According to the bill, which was proposed by Likud MK Ofir Akunis and has been backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, political NGOs in Israel would not be allowed to receive donations exceeding 20,000 shekels provided by foreign governments and international organizations, such as the UN and the European Union.
According to the bill, "inciting activity undertaken by many organizations, under the cover of human rights work, has the goal of influencing political debates, and the character and the policies of the state of Israel."
Akunis referred to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's criticism of the bill, which she voiced on Saturday, and said that "the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the U.S. is much harsher than the (current) bill, especially in light of the amended bill which clearly defines what constitutes a political organization." Especially given the fact that US Democrats have been actively trying to undercut the Israeli government, and support their political left wing.
Speaking on Sunday on the "London and Kirshenbaum" television show on Channel 10, Akunis said US Senator Joseph McCarthy who in the 1950s presided over a committee that investigated Americans suspected of harboring Communist views said "was right in every word, the fact is -there were Soviet agents."
Speaking to Haaretz later on Sunday, Akunis said he was referring to McCarthy's claim that several Soviet agents infiltrated the U.S. "I didn't say McCarthyism was right, or that every word that McCarthy said was right." He added that he does not support McCarthyism or political persecution of citizens suspected of being disloyal to the state. "God forbid, absolutely not," he said.
"I am far less extreme than what some columns say, and I am not part of the legislation against the judiciary. I have one law that is right and just, that says that a foreign country will not transfer money to another country." Akunis said the bill "is far from being fascist or ant-democratic. It is also not a law that targets the freedom of assembly." I changed the ordering of the paragraphs from the original, because they wanted to emphasize his remarks, not his legislation against a very tangible threat to Israel from foreign powers.
#1
Looney Clooney, at it again. Where was he when the Darfurians were raping the Christians down South???? Silence, ... The Darfurians were the real war criminals, they are getting what they gave.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/04/2011 20:10
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Instapundit in Washington Examiner
A couple of years back, I suggested in these pages that higher education was facing a bubble much like the housing bubble: An overpriced good, propped up by cheap government-subsidized credit, luring borrowers and lenders alike into a potentially disastrous mess.
Subsequent events have proved me right as students have begun to think twice about indebtedness and schools have begun to face pressure over tuition. For higher education, costs have skyrocketed even as the value of their product has been declining, and people are starting to notice.
#2
Lazy and inefficient Human Resource departments created credentialism thus giving former educational institutions power to print and distribute paper affirming intelligence and skill like the Wizard of Oz.
Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
From a duplicated post, this comment from reader 'Elder of Zion' is worth notice. Sorry about the deletion for the dupe. AoS.
I'm the one who needs to apologize -- Elder of Zion accidentally submitted the article twice, the first time with the bare headline and link. So I deleted the first and kept his more interesting second version...and didn't think to explain
.Another deluded Bambi deafitist - the blind leading the deaf....
Push Israel beyond the red line.... Just don't complain when we use Nukes as the last resort.
Whatever happens to Israel, the US policy in the ME is based on a complete misunderstanding of Islam, short term attemts to cut US losses here will turn into long term collapse of the entire US strategic plans in the ME
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2011
14:24 ||
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#1
Translation: we finally accepted that Jews are not going to pony up for Obumba's reelection.
#3
More like the Obama administration is getting frustrated. They can't make Netanyahu a pariah, they can't minimize his government, They can't boost Israeli's leftists; they (and European governments) are getting called out for attempting to influence Israeli politics.
And they've likely given up on the Jewish-bloc vote.
Another deluded Bambi deafitist - the blind leading the deaf....
Push Israel beyond the red line.... Just don't complain when we use Nukes as the last resort.
Whatever happens to Israel, the US policy in the ME is based on a complete misunderstanding of Islam, short term attemts to cut US losses here will turn into long term collapse of the entire US strategic plans in the ME
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
12/04/2011
11:20 ||
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In Durham, England, corpses will soon be used to generate electricity. A crematorium is installing turbines in its burners that will convert waste heat from the combustion of each corpse into as much as 150 kilowatt-hours of juice enough to power 1,500 televisions for an hour. The facility plans to sell the electricity to local power companies.
Some might find this concept creepy. Others might be pleased to learn that the process "makes cremation much greener by utilizing its by-products," in the words of cremation engineer Steve Looker, owner and chief executive officer of the Florida-based company B&L Cremation Systems, which is unaffiliated with the Durham enterprise.
In Europe, tightening regulations on crematorium emissions, coupled with the high price of energy, will lead more and more facilities to go the way of Durham in the future, Looker said. Will crematories in the United States follow suit?
According to Looker, whose company is currently testing different methods of utilizing cremation waste heat, the expensive turbine systems being installed in Durham are not yet economically viable for crematories here. "In the U.S., most crematories don't have enough through-put," he told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. "Cremation in some parts of Europe is over 90 percent, but it is not over 50 percent yet here." That is, less than half of Americans opt for cremation. Most are buried.
#1
Update
The informed source said on Sunday that Iran Army's electronic warfare unit successfully targeted the American-built RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft after it crossed into Iranian airspace over the border with neighboring Afghanistan.
He added that the US reconnaissance drone has been seized with minimum damage.
The RQ-170 is a stealth unmanned aircraft designed and developed by Lockheed Martin Company.
The US military and the CIA use the drone to launch missile strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.
The unnamed Iranian military official further added that due to the clear border violation, the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces against invading aircraft will not remain limited to the Iran's borders.
The report comes as the United States has beefed up its military presence in and around the Persian Gulf region in recent months in the wake of popular uprising in Bahrain.
The US Department of Defense says Washington is closely monitoring the developments in Bahrain, which is the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet and holds some 4,200 US service members.
#4
I guess the Mullahs will store the drone in the same place they store explosives. Seems like a good idea.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/04/2011 12:38
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#5
We never said the drones were invulnerable. Maybe it was an equipment failure, maybe it was shot down. We have plenty more.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2011 14:30
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#6
maybe it never happened
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2011 15:47
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#7
Or maybe not actually being there flying the thing, and instead in a cozy room hundreds if not thousands of miles away, the operator got lazy-eye and made a mistake.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/04/2011 15:55
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#8
gee, I hope the IRGC doesn't download the data onto a flashdrive and plug it into their nuke computer network. That would make them invulnerable to our UAVs. I hope they don't find out!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2011 17:02
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Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/04/2011 22:06
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#14
I'll just say my nose hairs are twitching.
* ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [SecDef Panetta] US SAYS STRIKE ON IRAN MAY MISS NUCLEAR SITES, espec iff underground. Iran's NucDevProgs may be delayed by 1-2 years only.
* SAME > IRANIAN NAVY WILL COUNTER ALL THREATS WID MARTYRDOM-SEEKING SPIRIT.
Shia-kaze attack, in case the QADERS Missles don't work???
* RUSSIA TODAY > [Radio host Stephen Lendman] DRONE DOWNED IN IRAN: "US GREAT GAME COULD SPARK WWIII".
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 22:56
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#16
ooops!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2011 23:14
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#17
WORLD NEWS > NATO SAYS DRONE LOST OVER AFGHANISTAN, NOT IRAN.
Also from WORLD NEWS > BRITISH EXPERT: US< UK, + ISRAEL PLANNING TERRORIST ACTS IN IRAN.
Bug Bunny's SABOTAGE-RY.
versus
* SAME > [Ayman Zawahiri] AL QAEDA TO FREE AMERICAN [kidnapped = Warren Weinstein]IFF AIR STRIKES STOPPED IN PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, + all other Muslim States overwatched by Drones.
ARTIC > AYMAN = also demands the release of any + all Muslim Prisoners held at GITMO + IN THE US; says AQ CAN FREE HIM, KEEP HIM CAPTIVE FOR YEARS, OR ELSE KILL HIM IFF HE DOES SOMETHING STUPID.
KSM, AAFIA SIDDIQUE, the SHOE Bomber?, UNDERWEAR Bomber, TIMES SQUARE Bomber, ........@etal.
D *** NG IT, AYMAN WANTS 'EM ALL!
I was going to say "Does Joe Paterno, Sandusky, + Penn State know?", but never mind for now.
AMERICAN officers gave the wrong co-ordinates to their Pakistani counterparts as they sought clearance for the air strike that killed 24 friendly troops on November 26.
NATO and US officials voiced regret but have refused to apologise until an investigation is complete into the incident near the Afghan border, which triggered a crisis in US-Pakistan relations. Officials previously offered varying accounts of the event as they sought to shift blame.
A senior Pakistani military officer said that a border co-ordination unit - established to avoid exactly such a tragedy - was given incorrect details of a suspected Taliban position.
''The strike had begun before we realised the target was a border post,'' he said. ''The Americans say we gave them clearance but they gave us the wrong information.'' American officers have not disputed this Pakistani account.
The American pilots had been confident in their targets as they flew out of the night sky, towards a mountain ridge that marked the border with Pakistan. Afghan and US commandos hunting Taliban training camps inside the eastern edge of Afghanistan had called in air support as they came under fire from the border.
The pilots believed that the co-ordinates had been checked with a Pakistani officer and the Apache attack helicopters and lone AC-130 gunship were given the go-ahead to unload their deadly payload.
But as dawn arrived it became clear that a terrible mistake had been made.
Twenty-four Pakistani soldiers lay dead and their border posts were a smoking ruin, unleashing a wave of anti-American anger in Pakistan, which has halted co-operation in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
#3
Pakistan is more than just part of the problem. Pakistan IS the problem and definitely need some payback. And so do the Iranians - 36 years to fester and grow.
#6
A successful US-led war, occupation? agz IRAN all but removes the motive for Saudi Arabia + other anti-Iran, Sunni-majority Muslim States to go Nukulaar, BUT LEAVES ALREADY NUKE-ARMED PAKISTAN "AS IS" OR BETTER.
However, it still leaves the final decision on nukes in the hands of the various "ARAB SPRING" NEW PRO-ISLAMIST GOVTS, whom as a class are supported by Iran + Al-Qaeda + non-Muslim/Faith based Secular Political Movements.
....
So, what does this mean for logistical support of ISAF forces? According to Nesar Ahmad Nasery, the deputy head of Torkham Customs, around 1,000 trucks cross into Afghanistan on a daily basis, nearly 300 of which are NATO contractors carrying NATO supplies in sealed containers. Khyber Transport Association chief Shakir Afridi said that each oil tanker has a capacity of 13,000-15,000 gallons. In October 2010 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said that fossil fuels are the number one import to Afghanistan.
Noting the obvious, as Afghanistan has no indigenous hydrocarbon supplies, every drop must be brought in, with transit greatly increasing the eventual cost. For 2001-2008, almost all U.S. and NATO supplies were trucked overland to Afghanistan through parts of Pakistan effectively controlled by the Taliban.
Ground supplies are shipped into Pakistans Arabian Sea Karachi port and offloaded onto trucks before being sent to one of five crossing points on the Afghan border, the most important being Torkham at the Khyber Pass and Baluchistans Chaman. The recent attack has put all these routes at risk, perhaps permanently. Pakistan, being the shortest and most economical route, has been used for nearly a decade to transit almost 75 percent of the ammunition, vehicles, foodstuff and around 50 percent of fuel for coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Paul D ||
12/04/2011 9:55
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#2
Xenophon and Alexander showed that in the end a Western Army can walk to the seaports. The area and its population along the way, however, usually doesn't do as well.
#3
I imagine the Pakstanis think they can twist our arm for more donations and higher fees using the threat. It may even work, short term. But more of our supplies are coming through the the northern route, and we have fewer troops there to need supplying...
#8
I personally think two Marine divisions, combined with ARCLIGHT and Tac Air could open up a supply route PDQ. Bring in a Navy CB battalion and build a da$$ed railroad from Karachi to Kabul or Kandahar. plus a pipeline or three. It's time to call Pakistan's bluff and kick the living sh$$ out of them. You CANNOT win a war against Mooselimbs - or anybody else - by being "nice". Alexander, Genghis Khan both had the same idea. Destroy Pakistan and give it back to India, if they'll have it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2011 14:27
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#9
Eohippus, fair point. "Free Balochistan!" has a ring to it, and it'd also make the Iranians nervous.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2011 14:31
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#10
Destroy Pakistan and give it back to India, if they'll have it.
Well, Manmohan mentioned they didn't want it back in its current state. After some house cleaning and such...maybe.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
12/04/2011 14:59
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#11
Elphinstone didn't play by the same rules as Alexander or Xenophon. or Khan.
#12
Muqtada Sadr has said his Boyz will resume attacks in Iraq iff the US-NATO maintain evena minimal presence there - prob safe to say ditto for the AFPAK Hard/Bad Boyz as per post-2014 US-NATO presence in Afghanistan.
In sum, then ...
> To prevent Iran per se from having NucWeaps, the US must attack Iran.
> More importantly, to prevent various Regional, International Militant-Terror Groups + aligned NGOS from acquiring Nuke-WMDS MilTechs, the US must attack Iran.
> To save post-2014 Iraq from hegemonic Rising Shia Iran, the US must attack Iran.
> To save post-2014 Afghanistan from Pak-based MilTerrs despite lack of overland MLLS, + no Balochistan, the US must attack Iran.
> To save Israel, now andor post-2012/2014, etc. the US must attack Iran.
> To save the Sunni Muslim Middle East from hegemonic Rising Shia Iran, the US must attack Iran.
> To deter or prevent a ME Nuclear Arms race as due to Sunni-vs-Shia regional competition for Regional + OWG Caliphate dominance, the US must attack Iran.
I can think of other rationales but the above is good for starters.
As per the US, to save CONUS-NORAM + EU + even MAMA RUSSIA + CHINA from the threat of Iranian LR IRBMS + ICBMS that be used to deter any international counterresponse agz a "Nuclear 9-11/Mumbai" event(s) vee Nuke-WMD armed pro-Iran or pro-Jihad MilTerr Groups, the US will have to attack Iran.
REMEMBER, THE ISLAMIST JIHAD/INSURGENCY IS ULTIMATELY "GLOBAL/UNIVERSAL/INTERNATIONAL" IN SCOPE, not just Regional or Local.
By "US must attack Iran" I mean or infer direct US = US-NATO/Allied direct invasion + LT occupation of same.
WANNABE SHIA IRAN WANTS + LIKES ITS NUKES JUST AS ALREADY NUKE-ARMED PAKISTAN'S GOVT. LIKE SUPPORTING RADICAL ISLAMISM.
Pesky Persians are Pesky = Iran gets its Nukes, or else Iran gets invaded.
* ISLAMIST JIHAD > ISLAM CONQUERS THE WORLD, ALA THE OWG CALIPHATE [Nuclear], OR IT DOESN'T.
* "PEARL HARBOR" MOVIE > COMMUNISM-SOCIALSM CONQUERS AMERICA, OR IT DOESN'T.
* RISING CHINA > ONE-N-ONLY WORLD "SOLE SUCCESSOR" TO THE "WEAK/DECLINING" US SUPERPOWER, OR IT ISN'T.
And thusly, my dear Virgina, we once again again again learn why God invented the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction/Annihilation.
#13
What we need to do is better foment combative discord between various "flavors" of islam. 'Get Shias and Sunnis chopping each other to shreds everywhere we can. Things could not get much better than the old Iran-Iraq war - with competing human wave attacks continually eating up entire cohorts of young asshats.
Who will be a better "War President" - Gingrich or Romney? I tend to think Newt will do better.
#14
ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > OIL SUPPLY [fuel exports] TO AFGHANISTAN ALSO SHUT DOWN [by Islamabad] AT TORKHAM.
ARTICLE > MAP = PROPOSED ALTERNATE "SUPPLY ROUTES FOR NATO TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN" > SHORTEST ALTERN LAND ROUTE = from Chabahar, I-R-A-N to Afghan city Delaram.
Also from SAME > GRIEVING [Pak] FAMILIES DEMAND JUSTICE FOR SLAIN SOLDIERS.
* SAME > BEREAVED FAMILIES DEMAND END TO
"AMERICA'S WAR".
ARTIC > Dead Soldier's Relative = opined that the family may feel better iff he had died fighting Hindus = INDIA, aka PAKISTAN'S MORTAL ENEMY, but no purpose was served wid him getting killed via US Drone + "friendly fire"???
* WAFF > {Russia Today] US CAN'T AFFORD TO OPEN ANOTHER FRONT IN PAKISTAN.
ARTIC > HAMID GUL = opined that iff POTUS OBAMA hopes to get some political = re-election? benefit from this war, he must get the bulk of US Troops out of Afghanistan before November
2012 next year???
* WAFF > ISLAMABAD HAS BEEN STRETCHED TO THE LIMIT. THE ASSUMPTION THAT PAKISTAN HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO OBEY AMERICA MAY TURN OUT TO BE A DIRE STRATEGIC ERROR.
IIUC, iff the US-NATO are not careful, they may see Pakistan devol into ANOTHER, ALREADY NUKE-ARMED "REVOLUTIONARY/ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
IRAN" IN WEST ASIA???
Several government ministers on Sunday rejected comments made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which she expressed concern for Israel's democracy.
Clinton was cited by the Israeli media as expressing Saturday concern over certain anti-democratic legislation and trends signifying the deterioration of the status of women in Israel.
Several government ministers on Sunday rejected comments made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which she expressed concern for Israel's democracy.
Clinton was cited by the Israeli media as expressing Saturday concern over certain anti-democratic legislation and trends signifying the deterioration of the status of women in Israel.
Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, Clinton specifically mentioned bills limiting funding for NGOs, and the exclusion of women in the public sphere, as exemplified by gender separation on buses serving the haredi community and controversy over women singing in public.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz called Clinton's claims "completely exaggerated." He claimed that Israel is a healthy democracy. "I don't know many better democracies in the world."
#1
The administration has been blatantly supporting the Israeli opposition, to the point of sending agitators there to create mass rallies, that were used as the model for the OWS agitators.
Sept 5, 2011 - "On Saturday night, more than 400,000 activists poured into Israels streets to rail against the countrys high cost of living, its housing crisis and what some call a distorted distribution of wealth. But new reports claim that these protests which appear organic in nature may actually be strategically orchestrated by Stanley Greenberg, a prominent Democratic strategist here in America."
The demands of the protesters are focused on raising taxes, social justice, equality and democracy, and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
"Greenberg has a history of working in Israeli politics; at the behest of the US Democratic party he helped left-wing Ehud Barak win to become Prime Minister back in 1999."
The Greenberg, (James) Carville, and (Bob) Shrum company, has also been acting as election consultants for other, exclusively radical left wing candidates and parties elsewhere in the world, such as the Bolivian leftist incumbent president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (Goni).
(It didn't work.)
At the Israeli demos, by the way, out of 27 speakers, 21 are known leftist activists affiliated with Hadash, the communist party, with Meretz, with the New Israel Fund, with the Nationalist Left proto-party, and with the anarchists.
On Sunday, the US started pulling out its nationals from Shamsi airbase, reportedly used by CIA- operated drones, on the orders of Pakistan's government. An American aircraft arrived in Pakistan to fly people out. After the aircraft landed, the American nationals boarded it amidst strict security. Officials from the Federal Investigation Agency were present at the airbase.
Residents living around the airbase were told not to leave their homes as the aircraft was being boarded. There was no official word on the development from Pakistani or American officials.
Pakistan had asked the US to vacate the remote airbase in Balochistan within 15 days after an air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26.
This is the third time Pakistan has asked the US to vacate Shamsi airbase. A US government source said that the Americans had spent months preparing for a possible eviction from Shamsi by building up other drone launching and staging capabilities.
If you're bored enough, dig the groovy font on the protester's sign at the link.
#2
The US repor has already rejected the Pak demand to vacate this weekend, so I'm interpreting any evac as Office-critters, minor Contractors, + other Non-Essentials.
In the western German city of Koblenz, tens of thousands have left their homes as experts prepare to defuse a massive bomb from World War II discovered in the Rhine river.
City officials said Sunday that some 45,000 residents living within a 1.2 miles radius from the bomb site had to evacuate for the day. Officials say seven nursing homes, two hospitals and a prison are also being evacuated. It's one of Germany's biggest bomb-related evacuations since the war ended.
The RAF 1.8 ton bomb would cause massive damage if it exploded. It was found last week next to a 275-pound U.S. bomb after the Rhine's water level fell due to lack of rain. Both bombs are to be defused.
On Sunday, all road and rail connections to Koblenz will be blocked. Trains have not been able to stop at the main railway station since early Sunday morning and access roads into the city will be closed.
Shelters with 12,000 beds have been set up in schools. Hundreds of sandbags have been laid around the section of the riverbed where the bomb lies.
On Sunday morning the remaining water will be pumped out from the area. Once the bomb site is dry, the work to defuse the explosives will begin. The second, smaller US bomb will be defused at the same time.
#1
The US military has remembered Koblenz ever since its post-World War I occupation by General John J. Pershing.
Pershing was not a believer in "coddling" the troops, and he blamed the two epidemics his army had suffered, "clap" and influenza, on idleness and interacting with the local population while idle.
So, in the quiet of Koblenz, at the time called Coblenz, he ordered that all soldiers were to undergo 8 hours of close order drill daily.
This did not endear him to the soldiers.
Pershing was immortalized by the National Society of Pershing Rifles, that to this day, endeavors to teach ROTC cadets drill & ceremonies, with antiquated and inert rifles, so that they can perform decorative activities at civilian functions.
More militant cadets are encouraged to join a parallel organization based on US Army Ranger training, which teaches them to be deadly, not pretty. This more reflects the opinions of General Pershing's subordinate officers during the Philippine Insurrection.
Turkey is sitting with 60 American nuclear warheads at its Incirlik base by the United States because the Turks refuse to allow the US to station the warplanes there that would be able to deliver them.
The United States currently has 70 type B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs at its airbase in Incirlik in the southern province of Adana, according to daily Vatan.
...
Between 10 and 20 of the 70 nuclear warheads at Incirlik were designed to be delivered to their targets by Turkish warplanes, according to the report.
...
The US military needed a certain warplane type that is different than those stationed at the Incirlik airbase in order to deliver the remaining 50 warheads, the report by Norris and Kristensen said.
The Turkish state, however, has declined to allow the US military to deploy the said aircraft at Incirlik.
US warplanes would need to land at Incirlik from another location, equip the nuclear warheads and then fly to their targets, according to the report.
Turkey's refusal to station nuclear-capable US warplanes on its soil prevented Incirlik from acquiring a "full NATO position" status. This was a unique case among NATO bases, the report said.
AoS at 0940 CT: the original news source is here. I'm not inclined to believe this report; as noted in the comments, I don't think the U.S. would give Turkey control over U.S. nuclear weapons.
Back in the 70's, Greece and Turkey had a brief shoot out over Cyprus, as usual, but that's another story. I was company commander of a unit assigned to provide operational and tactical security to a special weapons platoon that was sent to Incirlik to evacuate tactial nukes from there to prevent the Turks from using them on the Greeks.
As luck would have it, the Turks found out and dispatched an armored battalion to supervise our evacuation of the nukes. It was a fun day as I had a 90mm main gun trained on me the entire time I was moving about the compound supervising the loading and transport of the nukes.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/04/2011 2:34
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#7
There is now way in hell we'd let another country control our nukes. No Way In Hell.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/04/2011 15:59
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#8
...Back in the Olden Time, most US nuclear weapons based overseas were under a 'dual-key' arrangement - it required a US officer and a host country officer to get them out of the mags and loaded. Now I'm not sure about the 'different aircraft type' part - the only tacair birds that we'd use for nukes would be the F-15E and just about any current model of the F-16. B-61s can be carried by anything currently in the inventory, so something doesn't sound quite right. What we may be looking at here is a garbled version of a problem we used to have with Spain: we can't operate anything in their country that's more advanced than what they're flying, which is why F-4s soldiered on at Torrejon AB long past the day they'd left US service just about everywhere else. Once we'd sold them F-18s, we could bring in F-16s to TAB. I didn't think that the Turks had a deal like that in their basing agreements, but you never know. Incirlik has no aircraft of its own; it's strictly a deployment base with a few C-17s and KCs hanging around on a regular basis.
Mike
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/04/2011 16:59
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#9
Iff the US' NATO Allies can nuke the then-Soviets + Warsaw Pact wid their air, why shouldn't NATO ally Turkey???
Not only do they beat and shoot pro-democracy demonstrators and storm foreign embassies on demand, they record rap songs like this one is support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. (Lyrics here.)
Just imagine what the same Basijis would do to an independent Occupy Tehran movement.
Feelings among Occupiers toward the Iranian regime are not reciprocal.
Bahrain's interior ministry says a blast occurred inside a minibus parked near the British Embassy, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.
A brief statement posted by the ministry says the explosion occurred in a public parking area near the British diplomatic compound in the capital Manama. Investigators sealed off the area.
Security has been boosted sharply across Bahrain during annual Shiite religious ceremonies.
OPEC oil ministers are expected to agree on action to support crude prices at around $100 a barrel when they meet in Vienna in mid December but will unlikely discussion new quotas, a key Saudi bank has said.
The ministers of the 12-nation Organization or Petroleum Exporting Countries, meeting on December 14, will avoid talks on new quotas until Libyan production is fully restored and Saudi output is trimmed back following its unilateral increases after the last failed meeting in June, the Saudi American Bank group (SAMBA) said in its latest monthly bulletin.
As such, the effectively irrelevant quotas agreed back in 2008 will remain in place, it said, noting that Saudi Arabia had boosted output above nine million barrels per day to offset disruption in conflict-hit Libya.
That said, we expect the meeting will be less contentious than the last and that a consensus will emerge over the need to support prices at around $100 given members higher budget break-even prices.
SAMBA said it believes Saudi will look to balance its output against increasing Libyan supply while monitoring prices carefully.
And this time they really really mean it. After this straight to bed without any supper.
An Arab League ministerial committee has presented Damascus with yet another ultimatum to accept observers to monitor the unrest in the country, Al-Jazeera is reporting.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani announced the new deadline for Syria to avoid sanctions following a meeting in Doha on Saturday, to discuss the measures decided against Damascus over its crackdown on eight months of protests.
Jassim al-Thani was quoted by Al-Jazeera as having said, During the meeting we contacted Damascus... and we asked them to come tomorrow (to Doha) to sign the protocol on sending observers to Damascus.
He added, We are waiting for a reply. As Arabs we fear that if the situation continues things will get out of Arab control.
Syria, however, has already ignored several ultimatums to end the bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters, which the UN estimates has so far resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 people.
Last Sunday, the Arab League approved sanctions against Syria, which included cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank and halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria.
Later in the week the League tightened the sanctions, adding 17 high-ranking Syrian officials to a list banning travel to other Arab states, including Maher al-Assad, commander of the feared Syrian Republican Guard and brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported, the violence continued on Saturday, with at least 25 people dead in fierce fighting between Syrian security forces and army rebels in northern Syria
The fate of Detroit could be decided this month. Long suffering Detroit could run out of cash completely by spring, and has an unresolved $200 million hole in its budget through June. Under Michigan law, when the citys bonds drop below the BBB level, the governor can appoint an emergency manager with broad powers to put the city back in fiscal shape, including the power to annul existing union contracts. The mayor and city officials say they can manage things on their own; the state treasurer says the city is failing its legal obligations and has announced a financial review that could be completed by Christmas. Under agreements Detroit signed with banks when negotiating an earlier loan package, the city could face $400 million in penalties if the state takes control.
Thats not the only problem: if the review determines that the city is broke, white Republican officials could end up making decisions that change the fate of a predominantly African American city imposing cuts in employment, pay, benefits and services that will affect almost everyone who lives in Detroit.
Detroit Free Press columnist Jeff Gerritt lays out what the governor will face if the takeover goes forward:
Plantation is a word hell hear a lot in fact, Councilman Kwame Kenyatta already invoked it to describe what would happen if the state took control of the citys finances in an effort to keep it from running out of money by spring
Nothing happens in this region outside the context of race. Our often-painful history is the oxygen we breathe, even when we choke on it. Were all finding it a little hard to breathe just now
#1
On the brink? Hah! The question is whether the current mayor, Dave Bing, will be able to drag the half-submerged, sodden corpse out of the water or whether a once prosperous and thriving city will quietly slip beneath the surface after half a century of Democrat mismanagement and corruption.
Nothing happens in this region outside the context of race.
Perhaps because ex-mayor Coleman Young played the race card for 20 years and made a political living pitting the city against the surrounding suburbs and the rest of the state?
Posted by: Paul D ||
12/04/2011 6:55
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#3
if the review determines that the city is broke, white Republican officials could end up making decisions that change the fate of a predominantly African American city -- imposing cuts in employment, pay, benefits and services that will affect almost everyone who lives in Detroit.
That is the most vile paragraph I've read in a long time. Completely dodges all responsibility the Democrats have for creating the problem in the first place and tries to blame the Republicans for trying to fix it and slur them as racists in the process. Vile.
#4
"if the review determines that the city is broke, white Republican officials could end up making decisions that change the fate of a predominantly African American city"
Here's an idea: Ask the people who actually pay taxes to Detroit what they're willing to support. Leave race totally out of it - you pay taxes, you get to decide; you don't pay taxes, shut up, it ain't yer damn business.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 13:57
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#5
you pay taxes, you get to decide; you don't pay taxes, shut up, it ain't yer damn business.
Yes, It's like a non-stock holder going going to a board meeting and voting and making decisions. Voting yourselves money is what's gonna do in this country...just like public workers unions.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
12/04/2011 18:31
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Change from Democracy to
1 Dollar of Tax extorted = 1 Vote.
Something is happening in Iran. Forces are in motion. But what is happening? And who are the forces that are on the move? Since this week's bombing in Isfahan, the world media is rife with speculation that the war with Iran over its nuclear weapons program has begun. But if the war has begun, who is fighting it? What are their aims? And what are their methods and means of attack? On Wednesday the Times of London published a much-cited article about this week's blast in Isfahan. The article referred to the bombed installation as a "uranium enrichment facility."
But there is no uranium enrichment facility at Isfahan. Rather there is a uranium conversion facility.
As the news analysis website The Missing Peace explained, a UCF is an installation where yellowcake is converted into uranium hexafluoride, or UF6. In Iran, the UF6 from Isfahan is sent to Natanz, where it is enriched.
While Isfahan's UCF may be a reasonable target in an all-out attack on Iran's nuclear program, it is not a vital installation. According to American military analyst J.E. Dyer, it would not be a priority target for Western governments whose primary goal is to neutralize Iran's nuclear weapons program.
As Dyer put it in a blog post at Hot Air, "Western governments make their targeting decisions based on criteria that would put the Isfahan UCF several notches down the list of things that need to be struck in November 2011. It's a workhorse facility in the fissile-material production network, and it's already done what needs to be done to assemble an arsenal of multiple weapons. Uranium conversion is also 'mastered technology'; Iran can reconstitute it relatively quickly."
Dyer concludes that due to the site's low value to Western governments, "It is extremely unlikely that a Western government" perpetrated the attack.
If Dyer is right, and the Isfahan site is not critical to Iran's nuclear project and was therefore not attacked by a Western government, who attacked it and why? Dr. Michael Ledeen, an Iran expert from the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote Monday at PJ Media that the attack at Isfahan, like the attacks two weeks ago at the Bidganeh Air Force base and two other Revolutionary Guards bases were conducted by members of Iran's anti-regime Green Movement. In those attacks, Revolutionary Guards Maj.-Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam was killed and some 180 Shahab 3 ballistic missiles were destroyed.
Speaking to The Missing Peace, Daniel Ashrafi, an Iranian anti-regime activist living in Canada, claimed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was scheduled to visit the Bidganeh base at the time of the kaboom, but he was delayed.
If true, this would mark the second time that a facility was bombed when one of Iran's big shots was scheduled to visit the site. In May, the Abadan oil refinery was bombed during a site visit by Iran's diminutive PresidentMahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.
Given the shroud of secrecy that covers all operations in Iran, any attempt to assess what is happening on the ground is necessarily speculative.
But speculation can be useful if it is grounded in a reasoned assessment of the differing goals of various actors and the probability of their willingness to act alone or in concert with others to achieve their goals.
In the case of the Green Movement, what began as a protest movement after the regime stole the 2009 presidential elections, morphed in the ensuing months of protests and regime repression into a full-blown revolutionary movement.
No longer content to demand that Ahmadinejad step down and fair elections take place, the Green Movement began calling for and working towards the overthrow of the regime as a whole. And since last year, regime installations as well as key members of the Revolutionary Guards have been targeted on a regular basis. As The Washington Post reported last week, since 2010 there has been a fivefold increase in the number of kabooms at Iranian oil pipelines and refineries. Whoever is behind the blasts is clearly targeting Iran's high value economic assets.
And now they have moved on to military installations and nuclear sites.
THIS ESCALATION in the war of sabotage against the Iranian regime provides two important lessons for Western policy-makers assessing Western options for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
It tells us the popular Western belief that a US or Israeli or coalition strike on Iran's nuclear installations would provoke the Iranian public to rally around the regime is utter nonsense. In the case of the Isfahan bombing, for instance, there are two possible scenarios for who is responsible.
First, it is possible, as Ledeen argues and Dyer infers, that the attack was the work of regime opponents acting on their own. Second, it is possible as Israeli officials quoted by the media have hinted that it was a collaborative effort between local regime opponents and foreign forces.
In either case, what is clear is that at least some Iranians are willing to target their country's nuclear installations if doing so will harm the regime.
At the height of the 2009 Green Movement protests against the regime, US President Barack Why can't I just eat my waffle? Obama justified his decision not to side with the anti-regime protesters by claiming that if the US were to support them, they would lose popular credibility. In his words, it would be counterproductive for the US "to be seen as meddling" in Iran's domestic affairs, "given the history of US-Iranian relations."
And yet, what we see is that no one is rallying around the regime. The attacks on Isfahan and Bidganeh, which the regime was quick to simultaneously deny and blame on foreign governments, did not cause the people to rally to the side of the mullahs. So, too, the repeated bombings of petroleum facilities are not fomenting an upsurge in public support for the regime. To the contrary; domestic disgruntlement with the regime continues to rise as the standard of living for the average Iranian plummets.
And this brings us to the "students" who raided the British Embassy on Tuesday. On Thursday the regime released from jail all the "students" placed in long-term storage for raiding and torching the embassy and briefly holding British personnel hostage.
Their release is yet further proof that the embassy attackers were neither students nor angry at Britannia. Rather, as British Foreign Minister William Hague and others have alleged, they were regime goons who belong to the same Basij force that massacred, tortured and raped the anti-regime protesters from the Green Movement in 2009.
According to the official Iranian press agencies, the "students" raided the British Embassy because they were furious that Britannia announced it was cutting its ties with Iran's Central Bank. If Obama were right, and Western anti-regime actions were counterproductive, then we could have expected real students, like the ones who called for the overthrow of the regime in 2009 to protest outside the British Embassy. But the fact that they stayed home while their attackers turned their truncheons on the British is clear proof that Obama simply didn't know what he was talking about.
AND AS Obama's statements in the wake of the assault on the British Embassy made clear, he still fundamentally misunderstands the situation in Iran. Responding to the attack, Obama said, "I strongly urge the Iranian government to hold those who are responsible to task."
That is, the US president opted to pretend that "those responsible," were separate from the regime, which they are not.
Obama's response is of a piece with his non-response to Iran's plan to bomb targets in Washington.
It is also in line with his refusal to contemplate sanctions against Iran's Central Bank and its oil sector. Moreover, Obama's continued insistence on working through the UN Security Council to ratchet up sanctions on Iran despite the fact that Russian and Chinese support for Iran has blocked that venue make clear that he is not at all serious about using US power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Thankfully, Obama's abandonment of the traditional US role as the leader of the free world has not prevented Western governments and regional forces for freedom from acting in their common interests. Britannia and La Belle France have responded to the regime assault on the British Embassy by rallying Western European nations to escalate the EU's campaign to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Unlike the B.O. regime, which continues to falsely characterize Iran's nuclear program as a threat to Israel alone, the Europeans are increasingly willing to acknowledge that the program and the regime constitute a grave threat to European security and to global security as a whole.
Whereas the B.O. regime peevishly argues that an embargo on Iranian oil will raise world oil prices, this week the British openly called for an embargo on Iranian oil. In truth such an embargo would harm Iran far more than it would harm the global economy. Europe buys 20 to 25 percent of Iran's oil exports, but Iranian oil makes up only 5% of European oil imports. At least in the short run, Soddy Arabia could pick up the slack, thus ensuring stability in global oil prices.
In the absence of US leadership, a coalition and a strategy for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and continuing to terrorize the West has emerged. First, we have the Iranian opposition which is apparently actively involved in sabotaging with the aim of overthrowing the regime. Second, we have Israel which is completely committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And finally we have leading European states that are increasingly determined to take practical steps to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
There are many opportunities for collaboration between these forces. In an interview with The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... following the UN's ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency's report exposing Iran's nuclear weapons program last month, Jean-Jaques Guillet, who published a report on Iran for the French National Assembly, said the goal of these forces should be to overthrow the regime. In his words, "If we press the regime strongly, there could be an implosion. The real objective these days should be the regime's implosion, not more talk."
Guillet suggested that La Belle France could cut off satellite service to Iran. Iran's television networks are broadcast through the French owned Eutelsat.
Cutting off regime broadcasts, placing an embargo on Iranian oil exports, and actively assisting anti-regime forces in sabotaging regime installations, including nuclear installations, have the potential of achieving the goals of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and facilitating the empowerment of pro-Western democrats in that country.
Clearly, US participation in such a collaborative strategy would be helpful. But between the kabooms in Isfahan and Bidganeh, and the surge in attacks on other regime targets; and Europe's notably robust response to Iran's attack on the British Embassy, it is possible that these goals can be accomplished even with the US following far behind.
Continued on Page 49
[Dawn] A roadside kabooming killed three NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... service members on Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said.
The coalition recently shifted its focus from southern Afghanistan to the east, where bully boyz are fighting Afghan and coalition troops along the long, mostly non-existent border with Pakistain.
The exact location of the bombing was not disclosed, nor were the nationalities of the dead.
So far this year, 519 NATO service members have been killed in Afghanistan, including at least 389 Americans.
Separately, tribal elders in Pashtun-infested Logar province, also in the east, continued to negotiate with Islamic fascistion Saturday in an effort to free eight Pak laborers kidnapped by bully boyz on Thursday, said provincial front man Din Mohammad Darwesh.
He said they were kidnapped by a gunman on a cycle of violence who ambushed a bus carrying the laborers to work at a hospital construction site in Pul-e-Alam, the quiet provincial capital. The assailants took them into the woods at gunpoint.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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[Yemen Post] At least 28 non-combatants were killed in Taiz over the last three days by government forces as anger and fear spreads in the province.
Five were killed on Saturday, six on Friday, and 17 on Thursday as protests continue in Yemen demanding that President-for-Life Saleh's ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... ruling family be trialed for the crimes against humanity.
Twelve civilians were maimed today, raising the three day total to 146 injured in Taiz only.
Roads leading to the province were shutdown and hundreds of troops continue to enter the province.
Residents are worried that President Saleh is planning genocide in the province and called the international community to help their efforts in seeking freedom and democracy.
Majority of streets were empty as hundreds of families evacuated Taiz this week.
Medics in Taiz said that the last 24 hours of shelling was the heaviest in months and said that the corpse count will rise much higher as the day passes.
This did not stop protests from taking place in Yemen.
As festivities were taking place in Taiz, tens of thousands of anti government youth marched the streets with bullets flying above their heads.
More than 500,000 participated in today's anti government protests nationwide.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Armed men in Syria have killed a security official along with a number of his relatives in the restive city of al-Qamishli in the country's northeast.
UPI cited Syrian security sources as confirming the man was murdered on Saturday in the attack, which also killed his brother's wife and his five and 15-year-old children, Fars news agency reported.
The official's body was reportedly riddled by 35 bullets, while the five-year-old sustained head shots that ripped into his brain.
Al-Qamishli has been the scene of terrorist operations since the outbreak of a deadly unrest in Syria in March.
Earlier, Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... announced more than 1,200 security forces have been killed by terrorist elements backed from outside the country.
In addition, Syrian state TV has broadcast reports showing seized weapons caches and confessions by terrorist elements describing how they obtained arms from foreign sources to carry out armed activities and killing people as well as security forces.
The interviews of Syrian opposition groups with Israeli news outlets clearly show anti-government group's vision for the future of Syria, and indicate their interest in developing relations with Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... recent measures adopted by the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... , including the suspension of Syria's membership in the bloc, have boosted unity among Syrians.
Figures show that during the past weeks, nearly 12 million people have demonstrated in support of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad. Light of the Alawites...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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#1
the five-year-old sustained head shots that ripped into his brain
[Dawn] THE fraught relations between Pakistain and the US have often been likened to a bad marriage in which the two partners can`t live with each other, but are bound together by mutual dependency.
I knew a few similar relationships, and it was painful to watch two people tearing each other apart. I was in the US when the two Pak border posts along the Afghan border came under fire from NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... helicopter gunships, killing 24 soldiers. When questioned about the angry Pak response, I asked my American friends what their reaction would have been had Pak fire inflicted such heavy casualties on American troops in Afghanistan.
The truth is that all hell would have broken loose, with loud calls from across the American spectrum demanding immediate retaliation. Pak offers to mount a full investigation would have been brushed aside as a whitewash. Politicians would have called for a suspension in military aid -- the biggest stick the Americans have in their relationship with Pakistain.
In the event, Pakistain has used all the sticks in its cupboard: a halt in NATO supplies, notice to vacate Shamsi airbase in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and the decision to refuse to attend the Afghan security conference in Bonn next week. All these actions underline the transactional nature of the Pakistain-US relationship: if you give us this, we will give you that. And as a rentier state, Pakistain had some valuable geopolitical real estate to offer.
The reality is that there has never been a convergence of values or long-term interests between the two countries, despite their long and troubled alliance. True, both states started off by entering into anti-communist pacts in the 1950s. But for Pakistain, this was a way of acquiring American arms in its rivalry with India.
Once the USSR imploded, the rental value of Pakistain fell to zero in US eyes. Military and economic sanctions to discourage nuclear proliferation kicked in, the supply of F-16 fighter planes we had paid for was blocked and Pakistain was declared an international pariah when we tested our nuclear devices in 1998.
Just as it seemed the relationship was doomed forever, the late Osama bin Laden ... who has left the building... launched his war on America, and with 9/11, a second honeymoon began. But the lack of any solid basis to the partnership beyond short-term needs has meant that it is always going to be hostage to outbursts and spats that threaten to spiral out of control.
Ultimately, the relationship is resurrected each time it hits rock bottom because of our mutual need for each other. Our military desperately needs the high-tech weaponry it is unable to procure elsewhere and our economy can`t do without the assistance that trickles in fitfully from Washington. More urgently, we need American support for our frequent loan requests for multilateral aid.
American needs are more straightforward: Pakistain`s approval for the use of its airspace to support NATO troops in Afghanistan from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the use of our road network to carry supplies overland and the interdiction of cross-border militancy.
It is this last task that has proved so contentious. Over the years, as NATO casualties have mounted, western leaders have blamed Pakistain for `not doing enough` to combat beturbanned goons based on its soil, and for not stopping them from crossing into Afghanistan at will to fight NATO and Afghan forces.
This is a question that frequently came up during the talks and media interviews I gave in America recently on my book tour. I tried to explain Pakistain`s red lines to my largely American audiences. Our defence establishment`s misplaced preoccupation with the threat it perceives from India is obviously one.
Another is the army`s need to have proxies in place for the post-US scenario in Afghanistan in which the pre-9/11 civil war is likely to resume. The third lies in the dangers inherent in taking on the Haqqani network at a time when the army has its hands full already, fighting the local Taliban. And finally, there are problems inherent in repeatedly ordering our Frontier Corps to fire on fellow Pakhtuns and fellow Moslems.
I also reminded my listeners of the anger caused by the charge that the Pakistain Army was not doing what it was supposed to despite the billions it was getting from the Pentagon. Our officer corps is furious at being thought of as a mercenary army, doing the bidding of foreigners for financial considerations. In its eyes, it has national interests to protect, irrespective of the military aid it is getting.
Clearly, there is a mismatch of expectations here. For the American public, politicians and media, the narrative is about paying hard cash to buy certain services, and getting short-changed. This is the nature of a transactional relationship: when the customer doesn`t think he`s getting what he paid for, he complains loud and hard.
From the popular Pak perspective, we have already paid too high a price for entering into this war on America`s side. In terms of lives lost as well as economic damage, the public perception -- whipped up by the populist media -- is that enough is enough.
According to an opinion poll published by this newspaper, 55 per cent of all Americans consider Pakistain to be an enemy. This bleak view of its alliance partner is similar to the perception of two-thirds of all Paks about the US. So clearly, there is not much warmth in the doomed marriage.
Nevertheless, the joyless couple are condemned to carry on with a façade of a united front for the next three years when US forces are scheduled to begin pulling out of the quagmire Afghanistan has proved for them. This time, though, there is little prospect of the couple getting back together.
From the American perspective, a combination of a slumping economy and 15 years of bad vibes will make any resumption of aid politically impossible. As it is, there is increasing resistance to military and economic assistance. Only the presence of US troops in the region is making it possible for the B.O. regime to continue disbursing aid.
For many Paks, this cut-off will only reinforce the popular image of America -- fed by years of propaganda -- as a fickle, fair-weather ally who abandons us when we aren`t needed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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#1
the late Osama bin Laden, Who roasts with Hitler, Himmler(Etc),
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 0:26
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#2
Saw the title.
Thought that was Bill and Hilarity.
#3
While the US is pulling its forces out of Pakistan, this may actually be a good thing in the long run. Pakistan will still be fighting its Taliban, and the US will likely cut off a lot of aid their military had used to buy weapons, or grafted away.
This may not be a bad shift in the complexion of the battle. By being denied an easy trade route, the US will have to shift much more responsibility to the Afghan army sooner. But despite perpetual violence, it is unlikely that there will be a return to power of the Taliban any time soon.
[Bangla Daily Star] The main opposition BNP yesterday demanded that the government immediately stop the proceedings of the war crimes tribunal.
The party also called on the international community to raise objections to what it said was the tribunal's violation of human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... in an extra-judicial manner.
The world, it said, must put pressure on the government to fulfil the commitments Bangladesh had made through signing international covenants on crimes against humanity.
Flanked by senior party leaders, former law minister Moudud Ahmed read out the demands at a presser at the party's Naya Paltan headquarters in the capital.
"The BNP has no confidence in this tribunal. It believes that in the existing legal structure, the tribunal is nothing but a servile, rubber-stamp organization," he said in a written statement.
Moudud observed that it made no sense to legitimise the tribunal's "illegal and unconstitutional trial proceedings by participating in its farcical activities to victimise political opponents".
Referring to the recommendations of Stephen Rapp, US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, the opposition politician said, "We agree with the recommendations. The tribunal cannot be independent and transparent without implementation of those suggestions."
He then cited some of the recommendations Ambassador Rapp made during his Dhaka tour: the tribunal should define the crimes against humanity; an individual accused of war crimes should get the same time and support as the accused in other cases get to defend themselves; the trial proceedings should be broadcast on television and radio; and foreign lawyers should be allowed in as consultants.
The opposition party also demanded immediate release of its politician Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, who has been jugged on charges of crimes against humanity.
Moudud said, "Salauddin believes it will amount to an extra-judicial killing if he is condemned to death by a biased and one-sided tribunal, depriving him of the fundamental rights he has like any other citizen."
The BNP leader claimed Salauddin had sent 23 applications to the tribunal from jail. While some of those applications had been lying at the Gazipur deputy commissioner's office, the rest had disappeared without trace.
Besides, he said, the tribunal had taken the charges against Salauddin into cognisance in his absence and without giving him any notice. It only had discussions with the prosecution.
Moudud maintained that his party too wanted the "real war criminals" to be tried under the existing laws of the land. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... that trial would have to be conducted though a transparent and impartial legal process, and there must not be any doubt in the public mind about the modalities of the trial.
BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and members of the party's national standing committee were among those present at the presser.
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12/04/2011
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[VOA News] The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... on Saturday froze assets of 19 top Syrian officials and banned them from traveling to Arab states.
After a meeting in Doha, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani who chairs the vaporous Arab League's grinding of the peace processor committee, said the panel also gave Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... until Sunday to come to Doha and sign an initiative to end its military crackdown on protests.
Also Saturday, activists said at least 23 people had died in anti-government unrest across Syria, including violent festivities between government troops and rebel soldiers in the northern province of Idlib.
Witnesses say the battles have been intensifying in recent days as more soldiers defect from regular army units.
The latest fighting came a day after the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Human Rights Council voted to condemn Syria for "gross and systematic violations of human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. " that could be linked to the government's crackdown on dissent. The U.N. body also agreed to appoint a special investigator to probe human rights abuses in Syria.
But Syria's Foreign Ministry dismissed the U.N. resolution and accused the U.N. Human Rights Council of "blatantly politicizing" it. Syria's state-run media quoted a foreign ministry official as saying the council "deliberately ignored" documents provided by the Syrian government that clarified facts.
In Istanbul Saturday, visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... praised Turkey for taking steps to address repression in Syria. He also joined with other world leaders in calling for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... to step down.
"Regional issues from the brutal repression in Syria where Turkey, where we stand with Turkey and a growing chorus of nations in calling for President Assad to step aside," Biden said. "And I welcome the Human Rights Council's condemnation yesterday of the regime's violence."
Earlier, a U.N.-backed study said several hundred children were among those who had been killed in the government crackdown. The world body says the overall corpse count from eight months of unrest in Syria has topped 4,000.
Syria has contended its actions are not a crackdown on protests, but a necessary response to attacks by "armed terrorists" on civilians and security personnel.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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#1
"In Istanbul Saturday, visiting U.S. Vice President Joe "Foreign Policy Whiz Kid" Biden...praised Turkey for taking steps to address repression in Syria"
-for deploying a flotilla against Israel?
-for its neo-Ottoman ambitions?
-for exploiting the Arab Spring to Turkeyfy the region?
Posted by: American Delight ||
12/04/2011 6:28
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[Telegraph UK] Iranian diplomats expelled from Britannia arrived home in Tehran to a hero's welcome on Saturday, but missed it because they were immediately ushered out of the airport through a side entrance.
The bizarre homecoming seemed to indicate divisions within Iran's ruling regime, with hardliners crowing at Tuesday's storming of the British embassy in Tehran, and moderates embarrassed that their international image has been tarnished.
Britannia ordered a couple of dozen diplomats and their families to leave in response to the attack. About 150 hard-liners waiting with flower necklaces were gathered at Tehran's main airport to greet them, chanting slogans like "Death to England". Many of them appeared to be members of the brutal Basij militia. One held a placard saying "Spy embassy closed for good".
Officials appeared to be concerned that any display of greeting could worsen the diplomatic fallout from the incident, which has led to one of the most serious rifts between Iran and the west for years.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Saturday said that certain elements were trying to divide the nation on the issues of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... attack and memogate scandal, DawnNews reported.
After a meeting of the Pakistain People's Party -- Punjab's parliamentary party, PPP -- Punjab president Imtiaz Safdar Warraich told media representatives that during the gathering, the prime minister stated that the Pakistain Mohammedan League -- Nawaz (PML-N) was trying to create the impression that President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... was a threat to the country's nuclear program.
The prime minister said the political parties' lack of confidence on the president was saddening, Warraich said.
The meeting took place under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Gilani and PPP MPAs informed him of their grievances with the Punjab bureaucracy.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Leader of Tunisia's Islamic party of al-Nahda Rashid Ghannouchi has warned Soddy Arabia of a revolution in the kingdom if Riyadh does not respect popular demand.
Speaking at a meeting in Washington, Ghannouchi said that Saudi officials will face a revolution unless they give in to the demands of the youth.
Riyadh needs to surrender to the people's will and hand over power to the nation, he added.
Soddy Arabia has been swept with unrest over the past months in the face of the monarchy's known intolerance of dissent.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... the Tunisian official said his movement's stance regarding Israel will remain hostile.
He also supported the Paleostinian resistance movement of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, in its fight against Israel and said Tunisia would not recognize the US-backed two-state solution.
In October, the al-Nahda party won the majority of the seats in the assembly months after Tunisians overthrew the US-backed despotic regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a popular uprising.
Tunisians held massive street protests that eventually toppled Ben Ali after 23 years in power. Ben Ali decamped to Soddy Arabia as the Tunisian revolution was gaining momentum.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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I gather that Ghannouchi are thick, soft dumplings, popular in Italian cuisine.
[Iran Press TV] An Iranian Foreign Ministry official says the severance of Tehran-London ties is the direct result of the irresponsibility of British authorities. "We have always been at war with Oceania."
Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular, Parliamentary, and Iranian Expatriates' Affairs Hassan Qashqavi revealed that Majlis (parliament) had wanted to completely cut all relations between the two countries.
"The main reason that the Foreign Ministry did not want these ties to be severed was the consular issues of Iranians and expatriates living in London," Qashqavi told IRNA on Saturday.
Qashqavi added that although Tehran's political, economical and cultural collaborations with London were limited; the important issue for Iran was protecting the rights of Iranians residing in Britannia.
He went on to describe the British decision to close Iran's consulate in London as an "emotional" and "illogical" decision and said Iranian immigrant have greatly contributed to Britannia both before and after the revolution and London's erratic behavior shows the extent of British irresponsibility towards the rights if its immigrants.
Hundreds of Iranian students staged a major protest rally outside the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, November 29, pulling down the UK flag and demanding the expulsion of the British envoy. Protesters also staged another rally outside a second compound, the Qolhak Garden, in north Tehran.
The student protests were held following the approval of a bill by Iran's Majlis (parliament) which aimed to downgrade ties with the UK to the level of chargé d'affaires and oblige the country's Foreign Ministry to expel the British ambassador, Dominick John Chilcott, within two weeks.
On Wednesday, Britannia's Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Iranian Embassy ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!... in London would be immediately closed and its diplomatic mission would be expelled from Britannia.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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#1
I wonder how many members of the Iranian mission will suddenly decide that the prospect of returning to Iran is even less desirable than British cuisine.
[NY Post]Attorney Harrison Williams should have made $75,000 for work he did on behalf of a prisoner who filed a lawsuit. Instead, an appeals court ruled, he earned $1.50. "Don't spend it all in one place, bub!"
The prisoner, who claimed he had his religious rights violated when his dreadlocks were touched, was awarded one dollar. Oh, yeah. That's one of the basic tenets of the Church of the Subgenius, ain't it?
Williams said the Nov. 15 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan may discourage lawyers from representing frivolous claims of prisoners. Wouldn't that be a shame?
The appeals court said Congress limited attorney fees to 150 percent of a jury award when it passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act in 1997, though it conceded the description in the law was "not a model of clarity." "But since nobody's concerned but us we may have a problem, at least until we can buy enough legislators..."
"A lot of attorneys were probably crapping themselves when they saw that decision," Williams said. "You have to consider there aren't many of these cases economically you can afford to take on."
Richard J. Cardinale, a Brooklyn lawyer who sometimes represents prisoners, said he was not surprised by the ruling.
"The rationale is that a lot of these cases are dubious and that prisoners need to be discouraged from bringing these cases and lawyers need to be discouraged too," he said. "It discourages me from taking small cases."
It's unlikely the law will change, Cardinale said.
"There's no constituency for prisoners or for people who represent prisoners. I have no hope," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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FINALY some brains among Judges
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 0:47
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MMMM, On second thought, award him the entire 75K FROM THE PLAINTIFF ALONE (no bankruptcy's allowed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 0:51
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[Iran Press TV] Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has condemned the Yemeni government's brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests in the country.
Mehmanparast criticized international organizations for their silence on violent suppression of protesters at the hand of the regime of President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , Mehr News Agency ...And if you can't believe Mehr News Agency who can you believe?... reported on Saturday.
The Iranian official stressed that any response to the demands of the Yemeni people must meet their legitimate demands.
He added that Iran denounces any foreign meddling in Yemen and called for all the parties, groups, tribes and the elite to remain vigilant.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands more injured in Yemen since the beginning of the uprising against the Saleh regime which resulted in his stepping down.
Yemeni Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, in charge of country's affairs after Saleh's resignation, has named head of the opposition coalition Mohammed Basindawa as the new prime minster tasked with forming a new government.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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#1
"He added that Iran denounces any foreign meddling in Yemen...", except by Iran.
[Iran Press TV] Kenyan fighter jets have bombarded a civilian refugee camp in southern Somalia, killing and wounding dozens of people, Press TV reports.
The Arclight airstrikes targeted the civilian refugee camp in Gedo region of Ceel Ade village on Friday afternoon, a Press TV correspondent reported on Saturday.
Mohamed Abdi Kalil, the head of Gedo region, confirmed the attacks and the casualties.
Kenya invaded Somalia and sent its troops to the neighboring country almost two months ago in order to wipe out the al-Shabaab group. ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
An unnamed Kenyan military front man announced that he would investigate the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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* 12 Harbin Y-12
* About 3 dozen MD-500's of various types, some armed.
* About 50 armed "Harbin Z-9" helicopters, which seem to be a Chinese development of a French airframe, most of which have been delivered _this year_.
* 3 CASA CN-235; I imagine they could roll bombs out the back ramp.
* About 20 F-5's and 12 Tucano's, some Tucano's apparently armed. (It's the previous version of the plane Colombia's using so effectively against FARK, oops I mean FARC....)
Herman Cain ...the personable but seemingly horny former Godfather's Pizza CEO who coulda been a contenda... , the turban populist whose candidacy has been ensnared by allegations of sexual impropriety, said Saturday that he is leaving the race for the Republican presidential nomination, saying that the allegations have cast a "cloud of doubt over me and this campaign."
"As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign," he said at an event in Atlanta. "I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt . . . on me, on my family, not because we are not fighters, not because I am not a fighter."
Cain's campaign had sent mixed signals as to his future since Ginger White, an Atlanta woman who claims to have had an affair with Cain for more than a decade, went public with her story earlier this week. While Cain has said he has been "reassessing" his candidacy, he also, at times, has been fiercely defiant, suggesting that unnamed enemies have been trying to do him in and vowing to press forward.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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God riddance.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 0:21
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A man's got to make a choice between his sex drive and a career in politics. On it's own, my first WestPac was worth any seat in the state legislature.
I wonder if historians will note the decline of America started when we eliminated horndogs from seeking public office.
#4
A man's got to make a choice between his sex drive and a career in politics.
Only if he doesn't has a -D after his name. If he has the holy -D he gets a free pass. (Edwards, Clinton, and who know how many others...)
Odd how the Media knew Edwards was boinking someone on the side while his wife was 'battling cancer'.... but didn't mention a thing - not a single fuc*ing word.
#5
The key is that the Dems want to continue the myth that the Republicans are racists. With Cain as the face of the Republican party, it threatened that little plantation the Dems formed with the cooperation of the NAACP, SNCC, and Core. Of course the propaganda of the left that the Republicans are a lily white party would be hard to support with Cain in the fray...
The Dems were out to get him, they got him, most of the dirt, will, in the long run be proven to be false but the damage is done. Once you've been accused, no matter how many times it is proven false, the press will always slip it in there somewhere to keep the controvery alive.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/04/2011 2:29
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The Dems were out to get him, they got him, most of the dirt, will, in the long run be proven to be false but the damage is done.
It should read:
The Dems helped by (the vile scum of the inhuman gutter-press)* were out to get him ...
#7
Cain lost me on the foreign policy front. I think the sexual harassment claims were most likely a trick to knock him out of the race. In effect he did us all a favor by taking that bullet before the tactic or a variant of it was used on someone else.
I don't think Cain expected to get as far as he did in the race. I hope he sold a lot of books in the process.
#9
I would have gone all in for Cain. He was never my candidate, but he was always good enough, and his campaign would have had some interesting implications for the black vote.
I'm hesitant on Gingrich. I like him better than Romney and Obama (two guys who use many of the same advisors), but he has his own issues. Now that he's the front runner, everyone is going to be digging into his record, and not all of it is good. We'll see.
Romney is a dead end. He might be better than Obama, but that's not a realistic choice. McCain would have been better than Obama too, but neither of them can motivate enough Republican voters to go to the polls.
If Perry gets a second look, I think he'll run away with the whole thing. Romney *still* worries more about Perry than any of the others. Let's hope this fickle season settles down and the best man wins, because Perry is the best man running. He's not perfect, but by far the best of the bunch.
#11
Joe, I don't think that's the real problem with Cain.
IMO the real problem is that he didn't appear to take the race / office seriously enough to be prepared on key strategic, military and diplomatic questions.
[Dawn] The main character of the controversial memogate scandal, Mansoor Ijaz on Saturday came up with new allegations against the government of Pakistain, claimed that President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... and Hussain Haqqani were aware of May 02 operation in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... before hand, DawnNews reported.
The Pak born US businessman, in his fresh article for "Newsweek", unearthed that the former ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani assured him about approval of the boss (Zardari) prior to delivering the controversial memo to Admiral Mike Mullen.
Haqqani also assured him that the memo was backed up by the top politicianship in Islamabad, wrote Ijaz.
Ijaz also claimed that Haqqani had been trying to divert attention from President Zardari in the scandal.
Ijaz wrote that Haqqani only chose him to deliver the memo because he knew how unpopular Ijaz were to the majority of Islamabad leadership and it would be easier to deny chargeslater, if the matter become public.
Haqqani changed his "BlackBerry" Handset three times since May to hide its messages record, wrote Ijaz. However original messages from him were still saved and can be produced as evidence, he added.
Mansoor Ijaz further wrote that the President Zardari was the architect of the whole memogate episode.
He said Haqqani received pat on the back from the president when he reached Islamabad after completing the job successfully on May 12.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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[An Nahar] A French minister said there was no such thing as moderate Islam, calling recent election successes by Islamic parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia "worrying" in an interview published Saturday.
Jeannette Bougrab, a junior minister with responsibility for youth, told Le Gay Pareeien newspaper that legislation based on Islamic sharia law "inevitably" imposed restrictions on rights and freedoms.
Bougrab is of Algerian origin, whose father fought on the French colonial side during Algeria's war of independence, and said she was speaking as "a French woman of Arab origin."
"It's very worrying," she was quoted as saying. "I don't know of any moderate Islam."
"There are no half measures with sharia," she added. "I am a lawyer and you can make all the theological, literal or fundamental interpretations of it that you like but law based on sharia is inevitably a restriction on freedom, especially freedom of conscience."
She was reacting to electoral successes scored by the Ennahda party in Tunisia, the Justice and Development Party in Morocco and the Moslem Brüderbund in Egypt.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has called for dialogue with such parties as long as they respect certain criteria, including the rule of law and women's rights.
Bougrab conceded that ousted Tunisian and Egyptian rulers Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... had used the Islamist "threat" to win backing from Western countries, but she added, "We shouldn't go to the other extreme."
And she hit out at the 30 percent of Tunisians living in La Belle France who had voted for Ennahda in last month's polls. "I am shocked that those who have rights and freedoms here gave their votes to a religious party," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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Is it just me, or the French been showing some common sense lately?
[Dawn] Undeterred by the growing public anger and anti-Americanism over the recent NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... deadly attack on two Pakistain army border checkposts, the U.S. is continuing its drone operations in North Wazoo.
Local rustics infomed Dawn on Friday that the unmanned planes had been flying over Miramshah, the administrative headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, and others parts of the tribal region.
A Miramshah resident, whose name has been withheld on request, said drones, dubbed `benguza` by locals for their ear-splitting sound, flew at high and low altitudes over the area.
"We often see them flying in the sky," he said, adding that people fear them no more.
Friday`s newspapers reported that army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... has ordered troops in the field to respond to any future `aggression` by the US and NATO forces based in Afghanistan with `full force`, without waiting for directions from the command and regardless of its consequences.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... anger against NATO attack on Salala checkpost in Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... Agency continues to grow in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province and Fata with political parties staging rallies against the `aggression`.
In Peshawar, Jamaat-e-Islami, ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam`s ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... Fazl and Sami groups, Pakistain Tehrik-i-Insaf, Pakistain People`s Party-Sherpao and civil society groups took out rallies and held public meetings but attendance in them was low.
JI took out a rally from Mohabat Khan Mosque, JUI-F staged a demonstration in front of Speen Mosque on University Road, while PTI workers marched from Saddar bazaar to the press club. Businessmen also held a demonstration at Fawara Chowk in Saddar area.Protesters asked government to give a tit-for-tat response to NATO forces and take avenge of the killing of 24 army men in the attack. They also urged the government to permanently block supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.
JI provincial secretary general Shabbir Ahmad Khan told participants of his party`s rally that like Shamsi airbase, the government should get Shehbaz airbase, too, vacated from the US, and that Pakistain should suspend cooperation with the US in the so-called war on terror.
JUI-F provincial chief Maulana Amanullah Haqqani demanded review of the country`s foreign policy and early implementation of the resolutions of parliament on national security.
He welcomed the government`s decision to boycott Bonne conference and demanded an effective response to the US drone attacks in Fata.
In Ghallanai, Mohmand Agency`s headquarters, Christians took out a rally against the NATO attack from the Civil Colony to the main bazaar. They carried placards and banners inscribed with anti-NATO and anti-US slogans and shouted slogans for Mighty Pak Army.
Leading the protestors, Imran Padri said the government should not accept NATO`s apology and ensure effective response to future aggression.
In Mardan, Nowshera, Swabi, Charsadda, Dir, Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , Mansehra and others areas of the province, too, political parties took out processions.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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American technology researcher John Bumgarner, a retired US Army special-operations veteran and former intelligence officer says mysterious Conficker was 'door kicker' for Stuxnet, challenging common belief that computer virus was built by Eastern European criminal gang for financial fraud purposes.
If Mr Bumgarner (an unfortunate name, but he appears to have overcome it) is to be believed, potential targets sit unknowingly around the world, awaiting receipt of another trigger from those who released Conficker, Stuxnet, and Duqu. Life could yet become very interesting indeed, for those who have attracted the attention of the coding group. More details at the link.
A senior German official said Wednesday that the government has approved the subsidized sale of another Dolphin-type military submarine to Israel.
This, presumably, is the one previously said to be cancelled because of Germany's objection to building permits issued for East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The official said Germany has set aside 135 million ($180 million) in next year's budget to pay for about a third of its cost.
Israel already has three Dolphin submarines from Germany -- one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin.
#2
Well, it keeps the boat yards workings. Never know when you might need some U-Boats again to enforce paybacks on loans from people who have to import their oil someday.
#1
Return the murdering bastard to paleostein - from 30,000 feet.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 0:10
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Lower, from 30K he'd freeze and/or suffocate on the way down.
OR in a Thermo suit and Pressure Helmet over WATER from consideravly Higher. (No Parchute, OR a faulty one)
(MMMM Space?)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 0:45
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#3
Pardon my skepticism, but if memory serves, Sirhan^2 was apprehended at the scene, in the act, with the gun in his hand. Would it be mean to accuse his lawyers of being publicity seeking scumbags?
#4
Per the article, the court papers were filed by a man named Dr. Pepper who has been Sirhan's attorney now for several years.
Sirhan gave an interview in the late 1980s admitting guilt without remorse for this assassination. During the parole hearing early in 2011, Sirhan, now about 67 years old, claimed not to remember anything about the assassination. The parole board denied his petition.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/04/2011 12:16
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#5
"During the parole hearing early in 2011, Sirhan, now about 67 years old, claimed not to remember anything about the assassination."
No problem - there are millions of Americans (including me) who remember and would be glad to remind the murdering bastard all about it....
Did I mention he can't burn in HELL soon enough?
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 13:46
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#6
Release him - back into Iranian society (iirc, he IS Iranian) with a virulent, painful, contagious flesh-eating virus - in Qom. Maybe the Mullahs will embrace him before his condition becomes so bad it can't be ignored.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2011 15:10
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The price of rice in North Korea is skyrocketing, contrary to received wisdom that it drops after the harvest season. According to a source on North Korea on Wednesday, the rice price has risen from 2,400 won a kg in early October to 5,000 won in late November.
North Korean workers earn only 3,000-4,000 won per month.
This unusual hike in rice price seems to be related to preparation of next year's political propaganda projects.
A South Korean government official said, "It seems the North Korean government is not releasing rice harvested this year in order to save it up" for celebrations of regime founder Kim Il-sung's centenary next year, when the North has vowed to become "a powerful and prosperous nation."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2011
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They'll love this little factoid as their children slowly starve to death. Happy Holiday! -rf-
#2
See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NOTH KOREA FLOODS CHINA WID SUPER-YUAN FAKE BILLS [PRC Y$100.0] | NORTH KOREAN COUNTERFEIT "SUPER-BILLS" MORE THREATENING TO CHINA THAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
George Bush and his family are continuing its health awareness African trip despite Amnesty's international calls for the former President's arrest over human rights violations.
Seems like the Africans appreciate a man who stood up for them...
The former President, his wife, daughter and the rest of the US delegation were first welcomed by a traditional dance troop upon their arrival at the KK International Airport in Lusaka, so Amnesty's call is set to be left unanswered for now.
They were also greeted by Zambia President Michael Sata, First Lady Christine Kaseba, Chief Justice Ernest Sakala, and other ministers and diplomats.
Bush who visited Tanzania before arriving in Zambia is also expected to visit Ethiopia. The trip is aimed at raising awareness about cervical and breast cancer and HIV/Aids.
However, Thursday, Amnesty international called on Bush' African hosts to arrest the former president for violating international torture laws.
Usual progressive nonsense follows at the link. What AI doesn't get is that they're played. A few mooks got water-boarded? Ask the guys who got drone-zapped which is better.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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"Amnesty international called on Bush' African hosts to arrest the former president for violating international torture laws."
I've got a better idea: Arrest the AI clowns for their constant whining - it's certainly torture to normal people.
A firing squad would be nice, too.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 0:08
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#2
Amnesty International seems to call anything but asking prisoners "Pretty please with sugar on top" torture.
Ask John McCain and other "guests" of the North Vietnamese what real torture is. McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. Many others suffer other permanent disabilities from the beatings and other tortures they endured. Were the North Vietnamese ever called out by Amnesia International? I didn't think so.
It is true that after a while torture doesn't produce meaningful results, because the person being tortured will say anything to make the pain stop. However, to me, water boarding, sleep deprivation, and some of the other things we are alleged to have done rise to the level of torture.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/04/2011 0:29
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#3
To me, water boarding, sleep deprivation, and some of the other things we are alleged to have done rise to the level of fraternity prank.
We've got college freshman boys who go through worse - on purpose - for the privilege of "belonging" with a bunch of like-minded idiots. The islamonazis are wussies compared to those guys.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/04/2011 0:42
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#4
What they did to me in Ranger School and in Escape and Evasion training might qualify as torture by some of the dim lightbulb lawyers in DOJ.
Heck, I had it easy ask the SEALS. Maybe we put terrorist through Ranger School?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/04/2011 2:41
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#5
I don't even want to know the types of characters who work at Amnesty International.
#6
Amnesty International seems to call anything but asking prisoners "Pretty please with sugar on top" torture.
And the only crime they don't consider a crime of conscious deserving of instant release is not being socialist.
Amnesty lost me long ago in the 80s when I saw one of their books and noted twenty something pages listing political prisoners in the US and their various crimes and a page and a half of crimes in the Iran section. Certainly harder to get info on the folks held in Iran but some commentary to that effect might have helped. It left the impression that the Soviets had written the book.
[Dawn] Some myrmidons from Nuristan area of Afghanistan opened indiscriminate firing on Pak territory on Friday morning which was repulsed readily by the security forces.
Chitral DCO Rahmatullah Wazir confirmed the firing incident and said that it was of trivial nature which did not result in any casualty on our side. No further information could be gathered about the incident from any other source till filing of this report.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... the residents of Drosh town took out a protest rally after Friday prayers against the firing incident on border.
The speakers Qari Jamal Abdul Nasir, Haji Mohammad Shifa, Mir Aslam Khan and others condemned the myrmidons for their nefarious designs to destroy Chitral peace.
They expressed satisfaction over the security arrangements along the Afghan border to ward off Afghan attacks from Nuristan side of Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2011
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CAIRO: Egypts Muslim Brotherhood called on its rivals to accept the will of the people on Saturday after a first-round vote set its party on course to take the most seats in the countrys first freely elected parliament in six decades.
The assemblys popular mandate will give it clout to stand up to the generals who have ruled Egypt for nine turbulent months since Hosni Mubaraks removal and who are now scrambling to appoint a new interim government after the last one quit.
Preliminary results showed the Brotherhoods liberal rivals could be pushed into third place behind ultraconservatives,
They're not 'conservatives', they're Islamicists.
mirroring the trend in other Arab countries where political systems have opened up after popular uprisings.
The Brotherhood is Egypts best-organized political group and popular among the poor for its long record of charity work. Banned but semi-tolerated under Mubarak, the Brotherhood now wants a role in shaping the countrys future.
Rivals accused the Brotherhoods Freedom and Justice Party of handing out cheap food and medicine to influence voters and of breaking election rules by lobbying outside voting stations.
The Brotherhood told its critics to respect the result. We call upon everyone, and all those who associate themselves with democracy, to respect the will of the people and accept their choice, it said in a statement after the first-round vote, which drew an official turnout of 62 percent.
Those who werent successful ... should work hard to serve people to win their support next time, the Brotherhood added.
If there is a next time...
The Brotherhoods political opponents say it seeks to impose Shariah law on a country that has a large Christian minority and depends on welcoming Western tourists. The movement insists it will pursue a moderate agenda if it wins power and do nothing to damage the tourist industry.
Liberal parties lacking the Islamists grassroots base were trying to avert a landslide in run-off votes set for Monday and in two further rounds of an election staggered over six weeks.
The Egyptian Bloc, an alliance of liberal groups, ran large advertisements in newspapers to appeal for more support. Dont soften your support for the civil, moderate current to achieve a balanced parliament that represents the Egyptian people, and do not give up your rights, the message read.
With the Brotherhood and its ultra-conservative Salafi rivals apparently set for a majority in the assembly, newspapers were debating if they would unite to form a dominant bloc.
Nader Bakkar, spokesman for the Salafi Al-Nour Party, told Al-Dustour daily that talk of forming a coalition with the Brotherhood was premature and the results of the second and third rounds would determine the possibilities.
All the indications show that the Muslim Brotherhood does not want to inaugurate an alliance with Islamic forces, but rather to conclude a coalition with liberal and secularist forces during the coming parliament, Asem Abdel-Maged, spokesman for Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, a Salafi group not aligned closely with Al-Nour, told Al-Dustour.
Organizers of last weeks vote acknowledged several violations but said they did not affect the results. Army generals now wield ultimate power, but the popularly elected new assembly is likely to assert itself.
Mass street protests against the army in Cairo and other cities ahead of the vote already forced the generals to concede a faster transfer of power to an elected president. They also led the government to resign, jolting the armys efforts to bring stability to a country in the throes of an economic crisis and bouts of sectarian and labor unrest.
The new prime minister chosen by the army, Kamal Al-Ganzouri, had promised to have his full cabinet lined up by Saturday but the official news agency MENA said he was now having a rethink. Several names of new ministers filtered into local media over the weekend, and state television listed about a dozen ministers from the outgoing cabinet who would remain.
Political groups opposed keeping three of those ministers in place, including Planning and International Cooperation Minister Faiza Abu el-Naga and Electricity and Energy Minister Hassan Younes, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported.
Adding to the confusion, the Finance Ministry issued a statement on Saturday quoting Mumtaz Al-Saeed as the new minister even before Ganzouris cabinet has been unveiled. It quoted el-Saeed, who was an adviser to outgoing Finance Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, as saying Egypt was not ready for a decision on possible help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cover a ballooning budget deficit.
Beblawi said last month that Egypt would request formal negotiations with the IMF.
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Marisa Tomei aka Mona Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny (1992) (AW Best Supporting)" aka Cassidy in "The Wrestler (2008)" aka Lola in "What Women Want (2000)" aka Maggie McPherson in "The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)" aka Linda in "Anger Management (2003)" aka Ida Horowicz in "The Ides of March (2011))" aka Kate in "Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)" aka Natalie Hegalhuzen in "War, Inc. (2008)" aka Natalie Strout in "In the Bedroom (2001)" (age 47)
Holly Marie Combs aka Piper Halliwell in "Charmed (TV Series 19982006)" aka Kimberly Brock in "Picket Fences (TV Series 19921996)" aka Ella Montgomery in "Pretty Little Liars (TV Series 2010 )" aka Jennifer Campbell in "Dr. Giggles (1992)" aka Sharon in "A Reason to Believe (1995)" aka Diane Zamora in "Love's Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder (TV 1997)" aka Alex Morrell in "Daughters (TV 1998)" aka Natasha Nutley in "See Jane Date (TV 2003)" aka Janey in "Mistresses (TV 2009)" (age 39)
#3
I had the pleasure of meeting Bessy Love when I was about 10 or 11. She was the grandmother of a classmate of mine in Jacksonville. She was living with her daughter and grandson at the time. Now I am older than she was when I met her and it doesn't seem as old as it did then. Gave me a thrill to see her picture on your website.
by lotp
To understand how we got to where we are today, with a POTUS who's made it clear he would like to dismantle the US nuclear arsenal while madmen in Pyongyang and Teheran - or are they mad??? - work to acquire thermonuclear weapons and threaten by their actions to pass tactical nukes to terror groups, it helps to know how close we came - or how close some thought we came - to serious nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.
David Hoffman's 2009 book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy recounts in detail threats the public remained unaware of at the time, and the slow dance towards strategic arms control agreements. Hoffman, a WaPo investigative reporter whose book greeted the newly installed Adminstration, favors disarmament. But do the remedies advanced by either the Left or the Right during and just after the Cold War address the threats we face today?
Hoffman's account leaves out some important history. In the 1950s the Soviet army vastly outnumbered that of the US. The Eisenhower administration's response was to announce massive nuclear retaliation for any Soviet hostilities anywhere, since the US couldn't respond with conventional forces to as many fronts as the Soviets might attack simultaneously.
Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles thought the idea of nuclear strike would be too horrible to contemplate and assumed that their announced policy would therefore deter Soviet aggression.
However Herman Kahn, who had contributed to US fusion weapons design and who was a key early analyst at Rand, argued that an "all or nothing" approach actually made nuclear attacks more likely, not less. Applying game theory and scenario planning, Kahn suggested one could both contemplate survival of nuclear war and reduce the likelihood of things getting to that point by identifying and countering enemy geopolitical moves in convincing ways.
The Left was horrified by the publication of Kahn's Thinking About the Unthinkableand On Thermonuclear War. The Right embraced the idea of strategic planning but paid less attention than they might have to Kahn's warnings about sober evaluation of the escalation path. Instead, both the US and the Soviets embarked on a major strategic arms race -- bigger and more numerous weapons, ICBM delivery systems, communications and rapid improvements in monitoring technologies (especially by the US).
By 1980 there were enough strategic nuclear weapons in the major powers' stockpiles to wipe out every large city on Earth, many times over.
But nuclear strike wasn't the only mass destructive threat that had emerged during the arms race. In 1979 a Soviet bioweapons lab accident just east of the Ural mountains released weaponized anthrax, killing over 100 people and numerous livestock. Later, Soviet scientist Kenneth Alibek would defect, but not before leading bioweapons programs that developed highly virulent strains of multiple pathogens, in direct violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention the Soviets had signed.
Hoffman's account starts with the anthrax leak at Sverdlovsk and with tensions in the early 1980s as the Soviets grew increasingly concerned about the US land and sea-based ICBM capability. He documents the hesitant, on-again/off-again attempts by leaders on both sides to find a way out of escalating arms development, with Thatcher and Reagan playing key roles in the West and Gorbachev doing the same in the East. Gorbachev was deeply concerned about what he saw as the corruption, bureaucratic lethargy and stupidity of the Soviet apparatus, as evidenced by the failure to act promptly and appropriately in response to the accident at Chernobyl -- a failure that suggested the country could not respond to a military attack effectively, either.
One system was allegedly in place for such an event, however. Code named Dead Hand it was intended to automatically, or semi-automatically, launch the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal at once towards the US if a series of events suggested that the Soviet leadership had been killed, according to Valery Yarynich, a Soviet expert who joined discussions in 1991 between US and Soviet civilians on nuclear command and control issues. His confidant, Bruce Blair, was a key member of the Brookings Institute, a leading liberal think tank on strategic matters.
Thus began an intense, high stakes dance at multiple levels: negotiations of arms limitation agreements and subsequent cat and mouse games in which the Soviets in particular made many attempts to avoid having their significant violations of those agreements be provably documented.
Earlier attempts at strategic arms limitations -- the SALT I and SALT II treaties -- had collapsed when the US withdrew due to blatant Soviet cheating and aggressive moves in Afghanistan and Cuba. A new 1991 SMART treaty did institute limits on nuclear stockpiles and a formal inspection regime.
However, treaties are negotiated between states and in 1991 the Soviet Union was unraveling. Sen. Sam Nunn, who had just visited Moscow, believed social chaos was imminent in the USSR. He consulted both Blair and also physicist Ashton Carter of Harvard, who stressed that nuclear safeguards were reliable only when there was social stability in a given country. Nunn approached the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Les Aspin, to jointly introduce a bill that would offer massive economic aid to Russia to forestall chaos they feared would lead to dispersal of the thousands of tactical nukes the Soviets had manufactured and stored all over the USSR. But Aspin's history of gleeful and publicity-seeking attacks on the Pentagon caused significant resistance to the bill, both by Pres. George H.W. Bush and by much of the public.
Shortly afterward, with the help of Ash Carter, Nunn and Richard Lugar got Congress to permit $500 million to help Russians control their nuclear stockpile and convert weapons industrial capability to civilian uses. At the Pentagon, Carter found little sympathy from SecDef Dick Cheney, who told Carter he wanted the Soviets to be "in freefall". Carter thought that Cheney was naive about the dangers of Soviet implosion. He was convinced that Nunn and Lugar were right: the best policy for the US was to seek cooperative ways to handle the issue of Soviet weapons capabilities in the former soviet states and their satellites.
A SMART II treaty was signed with post-USSR Russia in 1993 under Bill Clinton. Skeptics, however, have deep concerns about the treaty's effectiveness for controlling tactical nuclear weapons in particular.
Biological weapons were an even more difficult matter. In 1994 Andrew Weber led an inspection team that visited Kazakhstan and came away with clear evidence of the extent of the Biopreparat program -- massive tanks for generating not only anthrax but virulent weaponized forms of plague, smallpox and other pathogens. Weber also found stacks of processed uranium in Kazakhstan standing unguarded in warehouses and idle facilities. The Russians steadfastly refused to allow US inspectors access to facilities handling highly enriched uranium or plutonium. But by 1994 not only was this material available across Russia -- it had begun to find its way to other countries such as Germany.
A covert operation, Project Sapphire, was organized to purchase the Kazakh fissile materials from that government and airlift them to Oak Ridge's Y-2 facility. Andrew Weber stood on the tarmac in the freezing weather until the last C5 cleared the ice and snow with the final load.
In 2007 Weber was approached by Lev Sandakhchiev, head of the Vector bioweapons research facility, who told him that the Iranians were attempting to purchase Soviet expertise in advanced biological agents. Russian scientists were becoming desperate to support their families. Salaries hadn't been paid in months and someone was going to transfer lethal capabilities soon. Weber managed to overcome distrust about misuse of US aid by Russians with long involvement in the secret Soviet programs and with several million dollars diverted the Vector facilities to civilian uses.
In 2009, a few months after Hoffman's book hit the stands, Dr. Ashton Carter was nominated and approved as Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in the Obama administration. (He has since been promoted to Deputy SecDef.) Reporting to him was Andrew Weber as Assistant SecDef for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense. A congressional staffer who had also supported Nunn-Lugar activities, Kenneth Myers III, reports to Weber as head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, responsible for the US' counter Weapons of Mass Destruction capabilities. Myers is the first non-scientist, non-PhD to head DTRA or its predecessor agencies. The dominant policy promulgated by all three men, and by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is the policy initiated by Nunn and Lugar, i.e. Cooperative Threat Reduction.
Herman Kahn urged US officials to examine possible geopolitical and military strategies, identify escalation paths and adopt stances that were designed to prevent escalation to strategic use of WMDs. Sometimes, he argued, those policies should intentionally escalate quickly so as to convince the other side that it was a losing policy to escalate fully. Scenario-based planning and game theory worked, more or less, during the Cold War because the players on both sides were nation states that were, more or less, rational actors.
Cooperative Threat Reduction is arguably a more tactical response, an approach that attempts to deal with the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons that threatened as a result of the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR. Weber treated ex-Soviet scientists with respect and support and many of them responded by exposing and dismantling bioweapons and nuclear capabilities.
But one might ask whether either CTR or the version of Kahn's approach that dominates strategic military planning in the US today is adequate to deal with states that may not be rational actors -- or that wish to be seen as possibly non-rational actors in order to gain negotiating power. Pakistan, Iran and North Korea do not seem to be responding in the desired manner to the pre-emptive humility on which President Obama has based his international efforts. Is that because Obama and Clinton do not understand the escalation curve or the incentives for those players? Or because those states are not, in fact, rational actors? Or because those states already have capabilities not publicly acknowledged which US officials fear will also disperse if a CTR approach is not adopted?
Nor are nation states the only actors in this drama. Hoffman notes that Weber himself worries about the unknown threat -- the weapons and materials that were not cooperatively identified and neutralized in the ex-Soviet states.
The Dead Hand has little to say about Pakistan, or China, or religiously zealous terror networks and their own WMD aspirations. But neither Cold War strategies nor the post-Cold-War CTR tactics seem adequate to address threats we face today. Nor does Hoffman's book contemplate future threats: the imminent availability of bio-engineering capabilities that fit in a garage, for instance. As a record of the 80s and 90s, however, it does give insight into how we got where we are today.
#2
There is an important difference between then and now. Well before the communists ruled Russia, there were great concerns about the Czars and their rather imperialist behavior.
They contended with the British Empire at intervals with such things as "The Great Game", mostly a cold war.
And Teddy Roosevelt actually played peacemaker between Russia and Japan, who had been in a mutually imperialist struggle over Manchuria and Korea.
But this was an entirely different affair from when the communists took over. They were not content with these mild imperialist goals. They craved to rule and exploit the world.
Fortunately for all concerned, the communists were the ideal philosophy to utterly cripple Russia. Had just about any other form of government ruled Russia, even if not directly imperialist, Russia could very well likely be ruling the world today.
but we should long remember, that even under the utterly incompetent communists, Russia did end up controlling about half the world, despite very active opposition.
But, in the process, Russia used itself up. The ruling ideologues wasted vast resources and brutalized the Russian people so much, that under the best of circumstances they will be a hundred years or more in recovery.
And instead, they have Putin. And while inertia will likely reelect him, the enthusiasm has worn thin. His ideology is not communist, but a low order of intelligence apparatus technocrat.
The end result is an unsatisfying as if the CIA put one of its people as a figurehead president of the US. Which Obama may very well be. He is not a good president, or even very passable as a figurehead of a president. Instead he spent all his time on petty schemes which have not accomplished much, and now he is on perpetual vacation, leaving apparatchiks in charge.
#3
I know something about a lot of this. I'll try to skate between what's available to all and what remains classified.
"Dead Hand" was a concept, but was never fully implemented in the Soviet Union. The paranoia of the Russian leadership was such that they never were willing to give full control of Soviet defensive or offensive weapons to the generals. There was always the possibility of a coup.
The Soviets were thoroughly convinced they could survive a nuclear war up until about 1985. They spent tens of billions on civil defense, and trained anyone in any kind of defense industry on how to respond. They finally decided, in the mid- to late-1980s that our lead in electronics was just too big to overcome, our missiles far more accurate than we were saying (whether true or not - I don't know), and that no one would
"win" a multiple-missile exchange. At the same time, the Russian people were finally getting exhausted from the excesses of communism, and were simply going through the motions - pretending to be productive, while 50% or more of everything that was created was defective (with the exception of military hardware, where there was more supervision and quality control).
I've studied enough anthropology to know that one of the first signs of the decline of a species is that it soils its own nest. The same is true of societies. By the late 1980's, the Russians were no longer picking up after themselves and others. Trash began to accumulate along rail lines, in cities, and around industrial sites. Things that didn't work weren't repaired, but dumped - everything from aircraft to shoes. It wasn't really a surprise that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 - the "handwriting" had been on the wall for at least five or six years before that.
When you lose pride in your work, in your nation, and you have no religion to fall back on, you have no reason to feel responsible for what goes on around you, and collapse is inevitable. The OWS crowd scares the beejeebers out of me because they reflect the same sense of entitlement and lack of responsibility that 1980's Russia displayed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2011 14:54
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#4
Indeed, Old Patriot.
That said, the issue of the old Soviet / newer Russian tactical nukes is of some concern and the bio-agents is a bigger one. The biological threat is real and growing although instability in e.g. Pakistan or Iran may well be a shorter term problem.
We can see both of those countries imploding, or threatening to implode, before our eyes. So the game theory / scenario-based Cold War approach is probably not going to be all that applicable. And yet it neither is an openly failed state and so must be dealt with using state-to-state mechanisms, at least in part.
In the case of Pakistan, implosion may bring (or may already be in the process of bringing) serious headaches soon. Will the CTR approach have any real chance of succeeding with either country? It's a concern ..... but Hoffman's book makes it clear why those in office right now continue the attempt.
I've heard members of the troika (Carter/Weber/Myers) talk about their work in the 90s. It's clearly a significant part of their lives and one they consider a success, and with good reason. As with us all, what once worked tends to become a lasting paradigm whether or not it applies well to new circumstances.
#5
Thank you, Old Patriot. And thus we see that studying the liberal arts is useful in everyday life, although it may not lead to expensive suits and corner offices.
#6
Re: Dead Hand, OP, that'a what seems to be the current unclass assessment, i.e. that is is partially implemented (semi-automated).
The accounts, plus some corroborating evidence, did contribute to the impetus for SMART 1. But what really scared the beejesus out of the inspectors after the treaties were signed was the repeated evidence they stumbled on of a) significant engineering and weaponizing of virulent pathogens and b) high volume manufacturing facilities for those pathogens - facilities that had clearly been used and were not 'merely' being held in reserve.
Vector was a virus engineering facility. The goal was reported to Andrew Weber as a viral agent that would mimic lesser diseases during the rapid infection spread stage, only to turn very deadly at a point in the viral spread when authorities would be overwhelmed.
An interesting data point that this came to the surface in 2007 and we saw major governmental action WRT the possibility of avian flu epidemic shortly thereafter.
Because historically intra-Muslim interactions have dripped with the milk of human kindness. Really. The history books are full of such tales, along with the pyramids of human skulls and such.
Quoted in daily Pakistan famous religious leader and commander of the faithful Hafiz Saeed stated that extremism and prejudice of Muslim against Muslim in Pakistan were being spread by a plot by US, India and Israel. He said America did not have the capacity to invade Pakistan
Possibly. But America absolutely does have the capacity to carpet bomb -- or more selectively bomb key targets -- across the country at will.
and that Pakistan did not need American aid.
Perhaps. But Pakistan most certainly needs someone's aid, and China doesn't appear to be stepping up with replacement bags o' cash.
Judge runs away
Reported in Mashriq the terrorism court judge who sentenced the self-confessed killer of Governor Taseer - Mumtaz Qadri - said that he was receiving death threats from many quarters. The judge Parvez Ali Shah fled to Saudi Arabia after that although the Registrar High Court clarified that he had gone on hajj.
Went on hajj, inadvertently neglected to return to the loving grip of the takfiris of the Land of the pure? A wise decision -- he can return when Pakistan becomes sane, whenever that might be.
Before him the cleric who had led the funeral prayer of Governor Taseer had also fled Pakistan after receiving death threats. Supporters of Blasphemy Law are supposed to be giving out threats and they include a section of lawyers and Barelvi clerics.
Thus demonstrating how Islam is the religion of love and peace it is so often attested to be. And those whose lives demonstrate otherwise dare not speak up, unless they are Ahmadis living in America.
Ideology Council approves Blasphemy Law
Daily Jinnah reported that Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) had issued a statement saying that Blasphemy Law was an Islamic law and was in accordance with Quran and Sunna. The CII is headed by Maulana Sherani of JUI and that has changed the personality of the CII making it more orthodox and less intellectual.
Fainting with damn' praise, that.
Many renowned clerics disagree that Blasphemy Law is Islamic.
Not one of whom is named here. Sadly, very wise.
How Nusrat Bhutto became chairperson
Writing in Jang Hamid Mir stated that after Bhutto had been arrested he passed on the chairmanship of the PPP to leftist leader Sheikh Rashid but it was soon felt that the feudal aristocracy of the PPP was not willing to accept him as leader whereupon Sheikh Rashid asked Bhutto to name his wife Nusrat Bhutto as the party chairperson. In 1982, Nusrat Bhutto suffered an ailment of lungs and had to be sent abroad which led to Benazir being appointed in her place and in this she was supported by her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto.
MFN is salt on national wounds!
Famous humanitarian leader of Jamaatud Dawa Hafiz Saeed told Jinnah that giving the MFN status to India will jeopardise national security and will be like sprinkling salt on the wounds suffered by the nation from India. It will now become difficult to resolve the issue of Kashmir.
Khalil Ramday is judiciary's Hamid Gul!
Daily Mashriq quoted head of the Supreme Court Bar Association Asma Jahangir as saying that Justice Khalil Ramday had become the judiciary's Hamid Gul meaning that he did not leave when he should have. Hamid Gul The nutty former head of Pakistain's ISI, now Godfather to Mullah Omar's Talibs and good buddy and consultant to al-Qaeda's high command... was famous for retiring but yet keeping his finger in the pie of ISI intelligence. She said Ramday had retired and should have kept out of the bar politics.
Maulana Rehman and Jemima
Quoted in Daily Jinnah Maulana Fazlur Rehman has lashed out at what he thinks is an un-Islamic 'walking together' by Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... with his divorced wife Jemima Khan who joined Imran in Islamabad in his campaign against drone attacks in the Tribal Areas. He said, 'Islam forbids mixing with one's divorcee wife; and it seems as if Imran Khan's future is still linked to Jemima Khan'.
Allah will make Imran rule!
Allah hates Pakistan, then?
Pakistan's top Urdu columnist Haroon Rashid, who is a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to analysing 'Kuptaan' Imran Khan, and may share with him nothing more than his passion for 'desi murghi', wrote in Jang that if Imran Khan and his companions are true (sachay), they will do vigil (riyazat) and will place their trust in Allah who will give them the blinding (kheera-kun) conquest. The decisions, he wrote, were not taken on earth but in Heaven.
Hindu is our eternal enemy!
Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt chief editor and owner Majid Nizami stated that all students should be told that Hindu was the permanent (azli) enemy of Pakistan whose birth too should be explained in the same terms. He added that even brainwashing should be used to convince the children.
Goodness.
He said it was wrong to be liberal when Hindu was prejudiced as that will make Pakistan lose its war.
Insh'allah, guys, remember? All is as Allah wills, and thus far it looks like he isn't all that fond of y'all.
Hindu girls forcibly converted in Karachi
Reported in Mashriq the Karachi Hindu Panchayat complained that Hindu girls were being forcibly converted by the Muslim clergy and wedded to Muslim boys. Each month 20 to 22 cases of this conversion were coming to light. One Hindu complained that his daughter was now wedded to a Muslim and was not allowed to meet her parents. Jamia Banuria, the largest seminary in Karachi denied that 200 girls converted in the last two months were converted forcibly.
Brave, brave Lions of Islam, picking on girls.
Rat attack PIA!
Daily Jang reported that PIA planes were falling victim to failing engines and smoke in the cabin but the latest menace was the presence of large sized rats in the planes. When the rats were sighted by the passengers the plane was delayed and attempts were made to remove them which delayed the hajj flights.
Ick. A good decision.
Dr Mand on his coal gas
Reported in daily Pakistan nuclear scientist Dr Samar Mubarak Mand who is charged with producing gas from one of the world's largest coal deposits in Sindh said that his project will be completed in two months and that the production of electricity from it will be completed in 2013.
Dr AQ Khan no 'fish of aquarium'!
Quoted in Jinnah famous nuclear scientist and father of Pakistan Bomb Dr AQ Khan said that he was a fish of the river (daryai machchli) and would not be reduced to being a fish of the aquarium by taking part in politics. He said he did not want filth (gandh) thrown on him in politics. He told Nawa-e-Waqt that Imran Khan was ignorant about government and that Musharraf was the king of corruption.
Wrong lawyers made judges!
Quoted in daily Pakistan the new elected president of the Supreme Court Bar Council Yaseen Azad said that many lawyers who used to raise pro-restoration slogans in the lawyers' movement had been unfairly made judges. He said after March 2009 judges' appointments had not been done on merit. He disagreed with the yardstick of promoting senior-most judges as members of the Supreme Court.
Privatise the Steel Mills!
Reported in Express federal minister of production Anwar Ali Cheema stated that the Steel Mill was not possible to run by the government and should be privatised. He said 50 percent of the employees had to be fired, 2 billion rupees should be given as bailout, after which too there will be nothing certain. In the past the Musharraf government too tried to privatise the Mill but was foiled by a general running it, in tandem with the Supreme Court which declined to look into the economic theory of denationalisation.
Elephants of Porus
Writing in Jang famous columnist and friend of Imran Khan, Haroon Rasheed stated that one PMLN leader who hated the Sharifs was asked by him why he still sat on the PMLN stage if he hated them so much. The said leader replied that he would take revenge by destroying them from within the party. Such elephants of Porus - meaning leaders who would trample the party from within - as Ahsan Iqbal, Ch Nisar Ali Khan, Pervez Rasheed and Khwaja Asif, did not surprise him as they started speaking against Imran Khan.
Has it been mentioned that whoever is running Egypt has only about two months of expenses in cash remaining? What will they do when the top X percent toddles off to foreign climes, taking their bank accounts -- and tax paying habits -- with them?
Don't worry, Uncle Sugar will step up. He always does. And no one says 'thank you' in that part of the world.
It depends. The House of Representatives hasn't been in the mood to hand out treats to ill-mannered foreign pets the way they used to -- as UNESCO and the PA recently became aware.
(AFP) -- For decades, Egypt's Westernised elite kept the country's growing religiosity at arm's length, but a projected Islamist surge in the first post-revolution polls has driven many to think of moving abroad.
Sporting the latest fashions and mingling in upmarket country clubs, Egypt's rich fear a victory for the Moslem Brüderbund and hardline Salafis in the first phase of parliamentary elections presages change ahead. "I hope they don't impose the veil and ban women from driving like in Soddy Arabia," said coquettish fifty-something Naglaa Fahmi from her gym in the leafy neighborhood of Zamalek.
In a nearby luxury hotel, Nardine -- one of Egypt's eight million Coptic Christians who are alarmed by the prospect of a new Islamist-dominated parliament -- is pondering a move abroad. "My father is seriously thinking about sending me and my brothers elsewhere because he thinks we won't have a future in the country with the Salafis," said the banker in her twenties.
Ten months after a popular uprising ended the 30-year autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... , millions of Egyptians embraced their new democratic freedoms earlier this week at the start of multi-stage parliamentary elections.
The preliminary results to be published on Friday were expected to show the moderate Moslem Brüderbund as the dominant force, but with a surprisingly strong showing from the hardline Al-Nur party. Its leaders advocate the fundamentalist brand of Salafi Islam, rejecting Western culture and favoring strict segregation of the sexes and the veiling of women. They say they have been the victims of Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... and sustained fear-mongering by liberals in the Egyptian media.
Nevertheless, the fear that they will try to impose their values on the rest of society has driven Angie to consider leaving her comfortable Cairo life behind. "My husband recently got a job offer in Dubai. In the beginning I was hesitant, but now, with all that's happening, I'm encouraging him to take the job and I'll join him with our daughter," she said. "The Gulf has become more liberal than Egypt," she told AFP.
For Ahmed Gabri, having the Islamists in power means having his freedoms restricted. "I will leave the country," said Gabri, a Moslem. "I will not stand living in a puritanical climate. Why don't they just let people live the way they want?"
The next parliament will be charged with writing a new constitution and the idea of an Islamist-dominated assembly has sent shockwaves through some segments of society.
Many stress the difference, however, between the various Islamist groups. "They don't scare me. We have democracy now which means we'll be able to remove them if they don't suit us," said Manar, a tall blonde in her 40s.
That was the original plan, yes.
"It's the not the Moslem Brüderbund that worries me because they want to appear in the best light, it's the Salafis that I'm concerned about," she said.
Iman Ragab, a shop assistant, has resigned herself to the election's likely outcome. "This is democracy, you have to accept the results of the ballot," she said.
#1
"...Salafi Islam, rejecting Western culture and favoring strict segregation of the sexes and the veiling of women..."
this includes banning sale and distribution of alcohol, banning all public eating during daylight in Ramadan, prohibiting non Moslems from any supervisory positions where Moslems would be reporting to them, prohibiting outdoor concerts and outdoor art, prohibiting banks from loaning at interest or from paying interest and quite a few other things
notwithstanding this, expect the salafis to begin a charm offense soon with support from much of the western left
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/04/2011 0:15
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#2
prohibiting banks from loaning at interest or from paying interest and quite a few other things
That. right there, will doom him, the banks cannot survive without intrest (Call it whatever yoi wosh)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 1:01
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#3
..they're call 'fees'. They have a whole book of examples to follow from their American counterparts who've had decades of creative experience of squeezing blood from a rock.
#4
the Egyptian on the street needs to get the lifestyle they voted for. Crushing religious tyranny, stifled tourism, no food, no jobs.
Fun, fun, fun. You voted for it, you deserve it. Idiots
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2011 8:54
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#5
I am not so pessimistic about Egypt in the short term, or more properly, I am not so pessimistic about the same things.
To start with, because of helpful humanitarianism, and reusing inoculation needles, about 10% of the Egyptian population have hepatitis C. Nothing can be done for them, except what could be done to alleviate the most troubling problem for most people.
That is, they need cheaper food. The way, *any* government in Egypt could become very popular right now would be to scrape together whatever money they could and import LOTS of cheap food that Egyptians want to eat. Give it away.
That would buy a lot of breathing room for whoever is in charge.
As far as who is in charge goes, if it's not the Salafists, then Egypt will remain much the same, with only cosmetic differences. The MB refuses to form a coalition with the Salafists, so their only alternative is to form one with the secularists.
And the MB over the years has frequently culled its membership that were too radical. They spun off into little groups to do their radical thing, but the parent party became increasingly moderate at the same time. This is why the MB has never been classed as a terrorist organization by governments other than Egypt's, and they are intensely aware of the fact.
They are quite aware that they are large, powerful, and *not* shunned. And they most likely want to keep it that way.
Of course, having power is always different than wanting power, but even then they have an excellent example in Turkey of how a more moderate Islamist party can get and keep power.
#6
The way, *any* government in Egypt could become very popular right now would be to scrape together whatever money they could and import LOTS of cheap food that Egyptians want to eat. Give it away.
That is the rub. They don't have enough money to buy LOTS of any kind of food. And I'm not so sure Uncle Sugar will want to step up to the plate to save the MB in an election year.
#8
The way, *any* government in Egypt could become very popular right now would be to scrape together whatever money they could and import LOTS of cheap food that Egyptians want to eat. Give it away.
That's the problem. Bread is cheaper than animal feed. Guess what the animals eat - foreign exchange.
#9
"Egypt's population is the largest in the Arab world, and is generally young, with 35 percent below age 14 and just 4 percent older than 65. Almost 50 percent of the population is below 20 years of age and 39 percent under 15, presenting a real challenge to government in creating job opportunities."
[Iran Press TV] Iran's Police Chief Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam says 12 students were placed in durance vile during the recent protest rally in front of the British Embassy in Tehran.
"After students entered the British Embassy and Qolhak Garden, 12 [students] were placed in durance vile...they have been turned over to judicial authorities," Ahmadi-Moqaddam was quoted by Fars News Agency as saying on Saturday.
Hundreds of Iranian students staged a major protest rally outside the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, November 29, pulling down the UK flag and demanding the expulsion of the British envoy.
The protesters also staged another protest rally outside a second compound, the Qolhak Garden, in north Tehran.
During the protests, some students managed to cross the protective police circle in both locations and entered the premises.
Ahmadi-Moqaddam added that police had guided all students who had entered the embassy during the protest outside and increased protective measures around the embassy afterwards.
He said Iranian police had been thanked by embassy officials for increasing their protective measures and because none of their staff were maimed.
The student protests were held following the approval of a bill by Iran's Majlis (parliament) which aimed to downgrade ties with the UK and oblige the country's Foreign Ministry to expel the British ambassador, Dominick John Chilcott, within two weeks.
On Wednesday, Britannia's Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Iranian Embassy ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!... in London would be immediately closed and its diplomatic mission would be expelled from Britannia.
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[An Nahar] The Sudanese army claimed a strategic victory on Saturday in its war against the rebels in South Kordofan, saying it captured camps on a key supply route in the southern border region after deadly festivities.
"Today the Sudanese army took control of SPLA camps in the Lake Jau area. The fighting took place at around 4:30 pm (13:30 GMT). There were a number of casualties and injured soldiers on both sides," army front man Sawarmi Khaled Saad told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"This is a strategic area because it is a gateway to the south. The SPLA receive their weapons and ammunition and supplies through it," he added.
The conflict in the border state of South Kordofan first erupted in early June, just weeks before the independence of the south, between the Sudanese army and Nuba Orcs and similar vermin who fought alongside the ex-southern rebels during their 22-year conflict with the north.
The fighting has shown no sign of abating, and spread to nearby Blue Nile state in September, as Khartoum moved to assert its authority within its new borders.
The army's claimed victory on Saturday follows days of heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... just north of Jau, a lakeside town on a disputed stretch of the north-south border.
Rebel sources said Sudanese troops attacked SPLA positions in Buram County with heavy artillery and tanks on Wednesday, and that a barrage of army air strikes in the same area killed at least two civilians and badly injured six others.
Last month, the army bombed a refugee camp in neighboring South Sudan, just south of lake Jau, according to eye witnesses, stoking tensions between the former civil war enemies.
Khartoum and Juba have repeatedly accused each other of supporting rebels within each other's territories.
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[An Nahar] Gun and kabooms in Iraq killed five people, including an army brigadier general, and maimed three others on Saturday, security officials said.
Unknown gunniesrubbed out army Brigadier General Fadhel al-Azul and his wife in the Urr neighborhood in northern Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , an interior ministry official said.
And a liquor shop near Camp Rashid in central Storied Baghdad was bombed, wounding three people, the official said.
Two people were killed when unknown gunnies stormed a house in the southern part of the north Iraq city of djinn-infested Mosul, a first lieutenant in the djinn-infested Mosul police said.
And another person was rubbed out by gunnies in a nearby area of djinn-infested Mosul, the officer said.
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[An Nahar] The Moslem Brüderbund, expected to win 40 percent of votes in the first phase of Egypt's post-revolution election, stressed Saturday it was a moderate force, not to be confused with hardliners.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is set to emerge as the dominant force in the country's lower house of parliament for which voting began in a third of Egypt's districts on Monday and Tuesday.
"The people have chosen candidates who represent their Islamic identity and who they have confidence in," front man Mahmoud Ghozlan told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Fears about us are unfounded and have nothing to do with reality. We represent a sort of centrist, moderate Islamism. We won't impose anything by force," he added.
The group has already said it plans to align itself with a secular, liberal alliance in the new parliament, rather than hardline Salafi Islamists who are forecast to have won an unexpectedly high 20 percent of votes this week.
The showing by the Salafists, ...Salafists espouse an austere form of Sunni Islam that seeks a return to practices that were common in the 7th century. Rather than doing that themselves and letting other people alone they insist everybody do as they say and they try to kill everybody who doesn't... who advocate an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam and Sharia law, was "higher than we expected," he said.
Partial results have been released, showing the Moslem Brüderbund as the leading new power center, but full results are being held back without explanation by the election commission four days after voting ended.
The prospect of an Islamist-dominated parliament has raised fears among liberals about civil liberties, religious freedom in a country with the Middle East's largest Christian minority, and tolerance of multi-party democracy.
Israel is also set to be concerned by the rise of Islamist parties seen as hostile to a 1979 peace agreement between the neighbors.
The Freedom and Justice Party says it strives for a "civil state, defined as a non-military, non-religious state... that respects human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... ," according to its political program.
Egypt's current constitution, to be re-drawn by the new parliament once it is fully elected by March next year, names Islam as the country's official religion and says it is a source of inspiration for legislation.
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[Dawn] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... accused Pakistain, which is boycotting an international conference on Afghanistan starting Monday in Bonn, of sabotaging all negotiations with the Taliban.
"Up until now, they have sadly refused to back efforts for negotiations with the Taliban," Karzai told Der Spiegel weekly in comments reported in German and due to be published on Monday.
The Bonn meeting will seek to chart a course for Afghanistan after the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... withdrawal, but a boycott by Pakistain has dealt a stinging blow to hopes for a roadmap.
Pakistain is seen as vital to any prospect of stability in the war-ravaged country a decade after US-led forces ousted the Taliban, which had offered safe harbour to al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who no longer exists... But Islamabad pulled out after the killing of 24 soldiers in NATO air strikes on two Pak posts a week ago, although sources close to the German foreign ministry said it would be kept informed of progress at the conference.
Karzai also appealed for continued aid to his war-ravaged nation after 2014 -- when NATO troops are due to pull out.
Stressing that Afghanistan will be "more than ever on the frontline," he said: "If we fail in this war, which threatens all of us, it will mean a return to the situation before 9/11." The Afghan leader conceded that "sadly we have not been able to provide security and stability to all Afghans, this is our greatest failure." Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasoul appealed Saturday for international support for his country after NATO troops pull out.
"After 2014, we will continue to need long-term support from our friends in the international community," Rasoul said at a discussion forum in Bonn.
His German counterpart Guido Westerwelle vowed at the forum that the world would not abandon Afghanistan, while also stressing the importance of the role of women in the county, where they currently face major discrimination.
In an interview to appear in Sunday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Westerwelle again voiced his regret over the Pak boycott of the conference, which will gather delegates from 100 nations.
"Pakistain has more to gain from a stable and peaceful Afghanistan than any of its neighbours," he said.
In Bonn on Saturday, several thousand people -- 4,500 according to organisers -- demonstrated in protest at the conference and the German army's role in Afghanistan.
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#1
"Pakistain has more to gain from a stable and peaceful Afghanistan than any of its neighbours," he said.
* TOPIX > NO TALIBAN AT BONN MEANS LIMITED HOPES FOR PEACE.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > UNDER PRESSURE FROM ALL SIDES, PAKISTANI TALIBAN SPLINTER | PAKISTANI TALIBAN SPLINTERING INTO FACTIONS.
ARTICS = The TTP is repor splintering ostensib into roughly 100 factions + is also running low on $$$.
As pressured by ...
> Effective US DRONE OPERATIONS in North Waziristan.
> Effective PAK ARMY OPERATIONS in South Waziristan.
> PAK GOVT-ARMY'S anti-Militant strategy of "DIVIDE-N-CONQUER"???
(Rooters) - One local official was killed and a militia base reduced to ruins in a clash between rival gangs near the Libyan capital, the latest flare-up of tension between militias that is destabilising the new Libya.
Two months after Muammar Qadaffy ... who is now napping peacefully in the dirt... was killed, Libya's new government is still unable to impose its authority on the ground, leaving security in the hands of militias which answer only to themselves and often wage pie fights with their rivals.
The violence in Janzour, a town about 17 km west of the capital, demonstrated that these militias remain the biggest threat to Libya's security despite attempts by the newly-formed interim government to get them under control.
The incident began early on Friday morning, when Ashraf Abdelsalam Al-Marni Swayha, deputy head of the Janzour military council, approached a checkpoint in the town with his driver.
The checkpoint was manned by a militia unit made up largely of fighters from Zintan, a city in the mountains south-west of Tripoli. Zintan fighters played a big role in ousting Qadaffy and have stationed themselves in towns around Tripoli.
According to Abdelnasser Frandah, head of the local council in Janzour, when the fighters at the checkpoint stopped Swayha's car, he told them he was deputy head of the local militia.
"They answered him: 'We do not care about the Janzour military council.' He ordered his driver to go and they started shooting at him," Frandah told Rooters on Saturday. "He fell as a martyr and the driver was slightly injured."
His account of the incident could not be independently confirmed. The funeral on Saturday of Swayha turned into a show of force by the Janzour militia. About 500 people turned up for the burial, many of them carrying weapons.
As the casket was lowered into the ground, an honour guard of three men in combat fatigues had gun sex from automatic weapons, while other fighters fired a salute from anti-aircraft guns mounted on two pick-up trucks.
VEHICLES TORCHED
Local people said that soon after Swayha's shooting, Janzour residents had gone to the headquarters of the Zintan fighters, a building that used to be an office of Qadaffy's secret police, and ransacked it.
There was no sign of Zintan fighters on Saturday. The burned-out hulks of two jeeps stood outside the former headquarters, and another five vehicles inside the compound had been destroyed. One wrecked car was still hot from the fire.
The attackers had also set fire to mattresses inside the guardhouse. Inside the main building, they had started a fire in one office, leaving the corridor stained black from the smoke.
Frandah said he wanted the Zintan fighters gone for good.
"These are revolutionary fighters, we do not want to say anything against them, but the reality is that some of them are outlaws," he said. "We are surprised that after liberation (from Qadaffy's rule) we have become captive to these brigades. If we describe it as an occupation we would not be exaggerating."
"They fire randomly into the air, they randomly take up positions at government facilities and homes and farms," he said. "They must go back to their homes and families and they must take charge of security in their own areas so that what happened here will not happen again."
SECURITY CHALLENGE
In a report released last week, the United Nations ...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas... identified Libya's disparate militias as "a major challenge continuing to face the National Transitional Council," the interim leadership which replaced Qadaffy.
There have already been several outbreaks of fighting among the militias. Last month, rival fighters attacked each other with rockets, mortars and machine guns in four days of fighting. They were disputing control of a military base on the main highway between Tripoli and Tunisia.
About a week later, several people were killed in a shootout after a militia from a district of Tripoli drove into the town of Bani Walid, south-east of the capital, and tried to arrest a local man.
Following those incidents, the transitional council convened tribal leaders at a conference aimed at reconciling rival groups. But the latest violence in Janzour suggests that the conference did not work.
Even at Saturday's burial there was a reminder of Janzour's uncomfortable co-existence with militias from out of town. On a wall near the cemetery, someone had scrawled, in large black letters: "Zintan. Land of the brave."
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#1
a clash between rival gangs near the Libyan capital, the latest flare-up of tension between militias
#4
It looks to me as if the Magic Kingdom (TM) is trying to infuse support behind the Salifists to expand regional operations seeing as close by friends are also faltering.
Looks like islam again proofs it's place in the industry of turmolt.
[An Nahar] A senior Iranian holy man on Saturday sought to put distance between Tehran's officials and a pro-regime mob that ransacked Britannia's embassy this week, while admitting his country could pay a "high price" for the assault.
"There is no doubt that Britannia is one of the oldest enemies of Iran... but young revolutionaries should not go beyond the law," IRNA news agency quoted Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi as saying in a statement.
"I advise them not to act without the permission of the supreme leader and officials," he added.
The message -- the first disavowal of the protests by a senior Iranian figure -- came a day after Britannia's evacuated ambassador, Dominick Chilcott, told British media the attack Tuesday on his embassy could not have happened without "the acquiescence and support of the state."
Shirazi implicitly denied that by blaming the embassy attack on overzealous youths, echoing some official assertions that the protesters had acted spontaneously and without orders.
"It is important to note that sometimes certain actions overstep the law.... And we could pay a high price for it," the holy man said.
He advised protesters to be "vigilant" and to not hand excuses to Britannia and other enemies to further punish Iran, which he said had the upper hand in developments in the Middle East.
The comments seem to hint at an effort to halt a new rising anti-British campaign in Iran after London, along with other Western nations, placed sanctions against Tehran's financial sector over its nuclear program.
Tuesday's embassy assault prompted Britannia to evacuate all its diplomats and order the closure of the Iranian embassy in London.
La Belle France on Saturday announced it was reducing the number of its diplomats in Tehran as a temporary "precautionary measure".
The Iranian foreign ministry expressed its "regret" after the attack. But parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani justified the violence as a legitimate response to "the domineering policy" of Britannia.
Foreign media in Tehran on Thursday were told covering all anti-British, pro-regime demonstrations was now forbidden -- an unprecedented restriction that adds to many other reporting curbs already in place.
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[Dawn] Five Yemenis, three civilians and two anti-regime gunnies, were killed on Saturday in shelling by government forces targeting the country's second city of Taez and in shootings, medics and witnesses said.
Three members of one family were killed in shelling blamed on government forces, while two gunnies were rubbed out during festivities with forces loyal to President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , witnesses said.
The five bodies were taken to a field hospital in Al-Rawda neighbourhood in central Taez, which is under the control of anti-Saleh protesters.
The new casualties take the corpse count of festivities and heavy bombing by government forces since Thursday to 30, after nine people, including a young girl, two soldiers and colonel, were killed on Friday.
On Thursday, 16 others, including five soldiers and three gunnies, were all killed in festivities and bombing.
The escalation of violence came hot on the heels of an order by Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi late on Friday to cease fire and negotiate a pullout of troops and hard boyz from the city.
Hadi now holds the constitutional powers of Saleh who last month in Riyadh signed a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal under which he transferred powers to his deputy and remains honorary president for three months.
Gunmen backing anti-Saleh protesters control the centre of Taez and most of its streets, while government forces have taken up position on hills within the city and on its outskirts.
Witnesses said that forces loyal to Saleh continued to bombard most neighbourhoods in Taez, while festivities raged in western parts of the city, including al-Hasab, Beir Basha, Wasi al-Qadi and al-Murur.
The bloodshed sparked recriminations between the government and parliamentary opposition, which signed the hard-won accord in Riyadh last month that had raised hopes of an end to the violence.
Prime minister-designate Mohammed Basindawa, chosen by the opposition to head a government of national unity under the power transfer agreement, has threatened to resign unless the loyalist offensive against Taez stops.
And opposition front man Mohammed Qahtan accused Saleh loyalists of blocking the formation of a key commission also stipulated by the accord that is to be given the task of reuniting the deeply divided security forces.
Hadi late on Friday ordered the governor of Taez to begin talks with the Common Forum opposition aimed at reaching a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops and militias from the city.
But its effectiveness is in question as the forces do not fall under the governor's authority.
As well as most of Taez, dissident troops also control a large swathe of the capital Sanaa, and there have been repeated deadly festivities with loyalist units, some of them commanded by Saleh's relatives.
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[Dawn] The authorities at the Board of Intermediate Education Bloody Karachi on Saturday attacked the team of 'Khabardar', a program on DawnNews, and threatened them with 'serious' consequences for covering a student protest, DawnNews reported.
They also tried to damage the team's camera, the network said.
The team of 'Khabardar' was covering a protest of Intermediate students against what the students called the 'bias' and 'misappropriation' in their examination results.
When Khabardar's team reached the Bloody Karachi Board Office, armed individuals beat the host Jamil Farooqi, cameraman Haider Ali and producer Zahid Thebo and used inappropriate language along with threatening to kill them.
The gunnies tried to stop the protest by tearing the protestors' banners.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... the program's team continued to cover the demonstration.
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Update at 1540 CT: TSA sez it never happened...
An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.
Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.
"I walk with a walker -- I really look like a terrorist," she said sarcastically. "I'm tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched."
TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows "proper procedures were followed." That's the problem in a nutshell...
But Zimmerman, whose hunched back puts her at 4-foot-11, said her ordeal began after her son, Bruce, drove her to the JetBlue terminal for the Florida flight. She lives in warm Coconut Creek during the winter. She checked her bags, waited for a wheelchair and parted ways with her doting son -- her only immediate relative.
When Zimmerman reached a security checkpoint, she asked if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator.
She said she normally gets patted down. But this time, she says that two female agents escorted her to a private room and began to remove her clothes.
"I was outraged," said Zimmerman, a retired receptionist.
As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.
"My sock was soaked with blood," she said. "I was bleeding like a pig."
She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.
"Why are you doing this?" she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.
The TSA claims the footage does not show any sign of the injury.
"Our screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy," Farbstein said.
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[Dawn] Militants of Tariq Afridi group were forced to flee from their stronghold in Tirah after its rival beturbanned goon group took control of the Maylo base on Friday after a fierce shootout.
Sources said that dozens of Taliban slipped out of Maylo village through secret routes on Thursday night after the activists of banned beturbanned goon organization, Lashkar-i-Islam, took control of the Taliban base in the area. The LI also had the support of Kukikhel volunteers who were opposing the presence of Taliban in their area since long.
LI sources in Bara claimed to have seized a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from the Taliban base along side laying their hand on a number of mules, donkeys and pick up vehicles. LI sources alleged that Taliban also took along some of the kidnapped persons they had kept at the base.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... two persons including an activist of LI and a volunteer of Zakhakhel tribal lashkar were killed and three lashkar volunteers injured when the two groups clashed in Bazaar Zakhakhel area on Friday.
Sources said that the tribal lashkar claimed to have captured three important bunkers of LI in the area and taken one of their activists hostage.
Meanwhile in Swabi district, a shop selling compact discs (CD) was destroyed and four other shops were partially damaged when a bomb planted by the suspected hard boyz went kaboom! here early Friday, police said.
The incident took place in Karnal Sher Kili where Hussain Cassette House in the congested area was targeted. No one was, however, injured in the blast. It was the third incident in the area during the last one month and about 20 days back a girls primary school was also blown up by beturbanned goons.
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After which, no doubt, another final deadline will be set, the last one having proved to be penultimate.
[An Nahar] An Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... ministerial committee on Saturday slapped 19 Syrian officials with a ban on travel to Arab states and gave Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... until Sunday to accept observers to monitor the country's unrest.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani announced the deadline after a meeting in Doha to discuss a set of Arab League sanctions decided against Damascus over its bloody crackdown on months of anti-regime protests.
The meeting issued a list of 19 Syrian officials banned from traveling to Arab countries and whose assets are being frozen by those countries.
"During the meeting we contacted Damascus... and we asked them to come tomorrow (to Doha) to sign" the protocol on sending observers to Damascus, the prime minister said.
"We are waiting for a reply," he said. "As Arabs we fear that if the situation continues things will get out of Arab control."
The Arab League last Sunday approved sweeping sanctions against Assad's government over the crackdown -- the first time that the bloc has enforced punitive measures of such magnitude on one of its members.
The measures included an immediate ban on transactions with Damascus and its central bank and a freeze on Syrian government assets in Arab countries.
The vote on sanctions came after Damascus defied an earlier ultimatum to accept observers under an Arab League peace plan and put an end to the eight-month crackdown.
Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said last month that the wording of the text to send observers undermined the country's illusory sovereignty because it "totally ignores the Syrian state, even coordination with the Syrian state."
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#1
And exacly WHAT happens uf they don't?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2011 1:02
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#2
...Then we'll give 'em till NEXT Sunday.
That'll leave 'em quaking in their robes.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/04/2011 10:29
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[An Nahar] Syria on Saturday condemned a U.N. vote on rights violations by the country's security forces as "unjust," and said it was based on false information from the regime's foes.
The U.N. Human Rights Council resolution passed in a vote on Friday was "unjust and "prepared in advance by parties hostile to Syria," the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.
The vote followed a report by a commission of inquiry that was "politically motivated and based on false information circulated by parties outside Syria and dishonest press organs," the ministry said.
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[Fox News] Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. vehemently denied claims that either he or a surrogate offered to raise money for busted former Gov. Rod Y'gotta pay to play! Blagojevich Who was tried and eventually convicted on federal corruption charges that he tried to sell or trade Obama's old U.S. Senate seat. in exchange for a Senate appointment, after the House Ethics Committee ...think of a nudibranch pretending to be a vertebrate... extended its preliminary probe into the matter.
The ethics committee shed new light on the three-year-old Blagojevich case Friday when it released for the first time a massive report from late 2009 on Jackson's involvement. That report, from the Office of Congressional Ethics, determined there was "probable cause" to believe the Illinois Democratic congressman "directed a third party" to raise money for the then-Illinois governor in exchange for a Senate appointment, or knew his surrogate "would likely make such an offer."
The report also said "there is substantial reason to believe" the congressman violated federal law by improperly using his staff to campaign for the Senate seat once held by President B.O.. Jackson never got the appointment.
But Jackson, in a written statement, said the report and the next phase of the investigation will allow him to tell his side of the story.
"At the end of the process I still believe I will be vindicated," he said. "I did nothing illegal, unethical or inappropriate in that pursuit and I believe that is what the ethics committee will conclude at the end of this process. "
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[Yemen Post] Yemen's opposition will not name the members of the newly formed transitional government until the current government names its members for the military committee that was supposed to be announced earlier this week.
Spokesperson for the opposition Joint Meeting Parties said that the formation of the military committee is pivotal and plays an important step in the process of change in Yemen.
"Nothing goes forwards until the military committee is formed to ensure that transfer of power takes place properly," said Qahtan.
The military committee will be responsible to make the army independent and not following any specific faction or family.
Opposition parties signed the power transfer deal only after getting confirmation that the army will not remain in the hands of President-for-Life Saleh's ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... ruling family in the future.
The ruling General People Congress party has not yet named its members in the military committee and this will delay any changes.
Over 60 percent of the country's military and security institutes in Yemen are currently controlled by the ruling family.
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The photo on the website of FHM India, in advance of its publication in the magazine's December issue, has been lighting up social network website Facebook and Twitter since earlier this week.
Many here anticipate a backlash.
Malik has broken Pak social and national taboos in the past. She is a target for conservative ire and a heroine to some Pak liberals.
Conservative holy man Maulana Abdul Qawi declared on Aaj TV on Saturday that the latest controversy was a "shame for all Mohammedans." Farzana Naz, interviewed by the same channel on the streets of Lahore, said that the actress had "bowed all us women in shame."
Twitter commentator Umair Javed however called on Paks to "make copies of the picture and bury it in your backyard. This way, our grandkids will know there were some amongst us who lived free!"
Asked by news hounds whether Pakistain would "pursue the matter" legally, the country's Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. said Saturday, "First, let us see whether it is real or fake."
Malik for her part says that the photo at the root of the current uproar was published in violation of her agreement with FHM India.
In an interview with Pak Geo television broadcast Saturday, Malik acknowledged having been photographed for a "bold but not nude shot." She said the editor of the magazine had promised that he would cover most of the photo with the ISI initials.
Malik said that the photo was intended to poke fun at the Indian fear of Pak spies: "Whatever happens (in India), people say ISI is behind that."
Malik said she would "probably" take a legal action against the magazine for violating terms and condition.
Magazine editor Kabeer Sharma said Malik did all with her full consent.
"We have all the record(s)," he told the Pak television station. "Veena was very excited about that ISI idea."
Malik does most of her work in India. The entertainment sector there is booming, while Pakistain's is relatively moribund. Her ties to India have landed her in controversy in the past.
During a much-publicised talk show appearance early this year, she lashed out her nemesis Abdul Qawi, who criticised her for having a scripted love affair with an Indian actor on an Indian reality show.
"What is your problem with me?" an angry Malik demanded of the scholar, who had accused her of insulting Islam.
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#1
"What is your problem with me?" an angry Malik demanded of the scholar, who had accused her of insulting Islam.
He loves you. You are a convenient vehicle to prove that he is Islamic enough.
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.
AN Iranian military source has claimed a US drone was shot down in the east of the country, according to state broadcaster Press TV.
On Sunday, the US started pulling out its nationals from Shamsi airbase, reportedly used by CIA- operated drones, on the orders of Pakistan's government. An American aircraft arrived in Pakistan to fly people out. After the aircraft landed, the American nationals boarded it amidst strict security. Officials from the Federal Investigation Agency were present at the airbase.
Mahmoud 
The interviews of Syrian opposition groups with Israeli news outlets clearly show anti-government group's vision for the future of Syria, and indicate their interest in developing relations with Tel Aviv. 
THE fraught relations between Pakistain and the US have often been likened to a bad marriage in which the two partners can`t live with each other, but are bound together by mutual dependency.
The main opposition BNP yesterday demanded that the government immediately stop the proceedings of the war crimes tribunal.
Joe 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Telegraph UK] Iranian diplomats expelled from 
[Dawn] Prime Minister 
[NY Post]Attorney Harrison Williams should have made $75,000 for work he did on behalf of a prisoner who filed a lawsuit. Instead, an appeals court ruled, he earned $1.50.
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
[Iran Press TV] Kenyan fighter jets have bombarded a civilian refugee camp in southern Somalia, killing and wounding dozens of people, Press TV reports.
Asif Ali 
Wazoo
Mohmand
American technology researcher John Bumgarner, a retired US Army special-operations veteran and former intelligence officer says mysterious Conficker was 'door kicker' for Stuxnet, challenging common belief that computer virus was built by Eastern European criminal gang for financial fraud purposes.
A senior German official said Wednesday that the government has approved the subsidized sale of another Dolphin-type military submarine to Israel.
Recent arrests have led to fears that militants may be eyeing a Mumbai-style attack. Foreigners are likely to be targeted.
[Dawn] Some 
Muslim prejudice is foreign plot!
Hamid Gul
[Dawn] 
(
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. vehemently denied claims that either he or a surrogate offered to raise money for busted former Gov. 
Veena Malik, a Pak actress who posed in the nude for an 
