Oh, cheese! Again?
Pashtu language pro-Taliban leaflets urging Afghans to wage jihad against U.S.-led coalition forces and their "puppets" in Afghanistan were circulated overnight at refugee camps in northwest Pakistan, Afghan and official sources said yesterday.
Doesn't this happen about once a week? Or does it only seem that often?
The unsigned fliers were distributed in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan on Monday night, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said. A message purported to be from elusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar called for jihad, or holy war, against the United States and the Karzai government.
If you only know one song, you sing it over and over...
The leaflet in part says: "Afghanistan is a soil of honour, courage and sacred sacrifices. Today once again the great Satan of the world, the United States, and its Zionist exploiters have invaded our heroic nation and sacred soil."
Only to beat up the Paks and their Arab exploiters who invaded the heroic nation and its sacred soil...
The undated and unsigned pamphlets bear a 'Declaration by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA'" which the Taliban had set up under Mulla Mohammed Omar.
He really misses being a potentate...
The pamphlets came in the wake of accusations by Afghan officials that Taliban mujaheddin were regrouping in the border region with Pakistan and had launched a series of attacks on the U.S. and Afghan forces in recent weeks. The pamphlet vows that the IEA plans to start "extensive military operations" in all parts of Afghanistan to "teach an unforgettable lesson to the U.S. imperialism."
Yeah: "Keep shooting until they're all dead."
"They play upon the identity of the Afghans. They kill Afghans. They put tribal and religious personalities in chains and are engaged in laying infidel traps and plans. In the guise of a few bowl-licking Shah Shojas, Afghan kings of the 19th Century installed by the British and regarded as a puppets, they intend to subjugate the Afghans to the Jews for ever. Faithful masses! You are aware of the fact that the puppet administration which has been set up by the British and the United States has brought nothing but prostitution, banditry and slavery as a gift to the Afghans. It is for this reason that the infidel-crushing mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan consider that the only path towards prosperity, salvation and progress for the Islamic Ummah and in particular for the mujahed nation of Afghanistan is the path of sacred jihad and struggle."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 03:51 pm ||
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"Today once again the great Satan of the world, the United States, and its Zionist exploiters have invaded our heroic nation and sacred soil."
When was the last time the United States and our Zionist exploiters invaded Afghanistan?
#2
I equate Mullah Mohammad Omar sightings about the same as an "Elvis Sighting". I hope we can bag him or at least a representative sample of his last remains so that we can say about him that "Elvis has left the Building".....Do you suppose all of the inbreeding and high altitude and hashish have rendered some of this geniuses in Afganistan brain damaged....after all of the murder, killings, wife starving, child beating and daughter cooking that went on under the Taliban that these goons would say "Gee maybe the Taliban ISN'T a good idea......."
In some ways, some ethnic groups should be allowed to wallow in their own ignorance, the only reason to interfer in that abyss of stupidity is that they want to export that "paradise on earth" they seem to enjoy living in.
Interesting info on the Taliban's new structure EFL
As the fiery chief justice of the Taliban's Supreme Court, Abdul Salam shook the world once, proclaiming the right to execute foreign aid workers accused of converting Afghans to Christianity. Today, not only is Justice Salam back, talking to a foreign reporter for the first time since the Taliban fell a year and a half ago, but he says the Taliban are back as well. Regrouped, rearmed, and well-funded, they are ready to carry on guerrilla war as long as it takes to expel US forces from Afghanistan. It seems like they've been 'regrouping' for a while now, but obviously an upsurge in violence has been going on; it should be taken seriously despite the pathetic level of resistance put up so far.
The reorganized Taliban are mounting increasingly brazen attacks on Afghan soil. In Zabul Province last month, for instance, Taliban forces took control of two remote districts near the Pakistani border for nearly a week. Afghan military forces, backed up by US Special Forces and helicopter gunships, eventually dislodged the Taliban fighters. Didn't hear much about that..
Taliban sources in Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources say that the Taliban now has a recognizable hierarchy of leaders — some operating from Afghanistan and some from the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan's volatile Northwest Frontier Province.
More from the latter than from the former...
At the top of the military command structure is Mullah Beradar, who hails from Deh Rawood in Urozgan, the home village of former supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Underneath Mullah Beradar are a number of Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories. The most active region - from Nimroz Province to Helmand, on up to Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan - is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies. Akhtar Usmani was the Taliban corps commander in Kandahar. Mullah Abdur Razzaq was the Taliban Interior Minister. And Mullah Dadullah was the military chief in the northern city of Kunduz, on the front lines against the Northern Alliance when the Taliban lines crumbled.
In true Islamic fashion, surrender is a temporary thing...
According to eyewitnesses, the men who captured an Ecuadorian Red Cross aid worker, Ricardo Munguia, in Urozgan Province last month, called up Mullah Dadullah on their satellite phone and under Dadullah's orders, shot Munguia dead.
Because he was an infidel, of course...
The Taliban has commanders all across the country. In Paktia, Paktika, Khost, and Ghazni provinces, Mullah Saifur Rehman is in charge. He was the commander of Taliban forces during the US coalition's indecisive battle, Operation Anaconda, in the Shah-e Kot mountains. In Nangrahar, Laghman, and Konar provinces, the Taliban's former deputy prime minister, Mullah Kabir, is supreme commander, working along with activists of the Hezb e-Islami. According to Taliban watchers in Pakistan, Mullah Kabir is thought to have close ties with Pakistan's intelligence agencies, including the secretive Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
No surprise there. The question is whether those are official ties or unofficial. My guess is that they're official...
In Pakistan, Taliban commanders are reportedly working in alliance with like-minded leaders of religious parties who now control two provinces along the Afghan-Pakistan border. In the tribal areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, Qari Akhtar is the chief operations commander; in the Tor Ghar mountains near the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, Mullah Mohammad Ibrahim is the Taliban's top leader.
I'd expect to see some really close ties with Fazlur Rehman and the JUI-F on the Pak end, and also with Qazi and JI, who're probably handling the money...
Shahzada Zulfikar, a Quetta-based political analyst, says that Taliban commanders continue to receive support from Pakistan's powerful and secretive intelligence agencies, as they did more openly during the Taliban government. "The Taliban were and are still friends of Pakistan," says Mr. Zulfikar. "Pakistan ditched the Taliban due to American pressure, for a while, but now there are fears that their relationship might be restored due to the increasing presence of Indians in Afghanistan." Taliban activists in Pakistan and Afghanistan say they are receiving direct support from Pakistan's powerful religious parties, including Jamaat-i Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i Islam, which control the government of two key border provinces. "We are at home as we were before (President) Musharraf hatched a conspiracy against us at the behest of the Americans," says Mir Jan, a Taliban fighter in Quetta. "But our brothers [the mullahs] are in power, so it means we are in power."
Two sides of the same coin. The only difference is the writing on the passport, and that's probably forged...
In Kabul, former Taliban Supreme Court Justice Salam says that the Taliban's chief support now comes from Afghanistan's powerful neighbors — Russia, Iran, and Pakistan — who are suspicious of America's continued presence in the region more than 18 months after the collapse of the Taliban. Proving any covert support for the Taliban is, of course, monumentally difficult. No nation admits to supporting Al Qaeda or its allies, including Pakistan. And the Bush administration has praised Pakistan for its cooperation in rounding up some 400 suspected Al Qaeda members. But even during the decade-long Afghan jihad against the Soviets, the Pakistani government never admitted to funding the mujahideen. Only diplomatic and moral support
Professor Rubin casts doubt on the supposed support of Russia and Iran, in part because these two countries were bitter enemies of the Taliban in the past. "In the case of Russia, it would be very strange because they believe the Taliban were helping the rebels in Chechnya and the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan," Rubin says. "In the case of Iran, they practically went to war with the Taliban, but given the way Iran conducts its foreign policy, that doesn't mean they wouldn't support them for one reason or the other."
It also doesn't mean that one end of the government would play a few hands at the Great Game in the name of Islamic solidarity without telling the other...
But, Rubin adds, Pakistan's hand is much harder to watch, because state governments elected last October have placed openly pro-Taliban leaders in power. "Pakistan may be allowing its provincial governments to conduct their own foreign security policy," he says, "to support the Taliban rather than hand them over, which is convenient for the federal government."
But ISI isn't a provincial-level organization. And the government should be aware of where its money and resources go. It's not something that could be kept real secret for real long...
Engineer Hamidullah, the Taliban's former deputy chief of finance, says that today's Taliban are at least as well funded as they were when they were in government. Much of the funding came through a black-market banking system called hawala, which is common throughout the Middle East and South Asia. But Mr. Hamidullah says that Pakistan generally sent its money by hand, using ISI officers. "During Taliban times, Pakistani colonels would bring money to support Taliban soldiers," he says. Today's Taliban continues to receive funding, he adds, some of it from rich Arab donors. "There are some countries that are against the polices of the US and the United Nations, and they support the guerrillas. The most important role belongs to Russia, Iran, and Pakistan." The FSB, VEVAK and the ISI. I wouldn't put a thing past anything, but I find Russian involvement unlikely, and the Iranians probably send most of their support to Ismail Khan and the Shi'ite Hazaras. The only question I have about Pakistan's involvement is just how far up the chain the orders come from.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/15/2003 04:34 am ||
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It doesn't matter, does it? I mean, if the Pakistanis can't clean up their mess, we'll get tired of holding off the Indians for them. That would be an awful mess, but ...
#2
I have posted this before, and I will post it until it penetrates your thick skulls: the jihadi provinces - NWFP and Balochistan - get nearly 20% of US aid that filters into Pigistan. They use American aid in order to enforce bans on music and other forms of entertainment, and to fund jihad operations against Americans in Afghanistan. This farce continues because US President Bush is throwing money at areas where he should be throwing B52 carpet bombs. Under pressure of Pigistan, Bush has released over 100 Guantanamo Bay jihadis, even though these wild animals are trained in the production and use of WMD. Civil means and limited war cannot be effective counter-terror means. After 9-11, the US had the means to kill every jihadi on the face of the earth. That was not done, because if Bush did it then he couldn't latch onto the Saudi teat, after he leaves office. An American civil disaster is brewing, based on Bush's "faith based" facilitation of groups such as the al-Huda chain of American jihad factories. If you Bush doormats continue to support the President's facilitation of Islamization, this is what you are going to get:
#3
Presuppose you're right, Anonon. Do you think the American people have the patience for the nuances that Islam is a religion of "peace" anymore? Do we thank Truman for setting the precedent for what we're going to do next to Pakistan (viz. nuclear air raids)?
Posted by: Brian ||
05/15/2003 7:01 Comments ||
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#4
Guys, talk is cheap. I could tell a reporter that I controlled the Eastern United States and that Moe, Larry and Curley were my top commanders, but that wouldn't make it so. (It's actually Moe, Larry and the first Joe)
There are incidents, but nothing to suggest the level of organization and control that this yob says. He spun a tale to a reporter who bought in to it. News reporters seem to have completely forgotten the ancient practice of verifying statements before reporting them.
#5
My memory isn't the greatest these days, but I seem to remember two or three incidents over the last six weeks where Taliban forces started a fight, then ran when the US and Afghani forces came down on them like a load of bricks. We also keep hearing about two or three captured here, another six in another place, and ones and twos being picked of almost daily, scattered all over the map. We've also been hearing about Pakistani operations in and around their border with Afghanistan, and most of those operations are being reported as "successes". Unless everybody's lying, the Taliban are being hurt, and hurt badly. That would make this "statement" a propaganda ploy to make the Taliban look stronger and more successful than they really are.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/15/2003 10:14 Comments ||
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#6
Old Patriot : Precisely - propoganda, with the press playing their favorite role as Useful Idiot. In the meantime, Afghan forces continue to gain experience, build confidence, and increase their morale.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/15/2003 11:41 Comments ||
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SPA -- Minister of Islamic affairs, endowments, call and guidance Sheikh Salih bin Abdulaziz Al-alsheikh and Sheikh Dr. Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz Al-sudais, the Imam of Makkah mosque, said on Wednesday that the deadly bombings that took place in Riyadh Monday night are deemed sinfully prohibited. Citing numerous evidence from the Holy Quran and Sunnah, the Minister and the Imam stated that the bombings were banned because they constitute an attack on the sanctity of Muslim lands, terrorize innocent people, claim the lives of people protected by Islamic law, wreak havoc among people and destroy protected property. They urged young people to have good faith in and seek learning from their scholars, urging all Muslims to cooperate in order to eliminate this phenomenon.
So they're prohibited, not because they're acts of terrorism and repugnant in the eyes of God, but because they took place in Muslim lands â not, say, New York or Tel Aviv or Moscow. Good call, Imam.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 06:40 pm ||
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EFL
US intelligence agencies are investigating whether senior al-Qaeda leaders hiding in Iran may have helped to plan or coordinate the terrorist bombings that killed at least 34 people in Saudi Arabia on Monday. Intelligence officials said several al-Qaeda leaders, including Saif al-Adel, who's wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa and may now be the terrorist group's third-ranking official, and Osama bin Laden's son Saad have found refuge in Iran, where they remain active. The Iranian government has expelled more than 500 lower-ranking al-Qaeda members and denies harbouring any of the group's senior leaders. But the US officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there was evidence that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard were sheltering al Adel, the younger bin Laden, other al-Qaeda leaders and some other members of bin Laden's family. The officials emphasised that no hard evidence has been found that al-Qaeda fugitives in Iran had a hand in the Saudi bombings. But the suspicions have given a new urgency to United Nations-sponsored talks between White House aide Zalmay Khalilzad and Iranian officials in Geneva. If the CIA or other intelligence agencies find evidence confirming suspicions that the Saudi bombings were planned or supported from Iran, one senior US official warned today, the conversation with Iran "could become a confrontation."
The suspicions of a link between Iran and the bombings are focused largely on al Adel, who some US officials think is now the head of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf. Some officials think that Khaled Jehani, the leader of the al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia that is suspected of carrying out the attacks, began reporting to al Adel after former gulf operations chief Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri was captured last November. Nashiri is now in US custody. Other officials, however, think Jehani may have taken over from Nashiri and also is running the Saudi Arabian cell, which Saudi intelligence officials think may have had more than 100 members, on his own. Interesting
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 01:28 pm ||
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#1
Iraq: check.
Next?
Posted by: Kathy K ||
05/15/2003 18:30 Comments ||
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US President George W. Bush has pledged all-out support to the Kingdom to fight terrorism after four suicide bombings killed 34 people, including seven Saudis and seven Americans in Riyadh on Monday. The statement, released following a telephone conversation between Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah, added that Bush expressed his condolences over the deaths in the Riyadh blasts. Prince Abdullah, on his part, thanked the US president for his support and conveyed his condolences on the deaths of Americans in the attacks. âWeâll not show any leniency toward anyone who threatens the Kingdomâs security and stability,â the crown prince told the US leader.
We'll hold you to that...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 01:33 pm ||
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Interior Minister Prince Naif has warned that Saudi Arabia will take strong action against religious leaders who instigate violence and terrorism here in the Kingdom. âWe will not remain idle and watch certain religious figures who instigate violence by issuing edicts branding certain people as âinfidelsâ,â the prince said.
We'll believe that when we see you cut a few holy men's heads off...
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, the minister added: âWe will hold them responsible for their words and deeds.â Prince Naif also warned people who try to justify the terrorist attacks in Riyadh that killed at least 34 innocent people, including seven Saudis. âWe will not just stand here and fold our arms. We will deal with them with an iron fist to establish truth and justice,â the prince said.
As long as you're fond of cutting people's heads off, put them on the list. Keeps the recidivism rate down...
The interior minister said the Kingdom had stepped up security to foil future attempts to undermine the country. âThere will be inspections of any suspect cars at the entry and exit points of cities,â he said. Prince Naif confirmed that one of the 19 terrorist suspects, Ali Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, had surrendered to security authorities. He emphasized the role of foreign hands in Mondayâs attacks. âForeign hands supported the attacks. This is clear from the identity of the terrorists who have received training in Afghanistan from Al-Qaeda,â he said.
Uhuh. It was Soddies, sure, but they were egged on by furriners. Can we see a Soddy invasion of Afghanistan now? Didn't think so. How about just cutting off the money supply?
Prince Naif said he was not sure whether the perpetrators of the four bombings in Riyadh were the same 19 Al-Qaeda suspects discovered last week. He said the attackers had used three or four vehicles to carry out the suicide bombings. âIn one car, we saw three charred bodies,â he said.
Decided to get their flat-chested 12-year-olds all together, huh? Well, at least they're dead...
Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday that the Kingdom would make Al-Qaeda pay for suicide bombings and would hunt down the masterminds. Addressing a press conference in Riyadh, the Saudi chief diplomat reiterated the Kingdomâs determination to fight the terrorists and their supporters. âWhoever did this will regret it because they have galvanized this countryâs determination to extract this cancer (terrorism) and ensure that it doesnât return,â the prince said.
We'll believe it when you catch them and they end up being a head shorter than they used to be...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 01:33 pm ||
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#1
I thought for a second that the title was "We Won't Tolerate Investigators", which seems a more accurate description of what's going on.
#3
Let's hope Naif gets off his ass and does something. He's as stagnant as that two-inch puddle in your back yard after a strong storm. Remember he's the guy who contended well after Sept. 11 that Zionists were responsible for WTC.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/15/2003 17:34 Comments ||
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#4
I have a feeling that the Saudi "Royal Family" has gotten too soft to make anything happen now. I mean, picture this: Sitting on their collective asses, raking in Petrodollars for 2 generations, financing terrorists for at least a decade. They remind me of this big gray whale that just beached on the mudflats the other day out of Anchorage. It couldn't get off the mudflats so it died yesterday and everyone is around cutting off the blubber and hauling it off. Not a pretty picture, and not a pretty metaphor, but it will probably come to pass for the Saudis.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/15/2003 20:17 Comments ||
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Lawyers of seven Westerners held in Saudi Arabia over a series of deadly bombings said on Thursday they were asking for clemency for their clients. Saudi media have blamed the 2000-2001 bombings on infighting in gangs smuggling banned alcohol. The infamous "Alk Runners"
Diplomats said the attacks might be linked to anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim kingdom, where suicide bombings on foreigners' housing compounds killed at least 34 people in the capital on Monday. "Defense counsel have decided to file a petition on behalf of their clients with His Majesty King Fahd... asking him to treat the period of their detention as sufficient punishment," the law firm of Salah a-Hejailan said in a statement. Five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian are on trial at an Islamic court on charges of being behind bomb attacks that killed a Briton and an American in 2000 and 2001. Some of them have been in custody since early 2001. A lawyer from the defense team said under Saudi law a clemency appeal could be made at any stage of the trial. "(In the light of) Monday's events, it may be and we are hoping the government will look at this request expeditiously," the lawyer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. The statement said the clemency request comes after the arrest of a new witness and after a British suspect again pleaded guilty in January following his earlier retraction of a televised confession. Most of the men have withdrawn earlier confessions they made on Saudi state television. Which were beaten out of them.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 11:37 am ||
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#1
As tragic as bombings were, they provide these guys a break since Royals will probably set them free as a sop to the West. No problem tho, as I'm sure they were all framed.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/15/2003 17:37 Comments ||
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#2
Saudis have a real dilemma on their hands if they do release the Westerners they have in gaol - they'll all shout bloody murder about how they were framed. This will not help the House of Saud one little bit. They're an embarassment to our own government too, it seems. Jack Straw yesterday refused to acknowledge the Saudis torture prisoners.
EFL:
Fifteen Saudis carried out the triple suicide bombings against expatriate residential compounds that killed and wounded scores of people, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Wednesday. "Fifteen Saudis did what they did in the attacks in the United States and 15 Saudis did the attacks here," Prince Saud told a news conference, referring to 15 out of 19 suicide hijackers, who carried out the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. Humm, his statement is reported differently in the Arab News: Prince Saud said 15 people had taken part in the terrorist attacks. âAs in the Sept. 11 attacks in the US, the number of Saudis who took part in the Riyadh attacks was 15, and this fact should make Saudis and Americans sympathize with one another,â he said. No, it doesn't. Monday night's bombings killed at least 34 people, including seven Americans and nine bombers, according to the latest toll from the Saudi interior ministry. Prince Saud declined to provide details about the fate of the six attackers not mentioned in the interior ministry's breakdown of the fatalities. Two senior State Department officials said Wednesday eight US citizens were killed in the Riyadh blasts. But the prince however admitted that there had been slackness on the part of the kingdom's concerned authorities. "The fact that these terrorist acts took place (means) there was a slackness. We must learn from our mistakes and improve our performance," he said.
"Not that we have in the past, but there comes a time..."
Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the 19 attackers are believed to take orders directly from Osama bin Laden. In a series of e-mails Saturday and Sunday, a man who said he was the head of an al-Qaeda training camp, Abu Mohammed Al-Ablaj, or Mullah Seif el Din, told the Arabic weekly Al Majalla that the group was planning an attack in the Gulf using weapons and ammunition stored there.
Seif Eddin was described as a liaison between the leadership of the Taliban and al-Qaeda...
A US counter-terrorism official had earlier said Al-Ablaj was a Saudi al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Bakr, whose real named is Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi. The official said Wednesday Al-Ablaj was not Abu Bakr and it was unclear whether either was al-Ghamdi. However, Al-Ablaj is a known al-Qaeda operative, and his e-mail is still regarded as credible and as implying al-Qaeda responsibility for Monday night's attacks, the official said. More from the Arab News story:
Prince Naif confirmed that one of the 19 terrorist suspects, Ali Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, had surrendered to security authorities. Anyone think the FBI will be allowed to talk to him?
He emphasized the role of foreign hands in Mondayâs attacks. âForeign hands supported the attacks. This is clear from the identity of the terrorists who have received training in Afghanistan from Al-Qaeda,â he said. Saudi fundies inflamed by Saudi mullahs and trained by other Saudi terrorists in Saudi funded camps in Afghanistan. Yup, it's a foreign plot.
There's a foreign involvement to the extent the Talibs and Qaeda have joined at the top, which it looks like they have. Mullah Seif Eddin doesn't sound like an Arab — he sounds like an Afghan. To me, it looks like the Talibs have climbed aboard the world domination bandwagon. Maybe Prince Naif should think about cancelling some checks.
Prince Naif said he was not sure whether the perpetrators of the four bombings in Riyadh were the same 19 Al-Qaeda suspects discovered last week. Some of them at least, but not the leaders.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 08:40 am ||
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interesting contest - who will be first to actually admit that their own ideology is to blame for their mistakes: Saudi Arabia or the NY TImes?
#3
Wasn't there an "al Ghamdi" involved in 9/11? Relative? Inbreeding?
Posted by: Sofia ||
05/15/2003 14:09 Comments ||
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Sofia: Yes, but the Al-Ghamdi surname is even more common there than Smith or Johnson are here. But, blood is definitely thicker than water in the Kingdom in that clan/tribal society. So, may be a close relative.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/15/2003 15:39 Comments ||
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#5
Every once in awhile we stop and gasp in wonder on these pages at how much of the terror networks is a family affair. It's gotta be the in-breeding...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2003 15:58 Comments ||
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This being the Guardian, I'm surprised the headline isn't 'Bomb' 'ringleader' 'caught' on 'video'. Khaled al-Jehani, named by Saudi officials as leader of the cell that carried out the Riyadh bombings, appears with his Kalashnikov in a video recovered from a compound in Afghanistan belonging to Mohammad Atef, an aide to Osama bin Laden, and made public at the beginning of last year. Jehani is believed to have been made al-Qaida's chief of murder and terror operations in the Gulf after the capture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the USS Cole bombing suspect, last November. With him in the videos, authorities identified, among others, Ramzi Bin al-shibh, a Yemeni national now in US custody named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the September 11 terrorist attacks. US attorney general John Ashcroft told reporters at the time that the five men in the videos were "suspected of planning additional attacks against innocent civilians". The videotapes' sound was not made public, but Mr Ashcroft said that audio analysis suggested the men could be trained "and prepared to commit future suicide terrorist acts". "Hey Ramzi!"
"Yeah Khaled?"
"Wot say we chop off someone's head?"
"Who you have in mind?"
"Well there's this kids who saw me boffing his little sister; he oughta go."
"Sure, no probs, but I need more of a challenge."
"Well then, let's go bomb something."
"Yeah, bombs, great idea! Just remember, the red wire ..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know!"
He said the public's assistance was requested for "further identifying and locating the individuals on the tapes so that additional investigation can be made". "Ramzi, who's that with you?"
"This is cousin Achmed, and cousin Mahmoud."
"Great! Say boys, feel like bombing something?"
After the videos appeared, Jehani's father, Mohammad, was quoted as telling Kuwait's Al-Watan newspaper that his family believed he was dead. They had "received several anonymous calls from people who described themselves only as 'Khaled's brothers in Islam', offering condolences". Express all you want. He's still dead, and he's not in Paradise.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2003 01:22 am ||
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There. 'That' looks better. That 'looks' better. That looks 'better'.
Posted by: john ||
05/15/2003 3:07 Comments ||
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#2
When I first saw that video I thought that rather than being potential 'martyrs', they were more likely to be the next generation of al-qaeda leaders.
And if I was as ugly as these guys, I might be a terrorist too.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/15/2003 3:54 Comments ||
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#3
Anyone who takes the name of Khalid should automatically be treated as a jihadi. Khalid al-Walid was a mercenary who served under the ersatz "prophet" Mohammed (may allah piss down his throat), after his army had defeated the Muslims (THANKS FOR NOTHING ALLAH) in the Battle of Uhud, and peddled himself to Mohammed's bandits. If you find that your Muslim neighbor has named a child Khalid, you should report it to counter-terror authorities.
BARONESS Thatcher returned to politics last night with an attack on the French, whom she accused of collaborating with âenemies of the Westâ for short-term gain. In a one-off comeback speech in New York, which broke a medical ban on speaking in public, the former Conservative Prime Minister attacked those who use environmentalism, feminism and human rights campaigns to fight capitalism and the nation state. She praised Tony Blair, but above all President Bush, for overriding the ârotâ that âparalysedâ the United Nations. Baroness Thatcher was speaking at a meeting of Atlantic Bridge, an Anglo-US free market think-tank set up by Liam Fox, the Shadow Health Secretary. Her audience included Michael Ancram, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party, and Michael Howard, the Shadow Chancellor. Dr Fox said: âThe fact that Michael Ancram and Michael Howard are both here as well is symptomatic of a resurgence of confidence on the Right. An intellectual renaissance took the Republicans back to power and this is a reflection of us reinvigorating the Conservative Party.â
Lady Thatcher said: âFor years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain â but enough about the French. So deep had the rot set in that the UN security council itself was paralysed.â She spoke of her pride at the way Britain stood by America over Iraq: âOur own Prime Minister was staunch and our forces were superb. But, above, all, it is President Bush who deserves the credit for victory.â
Lady Thatcher said that she had âdrunk deep from the same well of ideasâ as her great ally, the former US President Ronald Reagan. Both instinctively knew what worked, she said, including low taxes, small government and enterprise. âWe knew, too, what did not work, namely socialism in every shape or form. Nowadays socialism is more often dressed up as environmentalism, feminism, or international concern for human rights. All sound good in the abstract. But scratch the surface and you will as likely as not discover anti-capitalism, patronising and distorting quotas, and intrusions upon the sovereignty and democracy of nations.â Lady Thatcher warned that America and Britain faced âa pervasive culture of anti-Westernism" that needed to be challenged. "There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it."
Dr Fox said that the time was ripe for the Conservatives and Republicans to rebuild their ideological links in all areas of policy. "Tony Blair has established himself as an ally of George Bush but Labour has not forged a link with America," he said. "Their relationship is limited purely to foreign policy. There is a heightened awareness of the importance of the Anglo-American link and that this is the most natural state of alliance for the UK. Margaret Thatcher embodies the strength of that alliance and probably represents the high point of co-operation, not just on a practical sense but in terms of philosophical alignment. The world may not see her like again for many years to come." I wish Ms. Thatcher would do a few more of these speeches. And have a sit-down with GWB, Rummy, Colin and the gang.
I don't know if it's significant â Bulldog or Tony may â that the Tories are looking toward the Republicans to find a community of ideas. I hope it is. If the Conservatives are going to make a comeback, I'd suggest it be by thumping the tub of an Englishman being a man (or woman, take your pick) who can hold his head high, who has individual rights that the gummint can't intrude on â something like the Magna Carta, only applied to the common man. The idea of individual liberty had its genesis in British thinking. It should also have its application there.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2003 12:59 am ||
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Man, she's good!
Posted by: R. McLeod ||
05/15/2003 1:24 Comments ||
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Obviously part of a disorganized campaign of disinformation.
Other than this, the Tories are in sad shape in England. Labour is in no danger.
#5
I second the motion, Lucky. God Bless Maggie and Ronnie. Could you imagine how f*cked up this world would be if we had Arab terrorism AND the Soviet Empire to worry about at the same time?
#6
Although I haven't found an audio stream with this speech, I can certainly imagine how much contempt and scorn was poured into the word "rot" when she said it... nobody like her, not even Ronnie...
#7
Fred, I don't know why the Tories aren't banging that drum. It's astounding. They almost seem ashamed of their beliefs, obsessed with their unpopular past and trying to put across an impossible "please-all" image and as a result get across no coherent message whatsoever.
I've been watching a program on TV this devoted to the Brighton bombing (for those who remember - when the IRA tried to take her out at a party conference in '84). There are no politicians anywhere near her calibre in the UK today.
Someone give the French baby a bottle so it will quit crying.
The French government believes it is the victim of an "organized campaign of disinformation" from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. In a letter prepared for delivery today to administration officials and members of Congress, France details what it says are false news stories, with anonymous administration officials as sources, that appeared in the U.S. media over the past nine months. A two-page list attached to the letter includes reports of alleged French weapons sales to Iraq and culminates in a report last week that French officials in Syria issued French passports to escaping Iraqis being sought by the U.S. military... The unprecedented letter, signed by French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, is an indication of the depth and bitterness of the breach between the two historic allies and NATO partners over the issue of Iraq. Although French officials maintain they have tried to overcome the differences and renew the partnership, they say the administration has expressed little interest in rapprochement. U.S. officials say they are still angry over France's leading role in opposing U.N. authorization of the war, and attempts to prevent NATO from giving Iraq-related security assistance to Turkey, and are contemplating the future U.S. relationship with France. But a senior administration official last night dismissed the French charge of organized disinformation as "utter nonsense."
(con't see link)
Posted by: Anonymous ||
05/15/2003 06:30 am ||
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Frogs and swamps aren't nearly as nasty as French politicians.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/15/2003 10:12 Comments ||
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Nonsense, my campaign of disinformation is deliberately disorganized. I call it DDD for short. I've always had a thing for triple D's.
I'd hate to be an ambassador. You have to go out there and say things with a staight face that put any normal person into fits of hysterical laughter.
#3
âAlthough French officials maintain they have tried to overcome the differences and renew the partnership, they say the administration has expressed little interest in rapprochement.â
Outstanding! Yet another reason to re-elect Bush in 2004!
BTW, for the ambassador's benefit, how do you say 'clueless' in French?
Posted by: Ned ||
05/15/2003 8:26 Comments ||
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They deny the visa story but did they deny the stories about weapons and materiel trade, especially the one about missile parts through China and Syria reported by William Safire in the New York Times?
Regardless, this will certainly clear their name. The stories about their collaboration were hard to belief anyway - so out of character (choke, cough, splutter).
Posted by: Tokyo Taro ||
05/15/2003 8:27 Comments ||
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Gallic Rule # 1: Never trust a frog - a slimy creature who exists in the ooze of the swamp.
#6
Frogs and swamps aren't nearly as nasty as French politicians.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/15/2003 10:12 Comments ||
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Having spent the first 18 years of my life living and playing in the swamps of Louisiana, I can truthfully say I'd prefer a swamp any day to France. The three times my family and I went to France were the three worst trips we took during our ten year stay in Europe. Calling the French "frogs" is an insult to frogs.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/15/2003 10:23 Comments ||
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There's nothing like some French-bashing to get my day started off on the right foot! (Would that be pied a gauche or pied a droite?)
#10
Hey just because the French call us war-mongers, baby-killers, and despots doesn't mean we can't be friends. Just as long as we can call them frog eating-surrender-monkeys! Embrose mon Derier, si vous plat! Yes I know it's spelled wrong and bastardises the frog language (SO WHAT). Hey Chirac, how does it feel to be useless and irrelevant?
#13
seems the rice policy of punishing the french, ignoring the germans and forgiving the russians is having the desired impact. i just hope we keep sticking to the french.
the french call us warmongers - well i bet there parents and grandparents would have a diff view. france should be gratefull thier young people do not speak german!
FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE PLANS TO VACATION IN FRANCE - PLEASE BUY ONE-WAY TICKETS!
Posted by: Dan ||
05/15/2003 15:33 Comments ||
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#15
Once upon a time there lived an orphaned bunny and an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both had been blind since birth.
One day the blind bunny was hopping through the forest and happened to trip
over the blind snake. This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit.
"Oh, my," said the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact,
I'm also an orphan, and don't even know what I am."
"It's quite OK," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is much the same as yours. I, too, have been blind since birth, and also never knew my mother. Tell you what, maybe I could slither all over you, and figure out what you are, so at least you'll have that going for you."
"Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny.
So the snake slithered all over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur; you have really long ears; your nose twitches; and
you have a soft cottony tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me."
"That'd be wonderful," the snake replied.
So the bunny feels the snake all over, and said, "Well, you're smooth and slippery, you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls. I'd say you must be French".
Europe is predicted to become a second-ranking economic force over the next 50 years, its share of world output almost halving from its current 22-percent share to 12 percent, a top French think tank reported Wednesday. Over the same period, the United States is expected almost to retain its 25-percent share, which will by 2050 be matched or even outpaced by China as the world's dominant economy. "The enlargement of the European Union will not be sufficient to guarantee parity with the United States," says the report from the prestigious French Institute of International Relations. "The EU will weigh less heavily on the process of globalization and a slow but inexorable movement onto history's 'exit ramp' can be foreseen." Even that decline to a 12-percent share of the global economy is based on IFRI's assumption that Europe welcomes 30 million young immigrant workers from North Africa and the Arab world, to swell its thinning labor force. Europe's falling birthrate, along with rigid labor markets and early retirement, means that even the enlarged EU won't be able to keep up with U.S. and Chinese growth rates over the next five decades. I wonder what impact 30 million Arab immigrants combined with a low birthrate and an aging (native) population would have on Europe demographically. If France is 10% Muslim now, what would they be in 50 years?
The IFRI report, titled "World Trade in the 21st Century" carries some sobering political implications for European policy-makers. Currently no match for the United States in military or political weight, the EU prides itself on being America's economic and commercial equal. But a shrinking economic weight in world affairs will render Europe even more marginal politically. The report could strengthen those in the Bush administration who argue that Europe's stalled economies and feeble military strength means that it is less and less important to U.S. strategic concerns. And coming from a think tank in France, a country that has long sought to build up the EU as a counterweight to U.S. predominance, the IFRI report suggests that the United States has little to worry about and the EU has few cards to play.
The IFRI report suggests that Europe could delay, but not fundamentally alter, the process by creating a European economic space that would include Russia and former republics of the Soviet Union, along with Turkey and North Africa to create a larger trading zone. But given the political difficulties Europe currently experiences with large-scale Muslim immigration, and the resistance to Turkish aspirations to join the EU, it is far from clear that Europe's voters would agree to save their economic status by changing their largely white and Christian club into an increasingly Islamic entity. Even if it does absorb 30 million new immigrants by 2050, the European population is still expected to decline in the years 2000-2050, from 493 million to 434 million. In the same period the population of China is expected to grow from 1.34 billion to 1.5 billion with North America — the United States, Mexico and Canada — rising from 413 million to 584 million.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/15/2003 05:56 am ||
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They left out the caveat: were they to alters their economic and social practices to truly reflect a free market economy, they'd have a chance. Otherwise, a European economic space will resemble that town at the beginning of the first Star Wars movie, run down and full of aliens.
#2
Amen to that, Chuck, except a truly robust free market economy could possibly assimilate Arab/Muslims into French culture, eliminating any Arab/Muslim influence.
But France is drunk on socialist politics, and is trying to pass the bottle to oher Euro countries to make them them drink.
#3
...it is far from clear that Europe's voters would agree to save their economic status by changing their largely white and Christian club into an increasingly Islamic entity.
Europe Christian? Hah. In name only.
Most of the "economic power" of China is currently driven by mass manufacturing of low cost goods thanks to low cost labor for sale in the United States. Most of this manufacturing is highly concentrated in an economic "bubble zone" in which the normal socialist interference from the Chicom government is suspended. One must congratulate the ChiCom leadership for resisting what must be an overwhelming temptation to "step in and show how good they can run things."
Most of these economic analyses of the future are usually based on a host of assumptions, all subject to failure because there is no accounting for the natural stubbornnes of human nature to resist some changes, paradoxically coupled with the inability to predict the products of human ingenuity that introduce changes that massively benefit those humans capable of handling change well. These guys could probably predict quite reliably the growth in economic power as China masters the technology of computers, based on what happened to the US economy as computers and computerization infused it. However, they CANNOT predict the NEXT THING that will kick the US Economy into its next stage of growth: If I could do that, I'd be out there getting filthy rich DOING IT instead of talking about it.
What I am confident of, and what these guys cannot assume in their study (because they can't quanitfy it) is that there WILL BE a "next thing", and that it is a very good bet than it will be a free people that will discover it and exploit it, provided they will be allowed to profit from it.
I'd put my money on bio-tech, nano-tech, and highly personalized manufacturing facilities, driven by advanced robotics capable of producing both low and high volume runs of personalized and customized goods. (Look at the indie industry in music, and see how it was revolutionized by the ability to generate individual CDs inexpensively and advertise over the internet.) Imagine the shock to the fashion industry if ANYONE could design sensible, elegant, and attractive clothing, distribute the design over the internet, get a cut of every dress made with the basic design, and customers could order individual items, have them manufacured on an individual basis, and delivered to their home. I daresay some people would do a lot better than 95% of the French Fashion Design clique.
#4
Beats me why the Euros couldn't have gazed across the former Iron Curtain and concluded that central planning and rampant socialism lead to distortion and decay. The bad news for them is that their potential new EU members and their immigrants don't have much capitalist training. I don't see the EU as much long-range economic competition -- just as a diplomatic headache as we have seen with France and Germany recently.
Oh, and 10% Muslim is a more-powerful influence than even 90% watered-down pseudo-Christian any day. Current-day France will seem like a picnic compared to the cultural clashes that lie ahead.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/15/2003 10:10 Comments ||
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Bio&nano tech,as well as alternative fuels(fuel cell & fusion).Thats where the next great brek throughs are going to be.
#7
There are three main problems with the assessment presented here. One problem this "think tank" isn't addressing in this article is the decay of western European infrastructure. The highways are jam-packed, there isn't any room to build any more highways, and there isn't the incentive necessary to maintain what they have. Increased immigration to Europe of non-Europeans will place an even greater strain on infrastructure, without doing anything to ease the situation. Another problem is their assessment of China. China is a population time bomb, set to go off at the slightest whim. Even if they had a one-for-one replacement birthrate, the ability of China to support their ever-growing population, especially coupled with a higher standard of living, will strain the nation's capacity to support itself without major changes in political, economic, and social customs. That will play havoc within China, and frighten off outside investors. The third problem is sheer numbers: China with 1.5 Billion people, India with a billion, and Europe, North and South America with a half-billion each. Population pressures are going to force the Chinese into an expansionist policy. The only alternative is to expand northward into eastern Russia. Both China and India are perfect breeding grounds for new diseases (I.E., SARS), with poor sanitation, huge populations living close to each other, and an economy aimed at producing goods, with poor environmental controls.
The next fifty years are going to be "interesting", but I doubt the French prediction will carry much weight, other than European continuing decline.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/15/2003 10:49 Comments ||
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Old Patriot - your right about ching expanding into russia. even 5 years ago there were more illegal chinese in siberia than russians. and the ecomomics of this area takes it's cues from china and not moscow. makes me wonder way the russians tried to play with the french - long term not a good policy.
Posted by: Dan ||
05/15/2003 16:07 Comments ||
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Ptah
I agree with your analysis and would like to add one thing. China's growth has been fueled largely by abundant cheap labor.
Robots have yet to achieve critical mass. We can build robots, but we can not build them cheaply enough to find new applications and achieve a virtuos circle of better and cheaper through increasing volume, increasing R&D, etc., in the way we did with PCs.
I am still optimistic that we see this effect soon with robots. If we do then I see switch away from China as the value of cheap labor for repetative tasks decreases.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/15/2003 19:06 Comments ||
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I have some knowledge of the computer vision (CV) aspect of robotics. The next chip that I get to play with will run edge, motion and stereo algorithms in real-time for dual video cameras while disippating less than 5 watts. The chip is already on the market in the $100 range (in quantity). These are the three biggest compute hogs in CV. The higher level software is getting to be fairly sophisticated.
One more generation on the family should give it enough horsepower to handle generic CV. At that point, vision based robots should start to become widely available.
These individuals are Brian Avery and Tom Hurndall, who miraculously survived sniper shots to the head by Israeli forces while they were defending Palestinian civilians from Israeli troops, and Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli Defence Force bulldozer while attempting to prevent the demolition of the home of an innocent Palestinian family.
Can you believe this crap? I am soooo ashamed to be live in a country where a Member of Parliament would do something like this.
#1
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee will go the way of the UN...a steady march toward irrelavance. Pretty sad. I keep seeing Rachel Corrie's image of a hateful face, burning an American flag in front of a bunch of kids. And that is who they nominated for an example of bringing peace to the world. Blehhhchhhhhhh!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/15/2003 20:02 Comments ||
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John Alvarez of Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood (PABAAH), has reported to Hollywood Halfwits that Disney has seemingly come to its senses regarding the Michael Moore project titled, Fahrenheit 911. According to Alvarez, he had a conversation with Disney CEO Michael Eisner's secretary, who was very familiar with the Moore controversy, and she told him that Mr. Eisner has decided that while they and Miramax were considering a movie project, they have decided that it is not something they would want to be associated with. No doubt Michael Eisener will now be accused of supressing dissent and violating Moore's freedom of speech.
Disney, via subsidiary Miramax, had recently agreed to cover the production costs of Moore's "documentary" which claims bin Laden was greatly enriched by the Bush family. "The primary thrust of the new film is what has happened to the country since Sept. 11, and how the Bush administration used this tragic event to push its agenda," Moore explained. It's only a matter of time before he's dragged off to one of those prison camps John Ashcroft set up in Idaho.
The film proved too controversial for Mel Gibson's Icon Productions, which earlier this week dropped their plans to finance it. "Hot potato!"
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 09:36 am ||
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The Clue Bird of Sanity briefly shat on somebody's head over at Disney.
#2
I can't figure out how Mel Gibson could be involved in this. The Hollywood left he ain't.
As Ptah stated, we can now expect the inevitable lamentations of McCarthyism from Moore and the liberals that parrot each other. However, paraphrasing Sen. Alan Simpson, impugning one of using McCarthy-like tactics is itself McCarthyism.
#3
I guess it would be too much to expect for Moore to put his own millions where his mouth is. C'mon, Michael! Sell your house and make your documentary the good, old-fashioned way.
#6
FINALLY! Somebody has figured out that Mickey Moore's product aint worth a damn. Show of hands here: How many of you actually saw Bowling for Columbine? Aside from the fruit-looped left, I can't find anyone who would pay money to see it. Why doesn't Susan Saddam, Rim Robbins, and Mickey Moore pool their own money and get this project off the ground? That way it would be FREE of all the corporate strings that they so hate. I am sure that they could recoup their money when they export it to France where they thrive on this type of 'Entertainment'?
#7
In other Hollywood news, Mickey Moore is looking for backers for production of yet another documentary, this one entitled Centrigrade 911 - Feel the Heat.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/15/2003 10:55 Comments ||
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Mel Gibson may not be a rabid Lefty, but he is NOT on the right, either, witness his blatant anti-NRA stance, even after saying he would defend his children with a firearm. Duplicitous sounds more correct.
#10
Bowling for Columbine grossed $21 million in the US. Peanuts. Especially for a movie that's been in theatres for 32 weeks. Last week, 76 theatres were stupid enough to run it...they made a total of 800 bucks each.
Columbine was seen by a very small group of people, mostly college kids.
Another "art" film (which is what Hollywood calls oddball movies including foreign films, documentaries, etc), The Pianist, made 32 million.
Posted by: R. McLeod ||
05/16/2003 5:13 Comments ||
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Members of a Canadian military reconnaissance team in Kabul are finally allowed to carry guns and no longer have to rely on German soldiers for protection, Defence Minister John McCallum said Wednesday. A Defence spokesman said official status in the International Security Assistance Force was granted two days ago, one more step toward full operational status in the Afghan capital. Those waiting periods before you can get a carry permit are getting out of hand. Leon Benoit, the Canadian Alliance defence critic, told the Commons the government has "a terrible track record when it comes to ensuring that our troops are properly equipped." Mr. McCallum has played down the issue, saying the 25-member reconnaissance team is safe. The team is conducting engineering work, camp preparation, logistical assessments and liaison. The main body of 1,800 troops begin departing for Kabul in June with the last arriving in August, likely transported by chartered aircraft. Since they don't have any airlift of their own to speak of.
ISAF troops have been subjected to frequent attacks in recent months from Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives, and loyalists of rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, most recently this week when two Norwegians were wounded. The 5,000-member force is United Nations sanctioned but not UN-led. NATO agreed to take over that job last week. Mr. McCallum announced last week that Canada has formally offered to take over ISAF leadership during the contingent's second six-month rotation beginning next February. "Please let us lead something"
The main elements of the force â a battle group, a brigade headquarters and a headquarters group â will come from Petawawa, Ont.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 12:03 pm ||
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It sounds like your average townsfolk in northern Arkansas are better armed than Canadian military men! Sheesh.
Defying government orders banning his entry, outlawed Jaish e-Mohammad leader Masood Azhar on Thursday reached Kotli town in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, a private television channel, Geo TV reported. However, local officials denied that the Jaish leader, blamed for masterminding the December 2001 attack on Indian parliament, had managed to enter PoK in connection with the birthday celebrations of Prophet Mohammed. "Masood? Ain't seen him."
The TV channel said Azhar, who was released by India in 1999 for release of passengers of the Indian airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar, appeared in Kotli much to the surprise of officials there. "Even if he is here, we didn't know he was coming"
Pakistan government on Wednesday banned his entry into PoK and had ordered setting up of pickets to prevent Azhar from addressing a public rally in Kotli on Thursday. Jaish-e-Mohammad was banned by President Pervez Musharraf last year. Azhar who was kept in preventive detention was released a few months ago. He had criticsed the order barring him entering PoK as a means of "appeasing" India.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 09:11 am ||
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A series of explosions shook 18 Shell gas stations in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi early Thursday, slightly injuring four employees, police and company officials said. Police spokesman Malik Sheikh said two men on a motorcycle went from one station to the next before dawn, placing small explosive devices in garbage cans. "They were are all Shell pumps that were targeted," Police Chief Kamal Shah said, adding that additional security had been deployed to several foreign-based businesses. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but law enforcement officials who have raided militant organizations have seized maps of Karachi with Shell stations marked as possible targets. Royal Dutch-Shell Group is a British-Dutch firm based in London — but like many Western-owned businesses in Pakistan, it is frequently mistaken for a U.S. company. Or maybe they noticed that the British supported us in Iraq
Police said one of the explosions, in Karachi's posh Clifton neighborhood, was caused by a homemade device with a timer. The devices were small and crude. Police said they were still investigating the attacks. "It is a message that Shell pumps will always be on the hit list because of being a foreign company," Shah said. Cuz foreigners are evil!
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 07:50 am ||
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Are we sure it's not TotalFina-Elf in a bid for market domination, now that bribes don't work any more?
#2
They're just trying to stop the International Tulip Conspiracy. Consider Roosevelt (Dutch) Reagan (Dutch), Van Buren, Norm VAN Brocklin need I say more?
"It is a message that Shell pumps will always be on the hit list because of being a foreign company," Shah said.
What a bunch of sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad backward, socially retarded children.
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that none of these morons realize what a joke Muslims are becoming around the civilized world (witness the comments that stories like this produce).
I have no hope for any of these Islamic hell holes, and actions like this are the reason.
Don't fool yourself into thinking this is a minority held attitude. Look at some polls taken by Arab/Muslim newspapers and magazines.
Pathetic.
After over a month of looking, Coalition forces have not come up with the WMD smoking gun yet. There are many possible reasons why. Saddam, after 20 years of practice, has become a master of disbursing and hiding things and it will take some time to root his WMD program out. Alternatively, it is possible that just before we invaded, large portions of Iraq's WMD program were sent to Syria for safekeeping. The nightmare scenario though, particularly for those who justified the war in terms of finding WMDs, is that WMDs do not exist and have not since the end of Gulf War I. Unfortunately, with every day that passes, that possibility looms larger. Peace out, people. Keep reading...
It is likely that if Saddam no longer had a WMD program he did not know it. Why else would he endure over a decade of crippling sanctions? If Saddam had ended his quest for WMDs, it would have been in his best interest to open the doors wide and let the world see. By playing as the model citizen he would have regained control of his oil wealth and quickly been able to make Iraq a regional superpower again. Instead, his henchmen did everything possible to obfuscate the true WMD picture and to thwart any inspection teams. If they had nothing to hide, they sure worked hard at trying to hide it. What if they were not just hiding a possible WMD program from inspectors, but also hiding from Saddam the fact that no such program existed? I'll summarize: The article posits that a real WMD program would have been so expensive, that the country, under sanctions, couldn't have afforded Plague and Palaces. However, nobody wanted to give Saddam the bad news that he couldn't have both. Thus, they undertook an elaborate charade to fool Saddam, since it was easier to fool him about a non-existent WMD program than about a non-existent palace. They had to fool US Intelligence also, not wanting the Merkins to tell Saddam he had no WMD, and that his lackeys were lying to him. The mobile bio-labs, on the other hand, are relatively cheap, and being mobile, they could do the pea-under-the-shell-game and make Saddam think he had hundreds crawling around in the countryside.
#1
Up until the time the Soviet Union collapsed, the CIA kept showing them as economically strong because the CIA was reading the internal reports it was gathering in the Soviet Union. It never entered their minds that such organizations reach a point where everyone is lying to everyone else and all the reports were just garbage. Garbage which the CIA treated as truth.
Posted by: Don ||
05/15/2003 18:48 Comments ||
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Oh, forgot another possibility: The henchmen took the money budgeted for the WMD program, and pocketed it.
#3
I'd break the Iraq situation into 2 programs:
1) Weapons Research. We've seen evidence come out that this was happening. The test stand, goat fertility, etc.
2) Weapons Production. This may or may not have been happening. If it wasn't happening, then a group of senior Iraqis were running a charade designed to convince Mukhabarat that it did exist. We could well have had video of people briefing Saddam on the status of the weapons program. We likely had copies of a large portion of Mukhabarat internal communications.
Kruschev knew he didn't have many nukes, and so did Ike. Ike let him get away with the lie rather than launch an arms race. Kennedy called him on it, and we got a real arms race.
Kimmie may believe he has 200 nukes, with missiles capable of reaching the west coast. I'm not sure how he'd react if he started to suspect he was being lied to. The Russians may have already started this ball rolling.
Back to Iraq, I see no shame in being deceived as long as we can honestly say we were caught up in a deception created for Saddam. Somewhere in those documents we recovered, there's probably ample proof that Saddam believed he had a weapons program. I think that should be released at some point.
Unwinding further... in the case of biological weapons, the research itself is potentially more dangerous than the production. It only takes 1 infection with an engineered virus to bring about the end of civilization. Evidence seems to indicate Dr. Taha was experimenting with things like viral hemorragic fever and smallpox.
We've already found one facility that appears to have been suitable. The only other piece we need are the research notes. With SARS running around right now, it shouldn't take much to convince the world that Iraq was very, very dangerous.
#4
There's one other possibility that I believe everyone is overlooking - that the weapons were designed, that the Iraqi scientists began building them, the military began to get ready to employ them, and would have used them. In between the creation and the distribution, however, everything has to go exactly perfect, or you have a bunker full of dead scientists that either has to be sealed for a gazillion years, or incinerated. We've already seen that Iraqi quality control was about as effective as their ability to stop sandstorms. I'm sure there are military and political leaders who are sweating bullets, hoping they DON'T find those ghastly remains. We've also learned just how paranoid Hussein was, and how he never trusted ANYONE - he had groups looking over the shoulder of people looking over the shoulder of people looking over the shoulders of his people. There's a very good possibility that the WMD that were created, built, and possibly even distributed, were also buried - deeply - with instructions to only dig them up when Hussein gave the word. Right now, getting "the word" out to anybody is kinda hard for old Sadsack. Eventually, someone will find those hidden stashes. I truthfully feel very sorry for anyone that does that. It'll make the guy eating "yellow cake" look like a genius.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/15/2003 22:24 Comments ||
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Edited for brevity.
Sgt. Mark Hadsell noticed that when he was talking to Iraqis in Baghdad, the men would try to stand behind something, or would stand in front of their wives or daughters. He thought this was curious. So he asked why. "They'd been told that when they wear their sunglasses, American soldiers can see through clothing," Hadsell said. Hadsell handed his sunglasses to the Iraqi who told him this and had him put them on. One more rumor dispelled. Another small victory for the team from the 361st Psychological Operations Company, a reserve unit based in the Seattle suburb of Bothel, Wash. Some more good anecdotes in the full article.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/15/2003 03:08 pm ||
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Must only be those glasses sold in the back of comic books.
Edited for brevity.
British forces formally turned over control of the port of Umm Qasr to a civilian government today, the first such hand over since the war ended. The hand over to a 12 member council came in a small ceremony in the port, 50 miles south of Basra. âThis is the first step towards turning Iraq back to its people,â said Flight Lieutenant Peter Darling. British troops will retain control over the port, but all other civil administrative duties will revert to the town council, Darling said. It will be responsible for everything from schools and hospitals to a municipal police force. The current council is made up of volunteers, including professionals and religious leaders. However, elections will be held in the next couple of weeks to confirm the peopleâs choice, he said. There has already been some controversy over a previous group of council members, who were criticised by residents for being corrupt and ineffective. Sounds like the spirit of Democracy has taken root already!
Several other town councils have been set up throughout Iraq, but Umm Qasr will be the first one to take over complete control of a town from U.S. or British troops.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/15/2003 02:16 pm ||
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EFL
A Kurdish political party working with the United States to shape an interim government in Iraq has quietly pushed ahead on three oil development projects, acting autonomously as a local government. You may well ask; "Won't the Turkish government object about the Kurds acting like they are in control of the northern oil fields? Isn't that why they threatened to move their troops into Northern Iraq?" Yes, but keep reading.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq, has signed production-sharing contracts with two Turkish companies, PetOil and General Energy, to develop and survey oilfields in north-east Iraq, according to Rasheed Khoshnaw, deputy director of the party's special projects division. That's why the Turks are so quiet. Clever people, those Kurds.
Party officials also agreed recently to allow an Australian company to do surveying work in eastern Iraq, Mr Khoshnaw said. He did not name the company. Mr Khoshnaw said that the most recent of the oil agreements was concluded three months before the war in Iraq began in March. At that time, United Nations sanctions limiting Iraqi oil exports were firmly in place, although now the Security Council is considering a resolution that would lift them. I think a new slogan is in order, "No Oil For The U.N.!"
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 12:19 pm ||
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*blinks* I am becoming more and more impressed by the cleverness, adaptability, and clear-sightedness of the Kurds. They are not letting past grievances cloud their judgment or their future.
Also, the sanctions were imposed on Saddam, NOT THE KURDS, who've been de-facto independent ever since the set-up of the no-fly zones. The kurds can wrap themselves in the Genocide flag and dare the French to look them in the face while saying, "You can't do that, because you represent Saddam, even though Saddam gassed you." The moment the Soviets get huffy because of the lost contract, Turkey will jump in, pulling NATO in with it.
Clever indeed. They may be forced, however, to have to keep the money and spend it on themselves until sanctions are lifted, since sending the money to Uncle Sam so it can be put into rebuilding the rest of Iraq could be seen as money laundering. That's a no-no. *snicker*
However, they can magnanimously turn down their share of the oil-for-palaces program.
I'll wait, however, until the sanctions are lifted: if the contracts get rolled over to the Interim Iraqi Government, then, my countrymen, the Kurds will have become a moral superpower, rvialling our hegemony.
#2
Lots of that oil went to Turkey anyway, hundreds of tanker truck loads a day. "Smuggled", if you can call it that when everyone knows that it's going on.
I blogged a few weeks ago that the Kurds would be facing a cash crunch with the liberation of Iraq. Looks like they found some revenue augmentation.
Edited for brevity.
Six Iraqi children were killed and ten injured when an Iraqi bomb they were trying to dismantle exploded, the British Ministry of Defence said yesterday. The accident happened on Monday near Basra, which has been under British control since the end of the invasion of Iraq. "It seems the children were trying to get the copper out of an Iraqi munition when it exploded," a spokeswoman said. The United Nations said the accident showed how serious the problem of unexploded bombs was. I doubt this was an actual Iraqi "bomb"--probably a shell or a mine, but the reporter doesn't know any better.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/15/2003 09:55 am ||
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Update:"Nine children were killed and seven were injured in Missan governorate on Monday when they were playing with unexploded ordnance," UN spokesman David Wimhurst told a press conference in Basra. Kathryn Irwin, a spokeswoman for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said the ordnance that exploded was an Iraqi rocket.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 15:29 Comments ||
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Heavily armed U.S. Army forces stormed into a village near Tikrit before dawn Thursday, seizing more than 200 prisoners, including one man on the United States' "most-wanted" list of former Iraqi officials. U.S. troops encountered no resistance during the 5-hour sweep, officers said. The northern city of Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's hometown and the region around it is known as a hotbed of Baath Party supporters and former high-ranking Iraqi military officials. U.S. officials said one of those arrested Thursday was identified as being on the "top 55" list but did not give the suspect's name. Two other Iraqi army generals and one general from Saddam's security forces who had disguised himself as a shepherd were also caught.
Posted by: Anonymous ||
05/15/2003 06:27 am ||
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Posted by: Dar ||
05/15/2003 14:43 Comments ||
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#9
Finally, some real news: Major Michael Silverman, from the 1st Brigade of the army's 4th Infantry Division, would not identify the most-wanted Iraqi, but local residents and officials said it was Abdel Baqi al-Karim Abdullah. Abdullah, the five of diamonds in the US pack of cards of wanted Iraqis, was the Baath party leader in Diyala province.
Caught him before he could get the flock out of town.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 14:53 Comments ||
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Human rights workers yesterday accused the US military of failing to protect and properly excavate the largest mass grave discovered in Iraq. I think we all saw this coming.
Villagers said they had unearthed more than 3,000 bodies from a barren field in Mahawil, close to the ancient Babylonian city of Hilla, south of Baghdad. Hundreds of clear plastic bags were lined up across the site, each containing a handful of torn clothing around broken bones, the only remains of thousands of Shia Muslims arrested and executed after the 1991 uprising. Relatives of the missing tramped over the site searching through faded identity cards trying to find their dead. Next to one bag was a broken pair of crutches. A prosthetic leg emerged from another. Lieutenant General James Conway, of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, was at the site but he and his men chose not to help in the search. "Our feeling is that you would rather do this yourself," Gen Conway told a crowd of Iraqis. "The proper thing is for these people to be able to bury their families," he added afterwards. "We have the evidence we need." Photos. Bodies. Graves. Seems plenty to me.
But it was hard to see what detailed evidence the US marines might have retrieved. Instead of a forensic investigation that would hold up in a court of law, villagers wearing orange plastic gloves commandeered a mechanical digger and were tearing through the earth in a desperate search for answers. After the rush, few of the bodies could be properly identified. I think a few photos of the site, and of all the bodies in the plastic bags, would be enough. Perhaps an International Criminal Court wouldn't be convinced. After all, Dominque wasn't convinced.
"The failure really is of the international community who did not provide these people with an alternative," said Peter Bouckaert, the senior emergencies researcher with Human Rights Watch. "This is like going pigeon hunting with a tank."
What the hell is he going on about? What's the "alternative" to trying to identify your dead? Form a committee?
The scramble at Mahawil was in stark contrast to the excavation of mass graves in Kosovo and Bosnia, where forensic scientists accompanied western troops. Sites were sealed off and investigated in painstaking detail. Which has resulted in painfully slow legal proceedings and few convictions to date.
"Why was there all this talk about the crimes of the regime of Saddam Hussein if the effort is not being made to identify the remains and establish the evidence of these brutal crimes?" said Mr Bouckaert. Photos. Bodies. Graves. What else do you need?
Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 200,000 Iraqis have gone missing since the Ba'ath party came to power in 1968. Villagers even found the bodies of the Egyptian drivers who were forced to bring in the bodies and dig the graves. They were executed after their work was done. Nice touch, Saddam. Wonder if the Cairo government ever complained?
[ big snipperoo of the embedded story of a Mr. Jasim, but here's the point ]
When he heard of the discovery of the mass grave, Mr Jasim came to search. "We have never had a proper funeral for my brothers," he said. Two days ago Mr Jasim found his younger brother Radhi's identity card, wrapped in a bundle of bones and rags. Last night he was still searching through the piles of remains, increasingly certain he would eventually find his other brothers, Kadhem and Ali, too. All things considered, I'd tell HRW to go stuff themselves and let Mr. Jasim find and bury his brothers.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2003 01:32 am ||
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Iran and the United States have reached a compromise over Iraq, at secret talks in Geneva, the Iran News paper reported on Tuesday. Quoting informed Iranian sources, the daily reported that the US had promised to disarm the Iranian rebel group Peoples Mujaheddin in Iraq and, in return, Tehran had been asked not to meddle in the internal affairs of Iraq, especially among the Shias in south Iraq. Zalmay Khalilzad led the American side while the Iranian side was led by Mohammad- Javad Zari.
Interesting. I don't know how reliable it is. First question that pops to mind is enforcement. If we decided they're meddling, do we rearm MKO? What do we do with them in the meantime?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 09:07 pm ||
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Does anyone really believe they will live up to the agreement??
Exclusive interview of Shamil Basayev, Amir of Reconnaissance and Sabotage Brigade of Shaheeds «Riyadus Salikhin» to Shariah information agency.
You knew there had to be a Shariah News Agency, didn't you? This is a very heavily edited version, with large quantities of wind, spittle, and Islamist boilerplate removed.
Q.«Riyadus Salikhin» [has] been listed among «terrorist organizations» by the US Department of State. Now all of your bank accounts in that country will be closed, and your representatives will not be allowed to enter the United States. Shamil: Iâve heard of that. I have no bank accounts there, and we feel neither hot nor warm from it. We will always have money and there will be no problems with financing our brigade of Shaheeds. America is an aggressor who has gone too far, who is trying to haggle with Russia and with other criminal states. Muslims of the entire world can see that the Kafirs (infidels) will never leave us alone, as the Holy Koran says, until we become unbelievers and become corrupted just like them. They are thus joining the Muslims together by their actions.
Yep. Us infidels just can't keep ourselves from bothering the unoffending Muslims of this world. It's all our fault, never anything they did...
Q. Why was the Islamic world or Islamic fundamentalism, or Wahhabism in propagandistic declension, chosen as the enemy of the «civilized» world? Are you guys «Wahhabites», are «Wahhabites» those who fight for the freedom of their Homeland? Shamil: There is nothing extraordinary in that, because we remember the 1980s. Even back then many futurologists were predicting that the 21st century would be the century of Islam. Even back then they were openly talking about creating the «anti-Islamic crescent».
I must have missed that...
Today it is not too popular to openly say «anti-Islamic», because this word was replaced with other kind of words like: «antiterrorist», «anti-Wahhabist», etc. Only Islam stands in the way of the satanic globalization, against the takeover of the management of the worldâs economy and values common to all mankind, it is only Islam that stands in the way of the corruption of the entire mankind and on the way of turning the mankind into work «cattle», and this is why the main strike in directed against Islam.
Right. Gotcha. Islamism is anti-globalism. I never realized that, though I should have. Either or both would lead to non-functioning societies of primitives...
Right now the mullahs from the FSB became «traditionalists», allegedly they are preaching the «traditional» Islam, even though everybody knows that it is not «traditional» Islam that they are preaching, but it is «modernist» Islam, which is Islam of the slaves, where bold unbelievers are being praised. If we look at those who print and distribute such brochures about Wahhabism, these people have one foot in Islam and the other in democracy. And split personality is a medical condition, it is a disease.
We appear to have something in common: the belief that Islamism and democracy are antithetical. Guys like Basayev, the ayatollahs, and Hafiz Saeed don't even bother to hide the belief. I try never to forget that...
I am hoping that many people will recover from this disease, and, we will cure some of them from it.
With explosives, naturally...
As far as the so-called «Wahhabites» go, none of us is a «Wahhabite». All of those who are with us are Muslims. We are the warriors of Allah and are hoping for His mercy, and we are hoping He will accept our Jihad.
"We just happen to all be wahhabis, that's all. Pure coincidence."
Q. Russia allegedly opposes the US. Also, as some political analysts believe, it was the US who unleashed the war in Ichkeria in order to weaken the only barrier, which is Russia, on the way of establishing dictatorship in Europe and all around the world. How would you comment on these claims?
We did? We started the Chechen war?
Shamil: I really feel sorry for such «experts on Islam», because slavish essence is talking inside of them. In their opinion, the Muslims certainly have to be under somebodyâs foot, under somebodyâs cover â if not America, then «under the protection» of Russia or somebody else. Very many people are mistaken when they claim that Russia is opposing the globalist aggression of the US. Putin is conducting the program with the goal of having Russia join the NATO, this united worldwide global system. One fine day the people of Russia will not accept the Western system, and therefore everything is getting adapted to the West slowly, step by step. Maybe some consider the timid words in defense of the people of Palestine as this kind of «counteraction» â the words that Russians are saying every once in a while and giving a mighty support to the Jewish aggression at the same time. And this is nothing but a show, because guided by Luciferâs principle of «divide and govern», the Kafirs have split the Muslims by the zones of influence, while protecting one another and eliminating them in their turfs at the same time. Today, during the era of globalization, all settled signs, principles, and laws must be shaken, so that nothing could work or function, and so that everybody would be convinced in the need to get under the US or under the new world government. Today Russia is dreaming of becoming Americaâs satellite and it is going that way. All of it is nothing but idle talks brought up to split the Muslims and weaken the support of our Jihad.
That's the reason, of course. That's the whole purpose of globalization, to weaken the support for jihad...
Q. My next question is about Kadyrov's referendum⊠What will it give to Putin, to Kadyrov even with the most favorable outcome for them, and what can it give to the Chechen people? Shamil: To Putin this referendum will bring the appearance of the delay of his infamous end, and no more than that. Jihad will not be any weaker, but it will only get stronger. At the same time this «referendum» was very harmful for the Chechen people â Putin, Kadyrov and the rest of the scum are trying to legalize the genocide of the Chechen people, and the West gave a word of wisdom in that deed as well, since it is no longer tolerable to stand the genocide that Russians are committing or to turn a blind eye to it. Today national traitors appear on TV and say: «As soon as we conduct the referendum, it will bring us peace!» It is a total nonsense! Because this show called «referendum» will only legalize the tyranny of the Kafirs against the Chechen people. Before the next elections they are trying to make it look like the Chechen people are fighting one another. This is exactly why we have extended a number of combat operations to the territory of Russia.
So we can expect to see these guys' reign of terror extended throughout Russia. Obviously the can do that, as they demonstrated in Moscow last October. Doing that also exposes their organization, though, which'll be pretty hard on them.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 06:37 pm ||
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What, you missed the Chechen War referendum? Got to read the ballot more carefully next time.
The Russians may be disorganized now, but these guys ought to be seriously careful about kicking that bear. If they think conditions are tough at Gitmo....
Posted by: Matt ||
05/15/2003 21:09 Comments ||
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#2
Someplace 50 miles northeast of Khabarovsk will be less pleasant...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2003 22:00 Comments ||
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SPA -- Lebanon's Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rasheed Qabbani condemned today the bombings which took place in Riyadh Monday evening. In a statement to the official National Media Agency, Qabbani called for wiping out such acts of terrorism which kill and injure big numbers of innocent people. In response to a question, he said he agrees the view point of Saudi Arabia's Senior Ulema Commission that said such acts are prohibited by Islam.
Unless the targets are Jews, of course. Or infidels somewhere other than Soddy Arabia...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 05:38 pm ||
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All UK flights to and from Kenya have been suspended by the government amid fears of an "imminent" threat of terror attacks on British planes. A total of 1,200 British tourists are now potentially stranded in the east African country as the suspension starts from 2200 BST, the Association of British Travel Agents said. British Airways has cancelled its daily departure to Kenya and is making arrangements to transfer hundreds of passengers into Tanzania to fly them back to the UK.
The action follows warnings from the US about possible terrorist attacks throughout East Africa and south-east Asia, following Monday's suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia which killed 34 people. But Kenya has criticised the flight ban as an "extreme" action that played into the hands of any would-be attackers. The Foreign Office has advised against non-essential travel to Kenya, and advised Britons there to keep a low profile and maintain a high level of vigilance in public places.
About 100,000 Britons holiday each year in Kenya, where in November there was a failed attempt to shoot down a plane carrying Israeli tourists from a holiday resort near Mombasa. Fifteen people, mostly Kenyans, were killed in a suicide attack on the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel near Mombasa at the same time as the attempt to shoot down the plane.
The BBC's Daniel Sandford said flights were being suspended, according to Whitehall sources, over concerns about "personnel and weaponry" being in place, although it may not necessarily be an attempt to shoot down a passenger aircraft. The Department of Transport ordered UK airlines to suspend flights to and from Kenya saying "the threat level to UK civil aviation interests in Kenya has increased to imminent."
Peter Kirk, the assistant director of aviation, said: "Developments in Kenya and other recent events demonstrate the continuing terrorist threat to UK civil aviation generally. High levels of vigilance and security awareness are therefore essential."
"What we do know is that there is some information and it is a growth really of information which enables us to say we are now extremely worried that something might happen. We had to give this warning." Matthew Kabetu, head of Kenya's anti-terrorism unit, told the Associated Press on Thursday an al-Qaeda suspect may have returned to the country.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is wanted in connection with the US embassy bombing in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the attacks in Mombasa in November last year. He is believed to be the chief architect of November's bombing of the hotel.
Earlier on Thursday, the United States urged its citizens to postpone non-essential trips to Kenya, due to fears of possible terror attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda. The State Department fears an attack could be timed to coincide with Thursday's celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, "Maulid". UK Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien told Channel 4 News it was "difficult to say" whether the Kenya alert was linked to the Riyadh attack.
Kenya Airways is still flying between the UK and Kenya, but other Western airlines are said to be considering their position. Kenyan security minister Chris Murungaru criticised the British Government. "The action taken by the British Government was extreme and action like this may make it appear like terrorists are making a moral score, a moral victory," he said. He said Kenya was taking all necessary security precautions against terrorism. But a BA spokesman said: "The safety and security of our customers is always our first priority and will never be compromised."
Elite Algerian troops hunted the Sahara on Thursday for 15 European tourists still missing after 17 adventure holidaymakers were earlier freed in a desert gunbattle with a guerrilla group accused of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Military sources and Algerian newspapers said the remaining 10 Germans, four Swiss and one Dutchman were being held in caves in the south by a second cell of the Algerian Islamist group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). Authorities are worried news of the rescue of 17 tourists on Tuesday may have alerted those holding the remaining hostages. "The whole terrorist operation, which started off well organized, has recently disintegrated, so it's very possible the second GSPC group is not in contact with anyone anymore," a diplomatic source said, according to Reuters. The rebels demanded money for the hostages, the source said. A military source in the city of Illizi, some 1,200 km south of the capital Algiers, said troops had not yet attacked the second hideout believed to be close to the southern Tuareg city.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 03:30 pm ||
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Oh no -- not more elite guys.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/15/2003 16:28 Comments ||
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I think we should be careful about labelling any armed resistance within an arab country as terrorists.
The Tuareg have a lot in common with the Kurds. Their territory divided amoungst colonial states. More or less brutal repression fueled by oil in the ground.
The Tuareg are Berbers who have been in armed conflict with the Algerian Arabs since independence (and before).
My view is that we should start hinting to the Algerian goverment that we would consider the Berbers/Tuareg part of the solution (like the Kurds in Iraq) unless they behave and cooperate.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/16/2003 0:07 Comments ||
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Hezbollah is a Lebanese reality, and it doesnât receive instructions from any country, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said during his press conference at the Phoenicia Inter-Continental Hotel Wednesday. âHizbullah is not receiving instructions from any country and it does not depend on any foreign force,â Khatami said, adding that Iran also enjoys good relations with Syria and Lebanon, but âthat doesnât mean the three countries interfere in each otherâs internal affairs.â
âWhat we have is solidarity, and unity on some principles and points,â he said. âHizbullah is a reality in Lebanon, and is part of its forces of defense. I am sure the people of Lebanon support this defense, and of course we are not going to interfere in the internal affairs of any country,â he said again. The Iranian president spoke extensively on the achievements of Hizbullah, which he said was capable of forcing Israel to withdraw from occupied land. He also said he believes the resistance will continue because âwhenever there is an occupation, there also is a natural right to fight against it and to develop a national resistance. Fortunately, Lebanon has been successful in driving the enemy out of its territory,â he said.
âThere are still parts under the occupation of the Zionist regime, and as long as the occupation is there, the resistance will continue,â he added. Answering a question on the âgood timing for disarming Hizbullah from its Iranian weapons,â Khatami evasively said Hizbullah is strong and doesnât need arms.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/15/2003 03:27 pm ||
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A "Lebonese reality"?
LOL, these mullah-f'ers wouldn't know reality if it fell on them with a JDAM guidance system!
Heh, the next thing you know they'll believe we can see through their clothes with x-ray sunglasses.
#2
Hell, they already believe that we spy on their women with our night vision goggles.
I've never understood why our psyops guys aren't using religion to drive a wedge between the Iranians and Syrians. The Syrians are kufr Alawites after all. With my limited understanding of Islamic law, I was under the impresssion that an apostate Muslim was worse off than a Christian or Jew. The former is subject to death while the latter only has to pay the jizya. Find your enemy's weak spot, exploit it, isolate his strong points, and defeat him in detail by reducing them one by one, that's what I always say.
Days after a triple bombing attacks against residential compounds housing Americans and foreigners in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Lebanon announced smashing a network that was preparing attacks against the U.S. embassy. "The Lebanese secret services and those of the Syrian army present in Lebanon arrested Lebanese and Palestinian members of a network planning attacks against the U.S. embassy in Lebanon," the Lebanese army's press chief told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Nine people had been arrested, General Elias Farhat added. He said the network also planned to "attack posts of the Lebanese military and the Syrian army in Lebanon and to kidnap a Lebanese political figure."
The statement comes a week after a Lebanese military court charged two Lebanese nationals with planning three unsuccessful attacks against the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon and the U.S. consulate north of Beirut. Abdel-Ilah Jassem, also known as Abu Obeida, and Khaled Mohammed al-Ali were charged with trying to kill ambassador Vincent Battle during a visit to the Lebanese northern city of Tripoli late last year, a judicial official said. Jassem was supposed to fire a missile at Battle's car, but the plan failed for reasons that remained unclear.
"Goddammit, Abdel! You wired the red to the green! What the hell good does that do?"
"Uhhh... Didn't blow me up, did it?"
"Didn't blow him up, either!"
A second plan was to place explosives in a tunnel and detonate them when the ambassador's car passed through.
But then the Roadrunner popped up and painted a Detour sign next to it. I saw that one. When they went in to retrieve their Acme dynamite a train ran over them...
A third attack was mooted against the U.S. embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut, with rocket-propelled grenades.
The two defendants, five other Lebanese and two Palestinians are also being prosecuted for a string of attacks using dynamite against four U.S. fast-food restaurants and a British store over the past few months. Authorities were still hunting for a mysterious Yemeni believed to have organized the attacks.
China has threatened to execute or jail for life anyone who unknowingly deliberately spreads the killer SARS virus. The news came as officials in Taiwan announced the biggest one-day jump in SARS cases on the island amid a raft of hospital infections. China issued a harsh interpretation of its laws on contagious disease after reports people were violating quarantine orders or refusing to submit admit to the symptoms. The Supreme Court warning Thursday said people who violate quarantines and spread the virus can be imprisoned for up to seven years or until dead, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. Those who cause death or serious injury by breathing "deliberately spreading" the virus can be sentenced to prison terms of 10 years to life or might be executed. China recorded four of the eighty SARS deaths on Thursday, pushing its official death toll to 271, and 52 new admitted cases. It has about two-thirds of the world's 7,700 known SARS cases. Human rights groups said the punishment, laid down by the Supreme Court and the chief prosecutor, was not approved by China's parliament and violated human rights convenants.
Posted by: Scott ||
05/15/2003 02:00 pm ||
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Grreat.Now the diseased won't turn themselves in for fear of punishment.
Posted by: El Id ||
05/15/2003 14:41 Comments ||
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Free China: Big goof up here followed by lots of ass covering. Just as in Toronto, infected people got sent home. Many more than in Toronto, however. Then the hospital admin covered it up. Today's death rate is 44.1%, and they don't have a handle on the source of many of the new cases.
Communist China: Today's lie is a death rate of 12.7%. The most cases and the lowest death rate of any country with a major outbreak.
Glenn Reynolds quotes this about the Communist Chinese problem:
The Chinese official put it this way: "we are having a terrible time getting people to see doctors, even for routine physical checkups. And this is because of an event that took place back in the late 1940s, following Mao's revolution. At that time, the government promised to eradicate venereal disease in China. And it did. Everyone was forced to undergo an examination by a certified doctor. And anyone with venereal disease was executed. Ever since, most Chinese stayed far away from medical doctors."
I try to blog the on a regular basis, but it's really not that big a deal. Remember, flu kills about 38,000 Americans every year.
#4
Great idea. Shoot everyone who has SARS as an enemy of the state. This should improve the reporting statistics for the WHO.
Of course, there is body of thought that suggests SARS is a bio-weapon that got loose. Regardless the source, the ChiComs don't have th health care infrastructure to deal with this. It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
05/15/2003 15:40 Comments ||
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#5
Maybe so Chuck (no big deal), but flu doesn't have a double-digit death rate. Them ChiComs need a beating for their mishandling of this. But don't hold your breath till they get it. Some governments get a pass no matter what they do.
Posted by: Scott ||
05/15/2003 15:42 Comments ||
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#6
In Portland some years ago, someone was convicted on .. manslaughter? might've been murder.. for deliberately infecting someone else with AIDS.
The article says that it's for violating quarantine rules. This is post-diagnosis.
Effectively, diagnosis is equivalent to the doctor saying "Some aspect of you is a deadly weapon."
The punishment is perhaps a bit harsh for assault with a deadly weapon or negligent homicide, but that is the crime being committed.
I don't care what people do as long as they're not harming others by their actions. Violating a medically prudent quarantine, though, crosses way over the line.
The Need for a New Voice
The Democratic Party has ceded the issue of our nationâs security to the Republicans, who have successfully used it to undermine Democratic candidates and officeholders. Believe me, the Democrats don't need the Republicans to undermine, they do an adequate job all by themselves.
It was not always this way. Throughout much of the last century Democrats were the party of strong defense and muscular internationalism, while Republicans were the party of isolationism. Democrats guided America through two world wars and were the architects of our policy of containment against the Soviet Union. From Franklin Rooseveltâs insistence on the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in World War II, through Harry Trumanâs refusal to acquiesce in the North Korean invasion of the south or the Soviet attempt to starve the western powers out of Berlin, to John F. Kennedyâs steely-eyed showdown with Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Democratic Party met the great challenges of fascism and communism. The American people agree with us on so much, but they believe that we are weak and indecisive when it comes to defending our nation. A belief well-grounded in fact, I may add.
No matter how compelling our positions on the economy, health care, Social Security, the environment, and privacy, if voters continue to see us as feckless they will not listen to our message next year and will reelect George W. Bush. As we prepare to mount our challenge in 2004, Democrats need to return to the principles of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and — yes — Bill Clinton, O.K. you had me nodding my head until this unwarranted insertion.
bold leaders who understood that only by confronting threats abroad, could our party achieve its other great mission of expanding equality, opportunity, and progress here at home. In order to close the "security gap" Democrats need a new approach to national security that will both address the national security challenges facing the United States in the 21st century and help to rebuild the confidence of the American people in our party's ability to keep us safe.
#1
The web site doesn't give much information on who's involved (maybe no one, yet), but the founder seems at least to talk a good game:
"I get this sense in everything I read and hear from Democrats that you can't do anything except multilaterallyâthat multilateralism is a precondition for action. I think what that says to the electorate in general is that there is an unwillingness on the part of the Democrats to lead on these issuesâon protecting core national security values of the United States, especially in a post-9/11 world." Multilateralism, Bergreen emphasizes, is desirable but must not be mandatory. "Multilateralism is not an end. It's a means to an end."
#2
All things considered, I would prefer to see who is involved with this organization. I can just see McAuliffe and/or either Clinton getting a brainstorm one day to set this up as a front organization...
#4
Ok, I'm dusting of my crystal ball and going into rant mode.
But first I need to come clean as a former liberal and life-long democrat who still thinks Bill Clinton was a great president. So I'm no knee-jerk conservative, ok? But I'm boldly predicting a massive landslide victory for Bush in 2004. Really. Here's why.
What I always hated about the Republican party was that it seemed controlled by extremists who wanted to mandate school prayer, ban abortion, "war on drugs", etc. - Pat Buchanan was their poster boy. Basically, the Republican party seemed staunchly anti-freedom. And as much as small government and low taxes were good ideas, they were totally overshadowed by more sinister agendas. And the Republicans were so obsessed with their hatred of Clinton on a personal level that they completely lost touch with the fact that for most Americans getting a blowjob wasn't as important as doing a job well. That's why I think Clinton got 2 terms and Al "son-of-Clinton" Gore almost won 2000.
But now the situation is reversed and I (among others) have obviously changed our opinions a lot.
Today the Democratic core is driven by the far-left extremists who hold an unreasoning, deep personal antipathy for Bush that blinds them to the fact that most Americans don't care about the 2000 election or the cult of multi-culturalism as much as they care about post 9/11 security and a rational foreign policy. (State Department, take note.) They have been so constantly wrong that they hardly realize just how out of touch they are with the political center. Come 2004, hordes of disillusioned former Democrats like myself will ensure victory for Bush in the next presidential election.
#5
Right there with ya, Scooter (except that I have long viewed pro-life as pro-freedom for the defenseless), which was my initial reason for drift toward GOP.
#6
The site features an "htmlized" PowerPoint presentation that makes the DNS' key points. I found it to be a slow loader, so I'll summarize.
The slides are obviously normally used during a speech and don't always stand alone very well, but they're worth a look. Oh, and by the way, Scoop Jackson is mentioned.
Most of the slides seem to oriented around convincing Democrats that they've got a big public confidence problem in terms of defense and national-security.
The "what do we do" part of the slides are numbers 24 to 27. They boil down to:
1) Rebuild consensus in the Democratic party around a strong defense -- and communicate that fact to the American people.
2) Back military reformers and encourage military R&D.
3) Make nice with the military.
4) Encourage new ways to thinking about defense (I kinda thought this was a restate of the second point).
5) Emphasize the benefits of alliances and the costs of unilateralism.
6) Emphasize that diplomacy and military policy are linked.
7) Nation Building Is Good.
8) Promoting Democracy Is Good.
9) Arms Control Is Good. Actually, in my opinion, this is definitely better than the previous Democratic Party policy of "Arms Control is God".
10) Some odd comment about regional Commanders that I found pretty unclear.
11) Democrats should shut up about "Exit Strategies".
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
05/15/2003 15:14 Comments ||
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#7
Regarding Scooter's comment "Today the Democratic core is driven by the far-left extremists who hold an unreasoning, deep personal antipathy for Bush that blinds them .... "
That is a very accurate comment. Every now and then I drift over to the website DemocraticUnderground to see what the left fringe of that Party has to say. (As an aside, the vitriol spewed forth here is quite astounding.)
Invariably, week in and week out, it is Bush-bashing. Every week they post the Top 10 Conservative Idiots. This week it was: "1. The Bush Team Misinformation Squad; 2. The Bush Administration; 3. George Bush; 8. George Bush; 9. Jeb Bush.
What a narrow and myopic focus. Much to the eventual electoral crush that Scooter predicts.
Here's a link to the website: http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/index.html
#8
I too would like to see whose involved before giving up the suspicion that these are just slick talking points designed to "pretend to care" until after the next election.
That being said, the author, Jonathan Rouch (sp?) is a gay activist and I have noticed that many of gays, who previously voted democratic out of pure self interest, are starting to exert their independence from the Democratic party. So are Jews, blacks and other minorities. This does not bode well for the Democratic Party.
#9
A worthy ambitious project. But as long as the Dems view their problems in national security as PR problem, they will not be taken seriously. The fundamental question is should the US government act in the national interest or 'define its interest broadly' to take into account the interests of other nations (as Clinton, and other Dems have stated).
During peacetime, the Dem approach appears to have minimal cost and may even be popular. But, we are now in a state of war and cannot afford the luxury of accomodating the interests of others on matters of importance. It's not clear that most Democratic politicians get this regardless of how much they study up on geopolitical issues.
#10
Interesting that when I read the list of foreign policy strong Democratic leaders all I could think about was how the bad guys didn't mess with Ike, or Reagan while FDR avoided war for far too long and JFK had the Soviets positioning missiles off the coast and got the US tangled up in Vietnam.
#11
Actually, Ike let things slide. He downsized the conventional military big-time, focusing on the nuclear deterrent as our primary defense. (Just take a look at the puny defense budgets of the '50s if you don't believe me). He backed the wrong side during the Suez crisis of '56 and did far too little to help the French win the Indochina War. (Much as I hate defending the French, they were still recovering from the ravages of WWII while they were trying to hold the colonies together). Ike made the mistake of assuming that newly-independent countries would automatically align with us. Soviet maneuvering and funding of Communist parties and guerrillas around the world pretty much put paid to that.
It was Kennedy who rebuilt the conventional forces with his doctrine of flexible response. (The Soviets were nibbling us to death with their ideological and material support for Communist movements around the globe - and nuking the Soviets wasn't an option). Defense budgets rose dramatically.
Nonetheless, Vietnam may have been unavoidable. The Soviets and the Chinese were funnelling tens of billions of dollars into financing Communist movements throughout Southeast Asia. (About a year ago, a Hong Kong paper (SCMP) revealed that a Chinese journalist was jailed for publishing research on the billions actually spent). The alternative to intervention in Vietnam was to watch all of the Southeast Asia move into the Communist column. The war in Vietnam forced the Soviets and the Chinese to spend most of their billions in Vietnam instead of elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Communist movements in Southeast Asia outside of Vietnam had to make do with second-rate equipment because North Vietnam ate up all the Communist funding.
On defense, Reagan is definitely up there with Kennedy, though. It is because of the Reagan defense buildup that we got to use many of the toys that were employed in Iraq, both during Desert Storm and the recent engagement there. And Reagan simultaneously upgraded our nuclear forces to the extent that no one can get the jump on us today.
#12
Again I am NOT a Vietnam Veteran like the great Senator Kerry. (bowing) But I can't see what the Dems have to offer the military? May letting trans-genders serve openly? Maybe a race-based promotion system? How about an all women commondo team? (sorry girls, boys are stonger) Oh I got it! Gay night at the Officers Club! The Dems have left reality, the planet, and the radar screen. I am sooo glad to be retired!
#13
Here's to Scooter McGruder: you're not the only one! I was, until March of this year, a life-long liberal dem. Then I realized, when looking at the "peace movement," that my fellow libs had no problem at all with Stalinist totalitarianism -- but did have a huge problem with those who have a problem with it. But as all of my friends, family members, and co-workers remain rabidly anti-Bush, I retain my sanity only by reading rantburg, lgf, and Andrew Sullivan. Unfortunately, the Democratic party cannot change; it is intellectually beholden to the radical academic left, and it will continue to defend, protect, and indeed "celebrate" the most noxious lefty totalitarians imaginable. What is truly ironic is the fact that the academic left itself is utterly anti-liberal, based in equal measures on Marx and Heidegger (a genine Nazi); leftists use the word "liberal" as a term of abuse (when among themselves) -- and liberals love them in return. It is truly sick. So I'll vote for Bush (unless, perhaps, Lieberman in nominated -- but fat chance of that) -- who is now doing more to spread true liberalism across the world than any president since Truman!
#14
I went republican when I kept seeing Democratic Governors, state legislatures, US Senators and Congressmen, clearly discriminating against blacks. It repelled me.
What mystifies me is that the party of segregation and oppression for 100 years was not the Republicans but the Democrats. How the blacks in this country have allowed themselves in bed politically with the party that made them go to the back of the bus for 100 years astounds me. It was not the Democrats and it was not LBJ that got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, it was the Republicans overriding a filibuster and getting the danged thing passed and dropped in LBJ's lap.
I am from Texas and I grew up watching the civil rights marches on television and I can assure you that the gross ignorance upon which the discrimination against black was based was something I did not want to associate myself with.
I hate to bring this up but some how we need to revisit those HUAC files and thoroughly examine the political origins and agendas of some of the media and their cronies on the far left. This last round of anti-war/anti-american idiotacy still resonates with me that the timing and the content of the demonstrations against the war in Viet Nam were too closely tied to the agenda of the north Vietnamese.
Sorry about the long disjointed blast but a lot of what is going on in the media on the streets and in the democratic(?) party gets me pretty riled up........
#15
Unfortunately, I happen to be a college history major with a secondary specialization in political science. I'm also a very staunch Jeffersonian, but with Madisonian leanings (if you've got to have a government, we need one like the one we have, or rather, had or things get nasty). I'm a registered Independent, and vote for the guy I find the least distasteful.
The Democratic problem is that they don't want to allow the people to be independent, either in their actions or in their words. To stifle independence, they've embraced multiculturalism, multinationalism, and political correctness. As long as that continues, they will become more and more marginalized, as the rest of the nation begins to once again find that flexible response to threats, innovation and human spirit are the most critical functions of human beings. We are NOT all "equal" - we are each unique, and understanding that and admitting it are necessary for proper growth of social order. The Democrats pretend to "understand", while trying to force "diversity" in place of individuality, and conformity in place of recognition of uniqueness.
I only wish I could say that Republicans are any better. Unfortunately, all I can truthfully say is they're not quite as bad.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/15/2003 21:57 Comments ||
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Eight Denver residents are in custody in connection with what authorities call a very large, very extensive counterfeit ring. Federal investigators said that the counterfeit ring sold thousands of realistic-looking fake driver's licenses, green cards and Social Security cards. The Denver operations were part of a chain of counterfeit document cells operating from Los Angeles to New York City. Wow, sounds like a franchising operation.
Investigators said most customers were likely illegal immigrants, but "these sorts of documents could be accessed by people with other sorts of designs, including terrorists," said U.S. Attorney John Suthers. Federal investigators, who have been working on the case for 2 1/2 years, call this the biggest case of this type in Denver's history with "some of the highest quality product that they have seen," said Suthers' spokesman Jeff Dorschner. Alejandro Bravo, of Atlanta and Los Angeles, was arrested Tuesday at a hotel in Charlotte, N.C., on fraud charges. The suspected ring leader faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Federal officials seized fraudulent documents, computers and materials used to make fake documents from three west Denver homes and from Bravo's hotel room in Charlotte. Dorschner said authorities in Denver were investigating small-time document vendors when they realized the ring could extend into Mexico. "We started low and we've started to move our way up," he said. Authorities believe Bravo worked for brothers Alfonso and Pedro Castorena, indicted in Texas in 1995 on charges of operating a network that distributed fake documents in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas and New York.
The joint statement between the leaders of South Korea and the United States indicates that Washington will not relocate its major combat unit stationed in the vicinity of the heavily-armed inter-Korean border until North Korea's nuclear issue is resolved, defense officials said. They said the summit also helped defuse concerns among South Koreans that Washington will reduce or withdraw its 37,000 troops currently based in South Korea. In an apparent reference to the realignment of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division, the statement said, "They shared the view that the relocation of U.S. bases north of the Han River (in Seoul) should be pursued, taking careful account of the political, economic and security situation on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia."
Lt. Gen. Cha Young-koo, deputy minister for policy at Seoul's Defense Ministry, said the statement implied that the U.S. side will defer its alleged plan to realign the 2nd Infantry Division. "The United States meant it will take more time to resolve the matter on the relocation of the infantry division, in view of the North's nuclear threats and other regional issues," Cha said.
Posted by: g wiz ||
05/15/2003 12:18 pm ||
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#1
They really need to just have an Armored Cav Regiment up there to serve as the tripwire - and move the major logistics to Pusan area, where there is adequate time and space in the face of any NKOR agression. 2 heavy brigades of the 2nd ID should be concentrated near Seoul since that seems to be the whole purpose of defending so far forward in fixed positions. Put the third brigade south newar Pusan to guard the airbases and logistics facilities.
#2
Heck, you don't even need to do that much - the ROK has plenty enough bodies to put up at the line. I don't see why Seoul needs anything other than air and naval support (and to be frank, they don't even "need" that, either).
Posted by: The Marmot ||
05/15/2003 12:35 Comments ||
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#3
This is their spin. I think Frum has the real story (below).
In the New Yorker by CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
Marc Racicot, the Republican national chairman, said recently that [Massachusetts Senator John] Kerry âis going to have a hard time translating out of New England.â Another Bush adviser said of Mr. Kerry, âHe looks French.ââThe Times. Folks, what follows is pure satire from Chris Buckley. Thought you might enjoy some levity to start out the day.
President Bush told the Union of English-Speaking Peoples today that those who seek the U.S. Presidency should âat least make an effort to look American.â The President told the monolingual audience that, âat a time when American values are being assaulted by a country weâve had to liberate twice in the last century, itâs a bit much that Senator Kerry goes around acting like the headwaiter at some snooty French restaurant.â Mr. Bush conceded that the most American-looking President was probably Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, but he said that Franklin Rooseveltâs middle name, Delano, âsounded pretty French.â
Top Republican strategist Karl Rove today dismissed Senator John Kerryâs charge that President Bush is understating budget deficits as a âtypically Gallic smear.â In a speech to the Anti-French League of Greater Indianapolis, Rove said, âIf it quacks like a canard, and walks like a canard, you can bet itâs a canard.â He added, âI guess I donât have to translate that for Monsieur Kerry.â He suggested that the Massachusetts Senator was basing his calculations on euros instead of dollars.
In a sign that the Bush campaign plans to portray Senator John Kerry as an aloof, anti-American snob who doodles on legal pads during Senate committee hearings by conjugating French irregular verbs, Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon unveiled a half-dozen thirty-second spots designed to emphasize Mr. Kerryâs âalarming and unapologetic Francophilia.â The ads, which McKinnon admits have been âsomewhatâ computer-enhanced, variously depict the Senator singing the âMarseillaiseâ on the floor of the U.S. Senate during a filibuster in the discussion of Bush judicial appointees, raising the French tricolor over the U.S. Capitol, and groping French actress Sophie Marceau during an anti-Iraq-war protest march on the Mall in Washington.
The Bush campaign today denied that it played any role in the leaking of video-rental records showing that Senator Kerry favors French films. The list of movies allegedly borrowed by Mr. Kerry includes âMr. Hulotâs Holiday,â âThe 400 Blows,â and âClaireâs Knee,â all by French directors. The movies are subtitled in English. However, a top Bush aide remarked that the Senator âwouldnât need the translations, since French is practically his first language.â He added, âItâs deplorable, at a time when Americans are struggling to make ends meet, that Mr. Kerry is pouring money into the economy of a country that sided with Saddam Hussein during Operation Iraqi Freedom.â
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today said that Senator Kerry, when he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, âprobablyâ went to Vietnam for the purpose of winning the country back âfor the French.â âIâm not saying he wasnât brave,â Rumsfeld said. âOh, my goodness, no. But was he really there to fight against Communist aggression, or was it to get back at the North Vietnamese for the loss of Dien Bien Phu? I think thatâs a perfectly legitimate question.â
Responding to allegations by the Kerry campaign that his surname denotes French ancestry, Vice-President Cheney issued a statement that he would âprobably commit suicideâ if he found out that he had âso much as one cc. of French blood.â He said that the name Cheney was German-Scots-Irish, with âa touch of Faeroe Islands and Mohican Indian.â One ancestor, he said proudly, had fought against the French at Waterloo, while another âscalped enough Frenchmen during the French and Indian War to make himself a warm winter coat.â
During the first Presidential debate, last night, President Bush repeatedly addressed Democratic challenger John Kerry with French expressions, calling him âmon vieux,â âmon cher,â and even âmon petit chou.â The latter means, literally, âmy little cabbage.â Senator Kerry for the most part ignored the President, until Mr. Bush asserted that Mr. Kerry looked as though he had âbeen weaned on a cornichon.â At this point, the Senator had apparently had enough. âMerde, alors!â he said, his face a mask of cold, distinctly Gallic fury. âAssez! Salopard! Tu veux un morceau de moi? Eh?â
In what was viewed by many as a bid to woo Hispanic voters, Mr. Bush responded in Spanish, inviting Mr. Kerry either to kiss a burro or to sit on a burrito. The exact meaning was not immediately clear.
Both sides claimed victory.
Posted by: ColoradoConservative ||
05/15/2003 10:06 am ||
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#1
Funny. I wonder if Sen. Kerry assigns any blame for Vietnam to the French? Yet another former French colony that was all screwed up by the time the Frogs left(Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, etc.).
âIn the context of modernizing the alliance, the two leaders agreed to work out plans to consolidate U.S. forces around key hubs and to relocate the Yongsan garrison at an early date. President Bush pledged to consult closely with President Roh on the appropriate posture for USFK during the transition to a more capable and sustainable U.S. military presence on the peninsula. They shared the view that the relocation of U.S. bases north of the Han River should be pursued, taking careful account of the political, economic and security situation on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia.â
Let me now translate:
U.S. forces in Korea are today concentrated near the border between North and South Korea — the famous DMZ, demilitarized zone. There they are easy targets for North Koreaâs masses of old-fashioned artillery. Because they are so vulnerable, US forces are in effect hostages. If for example the US were to hit North Koreaâs nuclear plants, the lives of thousands of American soldiers would be put at risk.
Which is why soft-liners like President Roh Moo-Hyun — who used to oppose the U.S. presence in South Korea — now wish to keep US troops shoved right up against the DMZ. They may say they want the troops to deter North Korea — but they know full well that the vulnerability of those troops in fact deters the United States from confronting North Korea.
Posted by: Anonymous ||
05/15/2003 08:31 am ||
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#1
Amen and about time that we ran amuck. Sounds like we have our own army-based policy and it doesn't forsee being abused by SKorean demonstrators while we put our lives on the line to protect them
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2003 8:54 Comments ||
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#2
I checked a map of Korea. The Han river runs south Seoul. If the troups are stationed north of the Han river they will still be fairly close to the border with NKOR.
Posted by: Canaveral Dan ||
05/15/2003 9:24 Comments ||
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#3
Dan, I think the point here was that the troops north of the Han River would be moved, not that the troops would be moved north of the Han River.
#5
Point 1: The Han flows right through the middle of Seoul - dissects the city in two. Looks cool at night, too.
Point 2: It would seem that the parts of the joint statement concerning the 2ID are being taken over here as meaning, "They aren't being moved anytime soon." "Taking careful account of the political, economic and security situation on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia" means Seoul is going to stall that move for as long as possible. Watch for "citizens groups" to start protesting at planned redeployment spots south of Seoul (e.g. Pyongtaek/Osan, Waegwan). Previous plans to consolidate bases have been held up because of similar shinanigans; a couple of days ago, 10 protestors broke into Uijeongbu City Hall demanding that the mayor hold a referendum on land transfers to the USFK (something he promised to do during his election campaign last year). I'll be shocked (shocked, I tell ye!) if the 2ID goes anywhere soon. I hope to hell I'm wrong, though.
BTW, I've posted the Korean media response to the communique at my blog and at Command Post, just in case anyone cares.
Posted by: The Marmot ||
05/15/2003 12:31 Comments ||
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Edited for topic:
A suicide bombing in Chechnya, the second there this week, killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more during a religious festival. The attack appeared to be an attempt to assassinate the republic's pro-Russian leader, officials in Chechnya said. The attack occurred about 3 p.m. in Iliskhan-Yurt, a village about 20 miles east of the Chechen capital, Grozny, the officials said. Two women tried to approach the head of the regional administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was among thousands of Chechens â who are predominantly Muslim â attending a religious festival commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the officials said. One of the women pleaded that she wanted to speak to Mr. Kadyrov, one official said, because three of her sons had disappeared, a common occurrence in Chechnya. She was stopped, and a large explosion followed. A second bomb, evidently carried by the other woman, did not explode; the authorities found explosives and detonated them afterward. Killed by the first blast before she could push the button.
Images on Russian television showed that the force of the blast severed bodies and strewed bits of flesh and bone across a lush green field beside a religious shrine on the village's outskirts. Mr. Kadyrov was not wounded, but four of his bodyguards were among those killed, the chief Russian prosecutor in Chechnya, Vladimir P. Kravchenko, said tonight. Bodyguards did their job, died to protect the target.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 08:21 am ||
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One of the FBIâs most wanted al-Qaida suspects has been sighted in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and could be operating inside Kenya, Kenyaâs security ministry said on Thursday. FAZUL ABDULLAH MOHAMMED, a Comoros islander, is accused of being the mastermind behind both the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi and last Novemberâs suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan resort of Mombasa. Car bombs are his specialty
National Security Minister Chris Murungaru released his photograph on Wednesday night and said that security forces in the east African country had been put on high alert. âGiven that this fellow has been sighted in Mogadishu and the information gathered is that he has been coming in and going out (of Kenya), then we have to be on high alert,â ministry spokesman Douglas Kaunda said. âThe minister said that thereâs already heightened surveillance of major installations, particularly western interests.â Mohammed has been indicted for the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 224 people. He is also believed to have been the lynchpin in the 2002 Mombasa attacks, in which 16 people died. Somalia has no effective central government and is divided among rival warlords, making it an ideal hideout for fugitives. Not much chance of finding him there, have to pick him up when he's on a road trip.
Kaunda said Mohammed was thought to use 17 different names, and hold various passports. His favorite alias was Harun. According to his FBI wanted poster he likes to wear baseball caps and dress casually, and he is good with computers. A major player
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2003 08:00 am ||
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Lebanon's central bank has located and secured $495 million in Iraqi funds, a US Treasury official said at congressional hearings on efforts to trace the billions of dollars that Saddam Hussein is thought to have hidden away. David Aufhauser, general counsel in the Treasury Department, said the disclosure by Lebanon on Tuesday is a sign of the progress being made in the worldwide search for Saddam's assets. Aufhauser told the House Financial Services oversight subcommittee that the assets in Lebanon apparently came from Iraq's central bank and other sources.
Posted by: Anonymous ||
05/15/2003 07:07 am ||
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#1
$495 mil? Hell, we found more than that in freakin' garden walls in Baghdad.
#2
Is This the Bush Administration's plan to get rid of the deficit?
Posted by: Cal Ulmann ||
05/15/2003 11:47 Comments ||
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#3
Well, you can use the Freedom of Information Act, demand the transfer receipts, follow where the money goes (495 Mil leaves one hell of an audit trail), and you can make a stink if it goes anywhere else than Iraq, Cal. Until then, that question, similar to "Have you stopped beating your wife", as the sort of air that marks you as a character assassin.
Iran has begun production of weaponized anthrax and is actively working with at least five other pathogens, including smallpox, in a drive to build an arsenal of biological weapons, according to an opposition group that previously exposed a secret nuclear enrichment program in the country. The group, Mujaheddin-e Khalq, citing informants inside the Iranian government, says the anthrax weapons are the first fruits of a program begun secretly in 2001 to triple the size of Iran's biowarfare program. The push for new biological weapons was launched in parallel with a more ambitious campaign to build massive nuclear facilities capable of producing components for nuclear bombs, said officials of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political arm of the Mujaheddin, which seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. "We can say with certainty that the Iranian regime now has the capability of mass production of biological material for weapons use," Alireza Jafarzadeh, the council's U.S. representative, said in an interview. The group has scheduled a news conference today in Washington to release more details.
(con't see link)
I'd grain of salt this report. MKO has an ax to grind, and I can't see any real benefit to the Medes and Persians to offset potential costs.
Posted by: Anonymous ||
05/15/2003 06:55 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.
