Edward Said has a long article in Palestinian Chronicle today. I've core dumped on it. He touches on the need for elections and he doesn't like Yasser, but he doesn't manage to present any ideas that would lead to an end to the standoff. Paleostinians aren't long on imagination, are they?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 09:16 pm ||
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Former Afghan president and current member of the Loya Jirga, Burhannudin Rabbani, said that foreign intervention was the sole cause of the 23 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan. Addressing the Afghan Loya Jirga (grand council of elders) on Monday afternoon, he noted that during the more than two decades of war in Afghanistan the Afghan Mujahedeen and the oppressed nation resisted foreign invasion and terrorism single-handedly. Part of it did, anyway. The other part grabbed its turbans and made kissy-face (literally) with the worst kinds of thugs and other riff-raff.
Rabbani said that from the first day of the Mujahedeen's victory over the two-month-old administration of Sebghatollah Mojaddadi, foreign powers again made their presence felt and were eavesdropping on those who attacked his government. He said the attackers talked in Arabic, English and Urdu. It wasn't us English-speakers listening in who caused the problems, Barny...
The former president criticized those who brand Afghan Mujahedeen, which included General Dostum, Khalili, Ostad Atta [Mohammad], Ismael Khan, Mohaqeq, Fahim and others, as warmongers, saying had it not been for the fierce resistance of these holy warriors terrorists would have captured the whole Afghan territory. Rabbani stressed in his speech that the newly established peace and security in Afghanistan is due to the strong resistance to invasion and terrorism of the holy warriors. He got that part right, didn't he? That and a few daisy cutters. They weren't doing that well without the daisy cutters...
He said: "We announce to the entire world that Islam and all divine religions are against terrorism and the scourge of terrorism would emerge only from the shadows of despotism." Pointing to the first Loya Jirga session and its effects on the Afghan political and social landscape, the former president said the positive results of the meeting would lead to the establishment of a civil society, promote the public interest and provide for people's rights and liberties including press freedom, human rights, and social justice. Yep. It's all over but the shootin'...
If the Loya Jirga supports the other branches of the government as it did during the past six months of leadership of Hamid Karzai, a bright future will await Afghanistan, he said. Rabbani urged the government and the Loya Jirga to render decisions that are consistent with the requirements of transparency, social justice and Islamic values. Show the world what Islamic values can be, Barny. There are those of us who don't believe they can bring much but poverty and oppression. But, what the hell? It's your country. Go ahead and prove us wrong, if you can.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 08:06 pm ||
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U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says he is "encouraged and hopeful" that Iraq will return most of Kuwait's looted national archives. In early May, Annan said he had been told by Arab League leader Amr Moussa that Iraq wanted to return nearly 90 percent of the archives taken after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Diplomatic sources said Iraq was prepared to return about two tons of material. Kuwait maintains that during the seven-month occupation, Iraq took archives from the foreign ministry, the prime minister's office and other government departments, as well as military hardware and valuable museum pieces. As well as bankbooks, cash, jewelry, rugs, lamps, cars, furniture, plumbing, and anything else that wasn't nailed down, and some that was.
"Why certainly, Mr al-Sabah. We'd be happy to return your belongings. Don't know how they got mixed in with ours... Now, about normalizing relations? We wouldn't want any, uh, Foreigners to come sneakin' around these here parts, would we? Certainly no, uh... ummmm..."
"Merkins?"
"Yes. Those people. Bad as Zionists, y'know? Excitable. Unpredictable. Never know what they're going to do..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 01:46 pm ||
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A federal judge on Monday rejected a plea by attorneys for John Walker Lindh to dismiss the entire case against the American Taliban or move the trial away from Virginia. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis denied seven motions by Lindh's defense team, which had argued the charges against him ignored his constitutional rights. Ellis also denied a defense request to change the venue of the trial, saying the proximity to the Pentagon, hit in the Sept. 11 attack, would not affect a jury pool. "Yer honor, my client asserts his constitutional right of free association. Jes' cuz he was associatin' with a bunch of blood-thirsty killers who want to destroy this here Great Country⢠ain't no reason to jug him! Jes' cuz he'da shot everybody in this here courtroom and danced in their blood don't mean he's an enemy of this here Great Countryâ¢. He loves this here Great Country™. It's jes' the gummint, and the people he hates. And the dawgs. And cats. He jes' hates cats. Anyway, he wuz jes' exercising his rights, thassall."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 02:13 pm ||
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A terrorist act beyond the control of India or Pakistan could be misunderstood and conceivably provoke a reaction, but both countries are sensitive to the issue, says the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. "There are several risks ahead in the period we are now entering, including the possibility, of course, of a terrorist act beyond the control of either party which could be misunderstood and conceivably provoke a reaction . . . we raised the issue with both countries, and I think they're sensitive to it,'' Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters here. The top civilian Pentagon official who was briefing the media on his trip to Europe, West Asia and South Asia argued that both New Delhi and Islamabad "indicate a desire for the continued U.S. involvement'' and appreciate the efforts of the American President, the British Prime Minister and others. That'll be the whole intent of the Bad Guys for as long as the bullets and grenades hold out: to do something so spectacularly awful that all of India will want to kill all of Pakland. And the instant Perv relaxes control of the Line of Control, they'll be working like beavers to get more people and explosives in.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 11:02 am ||
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The Sudanese government and rebels began a new round of peace talks Monday aimed at ending their 19-year civil war with both sides saying there was a new momentum behind the peace process. "We came here with an open heart ... we came also with an intention to make some progress because we believe this is a defining moment," said Ghazi Salah Eddin Attabani, Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir's peace adviser. "Otherwise those suckers are gonna tear off half the country..."
Salva Kiir, a senior official in the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, said he hoped the talks would rekindle the commitment of both parties to end the conflict. But he warned that the talks should focus on the underlying issues of the war rather than "engaging in political rhetoric and slogans." "Rhetoric ain't buyin' us any groceries here. You can split the swag, or we'll give you a knuckle sammitch!"
An estimated 2 million people have been killed during the conflict, mainly through war-induced drought, and another 4 million have been forced to flee their homes. The rebels took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim northern government in an attempt to obtain greater autonomy for the south where most people follow traditional beliefs. Between 5 and 10 percent of southerners are Christians. The rebels, who control most of rural southern Sudan, also want to see a halt to oil production before they agree to a cease-fire. Why? Because they haven't been getting a share of the dough. The government's been using the money to buy guns and ammunition, and the occasional slave.
Sudan joined the ranks of oil exporters in 1999, when an international consortium began producing oil. Fighting has raged across southern Sudan in recent months. Last week, the rebels captured Kapoeta, 50 miles north of the Kenyan border and the capital of Eastern Equatoria province. Government forces have been pushing south in areas where lucrative oil fields have been discovered. "This is a War of Ideas. Our idea is, we take the oil fields for ourselves and those northerners can go whistle."
The talks are expected to last five weeks and will focus on the sharing of power and Sudan's wealth, human rights and the issue of state and religion, Attabani told reporters. Attabani said the government is willing to negotiate a formula whereby "every single religious group" feels satisfied with the religious freedom they have. The rebels, however, want a clear separation of state and religion in the constitution. That's an idea that's anathema to barbarians Good Muslims. But it looks like the government, with all that money just waiting to be pumped, might be willing to see reason. The bad faith and the deal-breaking seems to have been coming predominantly from the SPLF side.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 01:30 pm ||
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As US President Bush prepares to unveil his administration's plan on the Middle East, a top Egyptian official has dismissed the suggestion of creating a provisional Palestinian state. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher says he knows of provisional governments but says he has never heard of a provisional state anywhere in the world. Maher says such a state "might exist today but not tomorrow." He says "it is something vague and incomprehensible." Hell, yeah. He's right, by golly. Don't give 'em any kind of state...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 10:05 am ||
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Former US military and State Department officials say Israel was arming three diesel submarines with newly designed cruise missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. The development would give Israel a sea-based alternative to land or air-based nuclear weapons. The nation has refused to say if it has nuclear weapons but US analysts say it has a small atomic arsenal. Israeli testing of the new cruise missile two years ago in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka was monitored by the US Navy, according to former Pentagon officials. Although US analysts studied the nuclear capability of the missile, it was âabove top secret whether the sub-launched missiles are nuclear-armed,â one former senior American official was quoted as saying. Tough, when you just don't know, ain't it?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 10:05 am ||
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#1
Kinda makes those first-strike aspirations of Iran a little less conclusive, hmm? Just think..stationed in the Persian Gulf, waiting to launch a nuke at Tehran, Qom, Baghdad, Mecca, Medina, Riyadh...makes the sputtering arab despots less likely to try that WMD on Tel Aviv
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2002 11:13 Comments ||
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Palestinian officials responded angerly to the Israeli admission that the actions of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza are part of a greater effort to eliminate Palestinian Authortiy President Yasser Arafat. The admission of attempts to eliminate Arafat were uttered by an Israeli defense ministry advisory, stating that Isreaelâs operations aimed at replacing Arafat with a new Palestinian leadership. "The bottom line of the operations is to put Arafat aside, to let emerge new young leaders from the Palestinian side," David Hasham said, naming former security chief Mohammed Dahlan as "the most important figure" in Israeli eyes. Palestinian officials condemned the statement as did Mohammed Dahlan, who stated, "They know and we know and everybody knows that President Arafat is a president elected by the Palestinian people." Naming names, especially with Paleostinians, who seem to suck paranoia with Mother's Milk, seems an excellent tactic to me. It could end up being a little hard on Dahlan, but I never liked him anyway...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 10:05 am ||
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Saudi Arabia has detained a number of Saudis and foreigners linked to al-Qaeda who were planning terror attacks in the kingdom. They were targeting a number of "vital" installations and were planning to use explosives and surface-to-air missiles. Oooh. That'd be embarrassing, wouldn't it? Might cause the U.S. to do something rash. You know how excitable they are over little things like a few thousand deaders...
Among those arrested, the Saudi agency said, was a Sudanese man suspected of being an al-Qaeda cell leader who claimed to have fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. warplane at a Saudi air base and whose transfer to Saudi authorities had been announced earlier this week by the Sudanese government. So it wasn't exactly the Soddies who arrested him, but they were kind enough to take custody of him from the Sudanese...
The Saudi press, quoting a source at the Interior Ministry, said Tuesday that six Saudis and the Sudanese citizen were arrested several months ago. Where were they arrested? In Arabia or in Sudan? I'm so confused...
The Sudanese hid with the help of another group that included five Saudis and an Iraqi who later smuggled him outside the country. The second group also was arrested. Which country? Arrested by whom? That's, lessee here, six, and a Soddy, and five, and an Iraqi, that makes 13 arrested?
On Sunday, the Sudanese government announced it had handed over for trial in Saudi Arabia a Sudanese man who had admitted firing a missile at a plane taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base, south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Last week, a U.S. official said a Sudanese man suspected of being an al-Qaeda cell leader had acknowledged shooting a shoulder-fired SA-7 surface-to-air missile at an American plane taking off from the base. We're assuming it was the same Sudanese man...
Fears that a missile had been fired at a U.S. plane surfaced in May after Saudi security guards found a missile launcher tube about two miles from a runway at the desert base. It was unclear when the missile was fired. But he said he fired it in October, missed, and then ran away...
The Sudanese Interior Ministry statement said the man had returned to Sudan from Saudi Arabia. The statement did not identify the man or say how or when he fled. This makes oatmeal look like raw meat!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/18/2002 12:40 pm ||
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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.
