* Official report says radical impulses among Muslims are often triggered by perceptions of injustice
LONDON: British foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is a âkey contributory factorâ in pushing some members of the countryâs Muslim population towards extremism, an official report concluded Thursday.
The Home Office set up a series of working groups in the wake of the July 7 attacks in London that killed 56 people, including the four apparent suicide bombers, all of whom were British citizens. The groupsâ final report stated that âradical impulsesâ among the Muslim community were often triggered by âperceptions of injustice in western foreign policyâ. âBritish foreign policy - especially in the Middle East - cannot be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of criminal radical extremists,â the document said.
âWe believe it is a key contributory factor. The (British) government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies on its electors.â
The working groups - who also expressed concerns about some of the governmentâs proposed anti-terrorism legislation - stressed that despite the criticism âwe are absolutely clear that there is no foreign policy issue which can justify acts of terrorâ. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government have vehemently rejected any links between British foreign policy, notably Londonâs backing for the Iraq war, and the July 7 attacks or any rise in extremism.
But earlier this week, Sir Christopher Meyer, the countryâs former ambassador to Washington and a key adviser in the run-up to the March 2003 military action against Saddam Hussein, argued differently. He told the Guardian newspaper that British involvement in the US-led war had âpartly radicalised and fuelledâ the rise of home-grown terrorism and strengthened the resolve of Iraqi insurgents.
âThere is no way we can credibly get up and say it has nothing to do with it,â he stated. The working groupsâ report, compiled by seven committees after months of consultation with ethnic minority groups around the country, stressed that criticism of British foreign policy should not be seen as a sign of disloyalty.
âPeaceful disagreement is a sign of a healthy democracy,â the group said. âDissent should not be conflated with âterrorismâ, âviolenceâ or deemed inimical to British values.â Other measures recommended in the report include setting up a British Islam website aimed at young Muslims and containing a âwide range of views and opinionsâ to counter the glut of extremist views circulating on the web.
#1
Britains who attack Britains in support of a foreign ideology are called traitors. Those, including those in the Foreign Office, who support or excuse the traitors, are also flirting with treason.
Posted by: ed ||
11/11/2005 21:15 Comments ||
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#2
Official report says radical impulses among Muslims are often triggered by perceptions of injustice
The troble with this is that the Muslim sence of justice is based kin-selection. In particular, any conflict between a Muslim and an infidel where a Muslim loses is unjustice.
The Venezuelan army is distributing a book that focuses on asymmetrical warfare, such as the war between the U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents, and argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents.
By PHIL GUNSON
Special to The Herald
CARACAS - A book published and distributed by the Venezuelan army argues that ''revolutionary Islam'' and U.S. religious extremism are moral equivalents and quotes approvingly from the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
The 250-page Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Islam was written by Spanish politician and academic Jorge Verstrynge and is being distributed on the personal orders of Army Chief Gen. Raúl Baduel, a long-time supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Baduel's office said he's not available for an interview until January. Armed Forces Inspector General Gen. Melvin López Hidalgo said he was unaware of the book but argued that its publication by the army should not be taken as ''tacit support for the opinions it contains.'' It's simply an example of ''freedom of __expression,'' he added.
The book focuses on asymmetrical warfare, a term for ''David and Goliath'' conflicts between adversaries of vastly different capacities, such as the war between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents.
Verstrynge was a keynote speaker at a recent military conference in Caracas on asymmetrical warfare, which has been adopted by the Venezuelan military as a key defensive concept, based on a possible attack by U.S. forces to seize Venezuela's oil wealth or topple Chávez.
''For us, it would have to be a war of resistance,'' said Baduel in a speech last month.
Chávez, an anti-American populist who has vowed to build a revolutionary ''21st Century socialism'' in Venezuela, has repeatedly alleged that Washington plans to assassinate him and invade his country -- allegations strongly denied by the Bush administration.
Verstrynge, born in Morocco to Belgian and Spanish parents, was a leading member of Spain's right-wing Popular Party before switching to the ruling Socialists. A political-science professor at Madrid's Complutense University, he has authored a number of other books.
'It is unfair to attack `revolutionary Islam' '' and not ''U.S. religious extremism,'' he wrote, adding that Washington has plans to ''re-colonize'' the world that he called ``a danger never equaled in history.''
NOT A TERRORIST
Retired Gen. Alberto Mueller, an advisor to the Defense Ministry, said the army is publishing several books on asymmetrical warfare because, with no conventional central command once the war starts, it's important for a soldier to know ''different currents of thought so that he can choose'' a course of action, depending on the circumstances.
Such a conflict would be, ''a war without rules,'' Mueller added, and 'you cannot call a man a `terrorist' for defending his own country.''
One foreign military officer in Venezuela, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job, said the Venezuelan army does appear to be endorsing the book's contents. ''It's even got the army's coat of arms on it,'' the official said. ``What more of an endorsement could you have?''
Verstrynge's book, which relies heavily on quotes from other people, also repeatedly cites the words of Ilich RamÃrez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist active in Europe and the Middle East in the 1970s.
An admirer of Osama bin Laden, RamÃrez is best-known for his daring kidnap of 11 OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975. He was seized in Sudan in 1994 and transported to France, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two secret agents and an informer in Paris.
Chávez sparked a controversy in 1999 by writing an effusive response to a letter from the jailed terrorist in which he signed off, ''with profound faith in the cause and in the mission -- now and forever!'' The president later said the letter did not imply ``political solidarity.''
SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Verstrynge quotes approvingly from RamÃrez's view that suicide bombings are morally superior to conventional bombings because they produce fewer unintended civilian deaths.
Terrorism is ''profoundly human,'' Verstrynge quotes the Venezuelan as saying, because it puts ''the flesh-and-blood man . . . back at the center of the battle'' instead of hardware, and ``saves lives.''
These views contrast with the Venezuelan government's official position of condemning all forms of terrorism. Chávez on Thursday condemned the terror bombings in Jordan, and his government has fiercely attacked Washington's failure to extradite to Venezuela Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused of several terror attacks.
#1
Careful, boys. After this, Hugo might want to get you reading the "Kim Jong Il and His Legendary Feats" series. All 613 volumes, with more on the way.
You don't want that.
#2
Not sure about that. The stories of how Kim Jong bravely kills viscous newborn babies (who are not of 'pure' blood) in volume 534 is simply awe inspiring to people dictators like Hugo (Castro, Saddam, and the Mad Mullah's....).
#4
Terrorism is "profoundly human," Verstrynge quotes the Venezuelan as saying, because it puts "the flesh-and-blood man . . . back at the center of the battle" instead of hardware, and "saves lives."
Yeah, and every day at noontime polka dot monkeys fly out of my butt.
#5
Russia-China to Spetzlamists: Thank you for your contribution to the proliferation of the glory of Marx, Stalin, Mao, and the Amerikan Clintons, but we regret to inform you your mandated time to be gulagged is drawing near. Due to glorious Socialism's penchant for costly deficit spending, we also regret to inform you that we'll have to take over your lands, wealth, women, homes, jobs and pet dogs in addition to those of the decadent warmongering imperialist racist brutish Clintonian Fascist = Communist Infidel West and Amerikan SOviet/Socialist State Republics. Your usefulness as a used useful idiot is at an end - we're sorry its your fault we have to kill you after all your hard work, and vv Bill Clinton we're truly sorry its your fault you didn't understand what we really Really REALLY R-E-A-L-L-Y meant when we lied to you. We feel your pain and your loss. Thank you for your selfish stupidity and needless amoral treason. Depending on the availability of local supplies, rest assured our costs-accounting based inevitable genocide and holocaust of your peoples will be as painless and unknown as possible, for as long as possible, in the name of the children, the environment, Roswellian aliens and of course proper Socialism and the common global SOWG good. Also rest assured your name will live on once your wife, mother, or daughters successfully becomes pregnant after she successfully fulfills her or theirs State-supported mandated 5-50 State-sponsored rapes or other lawful molestations which of course never occurred nor does occur under righteous SOcialism.
Thousands of opposition supporters have protested in Azerbaijan under a sea of orange flags to demand a re-run of the weekend elections and call on the West to support democracy in the former Soviet republic. "If the authorities don't respect the will of the people and fulfil their international obligations, then we will demand the resignation of the government," Sardar Jalaloglu, leader of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party, shouted from an orange-draped tribune on Wednesday.
The crowd of up to 15,000 people roared in approval and waved orange flags copied from the Orange Revolution in Ukraine last year in which huge crowds peacefully toppled an entrenched, corrupt government. Opposition leaders called on US President George Bush and European powers to back their fight for the annulment of Sunday's parliamentary elections, which were described by Western observers as fraudulent. "Today Azerbaijan is not alone. The West is with us," said Isa Gambar, head of the Musavat Party. "I call on Bush. You always say you are for free elections and democracy."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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The UN special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea urged the Hermit Kingdom reclusive country on Thursday to let him in and said he heard âvery sad storiesâ from refugees he met during a visit to the South. Thai law professor Vitit Muntarbhorn was appointed by the United Nations last year to report on human rights in North Korea but Pyongyang has blocked him from entering. During a one-week visit to South Korea, he met refugees who fled the North and told him how Pyongyang will imprison the entire family of an individual it says broke the law as part of its policy of âguilt by association.â
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
ROFL!
*knock knock*
Who is it?
The UN.
The UN who?
The United Nations.
*wild laughter*
wouldn't be surprised if this were a set up, for a UN special rapporteur next to ask the US for access to the CIA's "hidden" facilities..And you can rest assured that the usual suspects will trumpet the call in the giant echo chamber.
/cynical yes, paranoid maybe, but there is a coup underway with many co-conspirators.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/11/2005 4:03 Comments ||
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#3
I can't really blame N.Kor, I wouldn't want the silly bastards roaming around my country either.
If they did (and would) find serious human rights violations what would the U.N. do anyway? Cry about it, make empty threats of meaningless sanctions, refer them to the security council(he-he) so china could veto the proposition.
Scores of factory workers say they don't want to work alongside the thugs who bashed cameramen outside a court where nine men were facing terrorism charges.
Three of five men who savagely beat a Channel 7 cameraman and hit a Herald Sun photographer outside the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday work at the Safeway distribution centre in Broadmeadows.
The centre, which employs more than 500 workers, has twice been brought to a standstill this week as management tries to ease rising tensions.
At a crisis meeting yesterday dayshift workers were warned they faced the sack if caught bullying or harassing the men.
But one angry worker said he could not understand why parent company Woolworths was protecting them. "We don't want them here," he said. "Not all Muslims are terrorists, we know that. But beating up television crews . . . that's just un-Australian.
"This is the country I love . . . the company needs to take a stance to protect us."
Union officials met workers at the centre yesterday morning and on Wednesday night. A union source said there had been many complaints from colleagues of the men who made it clear they did not want to work alongside them.
One of the three men is believed to have returned to work on Wednesday night and received a hostile reception from workmates. He was told by management to go home.
The company is also believed to be investigating the absence of one of the men on the day the court attack occurred. It is believed he called in sick. The two others involved in the bashing are believed not to have been rostered on at the time of the attack.
One worker at the centre said a group of colleagues had to be talked out of a plan to take the law into their own hands. "Some of the guys wanted to bash them," he said. "They were going to wait for them to knock off and get them. They're edgy about working alongside these blokes."
Another concerned staff member said a mass strike was not an option. "I'm not happy about working with them but we need our jobs too much to just walk out," he said.
Anger was brewing on the factory floor. "There has already been some banter back and forth between them and some of the boys," he said.
Two of the men are believed to be direct employees of the company and the third a casual, employed through an agency. No charges have been laid against the men involved in Tuesday's attack in which Seven cameraman Matt Rose was wounded.
Woolworths did not return calls for comment.
Shunning is one option. Simply refuse to admit they exist (except for the absolute minimum required to do your job correctly, so that you don't get fired). Very effective and non-violent. Also not something management can complain about.
It is generally accepted that this guy will be the next Prime Minister of Australia
FEDERAL Treasurer Peter Costello has again urged Islamic extremists to leave Australia, saying there is no point in living in a country with a system of government they oppose. "There are some things Australia stands for, has always stood for, always will stand for, which will never change," he told A Current Affair. "We will never be an Islamic state. We will never observe Sharia law ... We will always be a democracy.
"To people who say `well, we've come to this country and we would like to turn it into something it isn't, I say you must understand that will never occur".
Mr Costello said rather than try to change Australia, they should leave it. "People who are dual citizens, if they are not happy with Australia, it might be better for them to live in the country where they are also a citizen," he said. "Rather than saying `I'd like to change everything about Australia, everything it stands for," maybe the problem doesn't lie with the country, maybe it lies with the individual."
May I please buy this man a beer?
Mr Costello said threats of terrorism may persist into the future. "When you see people that are being picked up in raids in our major capital cities, (who) are being charged with terrorist offences, you realise that these are dangerous times," he said. "You realise that we as a community have to be on our guard."
"It's something we will have to live with, we may have to live with for awhile, but it's much better to take preventative action then have to deal with the consequences afterwards."
A suspected terrorist who shot and wounded an Australian policeman is a former actor who appeared in the television soap opera Home and Away. Omar Baladjam, 28, was charged with attempted murder the day after 17 alleged militants were arrested in Melbourne and Sydney. More than 400 police officers were deployed in the operation which it is claimed foiled at least one serious attack. As Baladjam was approached outside a suburban mosque, he allegedly fired several shots, wounding one officer in the hand before being shot in the neck. At a special bedside court hearing in Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, he was charged with 13 offences, including planning a terrorist act and the attempted murder of two police officers. He is due to appear in court tomorrow.
Baladjam played a graffiti artist in an episode of Home and Away in 1998. A year earlier, he appeared in a crime drama as a ram raider who killed two policemen. He then became a spray painter. His former theatrical agent, Di Kounnas, told the Sydney Morning Herald she was "pretty shocked" at Baladjam's alleged involvement in the plot, which is believed to have targeted landmarks in Sydney and Melbourne.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
As the Jihad Turns
All My Terrorists
The Young and the Koranic
Posted by: Mike ||
11/11/2005 9:11 Comments ||
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A Swedish teenager who is being held in Sarajevo suspected of terrorist offences has been identified by Bosnian police as a radical Islamist known by the code-name Maximus.
The 18-year old has had email contact with three men arrested in Britain suspected of planning an attack on the White House, police sources in the Bosnian capital told weekly newspaper Slobodna Bosna.
âThere is definitely a link between Sweden, Denmark and Britain,â said Mirsad Fasic, a journalist at Slobodna Bosna.
âIn the computer that was taken from the apartment rented by the Swede and the Dane with Turkish ancestry, there were pictures of the White House and films about bomb-making,â Fasic added.
The Swede and the 19-year old Dane were arrested in Sarajevo on 19th October. A belt of the type used by suicide bombers was one of the objects found in their flat. Police also found guns and 30 kilograms of explosives.
Seven people have since been arrested in Denmark, and three in the UK. They had had email contact with a Swedish Islamist known as Maximus â now known to be the 18-year old.
STRASBOURG, France, Nov. 10 (Reuters) - The European Court of Justice on Thursday upheld Turkey's ban on women's wearing of head scarves in universities. The ruling was a victory for the secularist Turkish establishment over the Islamic-based governing party.
The Grand Chamber, the court of last appeal, confirmed an earlier ruling against Leyla Sahin, a Turkish woman who has been fighting the law.
The court said the idea of secularism in Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, was consistent with the values underpinning the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision signaled the end of a protracted battle at the court by Ms. Sahin, a student who was barred from attending Istanbul University's medical school in 1998 because her head scarf violated the dress code.
Turkey's secularist establishment includes the president, the powerful military General Staff, judges and university rectors.
The ruling was a setback for the governing Justice and Development Party, which has roots in political Islam and is seeking a relaxation of the curbs on religious expression.
"Turkey cannot move forward with such bans," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in response to the court verdict.
"This ruling does not mean that such restrictions should continue," he added, making it clear that the government has not given up its efforts to relax the scarf ban.
The government contends that it is difficult to expand the rights of non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, which the European Union says must happen, while Muslims, who form more than 99 percent of the population, still face restrictions on religious observance.
But Erdogan Tezic, chairman of the board of higher education, which oversees Turkish universities, welcomed the ruling.
"The international dimension of this decision removes the possibility of Turkey issuing a contrary regulation" that would allow women to wear scarves in universities, he said.
The court recognized both Turkey's efforts to safeguard women's rights in its Constitution and the need to maintain public order.
"Imposing limitations on the freedom to wear the head scarf could, therefore, be regarded as meeting a pressing social need by seeking to achieve those two legitimate aims, especially since that religious symbol had taken on political significance in Turkey in recent years," the court said.
One of France's leading TV news executives has admitted censoring his coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians.
Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of the rolling news service LCI, said the prominence given to the rioters on international news networks had been "excessive" and could even be fanning the flames of the violence.
Mr Dassier said his own channel, which is owned by the private broadcaster TF1, recently decided not to show footage of burning cars.
"Politics in France is heading to the right and I don't want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television," Mr Dassier told an audience of broadcasters at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.
"Having satellites trained on towns across France 24 hours a day showing the violence would have been wrong and totally disproportionate ... Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the cameras and letting them roll. You have to think about what you're broadcasting," he said.
Mr Dassier denied he was guilty of "complicity" with the French authorities, which this week invoked an extraordinary state-of-emergency law passed during the country's war with Algeria 50 years ago.
But he admitted his decision was partly motivated by a desire to avoid encouraging the resurgence of extreme rightwing views in France.
French broadcasters have faced criticism for their lack of coverage of the country's worst civil unrest in decades. Public television station France 3 has stopped broadcasting the numbers of torched cars while other TV stations are considering following suit.
"Do we send teams of journalists because cars are burning, or are the cars burning because we sent teams of journalists?" asked Patrick Lecocq, editor-in-chief of France 2.
Rival news organisations today questioned the French broadcasters' decision to temper coverage of the riots.
John Ryley, the executive editor of Sky News, said his channel would have handled a similar story in Britain very differently.
"We would have been all over it like a cheap suit. We would have monstered the story, and I didn't get the impression that happened in France," he said.
#1
As I remember, the international media was pissed you couldn't eat off of the sidewalks in New Orleans 2 days after the floods. Looks like the wheel turned faster then it usually does on them.
Posted by: James ||
11/11/2005 14:30 Comments ||
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#4
Truthful riot coverage is double-plus ungood if it may possibly reflect poorly on the liberal politicians whose policies brought the rioting on in the first instance.
Posted by: Scott R ||
11/11/2005 18:39 Comments ||
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âŠ.The American government has issued a similar warning [on travel to France] but itâs the response from some American media to the right that has raised a few eyebrows. Some newspapers and television stations have been describing the violence almost in terms of a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims. Hereâs some examples:
[Broad American accents emanate from the studio.]
ââŠThe violence and fires that began in the Paris suburbs have spreadâŠ.as young, disaffected, jobless Muslims continue to demonstrate and challenge authorityâŠ.â
ââŠ.In Paris angry immigrants poured onto the streets again tonight, burning dozens of cars and shooting at police. Young Muslim immigrants, many of them poor and resentful, lashing out at the culture in which they liveâŠ.â
ââŠ.itâs also made these impoverished neighbourhoods fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic extremistsâŠ.â
ââŠ.Authorities in France are struggling with a crisis in some heavily Muslim neighbourhoods in suburban ParisâŠ.â
[The BBC doesnât name the stations from which it has gleaned these accounts and doesnât credit them in any way whatsoever. I donât know if this is illegal, but it certainly strikes me as unethical.]
Well, to European ears that may all sound a little startling. Thereâs been no suggestion from any French authorities, for instance, of any sort of connection between the rioters and radical Islam. But that the rioters are from immigrant communities without jobs or decent housing has been seen as at least as telling, if not more telling, than the fact that many of them are Muslim.
Then the BBC introduces a senior associate from the Project for Excellence in Journalism in the US.
âWhy do you think the fact that these are Muslim districts has been raised so much by the American media?â asks the BBC in all apparent innocence.
âParticularly in television I think that itâs sensationalizing the story and making it have some way to resonate with people in this country,â responds the senior associate, in apparent ignorance.
It never ceases to amaze me how the BBC puts itself and others through agonizing contortions to avoid the uncomfortable truth.
#13
"..asks the BBC in all apparent innocence.".
are they really this stupid? How outrageous to not see it for what it really is.
Big Ed, you're right on.
Posted by: Jan ||
11/11/2005 12:42 Comments ||
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#14
#11 shipman The Clairong Anginens2944?
Yes, the very same one. I see my reputation has preceded me.
And as for Asknot Spemble 1919, I remember him well. We made up a rhyme about him once:
Ask not Spemble
For he will dissemble
That's because he lied to the teacher about smoking behind the school gym.
#15
American media mention it because it's necessary for us to put it in context. European media don't need to - just mentioned the location and everybody understands who you're talking about.
#16
biggist thing that springs to mind is PAIN, yes pain for the BBC as there beloved mooselimbs are again in the media. How transparent can you get, good though as its really hit a raw painfull nerve for AL-Beeb
Posted by: Shep UK ||
11/11/2005 13:59 Comments ||
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#17
BH -True, but for organizations like the BBC it's become standard procedure not to asssociate Muslims with anything negative if they can possibly avoid it.
But there have been some interesting developments on the BBC forums. The Have Your Say forum enables commenters to recommend the comments of others. And on the subject of the French riots, all the highly-recommended comments are against the rioters.
So it seems that as much as the BBC spins the issue, its worldwide audience is not with it on this one.
#20
Why wouldn't the BBC want to mention it? For the same reason they don't want to mention the religion and nationalities of the 7 July and 21 July bombers.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/11/2005 15:35 Comments ||
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#21
The BBC asks the American media: "Why mention that French rioters are Muslims?"
#22
Spembles are well known for their dry sense of humor...T.O. has no senses other than self
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/11/2005 18:51 Comments ||
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#23
In fact why mention that they're French or even rioters. The media should simply report - "864 Renaults and Citroens spontaneously combusted last night. No word if a recall is planned by the manufacturer".
Why mention the poor in New Orleans were mostly black?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/11/2005 19:57 Comments ||
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#25
Renaults, why do they hate us?
Must not mention the participation of Muslims in the random incendiarization of Innocentis , but let's all blame the Joooos for starting it.
Posted by: john ||
11/11/2005 20:15 Comments ||
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#26
Quite obviously, all mention of Muslims being involved is typically expunged because it might lead to the formulation of a solution and a dramatic reduction in sensationalist stories for the BBC to cover.
#3
Btw, insurance companies have billed the cost of the francifada sor far at 200 millions+ euros!
Add the costs of the many governemental building destroyed (mostly schools and police stations, plus IRS building, social centers,...), the gvt being his own insurance IIUC, meaning it will be paid with our taxes, great!... And possibly the real estate damages to local authorities (they might be included in the insurers grand total, I'm not sure)...
Oh, and don't forget indirect costs, such as the costs of maintaining a small army of riots cops on stand by, the 208 wounded cops, or the losses from the tourism industry.
Officially one death, probably three, a badly burnt disabled woman, untold numbers of wounded people (very few national msm reports, but includes for example a 13 months baby wounded at the head by stones, or drivers dragged from their cars and then pelted with projectiles), and numerous attempts, such as that woman who was almost burned to death (a group of youth spread with gasoline in front of her home and then tried to set her on fire with a molotov cocktail as she ran away, this happenend in Noisy IIRC, was reported by the local press and the forums, but didn't make it to the msm).
Speaking of the msm, general impression so far is they are at the feet of the power, faithfully reflecting its policy, and are still in full victimization mode.
#3
#2: I remembers the bad olde days in the South when the same edict came down.
Still the law, just widely ignored.
As an aside that's why the Gas Cans are thick plastic now. No more glass gallon jugs or tin cans, they break too easily.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/11/2005 8:32 Comments ||
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#4
My peanut butter is in a plastic jar too. So is bleach, laundry detergent, windex. The list goes on for ever and has nothing to do with gas. I suspect OSHA, EPA, and CPSC make the regs on gas cans. Including that worthless new spout.
#6
I'll say I well remember the '50's and I sure don't remember anybody dumb enough to put gas in a bottle. We always used a can. But the law is stupid. No cans would make it pretty tough to mow a lawn.
#7
TO3544, I remember the 50s and early 60's when, at least in the boonies of Vt it wasn't unusual to have gas in a gallon glass jug, usually with a rag as a stopper. Saw some neighbors in suburban NJ do the same thing.
#8
I don't think the edict was for glass containers... it was for all portable containers. Anything that would allow easy portablity/pourability into a breakable container.
The Libyan man arrested on suspicion of starting the fire at the Schiphol detention centre is denying the charge.
No! Certainly not!"
Lawyer Robbert Ketwaru said in an interview on Radio 1 news that his 25-year-old client was due to have his first court appearance on Thursday. The suspect, who has not been named, was placed in the Schiphol detention centre a day before the fire. He was due to be deported a day after the fire. He denies "deliberately" starting the blaze, Ketwaru said.
"Yer honor, the dog ate my client's matches!"
The Libyan man suffered severe burn injuries and was treated at the Beverwijk burns unit. He was moved to the prison wing of Scheveningen Prison after his arrest on Monday. Ketwaru revealed that his client "asked for and received a lighter" prior to the fire but he had not started it deliberately. The lawyer declined to outline the suspect account of the events leading up to the tragedy. "He is very shocked that he is accused of having 11 deaths on his conscience. He is relatively depressive and very emotional," the lawyer said. The suspect made a statement to police which was incoherent in places. Ketwaru said he could not reveal any more details as the investigation is ongoing. His client is being held in restrictive custody, a form of isolation.
#1
I'm seething..'cause Ima being deported..let see..wot to do..wot to do..viola, I thinkum I'll start a fire in a closed space that ima locked into! Ouch! OOOOuch!..Oh SH*T now ima seethingly crispy and it hurts like hell too.
/sucks to be a throwback stupid.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/11/2005 4:32 Comments ||
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#2
My thoughts on this can be summed up with just one word.
Neighbours of Ayaan Hirsi Ali are going to court to protest at what they claim is the unbearable disruption caused to their lives by the security around the threatened MP. The case against the Dutch State and the owner of Hirsi Ali's apartment will be heard by a court in The Hague on 25 November, newspaper 'Algemeen Dagblad' said on Thursday. The neighbours involved in the case indicate they are sick and tired of the hustle and bustle caused by the armour-plated car used to ferry Hirsi Ali from her home near the centre of The Hague to Parliament. The complaints also relate to the security cameras "everywhere". In April newspaper 'De Telegraaf' reported that Hirsi Ali's new neighbours were unhappy about the news Hirsi Ali was taking an apartment next to them.
#1
If you don't like the security needed to protect one of the very few people in your country with the BALLS to honestly deal with the threat they pose to you, you could always just throw the fuckin' Muzzies out and close your borders to them, so it wouldn't be necessary in the first place. Whining assholes. Perhaps you pricks need to be deported. Go ahead, you can even pick the country. Any Muzzy country.
#2
.com My sentiments exactly but I can't express them as eloquently as you!
Instead of having an endless sheeze and whine party, Hirsi's picky little neighbours should be giving her all the support she needs. She's got more guts than half of Holland put together.
Come to think of it, those neighbours are probably Muslims. If so, I'm sure they'd love to see Hirsi deprived of her security.
Thanks, Canada. Glad to know you have jurisdiction over the US military. Bah.
A war dodger from the United States has won the chance to convince a Federal Court judge that Canada was wrong to turn down his claim for refugee status in a politically sensitive case that's being watched closely in both countries. Jeremy Hinzman, who maintains that fighting in Iraq would have amounted to an atrocity because he considers the war an illegal one, is "very much encouraged" the Federal Court is willing to hear a judicial review of his case, said his lawyer, Jeffry House. "There's nothing ridiculous about our appeal," House said Friday in an interview. "It has substance to it."
Hinzman, 27, deserted his Airborne regiment in January 2004, just days before being deployed to Iraq, and faces a court-martial and possible jail time if he's sent home. He was not immediately available for comment Friday. Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resisters Support Campaign called the decision a "real breakthrough" in the efforts of U.S. resisters to remain in Canada. "This is very good - it will have an impact on all the other cases," Zaslofsky said. "What it shows is that people in authority in Canada are taking very seriously what's going on with these war resisters."
The Immigration and Refugee Board ruled in March that Hinzman was not a so-called conscientious objector to the war in Iraq and had not shown that he would face persecution in the U.S. if forced to return. In denying Hinzman's claim, the board's adjudicator ruled that the legal status of the war in Iraq had no bearing on the case. Hinzman hopes to convince the court that the adjudicator's decision not to weigh the legality of the war amounted to an error in law. Justice Sean Harrington is scheduled to hear Hinzman's arguments Feb. 7 in Toronto.
During his March asylum hearing, Hinzman argued he should not have to face any jail time for refusing to commit what he considered to be war crimes by taking part in a foreign invasion that had no international sanction. A discredited former U.S. marine who testified on his behalf told the hearing that soldiers in Iraq routinely violated international law by killing unarmed women, children and other Iraqi civilians. If the court sides with Hinzman, it will likely refer the case back to a different refugee board tribunal for further consideration, but with specific instructions on dealing with the contested issues, principally the legality of the war in Iraq, House said. "The best possible outcome is that we get a full hearing in which all our arguments are considered," he said.
Scrappleface ALERT!!
November 11, 2005
by Scott Ott
(2005-11-11) â Democrats in Congress today rejected President George Bushâs accusation that theyâre trying to rewrite history, which shows they supported the Iraq war based on the same intelligence that drove his decision to send in the troops.
âWe had no pre-war intelligence,â said Sen. John Kerry, âHistory will show that none of the leading Democrats had substantial intelligence. Anyone who remembers what we did then knows that the president is making a baseless allegation. I think history will bear out my contention that we Democrats lacked the intelligence to make such an important decision.â
The junior Senator from Massachussetts said he continues âto faithfully support the troops who uselessly die for a lie in Iraq.â
âOur troops deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war will remain firm in our conviction that we didnât know what we were doing at the time,â Sen. Kerry said. âItâs important, on Veteranâs Day, to remember that our Democrat commitment to our military hasnât changed.â
White House spokesman Scott McClellan repeated his categorical denial that the Bush administration âever manipulated anyoneâs intelligence or ignorance.â Guess the Dems are all ahuff since the Prez called them cowardly history rewriters and potential anti-americans as well as opportunists parading on 2000 graves - oops, that's my take... if the shoe fits...
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/11/2005 17:48 ||
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Post-war intelligence is highly doubt as well.
Posted by: Scott R ||
11/11/2005 18:35 Comments ||
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President Bush forcefully attacked critics of the war in Iraq on Friday, accusing them of trying to rewrite history and saying they are undercutting American forces on the front lines.
"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.
Defending the march to war, Bush said that foreign intelligence services and Democrats and Republicans alike were convinced at the time that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war," Bush said.
He said those critics have made those allegations although they know that a Senate investigation "found no evidence" of political pressure to change the intelligence community's assessments related to Saddam's weapons program.
He said they also know that the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing Saddam's development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
"More than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," Bush said.
The president's remarks at the Tobyhanna Army Depot were part of the administration's effort to bolster waning U.S. public support for the war in which at least 2,059 U.S. troops have died. Bush offered a forceful defense of the war in Iraq, saying it is the central front in the war on terror and that extremists are trying to establish a radical Muslim empire extending from Spain to Indonesia.
"We will never back down. We will never give in. We will never accept anything less than complete victory," he said Friday.
Bush said the United States and its allies are determined to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of extremists and prevent them from gaining control of any country.
Bush singled out Syria for particular criticism, saying its government had taken "two disturbing steps" in recent days. He cited the arrest of Syria pro-democracy activist Kamal Labwani and a "strident speech" by President Bashar Assad. In that speech, Assad said his government would cooperate with a U.N. investigation that implicated Syrian officials in the killing of a Lebanese leader, but warned he would no longer "play their game" if Syria "is going to be harmed."
Bush said Syria "must stop exporting violence and start importing democracy."
#2
"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war," Bush said.
They'll be claiming it in ten years; look for the new Chomsky novel 'Manufacturing Consent II - The Rush to War' coming soon to a Harvard Square bokkstore near you!
#3
1. The US acted multi-laterally without UN sanction, but in light of the country's own interpretation of UN resolutions on Iraq. It remains the US position that the UN majority was wrong.
2. The US acted on both much true information on the regional and global threats posed by the Hussein government and on some false information, presented for private and group (Shiite, Kurd, etc) interests, but did so in good faith. The go-with-what-you-know position of the US was reasonable, and yielded bi-partisan support. Deceits presented to US intelligence and authorities are a reflection of the passers of same, and not on US officials. Although over-reaching, in assessment of data, was and is always a factor in government decision making, the fact of the Hussein threat lowered the threshold of choice to intervene.
#4
time to talk about the consequences to America and the world of losing this war (which would, of course, benefit Howard Dean and the Democrats) and explaining that those who oppose the war don't care about the long-term consequences for short term gain.
"You'll have full health care - bandaids, et al - for that decapitation, infidel"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/11/2005 18:56 Comments ||
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Amnesia is treatable. Denial is still a river whether or not you remember.
Posted by: john ||
11/11/2005 20:45 Comments ||
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I think he should have asked Sen. Clinton if she stil has her night job as a times square hooker or if Kerry still sleeps with little boys. They both have as much credible evidence of the 'Bush Lied' crap. (That is absolutely none!).
A CIA document shows the agency in January 2003 raised questions about an Al Qaeda detaineeâs claims that Saddam Husseinâs government provided chemical and biological weapons training to terroristsâweeks before President George W. Bush and other top officials flatly used those same claims to make their case for war against Iraq.
The CIA document, recently provided to Congress and obtained by NEWSWEEK, fills in some of the blanks in the mysterious case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured Al Qaeda commander whose claims about poison-gas training for the Qaeda group by Saddamâs government formed the basis for some of the most dramatic arguments used by senior administration officials in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.
As NEWSWEEK first reported last July, al-Libi has since recanted those claims. The new CIA document states the agency ârecalled and reissuedâ all its intelligence reporting about al-Libiâs ârecantedâ claims about chemical and biological warfare training by Saddamâs regime in February 2004âan important retreat on pre-Iraq war intelligence that has never been publicly acknowledged by the White House. The withdrawal also was not mentioned in last yearâs public report by the presidential inquiry commission headed by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb which reviewed alleged Iraq intelligence failures.
The declassified CIA document about al-Libi was recently provided to Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who has been pressing for a more aggressive investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the Bush Administrationâs handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. It has not been officially released because of Senate Intelligence Committee rules restricting public disclosure of information it receives as part of its inquiresâeven if the data has been declassified.
Levin did, however, release other material last weekend that he received through his membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. This included declassified portions of a four-page February 2002 DIA Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary (DITSUM) that strongly questioned al-Libiâs credibility. The report stated it was âlikelyâ al-Libi was âintentionally misleadingâ his debriefers and might be describing scenarios âthat he knows will retain their interest.â A DIA official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the DITSUM reportâwhich also questioned whether the âintensely secularâ Iraqi regime would provide such assistance to an Islamic fundamentalist regime âit cannot controlââwas circulated at the time throughout the U.S. intelligence community and that a copy would have been sent to the National Security Council.
In addition to the new issues the latest al-Libi disclosure raises about the handling of pre-war Iraq intelligence, it also raises questions about the reliability of information gleaned from high-value Al Qaeda detainees who have been incarcerated in secret CIA facilities or ârenderedâ to foreign countries where they are believed to have been subjected to harsh and even brutal interrogation techniques.
Al-Libi, who was the âemirâ of Al Qaedaâs Khalden training camp in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, was originally captured by U.S. forces in the fall of 2001 and, for a while, was in FBI custody. But according to Jack Cloonan, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent who was involved in the handling of his case, al-Libi became the subject of a heated battle between the FBI and CIA over which agency should retain control of him.
In early 2002, Cloonan says, al-Libi was ordered turned over to the CIA and, with his mouth covered by duct tape, the shackled Al Qaeda operative was transferred in a box onto an airplane at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Cloonan says he was later told that al-Libi was flown to Egypt, which CIA officials believed was his country of origin. (In fact, the FBI believed that al-Libi, as his nom de guerre suggests, was actually from Libya.)
The CIA, as part of its standard policy relating to its handling of all Al Qaeda captives, has declined to comment on what interrogation methods were used, where al-Libi was taken or where he is now being held (although some reports suggest he has since been transferred to the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)
What is known is that starting in the fall of 2002, al-Libiâs statements to his interrogators became the principal basis for a series of alarming Bush administration assertions about training that Saddamâs regime purportedly provided to Al Qaeda terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons. President Bush first referred to the claims in his Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati where he strongly emphasized Saddamâs ties to international terror groups in general and Al Qaeda in particular. âWeâve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases,â Bush said. (Ironically, this is the same speech that the White House, at the CIAâs request, deleted references to Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium âyellowcakeâ from Africa because of questions about the reliability of the information.)
The claim about poison-gas training resurfaced four months later in greatly expanded form during a particularly dramatic portion of then Secretary of State Colin Powellâs Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the UN Security Council that refers exclusively to al-Libiâalthough he is not actually identified by name. Towards the end of his speech, just after a passage that talked about Al Qaedaâs interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, Powell said he wanted to âtrace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story,â said Powell. âI will relate to you now, as he himself, described it.
âThis senior Al Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of Al Qaedaâs training camps in Afghanistan,â he continued. âHis information comes first hand from his personal involvement at senior levels of Al Qaeda.â Powell then said that Osama bin Laden and one of his deputiesâthe since deceased Mohammed Atefâdid not believe Al Qaeda had the capability to make chemical or biological weapons in Afghanistan on their own. âThey needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.â
Powell then continued, citing the unidentified operativeâs story (from al-Libi) that Iraq offered chemical or biological weapons training to two Al Qaeda associates starting in December 2000. A militant identified as Abu Adula al-Iraqi had also been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases and that the relationship forged with Iraq officials was characterized by al-Iraqi as âsuccessful,â according to Powellâs remarks. (Although it is not entirely clear from Powellâs speech, two U.S. counter-terrorism officials told NEWSWEEK they believe the information about al-Iraqi came exclusively from al-Libi.)
Powell concluded this portion of the speech by saying that âthe nexus of poisons and gases is newâ and the combination of the two âis lethal.â In light of âthis track record,â Powell said this about Iraqi denials of support for terrorism: âIt is all a web of lies.â
The administrationâs drumbeat citing the claims from al-Libi continued the next day when President Bush gave a brief talk at the Roosevelt Room in the White House with Powell by his side. âOne of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons,â Bush said. âIraq has bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.â
But according to the newly declassified DIA and CIA documents provided to Levin, the credibility of those statements by Bush and Powell were already in doubt within the U.S. intelligence community. While the DIA was the first to raise red flags in its February 2002 report, the CIA itself in January 2003 produced an updated version of a classified internal report called âIraqi Support for Terrorism.â The previous version of this CIA report in September 2002 had simply included al-Libiâs claims, according to the newly declassified agency document provided to Levin in response to his inquiries about al-Libi. But the updated January 2003 version, while including al-Libiâs claims that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons and training, added an important new caveat: It ânoted that the detainee was not in a position to know if any training had taken place,â according to the copy of the document obtained by NEWSWEEK. It was not until January 2004ânine months after the war was launchedâthat al-Libi recanted âa number of the claims he made while in detention for the previous two years, including the claim that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to obtain chemical and biological weapons and related training,â the CIA document says.
Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said that President Bush's remarks were "based on what was put forward to him as the views of the intelligence community" and that those views came from "an aggregation" of sources. She added, however, that it was impossible at this point to determine whether the dissent from the DIA and questions raised by the CIA were seen by officials at the White House prior to the president's remarks. A counter-terrorism official said that while CIA reports on al-Libi were distributed widely around U.S. intelligence agencies and policy-making offices, many such routine reports are not regularly read by senior policy-making officials.
For their part, Levin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller want the Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its reinvigorated Phase II investigation into the handling of Iraq pre-war intelligence, to answer key questions about al-Libi: What happened to the February 2002 DIA report questioning al-Libiâs credibility? Were the CIAâs caveats circulated to the White House before President Bush made his assertions? And why did the intelligence community declassify the substance of al-Libiâs original claims so they could be used in Powellâs speech in February 2003âbut fail to publicly acknowledge that he had recanted until NEWSWEEK reported on it more than a year later?
The new documents also raise the possibility that caveats raised by intelligence analysts about al-Libiâs claims were withheld from Powell when he was preparing his Security Council speech. Larry Wilkerson, who served as Powellâs chief of staff and oversaw the vetting of Powellâs speech, responded to an e-mail from NEWSWEEK Wednesday stating that he was unaware of the DIA doubts about al-Libi at the time the speech was being prepared. âWe never got any dissent with respect to those lines you cite ⊠indeed the entire section that now we know came from [al-Libi],â Wilkerson wrote.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 01:21 ||
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GAS
Posted by: Red Dog ||
11/11/2005 4:54 Comments ||
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I swear outfits like Newsweak deliberately hold up parts of a story for the sole purpose of creating one or more of these '...has more on...' stories just to keep it in the news cycle that much longer. Assholes.
WHEN MICHAEL SCHEUER, the first head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, first emerged into public view almost a year ago, it was a curiosity how he could appear in the media--time after time--claiming that there was no evidence of a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda. It was curious because, in 2002, Scheuer wrote the book Through Our Enemies' Eyes, in which he cited numerous pieces of evidence showing that there was, in fact, a working relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. That evidence directly contradicted his criticism of the intelligence that led this nation into the Iraq war, which he called a "Christmas present" for bin Laden. Yet in that first blush of attention, no interviewer was willing to question Scheuer about this contraction.
For example, on the November 16, 2004 edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews gave Scheuer a pass when he said that he had found "nothing" connecting Iraq and al Qaeda.
Almost one year later, little has changed. Scheuer appeared on Hardball once again yesterday (November 9, 2005) and had the following exchange with Matthews concerning the recent terror attacks in Jordan (emphasis added):
MATTHEWS: Michael, just to think outside the box, would we be better off with Saddam Hussein still running tyrannically that country of Iraq, right next door to Jordan? Would Jordan be more secure in that environment?
SCHEUER: No doubt about it, sir.
MATTHEWS: No doubt?
SCHEUER: There'd be many more dead--many fewer dead Americans, and we would have many more resources available to annihilate al Qaeda, which is what we have to do. Without a doubt, in the war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies.
MATTHEWS: How so?
SCHEUER: He was not going to permit Iraq to become a base, as it is today, for Sunni fundamentalists.
MATTHEWS: Why did he let them come in for that training, that chemical training, whatever the hell they did up north?
SCHEUER: They didn't control the area, so that was in the no-fly zone. They were in an area that was in Kurdistan.
MATTHEWS: OK.
SCHEUER: And they were Shia.
IN THE "war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies?" Really? Perhaps Matthews should look at pages 124-125, 184, 188-190, and 192 of Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Does Scheuer's analysis on those pages suggest that Saddam Hussein was "one of our best allies" against al Qaeda? Hardly.
Scheuer now, of course, recants his previous testimony. But Matthews would still be well served to consider passages such as these, which Scheuer wrote just a few years ago:
Regarding Iraq, bin Laden, as noted was in contact with Baghdad's intelligence service since at least 1994. He reportedly cooperated with it in the area of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear (CBRN) weapons and may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK). The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to the MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre also were then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda.
Other laboratory and production facilities available to bin Laden are reported in the Khowst and Jalalabad areas, and in the Khartoum suburb of Kubar. The latter facility is said to be a "new chemical and bacteriological factory" cooperatively built by Sudan, bin Laden, and Iraq, and may be one of several in Sudan. In January 1999, Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that by late 1998, "Iraq, Sudan, and bin Laden were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons." The reports say that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Laden and supervised by Iraqi experts.
In pursuing tactical nuclear weapons, bin Laden has focused on the FSU [Former Soviet Union] states and has sought and received help from Iraq.
We know for certain that bin Laden was seeking CBRN weapons . . . and that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN weapon acquisition and development. On the last point, Milan's Corriere della Sera reported that in late 1998 that Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and former intelligence chief, Faruk Hidjazi, met bin Laden in Kandahar on 21 December 1998. The daily said Hidjazi offered bin Laden sanctuary in Iraq, stressing that Baghdad would not forget bin Laden's protests against U.S.-U.K. air attacks on Iraq. Whether Hidjazi discussed CBRN issues with bin Laden is unknown, but is [sic] interesting to note that Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that in October 1998 the Iraqis "suggested to bin Laden to involve [in his search for CBRN weapons] elements from the Russian Mafia who were above suspicion." It was learned that these trusted elements were Red Army officers who established ties of friendship and trust with officers in the Iraqi army in the past when Iraqi army and intelligence officers used to go to the Soviet Union for training courses and Moscow sent its military specialists to Baghdad.
There is also abundant evidence that Scheuer's other claims are meaningless. That the northern part of Iraq, where hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists took refuge, was not formally under Saddam's control is a given. But there is still plenty of evidence that these al Qaeda terrorists, who went after Saddam's enemies among the Kurds and not Saddam's forces, received Saddam's support. (See, for example, here.)
Scheuer's claim that the al Qaeda terrorists who relocated to northern Iraq and received WMD training were "Shia" is also contradicted by the evidence. One of these terrorists was al Qaeda's rising star, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who briefly led one of al Qaeda's camps in northern Iraq. Zarqawi is renowned for his vehement hatred of the Shia.
One year later Michael Scheuer is still making media appearances.
And one year later interviewers such as Matthews still don't play hardball with him.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 01:09 ||
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Scheuer...a special place in hell for folks like him. Get's the job of licking Sadaam's boots clean when hell freezes over.
What is it that they have on ,Michael? Is it little girls, like Ritter? What could possibly be more humiliating than being a shill for someone like Saddam?
#2
Amazing. Tenet, Clinton's bumbling bozo CIA chief. Scheuer, Tenet's great bin Laden hunter who can't keep his lies straight, from book to book, though he obviously has the reference material at hand. Dickie Clarke, Clinton's great "terrorism expert" who "tried desperately to save us all, but was ignored", *sniff*. Sandy Burglar, Clinton's inept NSA and equally inept thief - though a successful 9-11 investigation saboteur. Dingbat Halfbright, the dancing fool, who can't remember all of the fiascoes she negotiated when called to account. Thanks, Bill. The Whitehouse Gang that couldn't lie straight -- we'd need a seance to ask Vince Foster what sort of shots they were. "We are the President" Hillary on the PR road to the Dhimmidonk version of "centrist", thanks to the likes of the exceptionally deranged, as well as inept, such as Sheehan, Dean, Pelosi, and Boxer. Amazing.
Amazing that we're still here. I think I'll chalk that up to an even more amazing fact: the jihadi asshats are even more fucked up than this bunch. But not by much.
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
President Bush today used Veterans Day, a day originally designated to commemorate victory in World War I, as an opportunity to reaffirm the United States' commitment to seeing the war on terror through to victory.
It'll be ignored as just another speech, most likely...
"The nation has made a clear choice," the president told a gathering of servicemembers, veterans and family members at Tobyhanna Army Depot, Pa. "We will not tire or rest until the war on terror is won."
Some parts of the nation won't tire or rest. Other parts of the nation have long since done so, and still other parts of the nation wanted no part of it to start with, though, assuming we win, they'll be standing in line to take credit when it's over.
Bush condemned terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and have continued to spread violence around the world, using what he called "a litany of excuses" to justify it. The United States did not invite the attacks it suffered, the president said, dismissing claims that the U.S. presence in Iraq has fueled the terrorists' efforts. "We were not in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001," the president reminded the group. "The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. No act of ours invited the rage of killers and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder."
That's because they intend to rule the world. We're the biggest obstacle. The wonderful world of turbans is at least partly on their side, with a significant fifth column in place. The non-Muslim Far East and the Hispanic world are trying to ignore the danger. Africa's inconsequential. And Europe's inconsequential in a different manner.
Rather, he said, terrorists will prey on any indication of weakness or loss of will among Americans and the coalition. He cited an intercepted letter from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, intended to reach Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, that referred to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s as a model for a future retreat from Iraq. Toward that end and terrorists' ultimate political goals, he said, there's little doubt that they will carry out future attacks, as evidenced by deadly bombings this week in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan.
They have no ideas other than attack. They're pure, distilled malevolence.
He cited success of the strategy aimed at preventing those attacks by eliminating terrorist networks and their ability to inflict violence. "This progress has reduced the danger to free nations, but it has not removed it," he said.
Of course not. We're in the middle of it, and it's particularly hard on the Iraqis. But Afghanistan is free, Libya's thrown in the towel, and even the Pak krazed killers have dropped off to next to nothing, at least for Pakland.
Meanwhile, Bush said, another kind of attack is under way in the United States -- what he called "baseless attacks" about the rationale that led to U.S. operations in Iraq.
That's the part that disgusts me. It's pure politix, and the same campaign is under way in Britain and until recently in Australia.
The president acknowledged the right of all Americans to voice opinions about what led to the war or how that war is being carried out. But he called it "deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
It's also deeply irresponsible to be on the other side, but many of those who've been loudest in their denunciations have been against both the Afghan and Iraq wars.
"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," he said.
A certain kind of political hack confuses his party's advantage with the national interest. Much of the congressional opposition includes that kind of hack. Yet another kind of hack does most anything to get along and protect his seat. A certain proportion of what you'd expect to be loyalists in Congress are that kind of hack. I think it's a law of nature.
Political attacks send the wrong message to U.S. troops fighting the war on terror and mixed messages to enemies judging America's will to stay the course, the president said. U.S. troops deserve a clear understanding that their nation is behind them and that this support won't bow to political winds, he said. "As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy your way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them," he said.
Some are standing so far behind them as to be out of sight, though not out of earshot...
"Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory."
Unfortunately, for some of us our will is strong and for others of us the will is weak as water, and for still others they're trying to ignore the whole thing in the hope it'll go away.
Bush acknowledged that the road ahead won't be easy but said the coalition strategy in Iraq is working. Iraq is showing solid progress on the political and security fronts, paving the way for the United States to ultimately bring its troops home, he said. "As Iraqis stand up, the United States will stand down," he said.
That's the way it's supposed to be. What's gonna happen is that when we do start standing down, the opposition will bitch as loud as they can that it's not fast enough. As we actually conduct an orderly withdrawl, hopefully not to zero troop strength, they'll be trying to turn it into a rout. That's because they've Learned the Lessons of Vietnam™ and they know that's the way wars end.
Meanwhile, Bush said, the best way the United States can honor its troops, particularly those who have died in the war, is to stay the course to achieve the goals for which they sacrificed. "The best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 16:20 ||
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It was a sunny day in Iraq - he remembered that - and then it was still sunny and people were working on him.
Maj. David Lofgren, a 6th Civil Affairs Group team leader, lay in bed Thursday at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and recalled what he didn't remember. Not the bullet that tore through his left hand. Not the one that slammed into his thigh. Not the severed artery that bled and bled and bled.
What Lofgren, who had his last surgery Wednesday, does remember is the help of fellow Marines and military personnel after he was hit.
"So many people," he whispers, his head nestled on a Stars and Stripes-patterned pillow. "I just have heartfelt thanks for all those who helped me. It's incredible. It's overwhelming."
Lofgren's service and that of others is what Veterans Day is all about: honoring war veterans for their patriotism and sacrifice.
For 45 minutes after the attack, Lofgren, a veteran of the Gulf War, pressed on his thigh to staunch the flood of blood, but he doesn't remember that either. His wife, Vongthipsuda "Giap" Lofgren, said his teammates reported his action.
"He felt terribly guilty about leaving his Marines there," she said. "He only started to feel OK when he got a call from one of the guys in Iraq saying they were OK. He was the only one wounded."
The attack was only four weeks ago, but time is irrelevant when you're critically injured. Lofgren, 44, is one of more than 1,500 military personnel from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to receive treatment at the critical-care facility in Bethesda since March 2004, said Lt. Bashon W. Mann, a public affairs officer.
"He volunteered to go," "Giap" Lofgren said. "People asked me, 'How can you let him go?' No one wants their husband or spouse to go, but his life is the Marine Corps. It's who he is."
Lofgren won't be well enough to travel home to Norfolk to celebrate Veterans Day, but on Thursday afternoon, he was scheduled to see his four sons: Eric, 9, Nikalas, 7, Kristian, 5, and Lukas, 2.
Seeing them, he said, was home enough for him.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/11/2005 11:14 ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Thursday to bar foreign terror suspects at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from filing lawsuits in American courts to challenge their detentions, despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that granted such access.
In a 49-42 vote, senators added the provision by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to a sweeping defense policy bill.
Under the provision, Guantanamo Bay detainees would be allowed to appeal their status as an ``enemy combatant'' one time, to the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. But they would not be able to file petitions known as writs of habeas corpus, which are used to fight unlawful detentions, in that or any other U.S. court.
``For 200 years, ladies and gentlemen, in the law of armed conflict, no nation has given an enemy combatant, a terrorist, an al-Qaida member the ability to go into every federal court in this United States and sue the people that are fighting the war for us,'' Graham told his colleagues.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said the provision was a major mistake and deserved scrutiny. ``It's contrary to the way the court decisions have come down already. It is an extraordinary step for this Congress to be taking,'' he said.
Yes, it's contrary, because the majority of Senators believe the courts are wrong. And it's extraordinary only in that the Congress is showing some spine.
Democrats indicated they may try to kill or change the provision before the Senate votes on the overall bill next week. Five Democrats sided with 44 Republicans in voting for the provision.
The Senate's approval of Graham's amendment followed Monday's Supreme Court decision to review a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration's military trials for suspected foreign terrorists held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. In 2004, the Supreme Court said the 500 or so prisoners held there could file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts to fight their detentions. Many of the prisoners were captured in Afghanistan and have been held at Guantanamo for several years without being charged. Since that ruling, prisoner lawsuits against the government have piled up.
Graham sought to curb what he called ``lawsuit abuse,'' arguing that prisoners of war and enemy combatants have never before been given access to U.S. courts. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said it was too broad and would effectively reverse the Supreme Court's previous decision on the issue of detainees rights. ``It is inconsistent with what the Supreme Court did,'' he said.
And the Congress has the constitutional power to limit court access. You can look it up.
Human-rights groups also cried foul. ``Depriving an entire branch of government of its ability to exercise meaningful oversight is a decidedly wrong course to take,'' said Elisa Massimino, the Washington director of Human Rights First.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/11/2005 00:12 ||
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#1
Uh, oh. Better tell Ethel to get the pills *stat* - this is more than most of us can believe bear...
#5
Danny, the Geneva Convention says these guys aren't POWs. We're treating them humanely because that's our policy, but they aren't accorded the legal protection.
By the way, your web site: you're a nutter. Enjoy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/11/2005 10:59 Comments ||
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Agreed, Steve. Looks like LaRouche has a solid V.P. candidate...
On page 23 of the print WaPo. Didn't make the print version of the NYT, but it is on their wire service page. Couldn't find it at all in the LAT. The press? They don't have an agenda.
#1
Thanks for the comment, 11A5S, it was the only thing I wanted to know after I read the headline.
So I guess that puts the WaPo at the good end of a bad class.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/11/2005 8:00 Comments ||
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I did try to read the article, until I had to retch from the spin.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/11/2005 8:01 Comments ||
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It's because we all know the war is lost and it will be safe to join the Army again. No wait, it's because the worst economy in 50 years is driving young people into the legions of doom for food and shelter. No wait, it's because the minorities left homeless by hurricane halliburton have been forced by circumstance to join the man.
#4
We also know the Reserves and Guard will never go to war! Ha!
This really goes to show our nintendo youth are just as patriotic and honor bound as all other generations.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/11/2005 8:13 Comments ||
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The Nintendo generation doesn't read the NYT, WaPo or LAT. They do however play Xbox and PS2 where the services have been co-producing games which portray an environment without the hollyweird political correctness. Someone has figured how to jump the media divide.
A lawyer for a Canadian-born teenage terror suspect captured in Afghanistan, held at Guantanamo Bay and accused of killing a US soldier, demanded action from Canada on the case on Tuesday. Omar Ahmed Khadr, 19, was charged Monday with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and aiding the enemy and could face the death penalty if convicted by one of the Pentagonâs special military commissions. âIt seems to me, the Canadian government hasnât done everything it needs to in terms of the basic protection of one of its citizens,â US-based lawyer Muneer Ahmed told AFP.
Seems to me the kid ran off to fight jihad with Pop and now he doesn't want to take the consequences.
âWhat is their position as to the fairness or unfairness of the military commission process?â he said, referring to arrangements by US authorities to try âenemy combatantsâ they deem not covered by the Geneva Conventions.
Their position is that they are anti-US, but they're not so stupid as to openly defend someone caught committing jihad. Not quite, anyway ....
âThey are in as good a position as anyone else to make a determination based on their understanding of fairness and due process as to whether the military commission process meets those basic standards.â Ahmed challenged the Canadian government to say whether it believed the US tribunal system, which have been pilloried by human rights groups, was âfair.â
He'd much rather be tried under shariah, of course, since murdering an infidel isn't a crime...
In Ottawa, Dan McTeague, parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians abroad, responded by defending the conduct of Prime Minister Paul Martinâs government. âThe government of Canada has done a lot in this case, including asking for assurances from the United States that Mr. Khadr, who was a juvenile at the time of his offenses, wonât be subject to the death penalty, and has the benefits of due process,â he said. US officials had not responded but Canada, which first raised the issue in 2003, would continue to press the United States, McTeague said.
Not a problem. The kid turns 21 when???? We can make room at Gitmo that long.
We're ignoring you. You've amply demonstrated which side you're on, so butt out of our business.
Khadr was charged as a long simmering row over the use of military courts reached boiling point, sparking recriminations from President George W. Bushâs opponents in Congress. US Supreme Court said Monday that it would rule on the legality of the special military courts in early 2006, a move which could delay Khadrâs trial.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Just hang the brat. To make it fair, canada can hang all the american jihadis that kill canadian soldiers to get back at us.
Only thing is, it's awfull hard to find a canadian soldier to kill, unless you look in the local bar.
No Death Penalty for Suspected al-Qaida WASHINGTON - Five terror suspects charged with crimes earlier this week will not face the death penalty if found guilty. The five men, including one accused of killing a Special Forces medic, are being held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center. There are now a total of nine detainees there who have been charged with criminal offenses. The decision was made not to seek capital punishment in the five latest cases âthe same decision made in the four earlier cases, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said Thursday. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the decision not to seek the death penalty is not necessarily a reflection of the opposition to capital punishment in other coalition countries. He said the cases are reviewed and decided on their own merits."We're aware that some coalition partners have raised some of these concerns," he told reporters Thursday. "We try to be attentive to those concerns, but I wouldn't make the direct connection."
I would. An Australian and a Canadian man are among those charged, and those countries â along with other allies â have expressed concerns about the death penalty.
Toronto-born Omar Khadr was charged with murder, attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy, for allegedly tossing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan and for planting mines to target U.S. convoys.
The other four suspects were charged with conspiracy. They are Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi and Jabran Said bin al Qahtani of Saudi Arabia; Sufyian Barhoumi of Algeria; and Binyam Ahmed Muhammad of Ethiopia. The charges involve an alleged conspiracy involving the use of roadside bombs and, in one case, information on how to make a so-called "dirty bomb" that would release radioactivity, according to the complaint.
So it looks like we'll be paying for Koran's and feeding tubes for these maggots for the rest of their lives.
#4
Cleaque Omavith7737 is right about Canadian snipers. It's sad, tho, to see what was once a brave and effective military emasculated - and I use the phrase intentionally.
Posted by: too true ||
11/11/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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Khadr needs to become an issue in the coming Canadian election. All the Conservatives have to do is mention his name. Watching the criminal conspiracy pretending to be a political party Liberals and co-conspirator pretending to be a world statesman Martin try to defend the bastard kid knowing that everytime they opened their mouths was costing them votes would be, well.....
Election $100mil
Popcorn $1.00
Defending the indefensible: Priceless
Posted by: john ||
11/11/2005 21:14 Comments ||
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The U.S. military plans to leave behind thousands of trucks and combat vehicles for the Iraq Army. The Defense Department has approved a plan in which the U.S. military would not withdraw from Iraq with much of the equipment deployed thre since 2003, but would instead transfer the vehicles and weaponry to the Iraq Army, officials said.
U.S. commanders and their Iraqi counterparts have been discussing the transfer of U.S.-origin weaponry and vehicles, which will take place in stages, Middle East Newsline reported.
"We have discussed what our ability will be in the long run to leave behind some additional equipment for them over time, so that they have the same capabilities that we do, or very nearly," Maj. Gen. William Webster, commander of Multinational Division, Baghdad, said.
Webster told a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 21 that the military would draft a formal plan for the transfer of U.S. weaponry and platforms to the Iraq Army. He said the United States has already provided a large amount of surplus heavy weapons, light weapons, commercial trucks and military trucks to Iraq. "We're adding armor on to some of those vehicles now," Webster said. "I know very much they'd like to have Humvees."
They want them, and we don't want to haul them home. Sounds like a fair trade to me.
Officials said the amount or type of U.S. platforms transferred to the Iraq Army has not yet been determined. They said the issue was being discussed between senior Iraqi and U.S. officials.
For his part, Webster said he envisioned the transfer of Humvees, trucks, communications and command and control systems to Iraq. The general said the Iraq Army would probably not receive such advanced platforms as the Stryker infantry fighting vehicle or M1A1 main battle tanks. "I think [the U.S. equipment transfer to Iraq would be] more in the line of trucks and command and control equipment, as opposed to heavy armor," Webster said.
The trucks and comm gear give the Iraqis a big leg up in staging exercises. And coincidentially dealing with the Syrians or Iranians.
The Iraqi-U.S. military discussions signaled Pentagon plans for a staged U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq that would begin in 2006. Officials said the Bush administration hoped to withdraw most of the current 160,000 soldiers from Iraq by 2007.
Officials said Iraq does not want to base its military on U.S.-origin equipment. Instead, Baghdad has worked with the United States to ensure a supply of Soviet-origin equipment from such countries as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. Over the last week, the Iraq Army has received the first of 77 T-72 tanks from Hungary.
"They really have asked us for the ability to get contracts with former Eastern European nations to help them rebuild the fleet of former Soviet equipment, for the most part, that they have," Webster said. "They're very happy with their tanks and their BMPs and personnel carriers."
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/11/2005 00:32 ||
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#1
Ratz, I was hoping some of this stuff would end up at Bill Jacksons in St. Pete. No I can't find a homepage for them. :<
#2
Most of this stuff is going to be pretty beat up.
Dad said he was astounded at the vehicles and equipment left behind after the African Campaign. Row after row of bulldozers, trucks, etc.
What this does is allow the reserves and guard to replace equipment that is a decade old with all new stuff. Revamping the TOE without having to explain the costs.
#3
Some of that stuff is expensive to maintain and they do have to be maintained. That is why Soviet/Russian equipment was popular. Cheap and basic. Now if we plan to keep Military Assistance Groups [MAGs] in country, I suspect some level of maintenance will be attained. However, just as Congress has a long history of cutting funding to maintenance to save pennies, the ME countries history of corruption makes such efforts iffy for their ability to keep the equipment operational.
BAKU, Nov 10 (KUNA) -- Ukranian defense minister Anatoly Gritsinko said Ukranian forces would complete withdrawal from Iraq by end of this year, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
It quoted Gritsinko as saying that pulling out the forces from Iraq would complete by December 30. "According to the ministry plans, the Ukranian soldiers will celebrate the new year in their homes and with their families in Ukraine," he added.
Pulling out the bulky part of the Ukranian forces in Iraq, which are serving with the US-led coalition troops, would take place on December 20-30.
They've done a good job, and we should thank them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/11/2005 00:23 ||
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#1
So long and thanks for all the fish your support.
#4
"They've done a good job, and we should thank them."
I agree. Many's the time they could have cut and run, but they didn't. The Iraqi's are starting to hold their own, so it seems like a reasonable time for this decision.
In the aftermath of fresh bombings yesterday in Baghdad and Tikrit, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) added his voice to those calling for a new focus. He said the emphasis up to now on rooting out insurgent strongholds through widespread, short-duration raids -- what he termed "sweeping and leaving" -- is not working.
"Rather than focusing on killing and capturing insurgents, we should emphasize protecting the local population, creating secure areas where insurgents find it difficult to operate," the senator said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He added that such an approach would require more troops and resources, arguing against the idea of reducing U.S. forces in Iraq next year.
The persistent ability of enemy groups to move fighters around the country -- eluding raids or replenishing their ranks after taking casualties -- has put pressure on the Pentagon to demonstrate that U.S. tactics are effective. U.S. commanders have acknowledged a measure of frustration at needing to send forces back to some cities and towns where insurgents had returned after being chased out months earlier. But they insist progress is being made.
They also say they already are pursuing a version of the strategy advocated by McCain and other critics. Indeed, for months now, senior officers at the U.S. military command in Baghdad have been using the term "clear and hold" as a shorthand description of their counterinsurgency strategy. The same term was applied by Gen. Creighton W. Abrams Jr. to his Vietnam pacification strategy in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which followed the "search and destroy" campaign of his predecessor, Gen. William C. Westmoreland.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
And he's behind the curve. This is already happening - but it couldn't happen until there were sufficient Iraqi forces to garrison the areas after a sweep. McCain must know this, the asshole. Fuckin' ankle-biter wannabee. I sure hope, for the sake of America, that he never makes it to President - he has too many faces... and I don't trust any of them.
#2
His entire speech was pretty good, he understood we shouldn't be pulling out until the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, and i'm not talking just about the invasion.
#4
"Rather than focusing on killing and capturing insurgents, we should emphasize protecting the local population, creating secure areas where insurgents find it difficult to operate,"
Its being done* Senator. You're a day late. Go grandstand elsewhere.
#6
He is only saying this to get his name in the paper for something that has already happened. The numbnut wants to be president. As a fellow veteran, I appriciate what he has done, but the more wacky he gets as he gets older the more I wish the Vietnam guards had finished the fucking job.
#7
I know, call me a lurker newbie because I only recently stumbled upon this site. But, Iâve been absorbed with other pursuits, doncha know.
Iâm sure that back in the late 60âs John McCain certainly made his grand father and his father proud. But to me, ANY man who is both the son, and, Grandson of U.S. Navy Admirals just HAS to possess a rather overblown sense of over-importance and entitlement. [ ( McVainâs problem ( but more ours, sadly)].
With all the flak that President Bush has been taking, the fact that McVain yet has to pile on with (most recently) âprisoner abuse issuesâ, of all things, just makes me furious!
Being who he is, itâs doubtful that McVain had it that rough at the Hilton. The accounts that Iâve read support that. One would think someone like McCain would know what is at stake. He sucks!
In the dusty Jordanian hometown of the man whose al Qaeda wing in Iraq says it carried out triple bombings of Amman hotels, neighbours and relatives had one message for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: repent.
Wednesday's attacks, the deadliest by Islamic militants in the pro-Western kingdom, killed at least 57 people in luxury hotels in the capital. It also shattered a sense of immunity from suicide attacks that have bloodied neighbouring Iraq.
The bleak industrial town of Zarqa, Zarqawi's birthplace, was seething on Friday, two days after the bombings.
Some residents said Zarqawi deserved death for attacks on his own country. Others vowed personally to hand him over to the security forces should he ever set foot in his hometown.
"If I saw him, I would tell him to repent and try to learn about true religion that does not kill innocent civilians," said Hazem Madadha, 34, who said he was a childhood neighbour of Zarqawi.
"I have very bad feelings toward him. He has hurt the name of Zarqa, Jordan and Islam," he added as he sat in a grocery shop chatting with two cousins of the Jordanian militant in the Ma'soum neighbourhood where Zarqawi grew up.
Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq group said it had attacked the hotels because they were used by U.S. and Israeli spies.
Most of the casualties were Jordanian civilians.
Born Ahmed Fadhil al-Khalayleh, Zarqawi's youth was shaped by the gritty poverty and politics of Zarqa, where Palestinian refugees are mingled with Bedouin tribesmen.
Influenced by radical preachers he met there, Zarqawi left Jordan in 1989 for Afghanistan where fellow Islamist volunteers were fighting the "infidel" Soviet army.
He was among the last of thousands of Arabs who, like Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, went to fight in Afghanistan with U.S., Saudi and Pakistani assistance.
Zarqawi was remembered by neighbours and shopkeepers in Zarqa mainly as a street thug who ultimately turned to religion in the 1980s, adopting a fiercely purist version of Islam.
Some relatives doubted that Zarqawi had masterminded the bombings in his native Jordan, even if they believed him to be behind violence against U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.
"I'm not sure," said Youssef al-Khalayleh, a 26-year-old cousin. "If Abu Musab killed children, it is right to kill him.
"We want to hear from him that he didn't have a hand in any of this. If he was involved in what happened in Amman, we want nothing to do with him," he said.
"I love him, not as a terrorist but as a cousin," he added.
Another cousin, 30-year-old Amjad al-Khalayleh, said he would consider Zarqawi "an enemy for all eternity" if it was proved that he was behind the Amman attacks.
"Maybe he is powerful, but not in the way America shows him to be," he said. "If it is really Abu Musab, we hope he will be held accountable."
Zarqawi became bin Laden's deputy in Iraq after he pledged allegiance to the overall al Qaeda leader in 2004.
Believed to be in his late 30s, he has inspired a seemingly endless supply of militants from across the Arab world to blow themselves up in suicide missions in Iraq.
In Zarqa, residents said security had been tightened since the attacks. Jordanian police were posted on the highway leading into town, monitoring motorists and inspecting trucks.
Inside the city, many people were reluctant to talk about Zarqawi, who was sentenced to death in absentia in 2002 for plotting against U.S. and Israeli targets in the kingdom. Men in traditional Islamic dress almost universally declined to speak.
One such man, a 61-year-old Pakistani toy merchant who said he had worked in Zarqa for years and spoke fluent Arabic, condemned the Amman bombings as the work of "infidels" but declined to say what he thought of Zarqawi.
"I don't know anything," he said. "I just know about children's toys."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 13:24 ||
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... neighbours and relatives had one message for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: repent.
Yeah, "repent" before pitchfork and torch-wielding mobs tanks and bombers come to level our village.
The last time I was here, in April 2004, it was to cover a story about how Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind a plot to blow up locations around this city, possibly killing tens of thousands.
The alleged plan was audacious. A car and a truck packed with explosives would breach the defenses surrounding the compound housing Jordan's General Intelligence Division and set off a massive explosion.
Not only would the bombs strike at the very heart of Jordan's anti-terrorist capability -- imagine wiping out the CIA and FBI in a single strike -- but the mix of chemicals also might create a toxic cloud, threatening everyone in a two-mile radius.
After it thwarted the alleged plot, Jordanian intelligence, perhaps with some hyperbole, said tens of thousands of people could have been killed by the toxic cloud. The Americans, a bit skeptical, put the number lower, but still credited the Jordanians with breaking up a major plot.
Fast forward to Wednesday night. This time, the plot was classic al Qaeda -- three hotels left smoldering and more than 50 killed by near-simultaneous attacks. This time, the terrorists won.
And this time, at least on the Internet, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, is claiming credit for the bombings.
Here's the scary question: How much of what happened in Amman is about Jordan and al-Zarqawi's hatred of the royal family in his native country, and how much of this is about the war in Iraq?
Even before the war in Iraq, al-Zarqawi was targeting Jordan -- and targeting tourists. This was after he spent much of the 1990s in Jordanian prisons charged with subversion.
And, according the Jordanian government, al-Zarqawi was targeting the same Radisson hotel that was bombed this past week. The Jordanians indicted him for a series of planned attacks in the country - also thwarted - that were timed for the millennium.
By that time, al-Zarqawi had fled to Afghanistan. Eventually he would make his way to Iraq, but all the while he was still planning and carrying out attacks in Jordan. Most notably, the Jordanians indicted him for the 2002 murder of American diplomat Laurence Foley, saying he masterminded the assassination plot.
His own defense attorney from the 1990's sees al-Zarqawi as a dangerous man, intent on launching attacks in his own country. Earlier this year he told my colleague Nic Robertson, "I consider Zarqawi a time bomb that could explode in Jordan at any moment. We should not disregard the danger Zarqawi poses here in Jordan."
That was before the hotel attacks. Remember, this is his attorney speaking.
Of course, al-Zarqawi has reached prominence for his bloody and audacious attacks in Iraq. Whether it be the beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg or a string of suicide bombings, al-Zarqawi has left his bloody mark on the conflict in Iraq, to the point where it can and is sometimes argued that he is a more dangerous terrorist than Osama bin Laden.
Finding a home base in Iraq has given al-Zarqawi the ability to become the terrorist equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Now, that destructive force is again aimed at Jordan.
And if the Internet claim is to be believed, he did it with the same tactics that have served him so effectively in Iraq.
Retired Gen. Ali Shukri used to be the late King Hussein's security adviser. He's been closely watching both al-Zarqawi and the war in Iraq.
"You've got to look at Iraq as a staged terror story. First of all it drew terrorists in, they started fighting the Americans and Iraqi government and now they are exporting terrorism."
Shukri reels off the countries that he feels have been on the receiving end of Iraqi-trained and inspired terrorists in recent months - Saudi Arabia, Egypt and now Jordan.
"Now, this is the worrying part, is Iraq becoming the new training ground for terrorists as Afghanistan was before."
Right now, the Jordanians have to start from ground zero -- the blast sites -- and investigate where the trail leads.
"You have to find out who are these suiciders, whether they were local or came across the border and you got to go into the details of their local support. They must have had local support, a mastermind of this operation, the cells that scanned the places that were bombed, the finance they received, the weapons they received, the local hideouts or safe-houses they used," Shukri says.
Whether or not the trail ultimately leads back to al-Zarqawi and Iraq, Shukri says there is another way in which the conflict has made life harder for Jordanian counterterrorism officials.
Several hundred thousand Iraqis now live in Jordan. Just keeping track of them has proven to be overwhelming for Jordan's General Intelligence Division, says Shukri.
"It puts tremendous load on the intelligence and security system in the country to make sure none of them is being used against the well-being of Jordan."
It looks like at least a few slipped through the net.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 13:08 ||
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UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has put off plans to travel to Amman on Thursday after bombings of three international hotels in the Jordanian capital, UN officials said on Wednesday.
"I ain't staying in the Radisson! You can't make me stay in the Radisson!"
Annan had decided at the last minute to visit Amman after canceling a trip to Tehran in response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadâs call for Israel to be âwiped off the map.â
"I ain't going to Teheran, either! Those people are crazy!"
âIn light of current events he put off a trip to Jordan,â UN spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York. The UN leader was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday.
"They can't get me here, can they?"
Annan, in a statement, strongly condemned the âterrorist bombingsâ in Amman and sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the people and government of Jordan.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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"They can't get me here, can they?"
In Jeddah? Of course not, you're among friends there, lol. Cracked me up again, Fred, lol.
Iraqâs Al Qaeda said on Thursday it carried out bomb attacks on three international hotels in Amman because they were used by American and Israeli spies, according to an Internet statement. âThese hotels were chosen because they became the favourite place for American and Israeli intelligence and other western European governments to carry out their invisible attacks which they call the war on terror,â the group said on a Web site generally used to post such claims.
âEgyptian, Palestinian Authority, Saudi and Jordanian spies also operated there to plot against the mujahideen (holy warriors) in Palestine and Iraq,â the group said. âThe hotels are also a safe haven for the infidel Iraqi government to live and hold meetings after our fire has burned their Green Zone,â the group said, referring to a heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. The statement, which could not be immediately verified, was signed by al Qaedaâs spokesman in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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âThese hotels were chosen because they became the favourite place for American and Israeli intelligence and other western European governments to carry out their invisible attacks which they call the war on terror,â
...If they're invisible, then how do they know they're happening? Just askin'.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/11/2005 0:30 Comments ||
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"No survivors? Then who tells the tale?"
Johnny Depp, Black Pearl.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/11/2005 8:39 Comments ||
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The government has detained one more Jemaah Islamiyah or JI member under the Internal Security Act, while another has been released on Suspension Direction.
Mohammad Sharif bin Rahmat is the latest JI member to be detained.
The 35-year-old Singaporean was detained for two years with effect from August 5 this year.
A Government press statement said Mohammad Sharif had been a JI member since 1990.
He had, among other things, undertaken some physical training with the JI and voluntarily participated in military training with a militant group, the Laskar-e-Tayyiba, in Pakistan in preparation for armed conflict.
The JI member released on October 24 this year was Andrew Gerard, alias Ali Ridhaa bin Adbullah.
He was issued with a two-year Order of Detention in January 2002, which was extended by another two years in January 2004.
Gerard, a Muslim convert, will be monitored for his activities and movements under the Suspension Direction.
He was released because the government said he no longer posed a significant threat to Singapore.
Gerard was involved in some operational reconnaissance work for the JI.
FWIW, this is a rather candid assessment of Indonesia's efforts to eradicate terror networks in that country, made by an Indonesian national (who appears to voice the majority sentiments of the Indonesian people). I apologize for posting the entire article, but past experience is that the Jakarta Post link won't last. They usually modify/change/delete the links after a day or so.
The Jakarta Post, Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta, November 11, 2005
The death of Malaysian terror master Azahari bin Husin in a gun battle with police outside a bungalow in the East Java hill resort of Batu on Wednesday marks a new phase in the war against terror that Indonesia began three years ago. His death will indeed be the first major breakthrough for Detachment 88, a specially trained antiterrorist force set up by the National Police in the wake of the first devastating bomb attacks in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002.
Azahari, along with his fellow countryman Noordin M. Top, have become household names in the wrong sense of the word. The Malaysian pair has been identified as the masterminds behind a series of major terrorist attacks in Indonesia, dating back to the 2002 bombings of two night clubs in Bali. Since then, they have added to their list the suicide bombing at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta in August, 2003, the car bomb attack outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta in September, 2004, and the suicide bombs in two restaurants in Bali last month. In all these attacks, their trademarks were clear to the police -- so much so that people (that would be the Indonesian people, who hate this ugly terrorism) began to ask why two wanted aliens could be on the run for more than three years and continue to terrorize the nation without being found.
In the wake of the second round of bomb attacks on Bali last month, we learned that Azahari and Noordin had been able to recruit and train new suicide bombers to do their dirty work, as well as raise the necessary money. They may be the two most wanted men in Indonesia, but most definitely they have not been running. According to the police, they had almost cornered Noordin in a hideout in Semarang earlier on Wednesday, but he managed to escape just before the raid took place. Azahari, by contrast, was not so lucky. Members of Detachment 88, led by Insp. Gen. Gorries Mere, had the house in Batu surrounded. There was a shootout and Azahari and two accomplices threw bombs at the officers before one of the bombs exploded and killed all three men inside. The police claim that Azahari blew himself and two others up must be treated carefully. Azahari may have trained suicide bombers, but he was not suicidal himself.
For the last three years, the failure to catch Azahari and Noordin has been a slap in the face for the National Police, whose task it is, along with the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), to lead the Indonesian war on terror. Not only have they let the two Malaysians slip through their fingers, they also seemed to be one step behind as the pair continued to commit their evil deeds.The overwhelming majority of Indonesians see these guys, and their ilk, as evil and worthy of death. There have been many blunders, too, such as the raid on a house in Bandung from which the two were able to escape, and the wrongful arrest of several people who looked like them.
No wonder foreign experts, including Singapore's grand old man Lee Kuan Yew, unkindly describe Indonesia as a safe haven for those associated with Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian terrorist network with ambitions of turning the entire region into an Islamic state. Many foreign governments have also accused Indonesia of not playing its part in fighting the growing threat of international and regional terrorism. Western governments, like the United States, Australia and Europe, have also poured money and resources in to help beef up the capabilities of the Indonesian Police and intelligence services in the counterterrorism arena. Members of Detachment 88, for example, are trained by Western experts.The fact that Indonesia is letting the West train its people may not seem like a big deal to most of us in the West, but it is. Indonesia is profoundly protective of its sovereignty, almost to the point of paranoia (OK, and sometimes beyond), and is very sensitive to internal criticisms that colonialism is being tolerated. The fact that Indonesia is using Western help cannot be emphasized too much. It is a key indicator that the country is deadly serious about removing the terrorist threat -- to the point of setting aside protectionist and anti-colonialist worries.
The failure to arrest the two Malaysians has overshadowed the other achievements Indonesia has made in this war on terror. From the very beginning, Indonesia was determined to stick to the rule of law, including the presumption of innocence for suspected terrorists, in waging this war. The country has caught and sent to jail many terrorists -- some are even waiting on death row now -- for their parts in the bomb attacks going back to 2003. One of these is JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who is serving time for his part in the first Bali bombing. This is a lot more than the United States, Australia and other countries have done in their own campaigns against terror. Prosecutions are rare or even non-existent in some of these countries.This is a point that seems lost on many in the West, but it is not lost on Indonesians. Regardless of that fact, Indonesia won't stop working to eliminate terrorism in the country, but they do wonder why we are not as aggressive.
There have been times when the government came under pressure to give the security forces, including the military, extra powers, such as detaining people without charge and other draconian measures that supposedly could help them pursue this war more effectively. This did not, however, happen as the public, the House of Representatives and the media were quick to reject such proposals, fearing that these types of powers would eventually be used, or rather abused, by those in power. Even the decision by the President last month to bring the Indonesian Military (TNI) into the campaign against terror has been received with skepticism and warnings of the return to the militaristic years of Soeharto, with all the consequences that would entail. Following the President's decision, the TNI has revived the territorial function of its non-commissioned officers at village level, who, during the Soeharto years, were used effectively for the early detection of any antigovernment sentiments. We only have TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto's word that this function will not be abused. So, despite the fears of allowing a totalitarian regime to get going again in the country, Indonesia is so much more concerned about eliminating terror cells that the country is willing to take risks.
At the end of the day, it is the National Police, more than any other institution, that should lead the war on terror in this country. Detachment 88's achievement in ending Azahari's reign of terror could not have been timelier, coming just as the nation was losing confidence in the police and we were about to resign ourselves to living with a constant terrorist threat every day. Now more than ever, there is no room complacency.
Noordin is still at large, and he, and whoever else he has recruited, can still do harm and could even run amock. After Azahari's death, the police, particularly Detachment 88, must work even harder to catch Noordin and destroy whatever is left of his terrorist network.
#2
Article: The country has caught and sent to jail many terrorists -- some are even waiting on death row now -- for their parts in the bomb attacks going back to 2003. One of these is JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who is serving time for his part in the first Bali bombing. This is a lot more than the United States, Australia and other countries have done in their own campaigns against terror. Prosecutions are rare or even non-existent in some of these countries.
This is false. The West has aggressively gone after the people responsible for terrorist attacks and jailed the people responsible for inciting or financing attacks. Most of the people jailed in the US for terror-related activities have never carried out a terrorist attack. The vast majority were not even close to operational - some were jailed for terrorist conspiracies - i.e. merely talking about carrying out terror attacks - conversations that were caught on tape, presumably with the help of cooperating Muslim informants. Many were arrested and convicted via sting operations where FBI agents lured unwitting Muslims into helping people whom they thought were terrorists. Indonesia has a whole different problem - it is having problems catching and convicting people who were responsible for hundreds of actual deaths.* Even Spain (!) has caught everyone involved in the train bombings. And when Spanish security forces surround terrorists, they don't get away. I wish I could say the same for Indonesia.
* We don't coddle terrorists. McVeigh is dead. The Pakistani terrorist who shot several people at CIA headquarters is dead - and we had to reach all the way to Pakistan to get him. The blind sheikh who incited the 1993 WTC bombing is serving a life term. And only a handful of people were killed in that bombing. In contrast, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who incited the Bali bombing, will serve less than 10 years for an attack that killed 200 people.
The people at the Jakarta Post are either ignorant of anti-terror efforts in the West or a bunch of compulsive liars. In the West, we generally arrest these people before attacks occur or land on their heads after they occur. In Indonesia, the government has problems arresting, convicting and imprisoning terrorists *after* attacks occur, let alone before they occur. This is why Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew views Indonesia as a terror haven - he's no dummy - he calls it as he sees it.
#4
Elmenter Snineque1852 wrote: Lee Kuan Yew . . . he's no dummy -- Let's see, that's the guy who outlawed bubblegum in his city-state country, right?
Elmenter Snineque1852 wrote: In Indonesia, the government has problems arresting, convicting and imprisoning terrorists *after* attacks occur, let alone before they occur. Hmmmm . . . I disagree. Iâm more than willing to admit Indonesia has its fair share of problems, but they havenât been the slackers you portray in the WOT. And, they do have reason to wonder about us:
A suspected top al-Qaeda operative who escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan poses a serious threat to Southeast Asian security, anti-terror officials said Wednesday. Some said Washington failed to tell them Omar al-Farouq was free. Al-Farouq, born in Kuwait to Iraqi parents, was considered one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in 2002 and turned him over to the United States.
See Link. Handing Farouq over to the U.S. was not a walk in the park for Indonesia, but it was done because it was the right thing to do.
The islamofascists are angry at the Indonesian government precisely because the Indonesian government has acted to put an end to islamofascism and terrorism. At least four people have been sentenced to death by Indonesian courts for terrorist activities, and over thirty convicted and given prison terms [in Indonesian prisons] of three years to life. See, e.g., Jakarta issues death sentence for embassy bombings. Hundreds of others have been arrested and questioned [by Indonesian methods].
Has any Western country sentenced a islamofascist terrorist to death (apart from the blessed summary dispatch of military action)? Having the Courts convict and sentence to death is a litmus test for a societyâs morals.
#5
His death will indeed be the first major breakthrough for Detachment 88, a specially trained antiterrorist force set up by the National Police in the wake of the first devastating bomb attacks in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002.
cingold, while I appreciate such a detailed report, the above passage remains a glaring reminder of just how (I'm going to be really polite here and say) inept Indonesia's Detachment 88 has been.
It is now November 2005 and THREE SOLID YEARS have passed before we finally have a modicum of resolution with respect to apprehending any masterminds of the original Bali atrocity. I am still unable to regard Bashir's detention as much more than a conciliatory gesture and therefore look to other more concrete examples, of which Husin's demise is a sorrowfully singular demonstration.
If, as you say, it is "the Indonesian people, who hate this ugly terrorism" why is Bashir, having openly advocated (from jail, no less) use of nuclear attacks against the West still being treated with kid gloves? One would think the Indonesian people's adoration of this accomplice to atrocity would have ceased long ago. Instead, Indonesiaâs government tiptoes in the presence of this convicted terrorist. Attempts to commute any portion of Bashirâs sentence (amidst furious international protest) remain a sterling example of such soft-pedaling.
You claim Bashir is an anomaly. I maintain he is not. In support of my stance I point towards Indonesiaâs refusal to ban the terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah. What is their pretense for this? Outwardly, officials claim that JI does not exist so that there can be no banning of a nonexistent entity. All such mental gymnastics aside, a more likely explanation is the governmentâs unwillingness to ban an organization whose name translates to âIslamic Communityâ (or some approximation thereof). Add to this how (the âSmiling Bomberâ) Amrozi was given so many unrestrained opportunities to exhibit his gloating satisfaction over complicity in the Bali atrocity.
These numerous and glaring examples point towards an Indonesia that is not quite so mantled in any garb of righteousness. Instead, I continue to find a rather cynical and lopsided accounting for how this Southeast Asian nation is going about the interdiction and prosecution of terrorist atrocities.
OFF TOPIC SIDEBAR: cingold, if you wish to press your continuing accusations of me having a subversive agenda, please restate them now. Recently, you quite honorably ascribed a degree of quality to some of my contributions here. I will happily rebut whatever falsehoods you continue to accuse me of. First and foremost are your repeated accusations that I maintain a âkill them allâ attitude towards Muslims. I welcome you to give proof and reconcile this particular attribution with how frequently I have been belabored at Rantburg for my own defense of (what seems to be, increasingly mythical) moderate Muslims.
#6
Prior to 2002, TNI (the military) were responsible for anti-terrorism operations. There were strong suspicions TNI was actively promoting terrorism in places like East Timor and the Moluccas. It wouldn't surprise me if they had a hand in JI.
I tend to agree with cingold, the glass is half full and still filling.
#7
cingold: Has any Western country sentenced a islamofascist terrorist to death (apart from the blessed summary dispatch of military action)?
The Pakistani terrorist who shot several CIA staff at Langley was sentenced to death. He was injected not too long ago. The planners of 9/11 are being held incommunicado until they are all accounted for, upon which we will undoubtedly dust off the electric chair. Remember - as of this point, these people have life terms - we are holding them without trial, outside of the bounds of constitution protections. Indonesia has problems merely incarcerating them, let alone convicting them. As to the escape from American custody, note that we are holding tens of thousands of jihadis and some of them get away every so often. Indonesia can't even apprehend them, so there aren't very many to escape from custody. And the operations they mount to capture them on Indonesian soil are a joke, with the occasional exception trumpeted at the Jakarta Post.
#8
Iâll be as succinct as I can: While Iâll readily agree it is more brackish than Iâd hope to see, Iâm singularly unimpressed with those who would piss in the pond we must all drink from.
#10
Indonesia has the largest muslim population of any country in the world IIRC. It has an economy that hasn't even begun to emerge fully out of mere natural resources extraction, it has hundreds of languages spoken, spans islands ... in other words, it's a challenging place to rule effectively.
While the water may indeed be brackish there, Cingold makes an important point. For the Indonesian government to get Western help and to take open action against the jihadis to ANY degree takes guts. I'd like more from every country in the world - ours included - but their achievement should be recognized.
#11
cingold, I don't see anyone pissing in the punchbowl calling for deposing Indonesia's government. What I do see is some valid criticisms of a country that has been cause for serious concern. I also see some valid points being made with respect to America's own track record and any criticism thereof. So far, we're still doing all the heavy lifting.
When Indonesia finally silences a treacherous maggot like Bashir, I'll start modifying my opinion. Yes, they do seem to be making some laudable progress, even if it is only in rehabilitating their own corrupted internal security forces. And, yes, you can be sure that a steady diet of brackish fare lends to more than a little dyspepsia cynicism.
#12
What ticks me off is that you have foreigners like Azahari and Noordin, who can't operate in Malaysia among their own people (because the Malaysian government has been vigilant and is arresting and putting these people in jail indefinitely a la Guantanomo), operating in Indonesia for years - where they stick out like sore thumbs (because as soon as they open their mouths it is immediately clear that they are Malaysian). How is this possible if the Indonesian govt has been dealing with the problem?
#13
Gawd, Zenster, I could spend my entire afternoon responding to your pseudo-intellectual tirades, which are based on a lack of information and glaring ethnocentrism, but I'll simply reitereate lopt, (unless I get a break in my schedule):
" . . . Cingold makes an important point. For the Indonesian government to get Western help and to take open action against the jihadis to ANY degree takes guts. I'd like more from every country in the world - ours included - but their achievement should be recognized."
Zen, your armchair bitch sessions are getting really boring. It's like you vascilate between saying important things (like yesterday) and drivel (today). I believe that's because you have a passion-driven, secondary agenda to promote your own self-interest and that of your special interest group. Is your aim to attempt to enflame conservatives into your own black and white thinking? If so, you are aiding the terrorists because you seem to refuse to realize that this is a complicated issue, and that building alliances is the only key to success in defeating global terrorism.
"And the operations they mount to capture them on Indonesian soil are a joke . . . "
I will reiterate lopt again:
"Indonesia has the largest muslim population of any country in the world . . . It has an economy that hasn't even begun to emerge fully out of mere "natural resources extraction, it has hundreds of languages spoken, spans islands ... in other words, it's a challenging place to rule effectively.
In other words, we're not looking at a fully developed modern nation with a complete infrastructure as in the US or the UK. So get real and give them time. In the meanwhile BUILD friendly alliances and STOP insulting and criticizing those countries that are trying.
As RG said:
"Indonesia, Morroco, Jordan, Iraq, all demonstrating against Al Qaeda. The only ones world-wide NOT demonstrating against Al Qaeda are America's liberals."
It seems like the only ones Zen and Elm are "demonstrating" against are third world governments attempting to reinvent their entire societies in the direction of anti-terrorism.
#15
Elmenter Snineque1852 wrote of how pro Western the Malaysian government has been and that Malaysians are easily identifiable in Indonesia, because "as soon as they open their mouths it is immediately clear that they are Malaysian."
Before you jump on the Malaysia is so cool bandwagon, you might want to read something like âShould America blame itself for the Muslim world's hatred?â which addresses some serious problems in Malaysia regarding attitudes toward the West, or âThailand: Blood on the borderâ which raises some serious questions about Malaysiaâs level of commitment to recognizing that terrorist activities need to be eliminated.
Dan, tentang kalau bisa tahu orang orang dari Malaysia kapan dia didalam Indonesia, kapan saya anak kecil aku tinggal didalam Medan, Sumatra, dan bisa berbicara bahasa Indonesia, dan ada waktu untuk berbicara dengan orang Malaysia kapan aku pergi ke Singapura dan Pinang, dan itu tidak betul. Itulah lebih seperti mengaku perbedaan di antara Manitoban Canadian dan North Dakotan American daripada kamu mungkin berpikir. Di hampir setiap hal, mereka kedua berbicara dalam bahasa Indonesia.
Which is to say:
And, about knowing if a person is from Malaysia when in Indonesia, when I was a kid I lived in Medan, Sumatra, and speak Indonesian, and spoke with Malaysians while I was in Singapore and Penang, and thatâs not true. It is a lot more like recognizing the difference between a Manitoban Canadian and a North Dakotan American than you might think. In almost every respect, they both speak Indonesian.
#16
I believe that's because you have a passion-driven, secondary agenda to promote your own self-interest and that of your special interest group. Is your aim to attempt to enflame conservatives into your own black and white thinking?
My "own special interest group"? That's hilarious. Please feel free to define whatever the heck that might be.
My aim is to obtain a rational and balanced worldview. Enflaming people is the work of trolls and something that I particularly eschew, regardless of your own baseless accusations.
If so, you are aiding the terrorists because you seem to refuse to realize that this is a complicated issue, and that building alliances is the only key to success in defeating global terrorism.
I want America's alliances built with functional and dedicated opponents to terrorism. We have already seen the worth of dallying with wretches like Marcos or the disgusting House of Saud. Yes, fighting terrorism is a "complicated issue".
Making a significant dent in terrorist activities may require wholly new strategies. This is why I have suggested thorough examination of such unconventional approaches as decapping foreign governments (like Iran), holding hostage Mecca and Medina as a deterrent, and the use of hunter / killer teams to begin decimating the ranks of Islamist imams and operatives.
I do not claim my suggestions to be the best, merely ones that may well require consideration due to the asymmetric nature of the global war on terrorism. America simply does not have sufficient boots-on-the-ground to address existing terrorist regimes on all fronts.
We must now consider swifter solutions. Time is most definitely NOT on our side. Thank goodness cohesive military doctrine and advanced technology ARE. One central lesson we must garner from Iraq is that, much like alliance building, nation building is an exceptionally time consuming occupation (so to speak).
While bit players like Jordan and Indonesia have found themselves on the receiving end of terrorism's unwanted attentions, it is America that stands the most to lose and it is our nation that is centered most firmly in the crosshairs of terrorist planners.
If making a habit of lobbing cruise missiles into the legislative sessions of terror sponsoring countries is what it takes to prevent another 9-11 atrocity, then launch them now. France has provided our world a very instructive lesson with respect to ignoring the threat of Islamist agendas.
A former student of a key Malaysian terror suspect who was killed in a dramatic police raid in Indonesia this week professed astonishment Friday at his true identity, calling him a fun teacher and passionate soccer fan.
Lum Chih Feng, 27, who took a class on thesis writing and property valuation taught by Azahari bin Husin at the University Teknologi Malaysia, said his teacher once spoke about bomb-making during a lecture, but never went into details.
"He said making bombs is not difficult, but he just stopped there ... and I can't remember in what context," Lum told The Associated Press.
Lum said he and his friends were stunned when they heard that Azahari - whom they considered a "fun guy" - was wanted throughout Southeast Asia, reviled for his bomb-making skills, and suspected of involvement in several deadly attacks including the 2002 bombs on Indonesia's Bali island.
Azahari, who was believed to be in his 40s, never exhibited any traits that the students linked to Islamic extremism, Lum said.
"Unlike other lecturers who were all the while wearing (Muslim skullcaps) and robes, Dr. Azahari never once wore such clothes," he said. "Almost the entire class enjoyed his lectures because he used to get us thinking."
He studied mechanical engineering at Adelaide University in Australia before getting a doctorate in property valuation from Reading University in England in 1990.
Lum said Azahari was a jovial man who talked about going to watch English Premier League soccer games when he studied in Britain.
"He often told us how he used to support the English teams and there was one occasion when he demonstrated how he used to remove his T-shirt when his team scored a goal ... if I remember correctly, he was a Manchester United fan," Lum said separately,according to The Star newspaper Friday.
Authorities believe Azahari joined the al-Qaeda linked regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah - blamed for a series of bombings and failed plots in Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore - after he stopped teaching at the university.
Azahari fled Malaysia, leaving behind his wife and two children, when police uncovered his alleged role in the terror group during a crackdown after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
He is known to have received bomb-making training in Mindanao in the southern Philippines in 1999, and advanced training in Afghanistan in 2000. He and another militant died in a policeraid on their hideout in Batu, 860 kilometers (530 miles) east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Wednesday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 01:29 ||
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#1
He said making bombs is not difficult, but he just stopped there
Authorities believe Azahari joined the al-Qaeda ..Jamaah Islamiyah ...after he stopped teaching at the university.
apparently not if this student's recollection is correct.
#2
The way it's been described, making bombs isn't difficult. It's making bombs that don't explode until scheduled, and do explode then, and not just with a damp pfffft, that's the difficult part.
Hizbullah and Amal ministers walked out of a Cabinet session Thursday, protesting the government's reactions to a speech made by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"I dunno why we dunnit. We just looked at each other, and it was like we were in Islamabad, so we tromped out..."
In an unprecedented attack on the Lebanese government, Assad said Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had allowed Lebanon to become a base for Syria's enemies, describing him as a "slave following the orders of another slave."
Oh! Civil, well-reasoned discourse, is it?
"The truth we see today is that Lebanon has become a passageway, a factory and a financier of these conspiracies," Assad said in a televised speech on Thursday.
But strangely enough, it wasn't a Syrian bigwig who blew up...
Siniora responded mildly, vowing Lebanon would remain committed "to the will of life, independence, freedom, democracy and sovereignty. Lebanon will remain committed to being part of the Arab nation and its causes ... despite all that is being said or will be said."
Pretty mild response, I'd say. So what's the Hezbollah bitch?
Ministers from Lebanon's two main Shiite parties Mohammad Fneish, Tarrad Hamade, Fawzi Salloukh, Talal Sahili and Mohammad Khalifeh withdrew from the heated Cabinet session after Assad's speech became the dominant topic. Speaking later, Hamade said: "Siniora should have referred to the media and said whatever he wants about Assad's speech."
Assad made charges against the Lebanese gummint which, if untrue, are slanderous and demeaning. So the PM wasn't supposed to discuss them with his cabinet? That must be Islamic logic.
"The Cabinet session was transformed into a platform for immediate and personal reactions," he added.
"Cheeze, it pisses me off when he sez stuff like that," Siniora stated to the cabinet.
"That does it! We're walking out!" responded Hezbollah and Amal.
Fneish said he was not ready to take any position before consulting with Hizbullah.
"I need somebody to tell me what my opinion is."
"There was an insistence on discussing Assad's speech so we decided to withdraw," he said. In remarks following the session, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the Cabinet rejected the statements made by Assad, and reiterated its trust in Siniora.
What were they expected to do? A year ago, they'd have said something like "Oh, yasss! That's quite true!" and sent another load of tribute to earn forgiveness.
The Cabinet stressed its commitment to the establishment of brotherly relations with Syria.
"Which is not the same as having sex with them."
It also underlined the need to preserve national unity to overcome challenges facing the country. Asked about the withdrawal of Hizbullah and Amal ministers from the session, he said: "Withdrawal is one of their democratic rights."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Why not just beat the crap out of each other like they do in Taiwan or South Korea?
Okay. Who called it?
Pirate attacks off Somalia's coast are being organised from command vessels, or "mother ships", the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has said. It says speedboats are being launched from ships that prowl the routes of the Indian Ocean, searching for targets. Last week, a luxury cruise liner off Somalia's coast was attacked by pirates with rocket-propelled grenades.
The IMB says pirates are still holding seven ships and their crews, seized in the world's most dangerous waters. In the past few days, at least four other vessels are reported to have been attacked.
Captain Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB, says pirate attacks are being launched from at least two "mother ships". Real simple solution to that...
Capt Mukundan says speedboats carry out the attempted hijacks before returning to the larger vessels floating at sea. This means even ships sailing far off the coast are vulnerable to attack. He says the situation off the coast of Somalia appears to be completely out of control. Ya don't say?
The IMB has recorded more than 30 hijack attempts in the region since March. These latest attacks follow a thwarted attempt by pirates in small boats to commandeer the luxury liner, the Seabourn Spirit, which was steaming some 100 miles (160km) off the Somali coast last week. But the liner's crew took evasive action, repelling the attackers without returning fire. Might be time to return fire, perhaps?
1. A converted merchie "Q-ship" with some concealed 25mm or 40mm guns to patrol the sealanes.
2. A 688-boat to go after the mother ships.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/11/2005 19:13 Comments ||
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#3
Or a P3C out of Deigo Garcia with a couple of AGM-84's. Wide area Search AND Destroy, all on 1 platform. Good response time too.
Posted by: Dave ||
11/11/2005 21:13 Comments ||
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#4
The solution is ridiculously simple. Take a page from our nuclear submarine force. Whenever our subs surface, they look for an "all's well" signal from home. If such reassurance is not forthcoming within a certain time window they proceed with launch sequence authentification.
All large passenger transports and commercial ocean-going vessels, especially LNG and oil supertankers, should be required to have GPS transceivers that are piggy-backed with an "all's well" code transmission device. The system must be cycled at least once each day. Make it a mandatory criteria for obtaining insurance on the vessel.
To prevent pirates or terrorists from catching on, a "false positive" code could make the ship's transceiver console go "green" despite a distress code having been transmitted in actuality. That way, a ship's crew could seem to comply with a captor's demand that they enter the right code and yet still summon help. Only senior crew members would possess the codes and a "canary" system would ensure traceability to whichever given individual entered daily clearance notifications or distress responses.
Cost? Perhaps a one-time $1,000 charge per ship (at worst per year), including crew training and financing of a global monitoring center. This represents a tiny fraction of any seaworthy craft's commercial value.
Why has Osama bin Laden gone silent? While his lieutenant in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has not only stepped up the insurgency there but also claimed responsibility for three suicide bombs in Jordan this week, the al Qaeda leader has released no audio message since last December and has not been seen on video for over a year.
Bin Laden's longest public silence since the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 is unlikely to be because he has suddenly gone shy, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remarked ironically to German magazine Der Spiegel last month.
Intelligence officials and security analysts see two explanations -- that bin Laden is so tightly holed up that he cannot smuggle out messages, or that he is biding his time and preparing a major announcement.
"Some of the means he had to communicate have dried up," said a U.S. counter-terrorism official, who declined to elaborate. "He's isolated, and has difficulty communicating."
He described this as an impediment to al Qaeda's propaganda. Western intelligence officials say such messages, usually shown on Arab television channels such as al Jazeera, have a significant mobilising impact on potential followers.
In the absence of new material from bin Laden, widely believed to be hiding in inaccessible mountain terrain between Pakistan and Afghanistan, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has become the chief mouthpiece of the al Qaeda leadership, issuing one audio and five video tapes since the start of this year.
"We have no indications (bin Laden) is no longer alive. We haven't seen any messages from bin Laden but we have seen messages from Zawahri," German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning told reporters this week.
"I believe this whole communications channel that was built up in Pakistan by the al Qaeda structure is still quite effective and is functioning well."
That may suggest that Zawahri and bin Laden are hiding at separate locations, said Mustafi Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai.
Or it could be that bin Laden has deliberately delegated communications to his deputy in order to maximise the dramatic impact of his own rare appearances, like his video message just before last year's U.S. presidential election.
According to this theory, "Osama bin Laden will appear when there is a major, major operation again ... This will have maximum publicity," Alani said.
"This will give the impression there is some sort of structure still functioning within al Qaeda, that the leader will only appear when there is something very important, but the day-to-day dealing with the media is left to somebody else."
Alani noted it was also Zawahri, not bin Laden, who in July purportedly wrote a long letter to Zarqawi which was intercepted by the United States and cited by Washington as evidence of splits between Zarqawi and the al Qaeda leadership.
The letter questioned some of Zarqawi's tactics, including attacks on Shi'ite Muslims and the beheading of hostages, although it also thanked him for his "heroic acts" and invoked blessings on him.
Zarqawi -- whose group denied the authenticity of the letter -- has not only cemented his reputation as al Qaeda's most ruthless and successful field commander in Iraq, but also struck in his native Jordan this week with the suicide bombings of three Amman hotels in which at least 56 people were killed.
German spy chief Hanning said Zarqawi's highly visible campaign in Iraq and beyond was increasingly making him a model for militants in Europe as well as across the Middle East.
But Alani said there was no prospect of Zarqawi supplanting bin Laden in influence.
"He cannot compete with Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is too big, too important ... When you say al Qaeda, inevitably people link it to Osama bin Laden and this sort of position will not be filled by a field commander like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."
While Zarqawi is the movement's top operational figure, Alani said bin Laden had long since assumed a mainly symbolic role as the original al Qaeda has become more fragmented and diffuse, with scattered groups and cells looking to him as a spiritual mentor.
"The question of whether he is in the public eye or not apparently has minimal impact on operations," he said.
"Al Qaeda has passed this stage. Al Qaeda can really operate without a bin Laden, without Afghanistan as a base and without a headquarters, command and control ... Now we have al Qaedas, rather than al Qaeda."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 13:30 ||
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#3
And what's with that Duke professor with the throbbing erection pointing in my general direction? His wife's not doing the job at home or something? Does he know what we do to his type?
#4
Time for serious around-the-clock surveillance of Al Jazeera offices where the next videotape might get dropped off or internet file delivered. A big order, but lets see NSA & CIA earn their pay.
Whistling Dixie How actors, journalists, musicians, ministers, politicians, professors, and ordinary Joes pass themselves off as America's heroes.
by Anne Morse, The Weekly StandardEFL; RTWT.
WHEN WALTER WILLIAMS, America's last living Civil War veteran, died on December 19, 1959, the city of Houston gave him a funeral procession the likes of which the town had never before seen. A week of official mourning was declared, and more than 100,000 people lined the streets to salute the passing of the last link to a war that had torn America apart.
There was just one problem. Williams had never served in the Civil War. He was a fraud, as writer William Marvel discovered when he began researching a story for Blue & Gray magazine a few years ago. . . .
The article goes on to list a number of examples of phony vets, including a few that might surprise you . . .
Many frauds claim veteran status in order to boost their careers. Phonies abound in Hollywood, on Wall Street, in politics, in academia, and in journalism. For instance, silent screen star Tom Mix claimed to have charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. In reality, Mix never saw combat--unless one counts the time his wife shot him. Military records list Mix as a deserter. . . .
Then there are the political "veterans" whose war records are even more dubious than their campaign promises. In 1984, Robert Sorensen was a Connecticut state representative running for reelection. When challenged on his opposition to opening legislative sessions with the Pledge of Allegiance, Sorensen huffily replied: "My patriotism should not be questioned by anyone because . . . when my country called me into service, I fought in Vietnam."
Except that he didn't, as his opponent quickly discovered. Even then, Sorensen brazened it out, employing an excuse that, for sheer audacity, can't be beat. "For the first time ever, the American public had before them a war in their living rooms," he explained. "Every single person in this United States fought in that war in Vietnam. We all felt the anguish that those people felt. So in a sense I was there."
Veterans who actually were in Vietnam being shot at with real bullets, might be forgiven for thinking that, in a sense, Sorensen was a horse's ass. (Sorenson withdrew from the race.) . . .
Senate candidate Cindy Sheehan supporter, Iraq war opponent, Arab News op-ed columnist, and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke also ran on his Vietnam "war record," claiming he'd participated in rice drops behind enemy lines for the CIA. Real Vietnam veterans exposed him. Duke's only military "service," it turned out, consisted of brief membership in the ROTC at Louisiana State University, where authorities kicked him out when Duke began airing his nutty beliefs.
Academics have also been caught fabricating feats of military prowess. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis apologized (sort of) for his imaginary service in Vietnam, where he claimed to have been the commander of a platoon of combat paratroopers from the famed 101st Airborne and a member of General William Westmoreland's staff. (When Ellis returned home from his make-believe trip to Vietnam, he went on to perform imaginary civil rights work in Mississippi.) . . .
And then there's the really evil ones . . .
A few days ago the St. Louis Post-Dispatch exposed a different kind of fake: One who's making the kind of atrocity claims that got John Kerry noticed 34 years ago.
Former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey served with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Iraq for nearly a year during 2003. During that time, he claims, he and other Marines (whom he labeled "psychopathic killers") deliberately gunned down innocent Iraqi civilians, fired on peaceful protesters, and shot a 4-year-old child through the head at a checkpoint. Or was it a 6-year-old?
"How is a 6-year-old child with a bullet in his head a terrorist, because that is the youngest I killed," Massey told an audience at Cornell University. Or was it a girl? "That's war: a 6-year old girl with a bullet hole in her head at an American checkpoint," he told a Vermont audience.
Except, as Massey later acknowledged to the Post-Dispatch, he'd never actually shot any child, boy or girl. "I meant, that's what my unit did," he explained. Except that it didn't, according to Massey's fellow Marines and the journalists who covered them. Nor did they target civilians and protestors. In fact, as the Post-Dispatch documents, each one of Massey's claims is "either demonstrably false or exaggerated --according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit."
Nevertheless, Massey's lies have earned him the usual rewards of the anti-war Left: A book deal, invitations to speak at elite colleges, and a place of honor with Cindy Sheehan's traveling circus. Confronted by the Post-Dispatch with the complete lack of corroboration for his atrocity tales, Massey merely shrugs. "Admitting guilt is a hard thing to do," he says.
It sure is. . . .
Actually, it's usually not hard to tell the real heroes from the posers. The real heroes are usually the guys who don't brag about being heroes.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/11/2005 06:51 ||
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My personal favorite - Rather signed up with the Marines only once, and "never got through Marine recruit training because he couldn't do the physical activity," Burkett says. And he notes that Rather was "discharged less than four months later on May 11, 1954 for being medically unfit." And yet, Rather has been known to brag about his "career" in the Marines.
Rather has "made such a big deal out of this 'I'm a Marine' thing," Burkett says. "This is like a guy who flunks out of Harvard running around saying he graduated from Harvard. "You're not a real Marine until you get out of basic training. And Rather never did."
Even worse, the network anchor who ferociously attacked both Vice President Dan Quayle and President George W. Bush for avoiding Vietnam service himself took steps to avoid service in the Korean War. While a student at Sam Houston University in the early 1950s, Rather joined the Army Reserve, "thus avoiding the possibility of being drafted," Burkett notes. By the time Rather graduated, the Korean War was history.
"The second the Korean War was over, and he wasn't in jeopardy anymore, he dropped out of the Army Reserve," Burkett says. And that's when Rather enlisted in the Marine Corps.
Having failed as a fighting man, he went on to fight for the truth, even if it wasn't accurate.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/11/2005 7:44 Comments ||
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A small but maybe yummy nit to pick.... While a student at Sam Houston University in the early 1950s,
At time it was the Sam Houston Institute for Teachers.
#6
After I put this up, I realized I'd left out the best one:
Going through life feeling cheap and accursed cannot be pleasant--which is why, presumably, so many gentlemen go through it pretending they shot down the Red Baron, survived the Bataan Death March, or helped capture Saddam Hussein, as some fraud has probably claimed to have done while an admirer paid for his drink. Those who encounter these phony heroes will likely go home with a good story. But nothing they hear will top the true story of the man who wandered into a chapter of the American Legion in Washington state a few years ago wanting to become a member. Like many stories of military frauds, this one comes by way of champion hoax-exposer B. G. Burkett.
The applicant--who was Asian American--filled out a form indicating he was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and had been honorably discharged. He became a valued member of the chapter, eventually winning office as the chapter commander.
There was just one hitch. This man was a Vietnam veteran, all right. But he'd neglected to mention that he'd fought for North Vietnam. Once this shocking fact was revealed--despite his popularity with his fellow vets--the soldier's membership was gone with the wind.
"Uh, sorry . . . Charlie."
Posted by: Mike ||
11/11/2005 9:08 Comments ||
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#7
A quick google of Actors military service -
This is a partial list of actors who suspended their careers to serve in the United States Armed Forces after America was attacked on December 7, 1941 â¦
Eddie Albert - U.S. Navy ⦠Saw combat on Saipan and Tarawa. Earned the Bronze Star.
Gene Autry â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠Flew cargo planes in China, Burma and India
Humphrey Bogart â U.S. Navy ⦠Wounded in World War I, he tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor but was turned down because of his age.
Neville Brand - U.S. Army ⦠Wounded in action
Jackie Coogan â U.S. Army Air Corps ... Volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group
James Daly â U.S. Army and U.S. Navy
Sammy Davis, Jr. â U.S. Army ⦠Assigned to Special Services Command
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. â U.S. Navy ... Served on a battleship and as a commando raider. Helped to organize the forerunners of today's Navy SEALs.
Henry Fonda - U.S. Navy ... Served aboard a destroyer in the Pacific. Earned a Bronze Star for Valor.
Glenn Ford â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Earned a number of citations and awards for combat action. After the war, he transferred his commission to the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Clark Gable â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠Enlisted in 1942 at age 41. Volunteered for combat duty and flew missions over Germany. Earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
Charlton Heston â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠B-25 gunner; saw action in the Pacific.
William Holden â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠Served 1942-1945. His brother, a U.S. Navy pilot, was killed in the Pacific in 1944.
Brian Keith â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Saw combat on Rabal
Werner Klemperer â U.S. Army ⦠Stationed in Hawaii as a Military Policeman, he auditioned for and was accepted into Maurice Evans' Special Services unit.
Nancy Kulp â U.S. Navy ⦠Served as a Navy WAVE
Bert Lancaster â U.S. Army ⦠Served in Tunisia and Italy
Tim McCoy - Served in both World War I and World War II
Ed McMahon â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Became a fighter pilot in 1944. Recalled to active duty in 1952 for the Korean War and flew 85 combat missions.
Burgess Meredith â U.S. Army Air Corps
Glenn Miller â U.S. Army ⦠Assigned to the Army Specialist Corps. Convinced the Military that he could modernize the Army Band and improve the morale of the troops. Organized the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. His plane disappeared on 15 December 1944 over the English Channel.
Wayne Morris â U.S. Navy ⦠Flew 57 combat missions in the Pacific. Shot down seven Japanese aircraft, becoming an âAceâ. Credited with assisting the sinking of five Japanese warships.
Lee Powell â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Saw action at Tarawa and Saipan before being killed in action in the Marianas.
Tyrone Power â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Enlisted immediately after Pearl Harbor. Flew wounded Marines from Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Gene Raymond - Served in both World War II and Vietnam
Ronald Reagan â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠Enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1937; commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and was called to active duty in 1942. Because of a hearing loss, he was not allowed to fly, so he was assigned to make training films.
John Russell â U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Wounded at Guadalcanal
Robert Ryan - U.S. Marine Corps ⦠Served with the O.S.S. in Yugoslavia
Rod Serling â U.S. Army ⦠Severely wounded by shrapnel during the invasion of the Philippines
Jimmy Stewart â U.S. Army Air Corps ⦠Flew B-17 and B-24 combat missions, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, France's Croix de Guerre and 7 Battle Stars. His son, 1st Lt. Ronald McLean, was killed in Vietnam in 1969.
Lewis Stone - Served in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II
These actors attempted to serve but were turned down because of medical conditions ⦠Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Peter Lawford, Gregory Peck, George Raft, John Wayne and Richard Widmark
After Sept 11, 2001 - ?
Michael Von vouches that Bruce Willis tried, but like the was turned down. iirc age.
#9
Two ironies of military records. The first was Edward M. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, who was convinced that after the Civil War, there was going to be litigation beyond anyone's wildest imaginings. For this reason, he directed that every scrap of paper that was created or made available to the War Department be saved. And when Confederate records were captured, that they, too, were added to the immense pile.
Because of him, in US history at the time of the Civil War we now have an amazing and useful demographic survey of the US, to include information about every soldier on both sides of the war. American geneology began in earnest with Edward M. Stanton.
The other irony was the tremendous loss of military records information from World War I, World War II, and the Korean Conflict (1916-1964)in a terrible fire in 1973. And though efforts have been made to reconstruct this terrible loss, we actually know more about the US military during the Civil War than we do about the composition of the US army in WWI, WWII, and Korea.
Actually, it's usually not hard to tell the real heroes from the posers. The real heroes are usually the guys who don't brag about being heroes. isn't that one of life's little truths!
â¦At 19, James escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. âThe sea was rough,â he recalled. âWe were more afraid of drowning than the Germans.â
The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers werenât heavy enough to detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on the screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.
#15
Let's not forget Ted Williams (WWII and Korea), Bob Dole (WWII), Daniel Inouye (WWII), and John McCain (Vietnam).
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/11/2005 15:42 Comments ||
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even Elvis served. Tom Harkin served as well, he just lies about it, a la Sen Kerry
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/11/2005 15:46 Comments ||
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Another odd veteran fact: the British actor Anthony Quayle, who played an OSS operative in "The Guns of Navarone"... actually WAS an OSS operative during WWII, although his real-life tour of duty in the Balkans was much less eventful. He and Jimmy Stewart are the only two actors I can recollect who played in a movie what they had done in in life in a real war.
Posted by: ed ||
11/11/2005 18:56 Comments ||
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#19
Make it three, then... but calling Audie Murphy an actor is a bit of a stretch.
Oh, heck, they keep describing Madonna as an actor(ess). Make it three.
There was just one hitch. This man was a Vietnam veteran, all right. But he'd neglected to mention that he'd fought for North Vietnam. Once this shocking fact was revealed--despite his popularity with his fellow vets--the soldier's membership was gone with the wind.
I find myself feeling sorry for this guy. I don't know if y'all realize this or not, but a fair fraction of the surviving Viet Cong wound up as refugees both here and elsewhere because the victorious government of the North was putting many of them into re-education camps right alongside the ARVN guys. They didn't want anyone getting any bright "ideas" about guerilla warfare possibly working against them.
Posted by: Phil ||
11/11/2005 20:03 Comments ||
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Add Harold Russell. It's sad; I read what his son had done in one of Edna Buchanan's books.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/11/2005 20:43 Comments ||
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David Niven trained at Sandhurst. During World War II he served in the British army, rising to the rank of colonel in the British Commandos and landing at Normandy. BTW, his batman was Private Peter Ustinov.
#23
And let's add the greatest showman of all, the friend of the little people himself, Bill Veeck, Jr. I have to find a picture of his Bicentennial July 4th tribute, when he marched with his peg-leg while playing a fife, a kid with a bandaged head marched with a drum, etc.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/11/2005 20:48 Comments ||
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Western society misunderstands Osama bin Laden because only "scraps and sound bites" have portrayed him in the past, says a US professor, who has compiled and edited the Al Qaeda leader's writings.
Bruce Lawrence, a religion professor and authority on Islam and medieval religion at Duke University says that some of bin Laden's letters have been inaccessible, and previous English translations from Arabic have been flawed.
But the picture that comes out of the comprehensive and annotated collection of bin Laden's writings, "Messages to the World: The statements of Osama bin Laden," shows the terrorist chieftain has considerable talent to challenge the beliefs of others, Lawrence said.
"For bin Laden, it's all about religion, and it's geopolitics wrapped in religion," he said.
Bin Laden's work "makes clear this guy is a sophisticated, cool customer. He's not just a crazed religious fanatic," Lawrence said.
The Al-Qaeda leader's skillful twisting of the Koran has served his radical Islam, the scholar said, according to a report in 'The Herald Sun'.
Bin Laden refers to the Palestine-Israel conflict often, usually in the context of a US-led attack on Muslims, he said.
Another regular theme is what bin Laden calls atrocities committed by the Christian West against Iraq.
"What's really fascinating when you read all these letters together is, it shows how obsessed bin Laden has been about Iraq," Lawrence said. However, bin Laden "completely ignored Saddam Hussein," mentioning him perhaps twice in letters, Lawrence said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
11/11/2005 01:28 ||
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"What's really fascinating when you read all these letters together is, it shows how obsessed bin Laden has been about Iraq," Lawrence said. However, bin Laden "completely ignored Saddam Hussein," mentioning him perhaps twice in letters, Lawrence said.
#3
because only "scraps and sound bites" have portrayed him in the past
Personally, Perfesser, I felt like I formed a pretty good understanding of OBL on 9/11.
Posted by: Matt ||
11/11/2005 10:31 Comments ||
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"What's really fascinating when you read all these letters together is, it shows how obsessed bin Laden has been about Iraq,"
uh....what I found fascinating is how obsessed the good professor is with bin Laden. creepy. Probably got a little candlelit OBL shrine next to his bed.
#7
God bless such nerds and analysts, their committment to their studies makes our job of killing said lunatics that much easier when we understand them and their motives.
Mauritaniaâs military leaders offered a fresh sign of their commitment to democracy on Thursday by pledging to hold presidential elections months earlier than expected, in March 2007. The junta seized office last August promising a new era of openness and democracy slated to climax with a handover to an elected president after two years. Speaking to political and civil society leaders and the media, Prime Minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar said a presidential poll is scheduled for 11 March 2007, following municipal and parliamentary elections as well as a constitutional referendum. Members of the ruling Military Council for Justice and Democracy (MCJD) itself have pledged not to run for the presidency. They were greeted by cheering in the streets when they ousted 21-year president Maaouya Ould Taya in a bloodless coup on 3 August.
Rounding out the upcoming election calendar, the prime minister said a constitutional referendum is scheduled for 24 June 2006; municipal and legislative elections, 19 November 2006; and senatorial elections, 21 January 2007. A national independent electoral commission will be formed in the coming weeks, its 15 members to be selected through consultations with civil society and political parties. Announcement of the electoral programme comes days after the MCJD held broad-based consultations, inviting representatives of political parties and civil society to discuss Mauritaniaâs transition - another step seen as signaling a new democratic era.
Well, I'm snowed. I thought it was another routine Night of the Generals.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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The leader of Egypt's opposition Ghad partyAyman Nour has lost his parliamentary seat two months after emerging as Hosni Mubarak's main rival in the presidential elections, according to the electoral commission. The 40-year-old lawyer was beaten by ruling National Democratic Party candidate Yehya Wahdan in his own Cairo stronghold of Bab al-Shariya, commission secretary-general Intissar Nessim announced on television on Thursday. Nessim was announcing partial results fom the first round of elections that kicked off Wednesday in 82 constituencies across Egypt.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Thousands of opposition supporters have protested in Azerbaijan under a sea of orange flags to demand a re-run of the weekend elections and call on the West to support democracy in the former Soviet republic. "If the authorities don't respect the will of the people and fulfil their international obligations, then we will demand the resignation of the government," Sardar Jalaloglu, leader of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party, shouted from an orange-draped tribune on Wednesday.
The UN special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea urged the 
A suspected terrorist who shot and wounded an Australian policeman is a former actor who appeared in the television soap opera Home and Away. Omar Baladjam, 28, was charged with attempted murder the day after 17 alleged militants were arrested in Melbourne and Sydney. More than 400 police officers were deployed in the operation which it is claimed foiled at least one serious attack. As Baladjam was approached outside a suburban mosque, he allegedly fired several shots, wounding one officer in the hand before being shot in the neck. At a special bedside court hearing in Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, he was charged with 13 offences, including planning a terrorist act and the attempted murder of two police officers. He is due to appear in court tomorrow.
Neighbours of Ayaan Hirsi Ali are going to court to protest at what they claim is the unbearable disruption caused to their lives by the security around the threatened MP. The case against the Dutch State and the owner of Hirsi Ali's apartment will be heard by a court in The Hague on 25 November, newspaper 'Algemeen Dagblad' said on Thursday. The neighbours involved in the case indicate they are sick and tired of the hustle and bustle caused by the armour-plated car used to ferry Hirsi Ali from her home near the centre of The Hague to Parliament. The complaints also relate to the security cameras "everywhere". In April newspaper 'De Telegraaf' reported that Hirsi Ali's new neighbours were unhappy about the news Hirsi Ali was taking an apartment next to them.
A lawyer for a Canadian-born teenage terror suspect captured in Afghanistan, held at Guantanamo Bay and accused of killing a US soldier, demanded action from Canada on the case on Tuesday. 
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has put off plans to travel to Amman on Thursday after bombings of three international hotels in the Jordanian capital, UN officials said on Wednesday. 
Iraqâs Al Qaeda said on Thursday it carried out bomb attacks on three international hotels in Amman because they were used by American and Israeli spies, according to an Internet statement. âThese hotels were chosen because they became the favourite place for American and Israeli intelligence and other western European governments to carry out their invisible attacks which they call the war on terror,â the group said on a Web site generally used to post such claims. 
