Last night I went to the Army's 227th birthday party in Washington. I've been retired for 17 years â seems like only yesterday I was green â and I managed to lose contact over the years with nearly everyone I knew, so I didn't know a soul except for the couple we went with. Everyone, including the senior officers present, looked younger than I remembered. I'm not sure I was ever as physically fit as they are. The food was okay â catered food for 2000 people isn't going to be made with real gourmets â and the wine was good. The men were handsome and the women were beautiful. If their kids had been there, they'd have been above average. This was as it should be.
The Secretary of the Army, Tom White, was there, as was Gen. Eric Shinseki, chief of the Army Staff, and Miss Virginia USA. Entertainment was by the Army band and by the Army Soldiers' Show; I don't remember having a "Soldiers' Show" back in the paleolithic, and I wonder if any other army in the world has the resources to spend on a group devoted to singing and dancing. Seemed frivolous to me, but then, I don't have a sense of humor. Everybody else seemed to enjoy it, and I confess I did, too.
When the festivities began we toasted the President, our guests, our fallen comrades and the Army. When the evening was over we sang the Army song, "The Caissons Army Goes Rolling Along." I choked up both times, even though I never learned the words to the song and I never have been one for social gatherings.
There were ten people at our table, seated boy-girl, boy-girl. Charles and Tracy, our best friends, and the Little Woman and I made up one foursome. Next to us was another retired couple; he'd been an artilleryman; when he retired, I was a young fellow stationed in Okinawa, wondering if I really wanted to stay in the Army. Next to them was a young captain of engineers and his date. Next to them was a lieutenant colonel of armor and his wife; when I'd retired he'd been a junior officer, probably wondering if it was worth it to stay in. When I went out to smoke my pipe I met a lady â standing around, smoking a cigarette and watching the young fellows â whose husband had retired when I was in grade school. Then we both met a young fellow who had been in the Army less than a year.
Somehow we were all a part of the same "family": friends, co-workers, spouses, comrades, and sometimes grieving survivors, spreading all over the world and stretching back 227 years, to six companies of infantry the Continental Congress sent to Boston to thump the British. Happy birthday, Army.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:39 am ||
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Fred: Thank you for serving. Without men like you, we wouldn't be having these discussion today. ((Big Hug))Mary Lu
Posted by: Mary Lu ||
06/15/2002 12:34 Comments ||
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What Mary Lu said.
As for the US Army, I guess I'll just have to wish them a belated happy birthday -- and many returns of the day.
Posted by: Kat ||
06/15/2002 15:35 Comments ||
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While at the meet, did you hear some strategic thinking on Iraq? I forsee a massive cruise missle attack, by this August, which will destroy Saddam's ability to command. Then forward thinking officers with US contacts, will inflict a bloody coup, and seek an armistice, terms of which will include UN inspections of weapons facilities. A post-Saddam regime would take away the reason for being of the Islamist tyranny in Iran. Don't agree with this? Kurdish groups are claiming that the CIA is not providing support for their cause. Speculation leads me to believe that the reason is: why apply the Northern Alliance model, when a popular coup can be achieved? It's coming.
'We're still missing an answer on the tantalizing question of how these guys end up going there in the first place. It'll be interesting to see if there is a consistent prison connection, and if such a connection can be associated with particular prisons or particular imams or religious education programs.'
Those are good questions, and it would be in the interests of police agencies, domestic and foreign, to take a deep, deep look into the recruiting structure. It's a part of another structure, probably kept separate from the shoot-bomb-kill people end of the business, that's concerned with the minutiae of picking these guys up at the prison gate, getting them accomodations and getting them settled in with groceries and clothing and a roof over their heads. The newly-recruited tough guy has to be matched up with a reception station on friendly soil â meaning reliable communications with someone, in Afghanistan before, in NWFP or Chechnya now. He needs ground transportation, pocket money, and airline tickets to get to his destination and somebody to pick him up once he's gotten there.
That reception part of it appears to be critical. That's where Binny got his start, working with Azzam with the Jihad Service Bureau. Abu Zubaydah filled the same function. The majority of the many snags that have been made in Europe seem to have been the couriers and passport artists and controllers and money men at the back end of the terror machine. We know about al-Qaeda fronts in Britain, and similar organizations in Belgium and the Netherlands. We would know, with a little digging and a bit less squeamishness, about similar organizations in the U.S. and Canada â I'd venture, in fact, that the Feds do know about them, and they're playing the information close. We know the funding comes from the "charities," and that these tie in with the Soddy royals.
So it seems we have the outline of the terror structure pretty well worked out, unless they're hiring the (mentally) handicapped at FBI and CIA. They should have lots of little details that aren't available to us poor guys and gals who have to rely exclusively on open source stuff. We can only hope that they're also making plans to do something with it, whether all at once and dramatically, or piece by piece in the shadows, I don't care. But by now we know what the problem is, who's running it, and what the structure is. Much as I'd like to see Sammy and his Republican Guard flattened, I think the Soddy terror machine is a lot more dangerous threat, and it should be killed first.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 08:22 pm ||
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The House of Parasites (AKA: Saud) can't seem to identify with the civilized world, in the counter-terror war. As a civilized individual, I have problems in recognizing Saudi territory. In fact, I don't see how some table-cloth heads can claim sovereignty over oil fields that were discovered by a UK enterprise: British Petroleum. Our de facto recognition of their territorial claims, is conditional on their containment of Wahabi social idiocy within their worthless little sandbox. Since they have chose aggression against the democracies, once we get the Iraqi aircraft carrier, we should launch on the sand-hoppers.
The United States on Friday called for the expulsion of an Iraqi U.N. diplomat for "activities incompatible with his diplomatic status." Such language is diplomatic code for spying. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations delivered a note to Iraq's U.N. Mission asking the diplomat, whom it did not identify, to leave the United States by the end of the month. If he refuses to go, well-informed diplomatic sources said he would almost certainly be expelled. Diplomatic sources identified the Iraqi as Abdul Rahman I.K. Saad, a first secretary in the Iraqi mission who reportedly was trying to recruit Americans. He has been at the mission for less than a year and specialized in economic matters, the sources said on condition of anonymity. "Economic matters"? You mean handing out bribes and payoff money to spies and saboteurs? Maybe the occasional Ryder truck rental?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:37 am ||
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Azerbaijani police have detained two leading members of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan in connection with riots last week that authorities blamed on "Islamic fundamentalists". The party's political director, Gunduz Gadzhiev, said party head Alikram Aliev was detained yesterday and is currently being held without charge. He said Aliev's lawyers have been prevented from seeing him. Gadzhiev said party member Mirmehti Darafarin was also detained. The Azeris are a Turkic people, part of the old Soviet Union, who are sitting on a huge pot of oil. Though they are majority Muslim â Sunnis, I believe â they have a secular state. Iran has the idea they have some sort of historical claim to cultural influence in the area, and the Chechens being in the general vicinity probably feel that Azerbaijan would make a dandy part of their Islamic emirate, so they turn up there now and again.
Police have detained about 30 people since the unrest in the village of Nardaran, 30 kilometers from Baku. The riots left one man dead and dozens of police officers injured. The crowd was protesting the arrest of four villagers at an earlier rally, saying authorities were trying to stifle dissent. This is not to say that it was specifically Islamism that led to the unrest. The Azeris have their own prediliction toward puffing and blowing â another macho society, where it's not manly to ignore whatever...
Azerbaijan's parliament addressed the detentions today, but decided to postpone a resolution until President Heidar Aliev makes a statement on the issue. Aliev has been in power since prior to 1992, another of those "Fathers of His Country" who simply won't go away. It's all very tiresome, except for all that oil.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:41 am ||
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Bob Ballard caught this one:
An explosion early Friday on a central street in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi shattered windows in a newly renovated Marriott hotel but caused no casualties, security officials said. The blast occurred shortly after midnight on Rustaveli Prospect, about 450 feet from the nation's parliament. "An investigation has begun to determine the composition of the explosive and its quantity,'' said Nika Laliashvili, the spokesman for the Ministry of State Security. Police did not have any motives or suspects in the blast. Ummm... Lemme guess...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 12:23 pm ||
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Suspected Islamic guerrillas fired two grenades in an attack on the top elected official in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Saturday. No one was hurt. The grenades were fired at a board of education office building as Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu-Kashmir state, was inaugurating it in Bemina, a suburb of Srinagar. One grenade exploded in midair and the other landed in a nearby pond. Thank God they used grenades, otherwise somebody could have been hurt...
The attack comes as India and Pakistan are on war footing over a series of terrorist attacks by Islamic fighters trying to wrest the state from Indian control. Pakistan has vowed to crack down on the militants, but small attacks have continued. And the jihadis are going to continue trying to prod the two sides into war, hoping to pick up any pieces left...
A previously unknown group called al-Medina claimed responsibility for the attack, Press Trust of India reported. The Latest Thing seems to be for the Bad Guys to wear false moustaches and glasses and attack under an assumed name...
Abdullah's attendance at the event had been kept secret for security fears. Which means the Bad Guys have in informer in his entourage. Mahmud the Weasel should be sleeping with the fishes any time now...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:37 am ||
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Egyptian authorities have arrested a founder of one of Egypt's largest Islamist opposition groups. Salah Hashem is the co-founder of the al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, a group that claimed responsibility for killing 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians in a 1997 ambush near Egypt's southern city of Luxor. Tough nails for him...
Hashem's lawyer said the Islamist leader was arrested Saturday at his home in Sohag about 500 kilometers south of Cairo. The lawyer said Hashem will be interrogated by the prosecutors' office Wednesday and may face formal charges. Egyptian authorities have not disclosed what charges may be pending. After the 1997 attack the Gamaa al-Islamiyya said its gunmen had not set out to kill the tourists but were trying to take hostages to use as a bargaining chip with the United States in efforts to gain the freedom of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, one of its founders. Abdel Rahman was imprisoned in 1995 for plotting to bomb New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center and the United Nations. Just an accident, y'know? I mean, nobody's perfect.
Hashem has advocated non-violence as a means of overthrowing the government and creating an Islamist state. His group, formed in the 1970s, initially focused on preaching its cause but resorted to violence in the late 70s. Hashem split with the group after some of its members were involved in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Hashem re-emerged as a leading figure in the group in the mid-1990s because of his support for a cease-fire with the Egyptian government. The group has maintained a cease-fire in Egypt for five years. One of the guys implicated in the Sadar assassination was Ayman al-Zawahiri. Apparently the Egyptians have gotten word that the cease fire may be on the verge of ceasing and want to have a little talk with this guy. If he should happen to "fall down the stairs" six or seven times, that won't bother me in the least.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:49 am ||
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Suspected rebels in camouflage uniforms shot and killed a local parliamentarian in the doorway of his house in Indonesia's Aceh province. Taslim Jalil, from the Muslim-Oriented Star and Crescent Party, was shot at least five times early in Lamlhon village near the provincial capital Banda Aceh. "Two men in camouflage uniforms went into his house asking for a drink. Then they left the house and one of them shot him in the doorway," police official Djunaedi told Reuters by telephone from Banda Aceh. "We are still investigating the matter but we suspect the rebels were behind the shooting because of the type of rifles used." Important safety tip here, folks. When masked men wearing camouflage and carrying guns knock on your door and ask for a glass of water, don't let them in...
The Muslim province on the northern tip of Sumatra Island has been racked by violence despite several rounds of peacetalks and cease-fires in recent years. Indonesia's leading English daily, the "Jakarta Post", on Wednesday said Taslim was the tenth parliamentarian killed in Aceh in the past two years. Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, fighting for an independent state for decades, were not immediately available for comment. Free Aceh Movement's been bumping people off in the name of independence for Aceh, and ultimately Sumatra, since 1976.
Okay. Anybody who doesn't think that Indonesia's eventually going to break into its component parts, raise your hands... You, the guy with your hand up: Don't you feel foolish?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/15/2002 11:37 am ||
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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.
