||
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#1
Chicom + Walmart = ChiMart?
Posted by: Don ||
12/04/2004 9:46
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IMHO Wal-Mart has done more to damage small community America that the Red's ever could have even if given a thousand years to try!
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004 10:03
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Wal Mart needs to raise their prices to help small town America.
I figure they should be on a par with Sears and Target and Toys R Us. It just makes sense, if Wal Mart would raise their prices they could afford to pay their "Associates" a living wage of $45,000 a year and provide decent health care. I mean it just so simple. Also raise interest rates so my Dad can retire more easily, he doesn't trust the stock market.
#5
I've been waiting to see what the K-Mart/Sears merger will bring as far as a new name. I hope they go with the line Bruce Campbell used in "Evil Dead 3": "Shop smart; shop S-Mart!"
Posted by: Dar ||
12/04/2004 15:00
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It's nice to see that this board is aware of just how damaging Wal-Mart is. Not only do they hollow out small business in whatever community they settle into, but I've also heard that they end up being a tax burden because their underpaid workers are forced to rely upon community services so much. Anyone have a link on this subject? I'm beginning to think that Wal-Mart goes well beyond capitalism and into the realm of predatory marketing or just plain greed.
Americans should step up to the plate and pay more to take care of Mom and Pop and main street. Just because you can buy a product for less doesn't mean you should, perhaps you should put that money in your pocket and walk down the street to Mother Jones Hardware Store and buy 7 lonely self-actualizing wood screws. Even at $1.50 each they are a bargain, because Mother will personally ignore you.
#10
Mom and Pop concern? This on the internet? Hello, you're looking at an even bigger killer as American gets more wired and broadband. I'll price shop on the internet first, then check the locals. The problem is not price. The problem is the locals don't stock the stuff. Even the big bookstores come up with the "we'll order that for you" line. Pardon me, I can order it myself and it will be delivered to my front door so I don't have to drive into town for it.
Posted by: Don ||
12/04/2004 17:43
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That's pretty damn selfish Don, you should go downtown and buy a local phone book and read it, it's good for the soul, you might even stumble across some faith based iniatives that you might find helpful.
Sydney Mayor Clover Moore has been cast as the Grinch who stole Christmas after decorating her city's town hall with just one meagre Christmas tree out of fear of offending non-Christians. Moore has been accused of political correctness gone mad after residents in Australia's largest city woke to newspaper headlines demanding "Where's Our Christmas?" and complaints the city had not done enough to celebrate the festive season. Sydney's The Daily Telegraph compared Sydney's Scrooge-like approach with opulent Christmas displays in major capitals like London, New York and Paris. It invited readers to send a cutout postcard, depicting Moore as children's author Dr Seuss' famous character, the Grinch, to the Town Hall in complaint. "You're a mean one, Ms. Grinch."
"Christmas is a time of wonder, fun and festivities, for young and old. As the nation's premier city...surely we deserve better," the paper said. Talkback radio programmes were flooded with calls and even conservative Prime Minister John Howard joined in. "This is political correctness from central casting. It is unbelievable," Howard told Sydney radio 2UE. "This is the ridiculous thing about this blanding out of any kind of distinctive identity we might have. Christmas is not only a religious festival...it is also part of the history and culture of this country," he said.
Moore defended her approach to the holiday season, saying Sydney had this year spent A$300,000 ($NZ325,624.38) more on decorations around the city than in 2003. "Today, Christmas is a celebration for everyone and I'd like to encourage everyone to get out in the city and celebrate and I especially urge building owners and retailers throughout the city to get into the Christmas spirit," she said in a statement. Sydney is a multicultural city of some 4 million people, with about 200 separate ethnic groups represented, according to official figures.
Posted by: Korora ||
12/04/2004
12:02:34 AM ||
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#1
I'm sure the Hindus in Sydney will be happy she's not offending them with a big ol' wreath. You know how they get.....not to mention the Buddhists and Wiccans.
#3
"Today, Christmas is a celebration for everyone and Iâd like to encourage everyone to get out in the city and celebrate and I especially urge building owners and retailers throughout the city to get into the Christmas spirit," she said in a statement.
Huh??? If she was afraid of offending non-Christians, why the encouragment for "everyone" to celebrate Christmas?
#4
First she minimises the official celebration of Christmas, proving that she's much more concerned about Muslims and radical left atheists than she is about Christians. Then, under great public pressure, she does an about-face and makes a pretence of all-inclusive benevolence by inviting "everyone" to celebrate Christmas.
It's a curious left-wing mix of stubborn, blind idealism and gross hypocrisy.
#6
.... The Daily Telegraph compared Sydneyâs Scrooge-like approach with opulent Christmas displays in major capitals like London, New York and Paris.
Damn. I'll have to read more of those Telegraph columns. Until now I was completly unaware that New York City was the capital of anything.
#7
JFM - Nah, you're not alone. I don't think the Aussies would really have cared if she put other, non-Christian things up, like a bunch of other places have done to avoid offending someone.
Looks like they were just used to having the place decorated this time of year, and since it only had a very small tree, people felt let down. I work in a government agency, and we have a bunch of secular decorations (pine and glitter garlands, a big ol' tree with "gifts" underneath and snowmen). No one's ever complained about it, and believe me, there are members of the public who will bitch about damn near anything.
#8
Guys, this season check the schedule for the History Channel's program the History of Christmas. Surprises in store - like, did you know the New England Puritans banned Christmas because of its pagan origins? The modern version which we celebrate is attributed to New York merchants of the early 19th century?
It is interesting though that most of these PC actions are just fronts for people in power to carry out their anti-Christian agenda. Those of us who have been stationed in Japan and S.Korea have witnessed countries of non-Judeo-Christian heritage celebrate the season with just as much joy as any Redlander; lights, sales, and even Santa, in cultures more oriented to Buddism or Taoism.
Posted by: Don ||
12/04/2004 9:45
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"I'm sure the Hindus in Sydney will be happy she's not offending them with a big ol' wreath."
My wife is Hindu, she LOVES Christmas and all the traditional trappings that go with it. She isn't the least bit bothered by Christmas Trees, Carolling (sp), presents etc. etc. Don't get between her and her turkey and dressing either.
-AR
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
12/04/2004 15:14
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But Ms. Moore and Sydney will always have Ramadan. Bring out the goat sacrifices.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 15:21
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My wife is Hindu, she LOVES Christmas and all the traditional trappings that go with it.
LOL! That's because has one RB Denizen (maybe you?) put it, she understands that Santa is really a blue Elephant with a beautiful garland of white flowers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
12:02:07 AM ||
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Well, yeah, unless some idjit nominates Pakistan for an expanded UNSC. Then he'd be all for it.
I mean, really, does it matter if the UNSC has five members, or twenty five? They're still going to have 1/3 of the resolutions denouncing Israel, 1/3 denouncing the US, and the rest determining where to have lunch. Yawn.
Smartest thing I've seen Perv do in three years...
The Musharraf regime and the Pakistan Peoples Party are currently negotiating a "deal" or "formula" for power sharing which, if it is clinched, could lead to the dissolution of parliament, fresh elections in 2005 and a relinquishing of the office of army chief by President Musharraf. The Musharraf regime has also decided to affect a thaw in relations with the PML (Nawaz) and try and involve Shahbaz Sharif in the political process earmarked for 2005. "President Musharraf wants to share power with the PPP and bring the PML-N into the loop but his proposal excludes the return to power of both Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif as prime ministers. In this regard, the PPP is more amenable to the government's proposals than Nawaz Sharif but negotiations are continuing with both sides", confirmed sources from different quarters.
It is learnt that high-ups from the ISI, MI, and the President's secretariat are conducting these negotiations in Dubai and Jeddah. Some sources said that Senator Mushahid Hussain, Secretary General of the ruling PML, was an active member of the government's team that is charting a new political strategy to deal with the new "ground realities". Mr Majid Nizami, the editor-in-chief of the Nawai Waqt Group, is also in Jeddah, holding talks with the Sharifs and advising them on the path to take. Sources told Daily Times that the government has assured the PPP leadership that in the event a deal is clinched leading to fresh elections, the PPP will not be obstructed from galvanizing its vote bank and making a bid to re-enter the corridors of power. There is also talk of an interim administration acceptable to all stake-holders for the conduct of free and fair elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
11:55:58 PM ||
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In an apparent change in longstanding policy, a top Hamas leader said on Friday the militant group would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as a long-term truce with Israel. "Hamas has announced that it accepts a Palestinian independent state within the 1967 borders with a long-term truce," Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the top Hamas leader in the West Bank, told The Associated Press, referring to lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Yousef said the Hamas position was new and called it a 'stage'. In the past, Hamas has said it would accept a state in the 1967 borders as a first step to taking over Israel. Yousef did not spell out the conditions for the renewable ceasefire nor did he say how long it would last. "For us a truce means that two warring parties live side by side in peace and security for a certain period and this period is eligible for renewal," Yousef said. "That means Hamas accepts that the other party will live in security and peace". Yousef's comments indicated that four years of fighting with Israel during which the military has targeted the group's top leaders along with international sanctions have taken a toll.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
11:51:08 PM ||
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#1
Is that a cake?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004 0:13
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Might as well be; anyone want a slice of Israel?
Photo caption: Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Hamas group, holding a big map of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as they participate in the campaign for studentsâ council elections in Al-Najah university in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday Nov. 28, 2004. The map reads in Arabic: âMuslim Palestine.â The elections will take place Monday. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)
I must note, however, that the Fatah supporters were overwhelming victors in the student council elections.
#4
In an apparent change in longstanding policy, a top Hamas leader said on Friday the militant group would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as a long-term truce with Israel.
Eh??? What about Israel? Does Israel have a right to exist or not?
And a "truce"? I seem to remember that a truce is basically only a temporary thing. What about permanent cessation of hostilities?
Nothing new being served up here, as far as I can tell.
#5
So Hamas wants to declar a hudna. Yawn. That's a sure sign that it's time for Israel to turn up the heat and do some real damage to the organization.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 8:47
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Another offer hudna as if they are doing the Israelis a favor. A hudna so can go hide with their tail between their legs, lick their wounds, rearm, and start the genocide all over again. I truly doubt there exists a word or concept in the Muslim world for what the rest of the world calls "peace", living without conflict, secure as general equals. If the Israelis have any sense of self preservation, they should deport the Palestinians past the Jordan river and the Egypt border.
Posted by: ed ||
12/04/2004 12:10
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Islamists ONLY take a Rest or have a TRUCE when they are losing. Lying is REQUIRED of all Islamists. There is NOT NOW, there HAS NEVER been and there NEVER WILL BE an Islamic agreement, or an Islamist that can be or will be trusted. They are required to lie to you until they can kill you.
That is the basis of the Koran. Therefore, we in the Western world shall take the rest periods to grow stronger also.The next time they attack us, Good Bye.
#10
Anyone else get a sense that Hamas is merely preening itself to assume the same sort of corrupt and dead-end political control that Arafat recently had pried out of his cold, dead, rigormortised hands?
#11
This is a culture that haggles. If they accept a slice, then they only accept it as an intermediate position before grabbing the whole cake. Hamas has clearly stated for years that they really want the whole cake.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 14:17
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If they are stronger, negotiate. Offer them anything --- Allah will absolve you.
The Islamic Jihad has urged its followers not to participate in the forthcoming Palestinian elections, becoming the second resistance group in as many days to dismiss the poll. Muhammed al-Hindi, the Gaza leader of Islamic Jihad, said on Thursday the group had decided not to field any candidate in the 9 January election to replace Yasir Arafat and not to support any independent candidate either. Al-Hindi urged his followers and Palestinians in general not to participate in the poll because it cannot be truly free. "The Palestinian people who are living under occupation want to have a real election, a free and fair election in a free, liberated land. We cannot say the upcoming presidential election is like this," he said. The refusal of Islamic Jihad to back the election came a day after Hamas announced it would not field a candidate for the election. However, it left open the possibility of supporting an independent candidate.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
11:18:04 PM ||
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#1
the fire goddess kali should have a hot talk with this al-hindi turncoat to the vedas
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
12/04/2004 3:01
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Could be that Hamas is concerned that if they field a candidate, his first publc appearance will result in him getting an Israeli missile up his ass.
#5
Palestinian people who are living under occupation want to have a real election, a free and fair election in a free, liberated land.
Excuses!
Listen to I.J. confuses the masses, if you have an election, you can choose a leader to help lead the people into a better life. They just want chaos and are afraid the voice/power of the people will go to elections rather than their primative tribal/political groups.
#6
Could be that Hamas is concerned that if they field a candidate, his first publc appearance will result in him getting an Israeli missile up his ass.
New meaning for "term limit?"
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004 10:33
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#6 LOL.
#3+4 Islamic Jihad is a redundant bunch of moronic oxen.
Lebanon's Al-Manar television said a French call to ban the station from broadcasting in Europe goes against the principle of freedom and blamed Israel for fuelling misunderstanding.
Yup. Them damn Jews again.
France's CSA broadcasting authority has called for a ban on the Lebanese Hizballah-run Al-Manar's broadcasts to Europe, saying the channel, accused by critics of being anti-Semitic, breached an earlier agreement not to show programmes that could incite hatred among religions. French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin said on Thursday that Al-Manar's programmes were "incompatible" with French values, and that he would seek the means to legally suspend Al-Manar and any channels that could provoke hatred or violence. Speaking to Aljazeera in Beirut on Friday, Al-Manar TV News Director Hassan Fadlallah said the calls to take the channel off the air in Europe were part and parcel of Israeli attempts to stir up problems between France and the Muslim world.
"They hate us because we're so successful..."
He said Al-Manar was authorised to broadcast by satellite inside the European Union just two weeks ago after it signed an agreement with France's CSA not to incite hatred or violence. Should the channel be banned from broadcasting in Europe through Eutelsat, Fadlallah said viewers in Europe would be able to watch Al-Manar through other satellites. Reuters further quoted Fadlallah as saying, "We were astonished to hear the French prime minister saying that Al-Manar's programmes do not fit with French values, which we reject."
Does that statement make any sense to anyone? Bueller?
"Our programmes are based on cultural, Islamic and Arab values that a billion people believe in, and it fits with some French values like freedom, justice and human rights," Fadlallah said.
"Freedom for the state, justice for me but not for thee, and the right to violent behavior. Everybody believes in that, right?"
Al-Manar is the mouthpiece of the Hizballah movement, which played a major role in forcing an end to Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon. The United States classes Hizballah as a terrorist group, but France does not.
France didn't have 251 of its troops blown up while they were asleep in their barracks, either.
UPDATE (Hat tip LGF):
Less than ten days after Hezbollah's "al-Manar" television station was permitted to broadcast in France, one of its commentators has stirred uproar after he accused Israel of "repeated attempts in the past several years to spread AIDS throughout the Arab world". The commentator, who was defined as an expert on the "Zionist entity", described at length how Israel has been trying to spread dangerous diseases, including AIDS, in the Arab world. The French regulatory body, which granted "al-Manar" permission to broadcast in the country, announced on Tuesday it would demand the French parliament to immediately cease its transmissions. Update to the update:
If you follow the first update link, be sure to read the comments.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
11:04:47 PM ||
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"Our programmes are based on cultural, Islamic and Arab values that a billion people believe in, and it fits with some French values like freedom, justice and human rights," Fadlallah said.
Don't forget anti-Americanism, loudly proclaiming the glories of your so-called culture even though it's golden age is long past, blaming the Jews for everything, and a tradition of military defeat.
Israeli occupation soldiers have killed a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad in the north of the West Bank, Palestinian sources said. The dead man was identified as Mahmud Abd al-Rahman Khalil, 28, who was a leading member of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad.
They have another wing?
According to Aljazeera correspondent in Ram Allah, Khalil was shot dead by troops who raided the house where he was residing in the village of Raba, close to the town of Jenin. The soldiers, who arrived in 20 jeeps, opened fire in his direction as he was giving himself up, Aljazeera correspondent, Shirin Abu Aqila reported. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the death of Hammad but gave a different version of events. The soldiers who were surrounding a house "opened fire on a suspect who was fleeing, armed with a pistol", the spokesman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
11:01:57 PM ||
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Just ONE???
How about deep-sixing more of these types? WAY more?
#5
I think it's time for the US and Israel to offer a bounty for the head of each Al-jizz employee. I'd suggest $1000 and a lifetime supply of Starbuck's coffee. That might even entice me...
At least 12 people are dead and 17 wounded after fierce fighting continued in the central Somali village of Gelinsor. Friday's toll raised the number of dead to 40 after two days of fighting, village elders said. "At least 12 people were killed after heavy shelling on Friday afternoon," Ahmad Muhammad, an elder, told French news agency AFP. "The forces did not engage in direct fighting like they did on Thursday, but they occasionally fought in the area by using heavy machine guns and also there was artillery and mortar shelling," he said.
"A huge number of civilians fled the area and gone to neighbouring and relatively peaceful villages," Ahmed Haji Hassan, from nearby Bandira-Ley village, told AFP by radio. On Thursday, at least 28 people were killed and 74 wounded in clashes as a result of fighting in the same village. Local residents said the clashes were linked to the early November killing of five elders from the Sulayman subclan by gunmen from the rival Sa'ad subclan.
A new Somali cabinet was announced in Nairobi earlier in the week. The new administration is designed to fill a 13-year-old power vacuum in the war-torn Horn of Africa state. Since the 1991 fall of dictator Muhammad Siad Barre, Somalia has lacked an effective central government and any form of national security forces, leaving the country's numerous clans and subclans to fight it out. More than two years of talks in Kenya between commanders, elders, civil society leaders and academics have produced many of the building blocks of what is hoped will lead to Somalia's first effective government since Barre's ouster. But all these institutions - a parliament, president, prime minister and, as of Wednesday, a cabinet - remain based in Nairobi, because Somalia's own capital, Mogadishu, is still considered too dangerous. Meanwhile talks are underway between Somaliland officials and UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland. Aljazeera's correspondent said talks are being held in Hargeisa and that Egeland will be assessing the situation in nearby refugee camps.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
10:57:02 PM ||
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US and Austrian authorities have arrested two Iranian men on charges of attempting to illegally export thousands of sophisticated American night-vision systems for Iran's military, US officials have said. The alleged transactions were eventually expected to involved about 3000 of the advanced helmet-mounted Generation III systems, which can amplify even faint starlight so that soldiers can see to fight in the dark. "Sophisticated night vision systems allow US troops to own the night, giving them a key advantage over their opponents during night-time combat. In the wrong hands, these night vision systems pose a threat to our troops around the world," said Michael J Garcia, chief of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The two suspects, Mahmoud Seif and Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, were arrested earlier this week on export violation charges in Vienna, Austria, by US and Austrian authorities shortly after they arrived to pick up their first batch of night-vision equipment. The investigation dates to August 2002 and involves ICE, the Defence Criminal Investigative Service and Austrian security personnel.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
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I am wondering how we expect the US to keep the Russians and NORINCO from selling this stuff? The logical answer is we can't. What we can do is make sure we are 100% better trained than anyone else in using it.
These kinds of busts make us feel good but this world is not one were we control technology exclusively anymore. It's makes a nice excuse for busting 2 wankers and good press but it's pretty useless all in all.
#3
Innovation is the answer. Gen 3 started aging the minute it came off the designer table.
"Its chess not checkers," SoD Rumsfeld.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004 10:06
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The only biggie in this is that it's Gen 3; the Iranians have long been buying European NVGs on the Amsterdam black market (Vienna has long been another black market for arms).
While the results of this year's American election may have liberal Democrats and much of the extended international community shaking their heads in disbelief, a surprising number of Arabs seem to have not only expected President George W. Bush's return to power but also supported it.
...And thus I came to realize something that the Democrats could never admit: that there exists a support base for both the Republicans' domestic and foreign agenda among the very people we thought most opposed current U.S. policy. The cultural background and value systems which inform many of these young Arabs' outlook on the world mean they will always favor men like Bush over men like Kerry. The tenets of faith, family and, yes, "moral issues" determine the overall political leanings of a considerable number of the Middle East's future leaders, in rejection of Democratic stump issues like increased liberalism, internationalism and scientific progress.
Though Democrats are often quick to criticize their opponents for seeing the issues in stark black and white, "us and them" terms, perhaps they ought to step back from their own obsession with "red" and "blue" dichotomies and recognize this nuance of Middle Eastern reality. Having a truly even-handed and practical approach to peace in the Arab world means realizing that not everyone, and certainly not all of the elites in Arab society, sympathize with the anti-American movements taking place within their own ranks, and that these heartland Arabs could prove a valuable ally in future U.S.-Arab relations.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004
10:49:35 PM ||
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Bush administration showed the world the true face of the west. For years, people believed the US stood for freedom and democracy for all, but only when Bush became the president, did they realize that they are not counted. Thanks again GWB !
Posted by: Mark ||
12/04/2004 4:46
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And supersize it! I'm bringing my big ol' American butt through the drive-through in my SUV to pick it up......you better put in that damn shake I ordered this time, Mark.
#6
Actually Mark, it is just the opposite, so I think you've forgotten your sarcasm tag.
For years, poeple believed that US policies were concerned with 'stability' of dictators (It is a bastard, but it is our bastard). There was lot of truth in it. Bush changed that, turned it on its head, as his doctrine presupposes that without standing for freedom and democracy it is not possible to make the world better and safer--the previous US policies made things tidy in a short term, but resulted in all sorts of unwieldy spinoffs/blowbacks.
That is why left hates Bush. How dared he to adopt a part of their purported agenda, exporting freedom and democracy? I say purported, because in reality, the left never ends up with freedom and democracy, whenever they are put in position of power without oposition.
The people around the world (not the goverments, not NGOs, not parties--PEOPLE) know this.
#8
Hopefully the change will be permanent.
The change can only be permanent if enough people are willing to force the issue, and reign in those that wish to take their freedom from them. The philosophy of the Left is to take freedom in exchange for offering false security. The American people finally decided that the only true security was that based on power to defend the people, and rebelled against the left's willing embrace of government by "multinational organizations", I.E. the United Nations. That's why the screams are so loud this time - the Left has lost a major battle to those who espouse individual freedom over "group hugs". Freedom isn't free - it has to be fought for. The fight may be at the ballot box, in the streets, in business, or with arms, but it has to be there, and it has to continue as long as people breathe. There will always be those who think they have a "right" to rule, rather than to govern according to the will of the majority.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2004 16:26
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Folks, what this tells me is in this supposed" battle of ideas" we are winning.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004 18:08
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#8 Old Patriot - Too true. You have nailed it. Looking at my statement again it seems like wishful thinking. I don't live in the US of A but I do whatever I can through the Internet and other resources to spread exactly the philosophy you've articulated.
Muslims in Norway were organizing a torchlit parade through downtown Oslo this weekend, to decry violence and terrorism and distance themselves from Islamic fundamentalism. Top Norwegian political leaders, including the prime minister, were joining in.
Good idea. But I'd bet the participants are mostly Kurds...
NRK journalist Norman Mubashir has played a key role in organizing Saturday's march, aimed at protesting violence and terrorism. March organizers were hoping for a big turnout, and welcomed the participation of non-Muslims as well. The leaders of Norway's major political parties and top government leaders said they would join the march and several were invited to speak during Saturday's event. The march was to begin at the square in front of Oslo's central train station at 4:30pm, and proceed up Karl Johans Gate to the Parliament. Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was among those scheduled to speak to the crowd, along with Justice Minister Odd Einar Dørum, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) journalist Norman Mubashir and Labour Party leader Jens Stoltenberg. A key group of local Muslim religious leaders said Friday they were encouraging all Muslims to participate. The more liberal among them already have protested violence, terror and killings in the name of religion.
And the Bad Guyz among them haven't. If the Bad Guyz are there, it'll be to bump somebody off...
The march, initiated by NRK's Mubashir, comes largely in response to the recent killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist. Van Gogh's murder struck a chord all over Europe, and led to a TV debate in Norway in which the spokesman for Norway's Islamic Council raised doubts about how many Muslims opposed the killing. Another Muslim leader, Awais Mushtaq, later said he understood why an Islamic fundamentalist carried it out.
Egypt's highest authority in Sunni Islam has legitimised the "resistance" in Iraq on Friday and called on Iraqis to unite in order to return stability to the war-wracked country, state media has reported. "The Iraqi resistance has the right to defend its land, its fatherland and its right to independence," Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, resident imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, was quoted as saying by the Mena news agency. He also called on "all Iraqi communities to unite so as to make a serious commitment to restore stability in Iraq," Mena said. Sheikh Tantawi was speaking during the opening of a restored mosque in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
He's declared which side he's on. All civilized people should assert their inalienable right to bump off enemies like him. The world's got enough deranged nutcakes that it won't be any worse off without him, and prob'ly a bit better.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
10:32:43 PM ||
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may the sons of alexander and ptolomey snap his neck
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
12/04/2004 2:08
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#2
I forget, did he condone resistance to Saddam Hussein?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004 13:49
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He may not be on our side, but he's not our biggest problem. Click the link on his name above and go read a related story from July 2003.
Posted by: Tom ||
12/04/2004 14:10
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ahhhhh yes, MS - then he can't possibly anti-american. Why bother , you have no moral judgement, UN boy?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 14:44
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Mike, I don't remember anybody outside of Iraq -- imams, mullahs, or others -- suggesting that the people rise up against Saddam Hussein. I do remember lots of noises about resisting the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, though. This is just a continuation of that. Have you tried searching Rantburg archives to see if the good sheikh has is already on our radar?
Counter-terrorism and trans-national crime will top the agenda at this week's South-West Pacific Dialogue meeting in Adelaide, New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff has said. The third annual dialogue will bring together senior ministers from New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and East Timor. "Regional security will be the main focus of discussions. As we saw with this year's attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and the 2002 Bali bombings, terrorism is as much an issue in this part of the world as anywhere," Mr Goff said. "The meeting offers a chance to collectively consider the regional terrorism situation, and to assess regional cooperation on counter-terrorism measures, maritime security and capacity-building initiatives."
People smuggling, illegal fishing and piracy are all issues that threaten regional growth and stability, and are likely to be discussed in detail. The South-West Pacific Dialogue process was set up at Indonesia's initiative in 2002 to discuss the major political, security, economic, social and cultural issues of the region. The first dialogue was held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2002, and the second was hosted by New Zealand last year on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
10:07:51 PM ||
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Too much talkin' not enough doin'
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/04/2004 9:58
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u can thank indonesia for that.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/04/2004 18:06
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The United States military has announced the end of a nine-day offensive launched in the "triangle of death" rebel area south of Baghdad, saying 200 insurgents had been rounded up. The operation to reclaim control of the area, which earned its nickname from the assassinations, ambushes and kidnappings carried out there, followed on from the assault on the western city of Fallujah which was launched on November 8. US-led forces moved on Fallujah in the largest and military operation since the 2003 invasion, in a bid to remove what was seen by the US military and Iraq's interim Government as one of the main obstacles to holding viable polls in January. Operation Plymouth Rock was launched on November 23 by some 5,000 US marines, British troops and Iraqi forces, aimed at flushing out rebels who were thought to have fled Fallujah. The operation was wound up on Wednesday, the US military said.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said it had rounded up 204 suspected militants and discovered 11 arms caches during the operation, causing "serious damage to insurgent activity". Marines were particularly pleased with the role played by Iraqi national guards, who led several operations during the sweep, despite "a concerted campaign of intimidation and terror that has cost dozens of national guards their lives". The US military said that "while Plymouth Rock is finished, the pursuit of insurgents south of Baghdad continues".
"Each and every day we are learning more and more about those participating in insurgent activity, and we are tracking them down one by one," said Colonel Ron Johnson. "No quick fix is envisioned. The solution lies in patience, persistence and sustained presence," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2004
10:06:00 PM ||
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I'd chalk it up to deceptive advertising, personally. Like the man said, Plymouth Rock is over, but they will continue to extract intelligence from those they've captured and the materials they've confiscated, and will follow up on each and every lead. It's kinda like dominoes, you pick one off, it leads to the next, and the next and... Only the guys in the back room know where the next blow will land, and when. Zarqawi HAS to know we've captured tons of material from Fallujah, and will be using it to start braiding a noose for his neck.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2004 16:09
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From Islamic Q&A Onine, questions answered by Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Are husband and wife allowed to dance with each other alone in their room?
Dancing is prohibited.
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My wife wants to know if it is permissible to trim the eyebrows with a machine instead of plucking which is forbidden.
It is not permissible to trim one's eyebrows in any way, by using the machine or by plucking.
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Can husband and wife play wrestling?
Does a husband and wife really play wrestling?
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Is it permissible for women to cut their hair if there is fear that split ends might be coming soon?
A woman may use medication to avoid split ends.
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Should I allow my wife to dance on her brothers wedding if its just a small dance in presence of females only. Shes really insisting.
You should not permit your wife to dance even though she is insisting.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
12/04/2004
10:01:03 PM ||
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Better to shackle her to the radiator. A good muslim can allow her to move to the bed when he is feeling horny, but back to the radiator the second one is finished.
#1
I just started reading Horowitz's "Unholy Alliance".
It looks as if this is one of those books you read through clenched teeth.
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
12/04/2004 9:51
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As Lynne Stewart told the New York Times (in an interview cited by Horowitz), there is nothing wrong with using âdirected violenceâ against âthe institutions which perpetuate capitalism.â
But this whore has no compunctions about taking money generated by capitalism in order to then go and undermine it. Highly reminiscent of terrorist methodology. Here are some links to other articles of interest:
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman's former interpreter acknowledged Monday that he repeatedly gave incomplete or inaccurate answers to FBI agents when they sought his help investigating the Muslim cleric after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
During a fourth and final day of cross-examination in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Baker confronted Mohamed Yousry, 49, with transcripts of secretly recorded prison visits that contrasted sharply with his contention that he had been completely truthful with investigators.
Yousry is on trial with attorney Lynne Stewart and Ahmed Sattar. All three are charged with being a secret communications pipeline that allowed the sheik to get his message out to his terrorist followers in Egypt-based Islamic Group.
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Lynne Stewart is on record saying she believes the terrorists are liberationists and freedom fighters. For Stewart, Abu Musab, al-Zarqawi and the Abdel Rahman are freedom fighters. And she collaborated with the blind sheik in conducting his terror.
#3
Islamo-whore is too nice for this bag of shit. She's Stalinism under whatever bright convenient banner's available. Not a useful idiot but oneof the "masterminds" that needs a whiff of Black Flag or Raid or mister Federal Ammo
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2004 20:44
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Evidence gained by torture can be used by the US military review panels deciding the fate of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the US Government has conceded. Lawyers acting for Australian detainees in Cuba have called on the Australian Government to renounce the practice. About 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled evidence gained through torture was inadmissible. Deputy associate Attorney-General, Brian Boyle, has told the District Court in Washington DC, that the Guantanamo review panels are allowing such evidence. Michael Ratner, a human right lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, says he was shocked with the Bush administration's admission. "Never in my 30 years of being a human rights lawyer would I ever expected to be in the state that we've arrived at," he said.
Genetic testing has shown that an animal scientists thought was the common ornate wobbegong is actually a new species of shark. Charlie Huveneers says scientists originally thought that the dwarf-like shark was a juvenile wobbegong. "We first thought the small wobbegong was a juvenile of the large ornate wobbegong shark but then realised there were some differences with the major one," he said.
A suspected Taleban militant was killed and two others injured when a bomb they were making exploded in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Saturday. Another suspect was also arrested unharmed and grenades, explosives, wires and remote-control devices were recovered after the blast at a house in the southern city of Kandahar on Friday, they said. "They were Taliban bomb-makers. The bomb they were making exploded and killed one of them, injured two and one was arrested unharmed," provincial police chief General Khan Mohammad told AFP by telephone. Another provincial security official said police were interrogating the arrested militants. "We hope we will be able to get more information about Taliban activities," he said.
German authorities Saturday arrested a fourth man on suspicion of involvement in an al-Qaeda-linked group's alleged plot to attack Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during his visit to Berlin this week. Meanwhile, the three Iraqis already in custody for their alleged roles in the plot denied the accusations against them during questioning Saturday by a judge, Der Spiegel newsweekly reported Saturday. The judge will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against them. The fourth suspect, a man with Lebanese citizenship, was arrested in Berlin on suspicion of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, federal prosecutors' spokesman Hartmut Schneider said.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency knew dissident military officers were planning a coup in 2002 against Venezuelan President 
Sydney Mayor Clover Moore has been cast as the Grinch who stole Christmas after decorating her city's town hall with just one meagre Christmas tree out of fear of offending non-Christians. Moore has been accused of political correctness gone mad after residents in Australia's largest city woke to newspaper headlines demanding "Where's Our Christmas?" and complaints the city had not done enough to celebrate the festive season. Sydney's The Daily Telegraph compared Sydney's Scrooge-like approach with opulent Christmas displays in major capitals like London, New York and Paris. It invited readers to send a cutout postcard, depicting Moore as children's author Dr Seuss' famous character, the Grinch, to the Town Hall in complaint.
The Musharraf regime and the 
The 
French Prime Minister 
At least 12 people are dead and 17 wounded after fierce fighting continued in the central Somali village of Gelinsor. Friday's toll raised the number of dead to 40 after two days of fighting, village elders said. "At least 12 people were killed after heavy shelling on Friday afternoon," Ahmad Muhammad, an elder, told French news agency AFP. "The forces did not engage in direct fighting like they did on Thursday, but they occasionally fought in the area by using heavy machine guns and also there was artillery and mortar shelling," he said. 
Egypt's highest authority in Sunni Islam has legitimised the "resistance" in Iraq on Friday and called on Iraqis to unite in order to return stability to the war-wracked country, state media has reported. "The Iraqi resistance has the right to defend its land, its fatherland and its right to independence," 
The United States military has announced the end of a nine-day offensive launched in the "
