Afghanistan's President has vowed to quit should he fail to bring unruly provinces into line in the next few months, a state-run newspaper reported Monday. "Day by day the people of Afghanistan are becoming disappointed with the government," the Arman-e-Millie daily quoted Hamid Karzai as saying. Addressing a religious function Sunday, Karzai conceded ordinary Afghans were losing faith in his government — installed after a U.S.-led military coalition overthrew the fundamentalist Taliban in late 2001. He said some provinces were collecting state customs revenues for their own finances and armies. "Is the continuation of this condition possible for the survival of peace? No!" he said. Karzai said also that he had told the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) that confirmed him in power last June that he would not stay in office if it proved impossible for him to work. He said that if the situation did not improve "in the coming two or three months... then I will summon the Loya Jirga... and say that the government could not work." Karzai said the nation could then choose another government to improve the situation. His comments came ahead of an expected showdown Tuesday with 12 governors who control customs revenues Kabul says are vital for reconstruction and payment of state salaries. The finance ministry estimates the 12 provinces earned more than half a billion dollars from customs last year, but only $80 million reached Kabul, undermining the government's efforts to consolidate its rule and bring stability.
To quote former Rep. D. Crockett (W-Tenn): "I am going to Texas and you can go to Hell."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 11:34 am ||
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Karzai needs money and control to rebuild, and the warlords are deniying him tax revenues. He doesnt have the force to put down the warlords - making Pashtun provinces into an "isle de france" hasnt worked, with insecurity in pashtun provinces, and with Gul Shirzai still controlling the south. And greater Kabul isnt working as an "isle de france" - too much customs revenue gets skimmed at the border. So its threaten to resign - leaving Fahim, Dostum, Shirzai, Khan, et al to face the prospects of civil war, or at best rule by one of their number over the others with US backing. They have to see Kharzai as preferable, but will they give up the revenues to keep him?
#2
I think the usual practice in the area is to promise to do so, then not follow through...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2003 12:14 Comments ||
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Karzai wants to be a ruler, not a figurehead. I'm not sure that having Karzai in charge is necessarily in our interests. There's nothing wrong with the current situation, where the provincial governors are largely responsible for local affairs and our guys are responsible for security. The analogy is that of American federalism before the Federal government acquired its present bloat.
The governors know that they are not indespensable - if they get out of line (in terms of supporting the Taliban), we can knock 'em over, and have someone else take over. A unified Afghanistan under Karzai would be much more chancy. What happens if Karzai makes nice with the Taliban like he did in the first weeks of the war, before it became clear that the Taliban were goners? I simply don't trust Karzai - he has the air of a rug salesman about him.
#4
i think the current situation in Afghanistan is hardly 1820 US federalism - these guys have armies, and now and again fight each other Shirzai vs Khan, Dostum vs Fahim. Their areas, though better than under the taliban, are not secure enough for the reconstruction Afghanistan needs. And withou Kharzai as pres, theyre likely to fight for control of the center, as they did in '92.
I cant see Kharzai making nice with the Taliban - if they come back, hes a goner, he offers nothing they need. He is mainly of use to US, and to non-Taliban Pashtuns. So its in his interest for us to stay. As for his actions in during the war, my impression is he was working with the CIA from day one. He was reaching out to local taliban, to change sides, which was also the CIA strategy.
In earliest days of our nation, we had similar problems. The new government would try to govern and often simply be ignored by the states. In the end, we didn't do too bad.
Geostrategy Direct (May 13th edition, no link. Thanks to Paul for the hardcopy) writes that Kuwait has uncovered a network linked to al-Qaeda when it stuck its head up to go and fight in northern Iraq in March and April. The network was headed by a Saudi cleric, Sheik Hamoud Al-Aqla Al-Shuebi. Al-Shuebi was reported to have brought hundred of his students â Kuwaiti nationals â to Iraq through Jordan and Syria. The group was composed of seminarians and former soldiers. They attempted to link with Ansar al-Islam, near the Iranian border. Ansar had an estimated 500 killed, but it is not known how many were from the Kuwaiti group. Ansar's total strength before the war was estimated at 700-800. After Ansar was destroyed, the group returned to Kuwait through Syria, where at some of them, including Shuebi, were arrested. Others remain at large.
This sounds more like a pickup group than a genuine terror network, more along the lines of the saps who rushed off to fight the infidels in the Afghan war, funneled in by Tehrik Nifaz Shariah Mohammadi. TNSM's leader, Sufi Mohammad, was sentenced to seven years in jug when he got back to Pakistan, and most of his jihadis who didn't get themselves killed had to be ransomed. We don't hear much about TNSM anymore. On the other hand, there sure are a lot of Soddies who like to lead jihads. Given last week's events, perhaps Prince Nayef would like to have a little talk with this one...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 10:13 pm ||
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Fred, I think Prince Nayef is one of the bad guys.
Saudi police were holding on Monday a lone gunman caught outside the United States consulate in the Gulf oil city of Dhahran amid fears of renewed terror attacks, the American embassy said. 'An armed individual was apprehended at the initial barrier gate to the US consulate compound in Dhahran at approximately 0600 on Monday, May 19,' the embassy said in a warden message to Americans in the kingdom. 'He is now in police custody,' it added. 'No one was injured, nor was anyone threatened. Security remained intact.'
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 07:46 pm ||
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However, the Kennedy assassination was solved with the arrest of the lone gunman.
Three State Security Department (SSD) officers Major Musaed Al-Ali, 1st Lt Bashar AbdulWahab and Lt Khalifa Al-Azmi told the Criminal Court Sunday they recovered illegal arms and ammunition from Ali Abdullah Hamad Al-Hamidi, 42 years old; Khalifa Hilal Hadi Al-Dihani, 53; Ibrahim Mubarak Fahad Al-Ghanim, 46 and Talal Hamad Mohamed Al-Faresi, 35. The officers said they found in the possession of Al-Hamidi two grenades, a smoke bomb, a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) and eight automatic guns, in addition to an unlicensed pistol and a hunting rifle; and three automatic rifles and ammunition in possession of Al-Dihani.
Ah, yasss... Sounds like elk season is opening in Kuwait...
Al-Hamidi and Al-Dihani are being charged with trading in arms and ammunition, while Al-Ghanim and Al-Faresi carry the charge of possessing banned automatic guns, a pistol and ammunition.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 01:26 pm ||
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sounds like an older crowd - not your typical hotheaded kids
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 14:37 Comments ||
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Saudi authorities called for an international effort to crack down on terrorism as they announced the arrests of four suspects apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network in the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh. Despite the strong words, Saudi Arabia's interior minister Prince Nayef downplayed the role played by U.S. investigators in probing the attacks on three foreign housing complexes he linked to al-Qaida. During a tense press conference Sunday, Nayef called for "a concerted international effort" to crack down on those who plan such attacks. He did not identify those he suspected of being behind them. Nayef described a limited role for U.S. investigators in the kingdom, saying they had come to examine "the sites and we welcomed them based on that, for examining only." More than 60 FBI and other U.S. investigators are assisting Saudi authorities with the probe into the May 12 attacks, which killed 34 people, including nine alleged bombers. U.S. officials said Americans would be helping, not running, the investigation.
You get those infidels running around, poking into things, no telling what they might uncover. Better just to keep them at the Sheraton and let them know what the guys from the National Guard have found. That should keep them happy and keep any princely necks safe...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 03:38 am ||
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This particular prince seems to be the guy we want to make an example of. He's also stated that Saudi terrorists come from outside the country.
I've sluggested here and elsewhere that the Princes are about to do a little in-fighting, and this guy is obviously on the side of terror.
#2
Right Chuck. Lots of infighting. For example, Prince Abdullah is head of National Guard. The Vinnell site was his turf. I'm sure he took it as a personal insult, plus the rumors that NG has been penetrated by AQ/bombers has got to keep him up at night. Remember also that he is kind of a black sheep in that he is only a half brother to King Fahad, Def. Min. Sultan, the afore mentioned Nayef, plus Salman, the gov. of Riyadh Province, plus Prince Majed of of Makka Province, plus a few others. This group is nicknamed the Sudayri seven as their mom came from the Sudayri clan. Abdallah was given the National Guard job 40-50 years ago as Abdullah's constituency are the tribes/clans in the Riyadh area up to Jordan/Syria border. A little complicated, non?
If you saw Adel al-Jubeir on Tim Russert yesterday, notice his reaction to Tim's quoting Nayef's assertions that the Zionists were behind WTC/Pentagon/Penn. murders. No defense of Nayef from Adel. "You should ask him," (meaning Nayef) said Atom Ant. Well, guess who Adel is attached to at the hip? Prince Abdullah. Nayef probably wants that guy to stay home and shut up.
Saudis consider Abdallah to be the most honest of the big princes. He's kind of like Bush, in a way. Likes straight talking, going out to the desert for a little falconing, (Bush likes to clear scrub at Crawford), and is unpretentious. OTOH, he's also a big supporter of looking at ways for foreign companies to come back into oil/gas business and other sectors since Kingdom needs this investment.
Abdallah also can't stand a fool. My friends who taught English to NG members always told me that guys who couldn't pass were held back, unlike a lot of training centers at other ministries where guys would be passed based on connections. So, he's a traditional guy in the best sense, but is open minded as far as what the country has to do so as not to get lost in the shuffle of globalization.
He's got his drawbacks, no doubt. He was asleep at the wheel re bombings. Plus, not too many people accessing this blog would agree with his stance on Israel, for example. And he's sure not a proponent of equality between the sexes or a secular society, but for a Saudi big-shot, he's more pro-US than many think.
Posted by: Michael ||
05/19/2003 9:12 Comments ||
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We should not forget that OBL's first aim was, in reality, a change in government in Saudi Arabia. His funding sources certainly believed that they would be the benificiaries of this change, but I'm also quite certain that OBL had other plans.
And, let's not forget that actions may serve multiple aims. The recent Saudi bombings are directed as much or more at the Saudi government as they are at western interests. The bombings in Morocco may have as much or more to do with Moroccon activites in the disputed Spanish Sahara as with al Qaeda.
We can be giving al Qaeda too much credit for these things, and overlooking the local reasons. I still don't believe the 20,000 agents claims. That would make this terrorist organization the largest in history, and that's just plain unlikely. Maybe 1,000 agents (or less), and relationships with some local groups with some similar aims.
#5
chuck: if the moroccan sites were strictly on morocco govt targets, or even morocco/spanish i could see that - but what do the Saharans want with a Jewish Comm Center, or with either the Belgian consulate or a Jewish owned restaurant (depending on which side of the street you think was targeted)? Maybe locals, but if so sounds like locals pursuing a broader jihadi agenda. AQ allies, if not actual affiliates. And their ability to coordinate attacks certainly is redolent of AQ itself.
Solomon Islands police investigating the decapitation of an Australian missionary on Malaita island say they are confident of an early arrest in the case. Lance Gersbach, a 60-year-old Seventh Day Adventist missionary, was killed as he was completing repairs on a church hospital at Atoifi. Mr Gersbach, his wife and two small children, had only been in the Solomon Islands for about three months. Solomon Islands Police Chief Superintendant Jackson Ofu says despite the killing, there is no threat to expatriates.
"Well, maybe a little threat. They did cut his head off, after all. But..."
"The security threat on expatriates in Solomon Islands is very low," he said.
"I mean, it ain't like this happens all the time, y'know?"
"We very much believe that this incident is an isolated incident, a one-off incident which could happen out of, desperation I suppose, by landowners."
No matter how desperate I've ever been, I can't recall ever cutting somebody's head off...
A spokesman from the church, Pastor Larry Laredo, says he understands Mr Gersbach and the local islanders had differences about land ownership. But he says the island relies on the hospital and it will not be shut. "The Adventist church is one of the biggest churches in the Solomons, so I doubt if we'd pull out," he said. "When issues like this have arisen before obviously we need to protect and look after the family. We have a strong infrastructure in the Solomons because of our sheer size."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 11:59 am ||
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Seventh Day Adventists sounding like Islamic Jihadists. Now I've seen everything.
#2
Seventh Day Adventists counsel their members, when drafted, to register as conscientious objectors and request assignment to the medical corps. I used to belong to the church, and never met any one who had any weapons bigger than a squirrel gun. They're probably talking about hiring guards for the family, rather than pulling out and running away.
A court in Rotterdam has freed four suspected Islamic militants. They were among 12 men on trial for having alleged links to al-Qaeda. The prosecution withdrew the main charge against 10 of the suspects - helping the enemy in a time of armed conflict. The charge hasn't been used since crimes connected to the Second World War. The prosecutor demanded prison terms of between six months and three years. The 12 men, who come from nine countries, including Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco, were arrested last year. The judge let four of them go because the time they already spent in custody was longer than the sentences the prosecutor asked for. The prosecution dropped the rarely-used charge "aiding the enemy" against 10 of the suspects because of a lack of evidence.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/19/2003 09:58 pm ||
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Sorry, Fred, if this has already been posted when I was unable to access this site.
With the German economy on the brink of recession, cash-strapped cities are resorting to slapping a "pleasure tax" on brothels to help balance budgets. Berlin and Cologne said on Friday they may broaden their existing pleasure tax â which already applies to casinos and public events â to brothels, sex shows and erotic trade fairs. The cities of Gelsenkirchen and Dorsten have already done so, but with only modest success. Only about a tenth of brothels have paid up since the tax was broadened in January.
Could be because hookers have thousands of years of experience in dealing with shakedowns...
Tax officials are checking out sex venues and prostitutes working from home to see if they are eligible for the tax, which amounts to 5.60 euros ($6.40) per 10 square meters (107 sq ft) of business space per day. Any smaller establishment is exempt. "Our tax inspectors are combing through sex adverts in local newspapers and then paying visits, but equipped with measuring tapes," said Martin Schulmann, spokesman for Gelsenkirchen. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "How big is it??
Prostitutes' lobby group Hydra said in a statement the tax was "pretty absurd." For once, I agree with the ho's
"Are we going to measure tax payments by the size of the brothel? If so Berlin's clients will have to satisfy their needs in cramped cubbyholes or standing up. Does this city need this?"
"That's why we have parks!"
Berlin's debt per capita is more than double that of recession-hit Argentina. Other cities are also deeply in the red. "Many places are trying to get out of the tax by claiming they are just sex cinemas, which only have to pay half the tax rate. It's quite hard to collect," said Schulmann. well, if you're willing to believe that something a little bigger than 10 square meters is a porno theater....
But even if all Gelsenkirchen's brothels paid up, the tax would only yield about 150,000 euros ($171,400) a year â a drop in the ocean of 250 million euros of debt the city has. Germany, dubbed the "sick man of Europe" because its giant economy has stagnated since 2001, is struggling with a burgeoning budget deficit and mass unemployment. I always thought Germans were fiscally responsible.....what the hell happened??
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
05/19/2003 07:30 pm ||
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I always thought Germans were fiscally responsible.....what the hell happened??
It's called "socialism". It's still alive and well in modern Germany. The unemployment rate went through the roof following reunification, and all the unprofitable businesses of East Germany were shut down or phased out, and the polluting industries were forced to meet envirnomental standards imposed slowly over time in the West, but slapped on East German companies in a matter of months. The so-called "free trade" agreements were the death knell to many of Europe's smaller businesses, especially family-run ones. There was also a huge new bureaucracy to pay for in the "United Europe" of the European Union. Add a worldwide economic retrenchment that can be blamed on "insecurity" caused by a rise in world terrorism, and the financial, social, cultural, and political impact (global, not just in the US, or New York) of 9/11. Germany has a stratified, virtually untouchable social welfare system that is totally unresponsive to real-world pressures. You've got a system that's being pounded on the left by social demands, and on the right by economic reality. Think "Weimar Republic, 1922". You wouldn't be far off. ALso remember what THAT led to 15 years later...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 22:18 Comments ||
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I'd agree with most of your analysis, Old Patriot, except for the Weimar part. This time Germany is a profoundly democratic country and we are talking "misery" at highest level... means people still are very well off. An unemployed German might have more money than an American working two badly paid jobs. The extreme right occasionally gets her moment of glory in a country parliament, only to be voted out next time because they have nothing to offer but hate propaganda.
The real problem with the social system here is not that it es extremly socialist but that it is extremly bureaucratic. Streamline organization, radically reform the tax system, promote individual retirement plans, cut a few holidays, work 40 hours a week and stop the whining... and we would be back on track.
We came back from the dead, we will come back from some illness, too.
#3
While I sympathise, TGA and I think it unfair to only think about what Weimar led to in Germany (could have happened anywhere), I do think the comparison between today's German society and Weimar to have a few close parallels.
Obviously hyper-inflation isn't one of them.
However I would say that Germany WAS profoundly democratic under Weimar.
It is one of the reasons many Jews/others didn't try to get out of Germany till it was way too late.
Weimar Germany was probably THE most progressive, liberal society on the planet in its day.
This should serve as a warning to all of us 'enlightened' modern citizens of liberal democracies.
Eternal vigilance.. y'know the rest.
The left in particular should have a long hard think about this. After all, the nazis started out as the national SOCIALIST party. And given the fascistic tendencies of a lot of the left, wanting to rule by the mob on the street, wanting to overrule decisions made by elected representatives, pursuing witch-hunt campaigns to eliminate political enemies yadda yadda yadda.
Though this is NOTHING compared with the big guys like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, eternal vigilance means everyone being aware all the time.
#4
Polar bears are great to watch, but they are very dangerous. We had a young man who graduated from one of our village schools moved up to Point Lay, about halfway between Kotzebue and Barrow in NW alaska. He and his girlfriend were walking in the village that night when a polar bear came around the corner. He diverted the bear's attention and the girl escaped. He didn't and was half eaten when the village public safety officer arrived and killed the bear. A necropsy performed on the bear by fish and game found no fat on the bears body except for a bit around the heart. The bear had been starving. Polar bear fur makes nice parka ruffs, as the hairs are hollow and shed moisture. Polar bears do not make good pets, except that the cubs are cute and cuddly when they are very young.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/19/2003 20:59 Comments ||
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At least 14 civilians were injured in two explosions at Indian Kashmir's busiest bus terminal on Monday. They said suspected Muslim rebels triggered a grenade explosion followed by a mine blast near the concrete bunker of India's Border Security Force (BSF) at the entrance to the bus terminal in the busy Batamaloo area of Srinagar. "Initial reports suggest that BSF did not suffer any casuality as all the men were inside the bunker," a BSF spokesman said, adding the troops immediately sealed off the area and launched a search for the attackers. Batamaloo is one of the busiest areas in Srinagar, housing the region's biggest transport terminal, catering for buses coming and going to towns and villages in both north and south Kashmir. The twin explosions caused panic in the area, which is just 200 metres from the civil secretariat, the highest seat of state administration. More than 38,000 people have died in Indian Kashmir since the eruption of anti-Indian rebellion in the region in 1989. Separatists put the toll twice as high.
The usual pattern, isn't it? Peace talks -> Explosions.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 12:05 pm ||
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Suspected militants have killed six Muslim villagers in a remote area of Indian-administered Kashmir. The dead, all members of a shepherd's family, included four women and two children. Those women and children can be very dangerous
Unidentified militants are said to have entered the house of Mehboob Iqba, a 55-year-old shepherd, in a remote village in Rajouri district, some 180 kms north of Jammu. They killed his wife, three daughters-in-law and two children, aged two and four. Mr Iqba was not at home at the time. Three of Mr Iqba's sons, whose wifes were among those killed, belong to the Indian army and police, which is being seen as the motive behind the attack. The BBC's Binoo Joshi in Jammu says militant groups have been targeting the families of soldiers.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/19/2003 02:50 am ||
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If your not with us your with them. So we will sneak up on you and kill your children. We are soldiers, freedom fighters.
US forces have collected thousands of tanks and heavy weapons from the Iraq-based armed Iranian opposition under a disarmament deal struck last week, Central Command said Saturday. "Coalition forces have consolidated 2,139 tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, air defense artillery pieces and miscellaneous vehicles formerly in the possession of the Mujahedin e-Khalq Organization (MKO) forces," otherwise known as the People's Mujahedeen, Centcom said. "The 4th Infantry Division also reports they have destroyed most of the MKO munitions and caches. The voluntary, peaceful resolution of this process by the MEK and the Coalition significantly contributes to the Coalition's mission to establish a safe and secure environment for the people of Iraq." The US-listed terrorist organisation began submitting heavy weapons and thousands of fighters to US control in Iraq last Sunday, a day after the deal was struck at a guerrilla base in northeastern Iraq. Under the agreement, the Mujahedeen's 4,000 to 5,000 fighters — many of whom were educated in the United States and Europe — were to gather at one of their base camps in northeastern Iraq and submit to US control.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 02:05 pm ||
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Sorry to be critical, but this doesn't add up: 2.5 people per vehicle? I don't think even the 4th ID has this sort of ratio, does it?
The US military says Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law, an Iraqi intelligence agent who is on a US blacklist of former Iraqi officials, had been in US custody since Friday. The US Central Command (Centcom), which controls US military operations in Iraq and the Gulf, says coalition forces have captured Luay Khayrallah, who is also a companion of the ousted Iraqi leader's son Uday.
Sounds like a real fun guy. Hanging around with Uday was always good for lotsa laffs...
It did not say where he was captured, but says he is number 52 on a US list of wanted Iraqis. The Centcom statement also says US troops have detained 17 Iraqis near Saddam's home town of Tikrit, and near the western town of Falluja, on suspicion of harbouring members of Saddam's now outlawed Ba'ath party and other former officials. Troops are hunting down Iraqi officials and have captured 21 out of a list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 12:17 pm ||
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It did not say where he was captured, but says he is number 52 on a US list of wanted Iraqis.
EFL.
On one street in the capital, a vendor shouts out news he would have been arrested for trumpeting just weeks ago: "Read all about Saddam's man-boy love double!" A woman skids her car to a stop and asks for a copy of Assaah, a newspaper published in Iraq without government supervision. Iraqis are now enjoying media freedoms unheard of in the eight decades since the nation was established by British colonialists. During Saddam Hussein's 33-year reign, no foreign newspapers were allowed into Iraq. Satellite dishes were banned, and cable television was prohibitively expensive. The sole windows to the outside world were radio stations like the BBC, Paris-based Radio Monte Carlo, and the U.S. government's SAWA Radio. Since the regime was overthrown in early April, a throng of freewheeling newspapers, radio and television stations have sprung up to replace the turgid, sycophantic media under Saddam. Kurdish and Arab, left and right, even two separate coalition-run radio stations - all are chiming in. Suddenly, there are more than a dozen newspapers to choose from, compared to five state-controlled dailies of the past. People can buy satellite dishes and watch the channel of their choice, or listen to local radio stations denouncing Saddam as a corrupt and ruthless despot.
In the days immediately following the dictatorship's collapse, the country was left without any newspapers. State-run television and radio stations went off the air. The vacuum was quickly filled by papers published by anti-Saddam groups in northern Iraq's Kurdish areas, such as al-Itihad ("Union") and Nidaa al-Mustaqbal ("Call of the Future"), which made their way to Baghdad. The London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat became the first foreign daily to be sold in the country on April 17. Within days, new newspapers began appearing on the streets. Three independent radio stations and several local television stations went on the air. Still, some journalists say they're unsure whether the current media scene is a reflection of newly found freedoms or a just chaotic post-dictatorial free-for-all. There's a difference?
"It is still too early to speak about the freedom of the press," said Ali Abdel-Amir, senior editor of Nidaa al-Mustaqbal, a newspaper of the longtime exile group, the Iraqi National Congress. "There is anarchy now," Abdel-Amir said. "Many of these people working in the press are not professional or objective." He must have been trained by the BBC or the New York Times.
Among the first new papers to start publishing in Baghdad was the London-based Az-Zaman, owned by Saad al-Bazaz, former editor in chief of the government daily state-owned Al-Jumhuriya who defected a decade ago. Assaah - "The Hour" - is published by Sheik Ahmed al-Kubeisy, a Sunni Muslim cleric who fled Iraq few years ago. Fajr Baghdad - or "Baghdad Dawn" — bills itself as "Iraq's first democratic and independent newspaper." Its front-page generally focus on daily worries such as the lack of gasoline and electricity, and the looting and lawlessness that have swept the nation since Saddam's ouster.
Saddam's departure has also meant that Iraqis can now own once-banned satellite dishes. Thousands of newly made or imported dishes are on sale throughout the city. The U.S.-led military coalition that occupied the country has two radio networks of its own, one run by former employees of station previously owned by Saddam's elder son, Odai. Information Radio features news announcements, Arabic music and even Western music like the occasional rendition of "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News. Another station, Radio of the Iraqi Republic, run by former Information Ministry officials, urges listeners to forget the past and work together for a better future. In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, the first local television station went on the air April 16, days after Baghdad fell. Local stations followed in other provinces. Karbala Television, run by 10 volunteers using old equipment left over from the state broadcaster, airs seven hours of programing dealing with how to cope with the province's war-damaged infrastructure. "We are a free voice that does not belong to any party. We wanted this channel to be free and speak in the name of all Iraqi people," said the station's director Khalil al-Tayar. In Baghdad, viewers can tune into the coalition information channel or watch channels from neighboring Iran, primarily the Arabic-language Al-Aalam.
Ali al-Fatlawi, a reporter who worked previously for government newspapers, says working for Assaah is much better. "There is more freedom and more openness," he said. "The red lines have been lifted, and we can express ourselves freely and without threats and no journalists have been fed into a shredder." Perhaps these guys could teach Harold Raines a thing or two about reporting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/19/2003 02:12 am ||
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I think Harold Baines could teach them a thing or two about hitting, he probably could even teach Howell Raines a thing or two about real journalism
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 14:53 Comments ||
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#8
Thurston Howell Raines III. Boy, he was great on Gilligan's Island wasn't he? And he runs the Times just like he's still there on the island.
The five judges hearing the case against alleged Bali bomber Amrozi will rule on Thursday on arguments by the man's defence that the case cannot go ahead in its current form. The hearing was watched by a number of Australian relatives of victims of the Kuta attack. Sydney's Ryan and Brock Thompson, whose brother Clint died and Perth woman Kimberley Knighton who lost her mother saw less than an hour of court proceedings. In that time 40-year-old Amrozi slouched in his chair before again signalling a thumbs up to cameramen as he left. The prosecution told the court the case should go ahead, that the retrospective anti-terror charges were valid and that Amrozi was not a minor operative in the plot as suggested by the defence. They say he was a key figure in a crime against humanity.
"Yar! I'm just small fry, and the deaders were just a bunch of infidels, so you should just let me go, okay?"
An indictment will go to the court today against alleged bomb mastermind Imam Samudra. That means his trial will most likely commence next week.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 11:55 am ||
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Rebels of the Free Aceh Movement in the Indonesian province of Aceh say they are ready for a guerrilla war against Indonesian troops. Indonesia has launched an air, land and sea offensive against the rebels, who are demanding independence. The Indonesian military says their campaign is one of their biggest since the 1975 invasion of East Timor and are confident of victory.
"Yar! We'll murderlize 'em!"
The rebels say they are ready to fight back.
"Bring 'em on! Bring 'em o-o-o-on!"
"We do not have a big offensive plan, our strategies are defensive, when they strike, we will crush them," one rebel said. "When they are going to strike, we will strike them first, we of course cannot disclose all our war strategies but as a guideline we will fight a guerrilla war."
Ah, the joys of Armed Struggle™!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 11:52 am ||
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Indonesian war planes attacked a rebel base and troops parachuted into restive Aceh province on Monday, as the military launched a major offensive just hours after peace talks broke down and the president imposed martial law. The military said it had moved 15 warships and hundreds of soldiers into the region to ``strike and paralyze'' the Acehnese rebels in what was expected to be Indonesia's biggest military operation since its invasion of East Timor in 1975. Remind me: who are we cheering for here?
I'm hoping for horrendous casualties on both sides. How 'bout you?
The peace talks in Tokyo fell apart when the rebels rejected Jakarta's demands to lay down their weapons, drop their independence bid and accept regional autonomy. The rebels vowed to resist any attack by the military and to fight on for independence. President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a decree late Sunday authorizing war in the oil- and gas-rich in province and imposing martial law. The order gave the Indonesian military sweeping powers to make arrests, impose curfews and curb travel in and out of the province. The military immediately arrested five senior rebels. On Monday, Indonesian planes fired the rockets at a rebel stronghold about 12 miles east of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, said Maj. Gen. Erwin Sujono. ``The offensive has begun,'' Sujono said in Banda Aceh. He added that 15 warships had moved into waters close to the northern town of Lhokseumawe, an area with a heavy concentration of rebels. Indonesia has warships?
``I have ordered soldiers to hunt for those (rebels) who refuse to surrender ... hunt for them and destroy them to their roots,'' said Indonesian military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto. There are more than 30,000 government troops in Aceh, up against about 5,000 poorly armed rebels. Until the Indonesian army commits atrocities, which will swell the ranks of the rebels, and the rebels manage to nail some of the army, which will provide weapons.
The government estimated that the number of refugees in Aceh will balloon to 100,000 from the current 5,000. ``The government has prepared medical supplies, clothing, sheets, food, rice, 4,000 tents and medicines,'' Social Affairs Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah said. Monday's attack signaled a return to military confrontation following a Dec. 9 peace agreement between the government and the Free Aceh Movement that raised hopes for a breakthrough in one of Asia's longest running separatist conflicts. The accord unraveled in recent months following violence by both sides and mutual recriminations. More than 12,000 people have died in fighting since 1976 in the province, province 1,200 miles northwest of Jakarta, amid accusations of atrocities on both sides. On Monday, a body with gunshot wounds was found near Banda Aceh while in northern Aceh unidentified gunmen shot dead a man riding a motorbike with his wife. The circumstances surrounding both deaths were unclear. Either the army or the rebels did it. Clear enough to me.
Earlier Monday, hundreds of troops parachuted into the province in a show of force. Six C-130 Hercules transport aircraft released 458 soldiers over an airstrip close to Banda Aceh. Monday's attack using U.S.-made OV-10 Bronco attack planes was the first time in several years that the military has used air-to-surface missiles in Aceh. It was unclear if there were any casualties in the attack which the military said targeted an alleged weapons cache in the rebel camp.
The Tokyo talks over the weekend had been arranged hastily under pressure from international donors alarmed by the prospect of renewed fighting. Even as the two sides talked, thousands of Indonesian troops massed in the province. A statement Monday by the co-chairs of the Tokyo talks — the European Union, Japan, the United States and the World Bank — urged both parties ``to leave the door open to further dialogue'' and said a peaceful solution is still possible, ``even at this late hour.'' The co-chairs ``deeply regret that the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement failed to seize the unique opportunity before them...,'' the statement said. Rebel leader Malik Mahmud said he believed the Indonesian government was ``looking for a way to declare war'' and had no intention of compromising. ``They asked us to fall on our bayonets surrender,'' said Mahmud, who vowed resistance to government troops. ``We will fight to kill infidels for independence,'' he said. Alt-F6 on the keyboard of any good rebel leader. Threatening dire revenge is Alt-F4.
Shortly after martial law was declared Monday, armed officers barged into a hotel in Banda Aceh where the five rebel leaders were staying and took them to regional police headquarters, witnesses said. Col. Surya Darma, Aceh's chief police detective, said the five rebels were officially named as suspects Monday in a series of recent bomb attacks in Indonesia. The rebel leaders should have used the Express Check-out option.
In downtown Jakarta, meanwhile, about 500 young people held a noisy but peaceful demonstration to protest war in Aceh. Such protests have been rare in the runup to hostilities, however, and opinion polls show most Indonesians supporting any military action that keeps the country together. Oh, it will be costly.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/19/2003 01:58 am ||
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#1
Remind me: who are we cheering for here?
I'd support just about anybody fighting against the Indonesian Army
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
05/19/2003 2:57 Comments ||
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#2
Aceh is like a lot of places of Asia. It is ruled by an oppresive and corrupt government that the people perceive as colonists.
The USA and its allies could sort out these problems fairly easily, although the UN will go apeshit!
Just impose a blockade and give the locals a fixed period to come up with a reasonable society and system of government - say 12 months. If they can't come up with a reasonable society then the USA should just drop the blockade and leave. The prospect of the colonists coming back in (in this case the Javanese) will focus their mind wonderfully.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/19/2003 3:07 Comments ||
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#3
Remember the Indonesians warned that the Iraq war would cause hundreds of thousands of causalties.
#5
Aceh is, and has been for decades, the core area of Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia. Its religious connections with Yemen are strong, and they date back for hundreds of years. If it ever becomes independent, it would likely emerge as a major refuge for terrorists.
#6
Those Aceh rebels are ignorant, primitive, bloodthirsty savages, not some kind of noble freedom fighters. The Indonesian government isn't all that great but some kind of law and order is called for; I'm rooting for the Army.
#7
Another thought here. The only 'good' thing about Aceh is that they supposedly grow a premium strain of marijuana. Otherwise, the area is a burden to the more productive parts of Indonesia. A more rational central govt. would want this area to succeed (similarly a rational Canada would want to Atlantic provinces to seek independence).
#8
Yeah, the javanese have warships, up to guided-missile-fregat size, refurbished dutch and russian i think.
Mostly to keep the non-javanese (papuans,dayaks,et al) in line.
Cancio dos Santos readily admits he joined pro-Jakarta militias and torched three homes in East Timor when the territory voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999. But instead of being sent to jail, the 30-year-old farmer has been forgiven after apologizing to his victims during a recent truth and reconciliation meeting. ``There won't be a problem in the future,'' said Maumeta's village chief, Silvin Ribeiro dos Santos. ``The bad feelings toward him have vanished. People don't want to carry this hatred forward.'' They're better than I am.
In some countries, the decision on the dos Santos case might have been seen as a miscarriage of justice. In East Timor, which on Tuesday celebrates its first anniversary as an independent nation, it is a small victory in the country's battle to balance calls for justice with the realities of prosecuting the thousands responsible for its bloody past. The work of the U.N.-sponsored Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation has been widely praised as a good way to dole out justice in war-torn countries where legal systems are unable to cope with the volume of cases. The United Nations, which administered East Timor prior to independence on May 20 of last year, established two systems to provide justice for crimes linked to the 1999 violence. The Serious Crimes Unit investigates and indicts those responsible for murder, rape, torture and forced displacement, and prosecutes them in court. Lesser crimes like arson, robbery and theft are handled by the commission. The Indonesian military along with their militia proxies laid waste to much of East Timor when it voted overwhelmingly to break from Jakarta in a U.N.-sponsored referendum in 1999. More than 1,500 people were killed, 250,000 were forced from their homes and much of the county's infrastructure was sacked. Not counting what they did before the independence vote.
Top Indonesian military officials believed ultimately responsible for the violence are beyond the reach of the East Timor panels, because Jakarta has refused to extradite any of them. After intense international pressure, Indonesia agreed to put on trial 18 Indonesian military and government officials for their role in the bloodshed, which only stopped after international peacekeepers arrived. But the Jakarta trials have been widely criticized as a farce, with only five of the defendants convicted. They all remain free on appeal. We all saw this coming!
In East Timor, the reconciliation commission has completed 200 hearings across the country in the past year. There are more than 20 similar commissions in other countries with violent pasts - like Chile, South Africa and Sierra Leone - but East Timor's is the only one that can dole out justice. ``If not for this, the victim could remain angry and it could cause further problems,'' said Patrick Burgess, chief U.N legal adviser to the commission. ``The purpose of this is to avoid future violence.'' The hearings incorporate many traditional customs and beliefs. Coconut water is sprinkled to purify the ground, and a chicken is sacrificed and its entrails then read to determine if the hearing should continue. Defendants are made to sit opposite their victims, acknowledge their crimes and ask for forgiveness. Victims are given an opportunity to explain their suffering and question the defendant. Villagers and victims then join the commission in handing down a sentence - ranging from an apology to rebuilding burnt homes. After this, the defendant receives immunity from future prosecution. Do they get to read the defendant's entrails?
The Special Crimes Unit has indicted 250 people, among them several senior Indonesian military officials living in Jakarta. East Timor's courts, however, have so far convicted just 30 of them. U.N. officials concede they will probably never catch many of the highest ranking defendants, including Indonesia's former military chief Gen. Wiranto. President Xanana Gusmao has been criticized for failing to support the indictments against the Indonesian officials. He says that relations with the county's former occupier and giant neighbor are more important. For someone who was tortured and vilified, he's remarkably pragmatic.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/19/2003 01:51 am ||
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#1
Better a chicken give its life than... well... I can't find a good ending, but if it works, great!
I, personaly, have been drinking pina coladas for years in a valiant attempt to purify my ground. Not enough coconut water?
#2
At some times, diring the US intervention in Afghanistan, the taliban & co. accused the UN of having committed "war crimes" in East Timor by supporting its independance from Indonesia. Given which country was instrumental in liberating ET, I can see why the Master Religion's True Believers are pissed at Australia, regardless of its ties with the USA, involvement in WOT and such.
#3
Last year, East Timor. Today, Aceh. Maybe in a year or two, West Irian. Not long after that, maybe Borneo, then probably Celebes and Bali. Indonesia is going to be fighting "rebels" for a long, long time.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 11:21 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Watch your step! The Pentagon is developing a radar-based device that can identify people by the way they walk, for use in a new antiterrorist surveillance system.
Operating on the theory that an individual's walk is as unique as a signature, the Pentagon has financed a research project at the Georgia Institute of Technology that has been 80 to 95 percent successful in identifying people.
If the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, orders a prototype, the individual ``gait signatures'' of people could become part of the data to be linked together in a vast surveillance system the Pentagon agency calls Total Information Awareness.
That system already has raised privacy alarms on both ends of the political spectrum, and Congress in February barred its use against American citizens without further congressional review.
Nevertheless, government documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that scores of major defense contractors and prominent universities applied last year for the first research contracts to design and build the surveillance and analysis system.
In its advice to contractors, DARPA declared, ``The amounts of data that will need to be stored and accessed will be unprecedented, measured in petabytes.''
One petabyte would dwarf most existing databases; it's roughly equal to 50 times the Library of Congress, which holds more than 18 million books.
Conceived and managed by retired Adm. John Poindexter, the TIA surveillance system is based on his theory that ``terrorists must engage in certain transactions to coordinate and conduct attacks against Americans, and these transactions form patterns that may be detectable.''
Other databases DARPA wants to access include financial, education, medical and housing records and biometric identification databases based on fingerprints, irises, facial shapes and gait.
Poindexter's plan would integrate some projects DARPA has been working on for several years, including research headed by Gene Greneker at Georgia Tech.
At a cost of less than $1 million over the past three years, he has been aiming a 1-foot-square radar dish at 100 test volunteers to record how they walk. (I wonder if these people are having trouble conceiving children now.)
Elsewhere at Georgia Tech, DARPA is funding other researchers to use video cameras and computers to try to develop distinctive gait signatures.
``One of the nice things about radar is we see through bad weather, darkness, even a heavy robe shrouding the legs, and video cameras can't,'' Greneker said in an interview. ``At 600 feet we can do quite well.''
And the target doesn't have to be doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk to be distinctive because the radar detects small frequency shifts in the reflected signal off legs, arms and the torso as they move in a combination of different speeds and directions.
The researchers are anticipating ways the system might be fooled. (Practicing walking like John Wayne going into a saloon?)
``A woman switching from flats to high heels probably wouldn't change her signature significantly,'' Greneker said. ``But if she switched to combat boots, that might have a difference.'' (And her switching to a micro skirt might make a difference in the gait of guys following her.)
At a restricted facility, the technology could warn security officers that an approaching person was probably not an employee by comparing his gait with those on file. ``And we now know how to detect people who are carrying heavy packages, which could include a 25-pound bomb in a backpack,'' Greneker said.
Greneker hasn't gotten caught up in the privacy debate. ``We are research and development people. We think about what's possible, not what the government will do with it. That's somebody else's job. And this isn't a weapons system.''
(I would think that it would be easier to tell a terrorist by the way they genuflected vice walked.)
#1
...On the other hand, John Cleese is probably naturally immune to this technology.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/20/2003 0:00 Comments ||
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If you want more security you have to trade off privacy. There isn't any other way.
Biometrics is a hot topic right now, and the best ways of identifying people will in all likelyhood not be the means we as people identify other people. A person's gait seems a good candidate becuase you can measure it at a distance.
Ignore the gee whiz! spin on Petabyte databases. There is already an Internet2 up and running and used to access existing databases of this size.
BTW, I am hugely optimistic about the potential for biometrics to dramatically improve our security.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/20/2003 0:45 Comments ||
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Al-Qaeda has promoted Osama bin Laden's personal security expert to be the terrorist organisation's new military chief, an international terrorism expert said Monday.
It's pretty obvious they have a new hand at the helm...
Egyptian Saif al-Adel has replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the organisation's number three, said Rohan Gunaratna a world authority on the shadowy terror network. "This is the consensus of a number of people, including myself, who have studied the succession of command in al-Qaeda," said Gunaratna, whose book Al Qaeda: Global Terror Network is considered a foremost study of the organisation. Al-Adel is one of the FBI's most wanted men and is believed to be one of the orchestrators of some of al-Qaeda's deadliest attacks, including the bombing in 1998 of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He is also believed to be linked to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group and goes by the aliases Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi and Ibrahim Al-Madani. Gunaratna says al-Adel, who has given his age as either 40 or 43, was promoted because he had demonstrated his organisational ability by shielding bin Laden from capture for so long and for his "militant performance" in a number of campaigns.
And also because the seat was vacant. We nabbed Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in March. The previous March we nabbed Abu Zubaydah, his predecessor. His predecessor, Mohammad Atef, was bumped off the prior November. We're not talking about terribly long periods of occupancy in that particular slot...
"It is because of him that bin Laden has not been captured," said Gunaratna, who holds honorary titles at universities around the world and has advised the British police and security agencies on counter-terrorism measures. Al-Adel's promotion should come as no surprise to al-Qaeda watchers. He fills the number three position left vacant after the arrest of former military chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan in March. Mohammed's successor would have been the al-Qaeda number four, Waleed Mohammad bin Attash, but he was arrested by US-led forces in Pakistan on April 29.
Heh heh. Got him before he had to chance to get the seat warm...
Despite reports that US officials believe al-Adel planned last week's Riyadh bombings from a hideout in Iran, Gunaratna says the terror supremo is in hiding on the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border. "That is the only safe place for al-Qaeda operatives to hide out," he said.
Fazl's guesthouse is so comfy, why'd they want to go anywhere else?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 01:42 pm ||
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#1
Are you a recent Graduate? Looking for an organization that you can blow up grow with? Do you have a death wish the skills to compete? Do you want eventually work for the Socialists Dimocratic Party? Send you Resume' to Al-Qaeda today, all many senior Leaders are dead positions available for immediate launch hire. Health (laugh)/Dental (Identification) covered.
EFL
Amid the construction dust of a faux Southern California shopping mall, where cream walls, marble floors and luxury boutiques were taking shape, a construction worker resolutely pushed his wheelbarrow, ignoring a poster of a lingerie model, dressed in little more than a black cowboy hat. "The North Koreans are great, they don't smoke, they don't drink," said Grigoryi Akhoyan, the Armenian developer of the downtown mall here. "I have friends in California who employ Mexicans. I think North Koreans work just as hard." Yes, but they work for their own benefit.
North Korean construction workers are now so numerous here that one recent morning an American diplomat noticed a North Korean crew plastering the bomb-barrier flower boxes in front of the United States Consulate. They were replaced by Russian workers. In an inheritance from Soviet days, as many as 10,000 North Koreans work in the Russian Far East under a contract worker system. North Korea provides cheap labor under tight controls to the region, which is short of labor, but fears Asian immigration. Sort of like a staffing company, but different.
With North Korea now the poorest nation in Northeast Asia, all of its neighbors — China, South Korea, Russia and Japan — have adopted contingency plans to block a sudden outflow of migrants in case the Communist government collapses. But while Japan, South Korea and Russia lack workers willing to do dirty and dangerous jobs, only Russia has been willing to accept North Koreans as guest workers. "It is good the North Korean workers are here," Yuri Kopylov, Vladivostok's mayor, said. "They work all day long. There is no competition between North Koreans and Russians. There is work for everybody." And vodka for us.
The arrangement allows the North Korean government to milk the maximum money from the workers, who generally come here on three-year contracts. Most of their wages are retained or collected by the North Korean state companies that bring them here, workers and employers here said. Two North Koreans interviewed at an apartment renovation project here said their unit leader told them they must earn a minimum of $400 (12,356 rubles) a month, (close to the local minimum wage), which for most means moonlighting at private jobs. They are allowed to keep $100. This money, the men said, they send home to their families or carry back on their yearly vacations. Although they often work 16-hour days, sleeping in apartments they are renovating, they said they considered themselves lucky to be working in Russia and hoped to renew their contracts. The men asked not be identified in any way, saying that they could be harshly punished for talking about North Korea to foreigners. One man drew his fingers across his throat in a universal sign of execution. "The men coming here realize they are prisoners of the system," Akhoyan, the Armenian developer, said, referring to North Korea's hold over workers. "But all the workers come here willingly. And when the contract is over, they seem to regret going." He said he paid "about the same amount of money" to his 60 North Koreans as to Russians with the same skills. The advantage to him, he explained, "is that the Koreans do a greater volume of work." Literally a regime that will work for food.
In the Russian Far East, North Korea's tightly controlled migrant worker system is welcomed by local authorities worried that uncontrolled Asian migration could end 150 years of European dominance here. On a visit to the region two summers ago, Kim Jong Il told an aide to President Vladimir Putin that the Russian authorities had his permission to shoot any North Koreans found dealing in drugs. Unless Kimmie gets a cut too.
North Korea's worker control system is especially harsh in remote Siberian logging camps which, according to Amnesty International, are directly run by North Korea's ruthless Public Security Service. Escapees interviewed in Moscow in recent years have told human rights researchers that the North Korean camp authorities maintain private prisons and prevent escapes by rationing food and punishing would-be escapees with torture and sometimes execution. During the Soviet era, most logging in Siberia was done by prisoners in forced labor camps. The Russians rationalize this by saying the laborers are better off than their countrymen, but morally this is only a half step from the gulag.
Expelling Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will only complicate matters for Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his new cabinet, Palestinian officials in Ramallah warned Monday.
"Nope. Nope. Can't do it..."
"Abbas will have to pack and leave the same night Arafat is deported," one official told The Jerusalem Post. "There is no reason why Abbas should stay."
"Yep. Yasser goes, they all go..."
The official said the new prime minister, who is seen by many Palestinians as an American puppet, would face accusations of colluding with Israel and the US in getting rid of Arafat. "The Palestinian street™ will not accept Abbas and [Minister for Security Affairs Mohammed] Dahlan if Arafat is removed by force," he added. "Arafat remains as popular as ever because most Palestinians believe Abbas and Dahlan were imposed on the Palestinian leadership to serve Israel's security interests."
Another Palestinian official said that deporting Arafat to the Gaza Strip or to any Arab country would lead to an upsurge in violence and total anarchy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "Who said that the attacks would stop if President Arafat is in Gaza City or southern Sudan?" he asked rhetorically.
"You think they ain't got telephones there?"
"On the contrary, we will have more suicide attacks against Israel," the official added.
"In addition to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Fatah will also resume its attacks to retaliate against the expulsion of its leader."
"You don't want 'em to unleash al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, do ya?"
He said that by expelling Arafat, Israel would play into the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. "This would be a big gift to the Islamic groups," he noted. "Abbas and Dahlan would never be able to reign in the extremists if something happens to Arafat."
Oh, well. The situation's intolerable. Kicking Yasser out will make it intolerable but different. Guess all they can do is kill him...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 03:32 pm ||
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#1
Send in the Pirhana Brothers -
"Be a real shame if your President was to burn down some dark night. Accidents happen, you know. Things burn..."
#2
Kill 'em all, and see which God takes responsibility.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 16:47 Comments ||
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#3
I think one night in the conversation pit with Dinsdale would put Yasser on the right path....either that or screwing his pelvis to a cake stand. I'd buy a ticket to either on of those.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/19/2003 18:42 Comments ||
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#4
Expelling Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will only complicate matters for Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his new cabinet, Palestinian officials in Ramallah warned Monday.
Too bad. If Arafart has to be bumped off in order to get the ball rolling, then it's time to hop to it. All this jerking off since Oslo has been nothing but one big joke.
#5
Hey, we know what happens when we have 30 years of Yasser in. Now let's see what happens when he is gawn. It cannot be worse. It can only get better.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/19/2003 21:11 Comments ||
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#6
AP - feed him to a hungry polar bear. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 22:26 Comments ||
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National Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe accused President Bush on Saturday of unleashing a "new McCarthyism" by vilifying people who oppose his policies. Paraphrasing retired Sen. Alan Simpson - to accuse one of McCarthyism is, itself, McCarthyism.
"George Bush has unleashed a new McCarthyism that, under the cloak of a time of crisis and peril, has vilified and questioned the patriotism of those who have policy and political differences with him and his administration." McAuliffe was critical of Bush's economic policies in general, saying they have cost 2.8 million jobs since the president took office. Of course, forgetting to mention that the Clinton Recession started prior to Bush taking office.
Along with the 9-11 attacks, which decimated the airline industry, among others...
"Just last Sunday on national television, Secretary of Treasury (John) Snow said we have a soggy economy. Soggy. Soggy," McAuliffe said, drawing laughs from the party faithful with the incredulous tone of his delivery. "It's not soggy, it is a raging typhoon in America." McAuliffe accused Bush of squandering the federal surplus of the 1990s and said Bush's tax cuts benefit the rich while costing working people their jobs.
"The story goes that as the lifeboats were being loaded, the wealthy of the passengers of the Titanic pushed aside the women and children," he said. "The values of this administration would be quite at home aboard that ill-fated ship." As I recall my history on the matter, Vanderbilt and other (undoubtedly Republican) establishment figures gave up their seats and the men who shoved their way in the lifeboats were from the less esteemed classes.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, one of nine candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, told reporters before his speech to the Ohio dinner: "I don't think we can beat George Bush by being Bush-like. We need a fiscal conservative and a social progressive and that's who I am." In his speech, Dean said the cost of the war in Iraq has increased with Americans still in the Middle Eastern country and that homeland security suffering a funding shortfall as a result. "I think this country is not safer since the war with Iraq has ended," Dean said.
"And look! It's been a month already..."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Cleveland mayor and the only other presidential candidate (to have presided over the bankruptcy of a city)
at the dinner, pushed his message of national health insurance, labor rights and trade protections. A sure winner if he was running in Europe.
He reminded the crowd that he had beaten Republican incumbents in his races for mayor, state senator and Congress. This makes me question the sanity of the good people of Ohio.
"In 2004, I'm prepared to replace another Republican incumbent who happens to be in the White House," Kucinich said. The only way Kucinich is going to the White House is on a public tour.
#1
Simpson's full quote, during the Anita Hill hearings, and as spoken to the Presidnet Pro Tempore of the Senate: "Well, Mr. President, it seems to me that accusing someone of McCarthyism is really a McCarthyist tactic itself."
#3
"Just last Sunday on national television, Secretary of Treasury (John) Snow said we have a soggy economy. Soggy. Soggy," McAuliffe said, drawing laughs from the party faithful with the incredulous tone of his delivery.
#4
National Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe accused President Bush on Saturday of unleashing a "new McCarthyism" by vilifying people who oppose his policies.
This, from a member of a party whose specialty is vilifying its opponents.
#5
Funny when the dems use the term McCarthyism. After all, they not only developed it and enhanced the concept of publicly exposing someone's radical political views during the 30s and 40 starting with the Dies committee, to when McCarthy began his campagn; when the dems finally gave it a name.
I hope McAuliffe keeps it up, because he will be helping to redefine what 'McCarthyism' is, from somthing it never was, to something it always has been: Exposing elites' radical views to public disdain.
Congo rebels have been accused of cannibalism during more than a week of tribal fighting that killed scores and forced thousands to flee. Church leaders and residents in Bunia, the capital of the Ituri district, said that Lendu tribal fighters killed civilians and combatants, cutting open their chests and ripping out hearts, livers and lungs. Superstitious beliefs, inexplicable hatred and a desire to settle old scores were the driving forces behind the acts of cannibalism, said Father Joseph Deneckere, a Belgian priest who has lived in Congo since 1970. "The sight of a corpse with a missing liver and heart is horrific, especially when you know that those parts were eaten by fellow human beings and that the same could happen to you," said Acquitte Kisembo, a 28-year-old medical student. He said he saw several bodies with missing parts.
Guess we know why the demise of the two UN observers was considered "savage."
The United Nations is taking the allegations seriously and plans to investigate the reports of cannibalism, said Amos Namanga Ngongi, head of the UN mission in Congo. The reports "cannot be so persistent and false," he said in Bunia. "There cannot be so much talk of such things if it is false."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 02:05 pm ||
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KCNA â It was disclosed on May 8 that the U.S. decided to keep in South Korea its troops, which had been involved in the Foal Eagle joint military exercises staged in March last, timed to coincide with the U.S. 8th army command's order to extend the stay of officers and men of U.S. forces in South Korea even after the expiration of their term. The U.S. is staging madcap military exercises in South Korea and in its vicinity to start a war of aggression while bringing nuclear-powered carrier Carl Vinson and other ultra-modern nuclear attack hardware to Japan.
Madcap military exercises? Sounds... ummm... amusing.
Minju Joson today in a signed commentary says that these developments seriously rattle the nerves of the DPRK, a dialogue partner, as they go against the trend of the present situation where the issue of negotiations for the peaceful solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is in the pipeline.
When did that trend start? Last I heard it, we were still threatened with a sea of fire if we wore the wrong kind of shirt...
The U.S. has not discarded its sinister intention to stifle the DPRK with nukes but is keen to put it into practice, the news analyst observes, and continues:
Ah, the old Deep Laid Plot⢠routine, eh?
The best way of averting a dangerous war and protecting the sovereignty of the country is to build up a physical deterrent force and stand up against a war of aggression.
"Yes! We must stuff even more bodies in to our army. That way no one will dare attack us! Of course, all the people back home will starve, but that's a small price to pay..."
No one can fault the DPRK because all self-defensive measures taken by it are just ones to counter the U.S. vicious moves to stifle the DPRK with nukes. If the U.S. does not give up its attempt at a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK, it will be held wholly responsible for all the ensuing consequences.
"That's right. Don't make us do anything stupid, now. You know how we are."
The U.S. is well advised to have a proper option with discretion.
That's it? That's your concluding paragraph? You're never gonna displace Rodong Sinmun, Charlie...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 01:59 pm ||
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#1
First, madcap military exercises, to be followed by zany cruise missle attacks??? Then wacky parchute drops??? Followed by the kooky overthrow of Dear Leader.
#4
Madcap? I never got to participate in any Madcap exercises! When did the Military start have fun exercises with cool names? I bet this one is with paintballs, beer, and a side trip to visit the juice girls. I can see the North Korean 'News' hasn't changed a bit. Next week they will say that "the military destroyed X number of crops, killed X number of people, and raped X number of women. Oh and by the way the exercise was a total failure." Maybe the Iraqi Minister can move to Pyongyang?
#6
Missed his grip by admitting having rattled nerves; poor style with a serious lack of frothing and foaming at the mouth; failed to display mandatory "juche" and "army first" dance moves; finished with a weak dismount..."well advised to have a proper option with discretion"
#7
Hmmmmmm. Sounds like somebody just got the after-action report from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wonder how long it will take until he can stop writing from the thunderstool?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 21:40 Comments ||
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#8
*bows to watcher* Excellent analysis. I felt, the moment I hit the button, that I was too generous...
Long but interesting article about Russian hackers and organized crime, computer security breaches, credit card number stealing, and FBI stings that include luring hackers-turned-blackmailers with offers of employment and immigration.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/19/2003 01:54 pm ||
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Two observers from the UN MONUC mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who had gone missing in country's troubled Ituri province, were "savagely killed", a MONUC spokesman said Monday. "We can confirm that they are dead," spokesman Hamadoun Toure told AFP.
"You don't want to know the details. After all, we're talking about Congo, here..."
The bodies of the two men — a Jordanian and a Nigerian — were taken back to the city of Bunia on Sunday night. The UN mission, which had 20 military observers in the eastern DRC province, lost contact with the two men on Wednesday. MONUC also has some 700 troops stationed in Bunia, the province's main city. A statement from the UN mission said that a team from MONUC had managed to reach the town of Mongbwalu, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Bunia on Sunday, where it found that the bodies of the military observers had already been buried. Namanga Ngongi, the UN's special representative in the DRC, condemned the "ignoble and revolting" attacks on the observers, who had been in the region for a month to support the country's peace process. All the UN's observers who had been operating outside Bunia were brought back to the town two or three days ago for security reasons, the UN said.
Like I say, if you're gonna use peacekeepers, they'd better be better armed and more dangerous than the guys they're trying to control. "Observers" are just another target set...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 01:30 pm ||
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Edited for brevity.
20:24 IDF troops, Border Police capture three men smuggling 90 kilograms of marijuana across Egyptian border into Israel Rachel Corrie must be so proud.
20:23 Security officials confirm that Afula suicide bombing was carried out by a woman
20:12 Yasser Arafat: I am accused of many things, including terror attacks, but my accusers forget that I made peace "Peace" loosely defined as the 5-second interlude between changing the magazine in your weapon.
19:28 Al Aqsa Martyrs` Brigades claims Afula attack; names bomber as Heba Daraghmeh, 19, from village of Tubas
19:27 White House: Yasser Arafat has never helped Mideast peace efforts, unclear what game he is now playing Same bait-and-switch game as before--clear enough?
18:47 Islamic Jihad claims responsibility for suicide bombing at Afula mall The Religion of Pieces(TM)
17:45 Three people killed, 18 wounded in Afula suicide bombing Current tally is 3 dead, 48 wounded.
17:35 Emergency hotline in various languages for questions on Afula suicide bombing: 1255081010
16:38 UN watchdog agency warns nuclear emergency may be developing in Iraq, appeals to U.S. to let experts back in These topics are all over the map--I'm posting this primarily to give the Ha'aretz news ticker publicity (at the link above), as I find it a quick, no-frills way to keep up on Middle Eastern and related international events.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/19/2003 12:55 pm ||
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At least two people were killed and 10 injured, including a photographer, when militant Islamists battled with Palestinian gunmen on Monday in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp. Analysts said the clash amounted to a battle for control of the southern Lebanon Ein el-Hilweh camp. Friction between Islamists and Palestinian factions in the camp has been mounting for weeks.
"Yar! We be Islamists!"
"Yar! We be Paleostinians!"
[In harmony:] "Yar! Feel that friction!"
Witnesses said both sides fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in fighting that erupted ahead of the funerals of two people killed in an ambush on Saturday.
Two of 'em? We only heard about the one...
The clashes pitted an obscure militant Islamist group against forces loyal to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, one of several armed Palestinian factions that control most of the camp.
Witnesses said they saw at least two people dead, one a woman, and that at least 10 people were injured. Agence France Presse in Beirut said a Lebanese photographer working for the news agency was shot in the leg and taken to hospital. Fatah sources said two of its members were also hurt. Lebanon's army and security services do not enter the camp, in which Islamist groups and fugitives from justice have taken up residence, often fighting Palestinians they accuse of collaborating with the Lebanese authorities against them. Tension mounted sharply in the camp after Islamist leader Abdullah Shreidi was ambushed on Saturday. Shreidi, who is wanted by Lebanon, was critically wounded in the attack.
Didn't hear about Abdullah getting potted. I hope it's very painful. He's the resident homicidal maniac, the head of the Usbat...
A bit more detail, from the Beirut Daily Star...
Life was slowly returning to normal Sunday at the Ein al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp following the attempted murder of Abdullah Shreidi, leader of Usbat al-Nur, by the Fatah organization. Shreidi and some of his aides had fallen into an ambush by the Fatah group Saturday, which led to the death of two people and the wounding of two of Shreidiâs followers. Shreidi, who was earlier reported as dead or dying, survived the incident.
Damn. Mala suerte!
He was initially taken to a makeshift hospital within the camp, but had to be transferred after he was surrounded again by armed men from Fatah. He was smuggled out of the hospital from a hole made in its outside wall.
"How do we get 'im out, Mahmoud? They got us surrounded!"
"Here's a grenade! Blow a hole in the wall!"
The decision to kill Shreidi was made in occupied Palestine and the official order to liquidate Shreidi had come from there, security sources said.
Directly from Yasser? He got tired of losing guys to Abdullah?
Shreidi and his party had been ambushed by unknown armed men at 5.50pm Saturday while he and his followers were returning from a funeral in the neighboring locality of Darb al-Sim, south of the camp. The funeral was that of Palestinian Ibrahim Shreidi, who had also been slain by unknown gunmen.
Presumably a distant kinsman, though Abdullah's never hesistated to bump off somebody just because they're related. That's probably what happened to his Mom...
When the vehicle in which Shreidi was traveling reached a turning south of the camp, the gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons.
Shridi was hit and transported under dangerous conditions to the Human Call Foundation Medical Center, run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He was in bad condition when he reached the hospital. His right-hand man, Wissam Tohaibish, was also gravely wounded in the shooting. Shreidiâs uncle on his fatherâs side, Yehia Shreidi, was killed in the shooting, together with another of Abdullah Shridiâs aides, Fakhr Shreidi.
Sounds kind of like Fearless Fosdick, only with turbans. Was anybody not shot?
Immediately after the shooting, a state of high tension and uncertainty dominated the camp resulting from the pervasive presence of armed men.
"Yar! We be..."
"Oh, shuddup!"
By nightfall, the situation had developed into an armed confrontation, however there were no reported casualties.
"Yar! I rattle my weapoon in your general direction!"
"Yar! I shake my bandolier at yer mother!"
Later in the evening there were conflicting reports about Abdullah Shreidiâs fate, but it soon became apparent that reports of his death were false. Sources told The Daily Star he had been hit in the shoulder, the chest and a kidney, and that when he reached the hospital he was hemorrhaging, which eventually led to the removal of the damaged kidney. It was reported that Shreidi refused to leave the camp and said âgive me any treatment you are capable of inside the camp. I do not want to be taken out.â
"Mahmoud!"
"Yes, Effendi?"
"Promise me I'll die with my turban on?"
By night-time, the Fatah movement was on full alert with armed men surrounding the hospital. They were about to storm the hospital to arrest Shreidi and his armed followers when a gun battle erupted. Tense negotiations with the PFLP and some Islamic groups prevented the Fatah men from storming the hospital.
"But we wanna jihad that sucker!"
"You can't storm a hospital! What'll the infidels say?"
"Who cares what they think?"
Other interventions were also made by the imam of the Sidon-based Al-Quds mosque, Sheikh Maher Hammoud â moves that led to a cease-fire by midnight after providing for the withdrawal of the Fatah gunmen and the positioning of PFLP men around the hospital.
Now it's the PFLP snuffies who're the "moderates". It's like a parallel universe...
Abdullah Shreidi was relocated at dawn to an unknown location, which was presumed later to be in the Safsaf area, his former stronghold. Shreidiâs condition was described as unstable and in need of intensive care. It was believed that the next 48 hours would determine whether he lived or died.
Pray for sepsis...
Meanwhile, the armed Fatah men are still on high alert and in their trenches while Shreidiâs armed men are also taking up positions in the Safsaf area. But the Fatah movement has made up its mind to liquidate Shreidi come what may, as a written statement from Fatahâs leader in Lebanon, Sultan Abu Aynayn, said.
"That sucker's toast. He can start decomposing any time..."
Informed sources also said that the Fatah decision to liquidate Shreidi was a brave one and that Fatah had taken a long time in its issuance.
Yasss... Assassinations are very brave...
Abdullah Shreidiâs father, Hisham Shreidi, founded Usbat al-Ansar in the 1990s. Abdullah was around 10 years old when his father, Hisham, was killed by gunmen.
And very bravely killed, we might add...
The young man decided to avenge the killing of his father and was involved in several armed attacks.
"Yar! I must have Dire Revengeâ¢!"
He is also wanted on several counts by the Lebanese authorities. Only two months ago, Abdullah Shreidi killed his own cousin, Nazih Shreidi. Abdullah had by this time left the ranks of Usbat al-Ansar which, after the death of his father, was led by Abdel-Karim Saadi, better known as Abu Mohjen, also wanted by the Lebanese authorities.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 12:27 pm ||
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Nice suggested move for Mossad to stir things up if they start to settle down - everyone one of these taking the dirt nap is one less to have to deal with later
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 12:38 Comments ||
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#2
Pretty soon, the heads of the Five Families are gonna hafta have a sitdown.
#3
I've got to applaud the Fearless Fosdick reference. ;-) For the uninitiated, Fearless Fosdick was Li'l Abner's favorite comic book; a hilarious parody of Dick Tracy.
#5
Regarding Scooter's comment on Lil' Abner. Does anyone else (besides me) miss this comic strip? Jubilation T. Cornepone, Daisy Mae and all the rest.
#9
The paleos kill each other for "honor". Our "liberal" "friends" kill comic strips for "political correctness". Two sides of the same coin, in my book.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 18:56 Comments ||
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Got nothin' to do with the price of an AK in Peshawar, but it 's pretty damn funny...
HANOI, Vietnam - A drunk Vietnamese tourist who ran into an elephant he didn't see standing in the street was injured when the animal picked him up and tossed him aside, an official said Monday. How trashed do you have to be to not see an elephant in the street?
Vu Quang Phuc, 39, was rushed to a hospital after Saturday's attack, said the official of Buon Don tourist site in Daklak province, some 220 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. He must've been pretty "Phucked" up...
He suffered three broken ribs and bruises on his face and body, a doctor at the hospital in Ho Chi Minh City said. Phuc was among a group of tourists from Ho Chi Minh City. He stumbled out of a restaurant when he heard an 8-year-old boy wailing on the ground after tripping, said the official who identified himself only as Du. Phuc didn't see the full-grown elephant â one of several dozen owned by villagers in the area â and he ran into it. The animal lifted him up with its trunk and pitched him several meters. Du said it was the first incident in the area of a tourist attacked by an elephant. "Du" they keep records on that sort of thing?
Buon Don is a popular site among foreign and local tourists, where they can ride elephants and visit ethnic minority groups living in the area.
#2
Phuc didn't see the full-grown elephant â one of several dozen owned by villagers in the area â and he ran into it.
Amazing.
The animal lifted him up with its trunk and pitched him several meters. Du said it was the first incident in the area of a tourist attacked by an elephant.
Sounds to me like a simple case of annoyance, rather than attack. Drunkie got exactly what was coming to him.
#3
I'd have to agree - pretty much the elephantine version of "get lost". Now, if the critter'd been seriously pissed off, it would've done a tapdance on Phuc's pointy little head...
Ever see that video of the circus elephant that went after it's "keeper" and had to be put down by the cops?
South Korea said it was prepared to squeeze North Korea economically over the nuclear crisis, while Japan also indicated it was shifting to a harder line against the Stalinist state. Top South Korean officials said that North Korea risked losing the benefits from economic cooperation with Seoul if it escalated the seven-month-old standoff over its nuclear weapons drive. At the same time the Japanese government's top spokesman said Tokyo may suspend remittances to North Korea worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The NKors will prob'ly take that as a declaration of war and launch a sea of fire or something...
Until now, South Korea and Japan have insisted that a peaceful, diplomatic solution be found to the nuclear crisis and both countries have expressed deep reservations about the imposition of economic sanctions. South Korea has viewed its engagement policy of economic exchanges with North Korea as separate from the nuclear crisis and the government of President Roh Moo-Hyun has sought to step up inter-Korean cooperation.
"I mean, what's a sea of fire got to do with us?"
But officials outlined a tougher stand in testimony before the National Assembly as a delegation from Seoul headed to Pyongyang for four days of economic talks. Prime Minister Goh Kun said that henceforth inter-Korean exchanges would depend on North Korea's conduct in the standoff with the United States over its nuclear weapons drive. "North Korea's nuclear problem, if it worsens, will affect inter-Korean exchanges," he said.
Huh? Consequences stemming from actions? When did that start?
South Korea will abide by a joint statement signed by President Roh Moo-Hyun and US President George W Bush in Washington last week in which inter-Korean exchanges were linked to the nuclear crisis and which referred to the need for "further steps" if the crisis deepened. In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said at least one other nation must agree that a Japanese decision to suspend remittances would be in the interests of international peace before the government would undertake the move.
Okay. We agree...
President Roh said, however, that humanitarian aid to the impoverished North would continue unaffected by the crisis.
Is it going to continue while North Korea's overrunning your borders, too?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 12:12 pm ||
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Leading Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev says separatist guerrillas under his command carried out the two suicide attacks that killed 78 people in the breakaway Russian republic last week.
"Yep. That's right. We dunnit and we're glad! Glad, I tell yez! Ain'tcha surprised it was us?"
"Our martyrs' two sabotage attacks are only a small part of the operations we have planned for this year,'" Basayev said.
"I mean, we're gonna be boomin' like crazy around here. But we ain't terrorist. Nope, nope. We're freedumb fighters!"
The announcement has been made in a statement issued under his nom de guerre, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris, on the rebel Kavkaz Centre web site. Basayev says his brigade "carried out two successful sabotage operations against the Russian occupiers and their stooges — the Chechen national traitors."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 12:02 pm ||
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Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Monday Israel would consider expelling Palestinian President Yasser Arafat if he blocked efforts by his new prime minister to halt militant violence against Israelis. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to rein in militants in keeping with a new U.S.-backed peace plan after his appointment by Arafat under pressure from mediators to reduce the president's power and implement reforms. But Arafat has retained serious clout over diplomatic and security matters and Israeli officials believe he has been maneuvering to prevent Abbas consolidating the power needed to crack down on militants who have sworn to wreck the peace plan.
But it's so subtle you can barely see it, right?
Israel accuses Arafat of inciting violence, a charge he denies, and its cabinet has repeatedly discussed exiling him. It did so again Sunday after a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem, before shelving the idea "for the moment," Mofaz said.
We're up to five, as of this instant, in three days. How long's the "moment"?
But, addressing a security affairs symposium, he said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's rightist government would seriously consider the option if it perceived Arafat to be actively undermining a peace drive by Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. "If we see that in the future Arafat continues to be a main obstacle to the peace process, and Abu Mazen is ready to fight terror and sit at the negotiating table, then there will be no alternative but to think about steps to deport Arafat," he said. "If we expelled him (now), the world would see this as a step against peace and it would look (to Palestinians) as if Abu Mazen was collaborating with Israel, which is not true," he said at Tel Aviv University.
I guess that's the problem at the "moment"...
Arafat met French diplomats at his Ramallah quarters in the West Bank Monday and told reporters, "I condemn completely these terrorist activities" and described Abbas as "my brother."
... he said, piously.
He accused Israel of spreading "big propaganda against me" to justify restrictions on its movements. After Sunday's violence the cabinet decided on more moves to isolate Arafat, including refusing to meet foreign dignitaries who went to see him while visiting the region.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 11:46 am ||
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#1
"Arafat met French diplomats at his Ramallah quarters"
French are meeting with Arafat, undermining Abu Mazen and the road map.
Lebanese President Emil Lahoud has indicated that Syria and Lebanon are fighting together to realize the just and comprehensive peace in the region. During his meeting with High Representative for European Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana on Saturday, he appealed to the return of the occupied Golan to Syria and the occupied Shebaa Farms to Lebanon. He stressed that Lebanon is always working to achieve peace according to the international legitimacy and the UN related resolutions to which Israel doesn't commit itself. Lahoud called on for disarming the region from the mass destruction weapons.
Wow. You can speak in Damascus and it echoes in Beirut...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 10:40 am ||
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the Lebanese puppets don't dare deviate from the Syrian line
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 12:26 Comments ||
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Key senior members of the Zimbabwe government are to be investigated by the United Nations for allegedly looting and illegally exploiting natural resources, including a fortune in diamonds, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to UN sources in Nairobi, investigators are to travel to Harare within days, where they will question, among others, the Speaker of the Zimbabwean parliament and former National Security Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa - the man widely tipped as a possible successor to Bob President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa was identified in a UN report on the looting of Congo, released in October last year, as the "key strategist" for the Zimbabwean branch of an elite network that benefited from a variety of criminal activities in Congo, including theft, embezzlement and the diversion of public funds, undervaluation of goods, smuggling, false invoicing, nonpayment of taxes, kickbacks to public officials and outright bribery.
Cheeze. They were blatant enough that the UN noticed? Amazing!
Mnangagwa told the Sunday Times he was unaware of any investigation into his affairs while he served as chairman of a joint committee of ministers responsible for the war-torn Congo. He also denied that UN investigators had written to him or otherwise contacted him with their questions. "But let them come," he said. "That report is full of lies. They had better come now and talk to us."
"Lies! All lies!"
The UN document — titled The Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR Congo — details how this "elite network" benefited from instability in Congo and sought to fuel that instability by supporting armed groups opposed to Rwanda and Burundi. "The elite network of Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and commercial interests seeks to maintain its grip on the main mineral resources — diamonds, cobalt, copper, germanium — of the government-controlled area," the document says. "This network has transferred ownership of at least 5-billion of assets from the state mining sector to private companies under its control in the past three years with no compensation or benefit for the state treasury." The document identifies Mnangagwa's key ally as Zimbabwe Defence Force commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe, and names several other key ZDF figures as being involved.
Do you get the idea that getting rid of Bob isn't going to solve the problem?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 10:26 am ||
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The list of looters of the DRC is gonna be a long one. I'll save them the trouble, just knock my name off the list of "Everyone".
OK this guy's name is "Vitalis"? Slippery devil, is he?
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has said that it shall call for an indefinite mass job stayaway at the end of the month and advises Zimbabweans to stock up food and keep some money when they get paid in the next few weeks. Lovemore Matombo, the ZCTU president told unionists in Kadoma on Friday evening to "store a bucket of mealie meal and save a penny" in anticipation of an indefinite job action at the end of this month. He said labour would "withdraw its services" unless the fuel prices were reduced to previous levels. The government has in the past ridiculed the ZCTU's demand for cheaper fuel saying the union "was dreaming".
"Us? Do something for you? We're the gummint here. We know what's best, so shut up and do as you're told!"
Matombo accused the government of constantly taking labour for granted and disregarding its demands to peg the minimum wage at $125 000 per month. "It has always been futile talking to the government about workers' woes because they behave so inhumanely. It is like talking to an insensitive Chimpanzee — they feel no remorse about the current crisis," said Matombo. "But I promise you that if workers unite, we will tame the Chimpanzee. We want all workers to earn at least $125 000 by the end of June," Matombo said to a tumultuous approval from the 500 plus workers' representatives who braved the early winter evening chill to converge at Kadoma's Rimuka Stadium. "Even if there are state agents and the secret police among you, surely even the CIOs should by now know that the life workers are living is unsustainable and unpractical. How do you expect a worker who forks out at least $56 000 on transport fares a month to survive on a $47 000 pay?"
Uh huh. And that's not adjusted for inflation (currently 228%)...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 10:20 am ||
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Slightly EFL
A suicide bomber, apparently a woman, blew herself up outside a northern Israel shopping center Monday in an attack that killed at least four people and wounded 15, police said. It was the fifth anti-Israeli suicide bombing in three days. And the UN is outraged - OUTRAGED - and immediately passed a resolution condemning... err, no they didn't.
The blast went off at 5:14 p.m. at the Shaarei Amakim mall, reportedly near one of the mall entrances, where shoppers were waiting in line for a security check. The area police chief said the attacker apparently was a woman. It was not immediately clear if the police count of four dead included the bomber. Hope the bloody c*nt enjoys her 72 raisins.
Rescue workers said at least 15 people were wounded, some seriously, and taken to hospitals. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The Islamic militant Hamas has carried out four bombings over the weekend, including a Jerusalem bus attack that killed seven Israelis. David Baker, a spokesman in the Israeli prime minister's office, said that the attack "is another bloody chapter in the Palestinian history of carnage and terror." In the wake of the bombings, Israel moved to further isolate Arafat, threatening to boycott foreign envoys who meet with the Palestinian leader. Yeah! That'll show him! (???)
Hamas said Monday it has no intention of halting attacks, despite Egypt's efforts to have Palestinian militant groups agree to a one-year suspension of shootings and bombings. I think Slobodan Milosevic had the right idea - Israel should pass out military arms and training to the settlers and let them loose on the Paleos. Milosevic took the fall for his nation and Serbia doesn't have a Muslim problem any more does it? A sound strategy for fixing the problem.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder ||
05/19/2003 10:05 am ||
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#1
And the UN is outraged - OUTRAGED - and immediately passed a resolution condemning... err, no they didn't.
...sure they did. Mind you, it was a resolution against Israel...
Hope the bloody c*nt enjoys her 72 raisins.
Or, in a case of poetic justice, and if the reward were actually the virgins and not grapes... Imagine the pleasure she'd receive being locked in a room for all eternity with 72 horny martyred boys. Picture it:
72 boys,
all 19 or younger
raging, suppressed hormones,
no experience in being with a woman... EVER,
finally being granted their eternal reward.
Gang "you-know-what" for all eternity. That would be a fitting reward.
Lucky for her, it'll just be the grapes. hope she can make 'em last though. Etermity is a loooong time
#2
unfortunately as I read all these reports of bombings and Israeli deaths, I am getting this uncomplimentary pictures of Isrealis with sheep heads, or bison heads. It seems such easy killing. the Israelis just look and seem to go about business as usual. to me the reaction of the Israelis is frightening. not the government, but the regular people there seem to not mind being blown up. where is the outrage and action of a people who have had enough and to hell with their government?
Posted by: Carolyn Brown ||
05/19/2003 11:12 Comments ||
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#3
I'll reply to question with one of my own. who are the sheep here? Where is the common sense of the people who would rather blow themselves up, and maim and murder as many of the "enemy" non-combatants as possible than turn their obviously considerable will and determination to a more constructive and civilized solution. The sheep are not the Israelis, who, in the affirmation of life in the face of such hideous tactics, choose to live rather than cower, or blame a government that is neither the cause nor source of the violent attacks. The anti-Israeli, and before 1948, anti-Jewish intimidation has existed throughout every government, no matter what their view on the "peace process" was. That's because when you get right down to it, that wonderful, Nobel Laureate, Arafat has never removed the clause from the original Palestinian charter stating the clear desire of the complete elimination of the Jewish presence, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.
As to your question , "where is the outrage and action of a people who have had enough and to hell with their government? Maybe the Israelis aren't as "fed up" with their government as the regular media would have one believe. Sure there are large peace protests and demonstrations (incidentally, where are the large demonstrations of their counterparts in the Arab countries) but if all you read was the front page of the New York Times (who obviously hires only responsible reporters) several weeks back, you would have seen photos of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of anti war protestors, but somehow, all the polls showed a large majority of Americans actually backed the miltary action in Iraq. The left leaning media wanted desperately to "make it not so", and besides, pictures of large crowds protesting -maybe wrestling with police sell papers, not pie charts and bar graphs describing polling results.
No reasonable person wants war, and if the Israelis could have it any other way, believe me, they would opt for it. But what you see as sheep allowing themselves to be led to the slaughter, are actually people who have for the large part finally sobered up and accepted the fact that no matter what they do, their neighbors do not want peace and friendship, they want only the complete elimination of the state of Israel
#4
Dripping Sarcasm- are you saying the the"nobody loves me, everybody hates me" is not ingrained in to the Jewish psyche? of coursse it is. they have dealt with that mentality all of their long history. do you believe that the withdrawing into ghettos, being herded onto train cars and millions being gassed, is the norm for the Jewish people, and the short time of defiance and courage it took to carve a state of Israel is an abberation for the Jewiash people?
Posted by: Carolyn Brown ||
05/19/2003 13:30 Comments ||
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#5
Carolyn, I think he's saying they have become a little fatalistic and desensitized. One can't stop living... There will come a point where the Paleos will commit attacks and crimes so horrific that there will be no restraint shown and the "militants" will get their maryrdom....I don't think they know what an unrestrained IDF can/will do when their survival is on the line UN/EU/Arab League denunciations will mean nothing
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 15:04 Comments ||
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#6
So "nobody loves me, everybody hates me" explains why Israelis do "not mind being blown up"? Like, gee, that tickles?
They are going about business as usual the way Londoners did during the Blitz. The outrage is mostly directed at the bombers. The alternative is for all the Israelis to cower and die, which is the stated goal of the bombers.
I am not all that pro-Israel and their settlement policies have weakened their case in world opinion. On the other hand, the hopeless indoctrinees with which they have to contend wouldn't care, or stop what they are doing, if there were no settlements. To them all of Israel is illegal occupation and nothing will ever change it.
So yeah, you go to work in the morning.
Posted by: Mark IV ||
05/19/2003 15:17 Comments ||
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#7
Another point. Where is the separation wall? Hasn't it been many, many months since it was supposed to be on fast track? The wall wouldn't have protected against several of the latest murderers but would have against others.
#8
Carolyn - may I address your not-very-well-disguised anti-Semitism?
No, "nobody loves me" is NOT ingrained in the Jewish psyche, as I can attest as a Jew. Yes, we have dealt throughout most of our history with being hated, persecuted, etc etc. The "defiance and courage" you apparently only noticed in 1947 has in fact been present throughout our history - Masada? Maccabees? Warsaw Ghetto? hello? - and crystalized after the Holocaust into "never again."
What's going on in Israel right now among the Israeli and Jewish populations - and they are not necessarily synonymous - is exactly what went on in America after 9/11. Giving in, running scared, hedging and trimming your life to avoid all possible threats means the terrorists have won. Mark IV is right, this is the same thing Londoners did during the Blitz. To do anything else would have been an admission that the Germans were winning. To postpone my vacation after 9/11 would have been an admission that Al Qaeda could intimidate me. To stop going outside during the DC sniper shootings would have been to let two loser assholes rule my life. To stop going about one's daily life in Jerusalem would mean Arafasshat and his ilk have won.
The Israelis are not pressuring their government, or saying the hell with it, because they do not believe in "peace at any price." Yes, there are a variety of opinions within Israel, and some do value peace and the cessation of terrorist attacks more than anything else. But so far, the majority of people in Israel, and I think a majority of Jews outside Israel, adhere to "never again." The Pals, like a child having a tantrum, never seem to get the point: Stop throwing things (bombs, tantrums, etc) and THEN we'll talk.
And Mark IV is right on another point, too: the bomb-throwers will NEVER rest until there are no Jews left in "Palestine" and the state of Israel has been eradicated from the map. Would you have Israelis accept this, in order to avoid any more bombs?
Posted by: Sofia ||
05/19/2003 16:30 Comments ||
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#9
Anti-semitism?! Hey, suck the foam back in your mouth, Sofia. She didn't say anything Richard Lewis hasn't portrayed.
In fact if you'd read a little closer before throwing your censorship nuke, you'd have noticed she's wondering why such a courageous people aren't demanding that more be done. She asking, 'Why aren't the rank and file rising up?'
Your statement shows your hatred more than hers.
Posted by: Scott ||
05/19/2003 17:56 Comments ||
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#10
Good point mhw. I don't understand the Israelis. They don't seem to have a strategy. They are locked in this endless back and forth of tit-for-tat (as defined in game theory) -- in short a tactic and not a strategy. I don't know why they just don't go for broke, take out the Hamas and IJ leadership and then round up all the gunnies and put them in camps. Yeah, there would be the usual wave of "international condemnation," but it would pass in a year or so and everything would be back to normal. Use that year to finish building the freaking wall and start bringing in laborers from non-Islamic countries to do all of the scut work. After the wall is completed, announce a policy of "massive retaliation" and enforce it. The first katyusha that hits Israel means that Jenin is wiped off the face of the Earth: HE and incendiaries. And you know what? At that point everyone except Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria would heave a big sigh of relief and the enemy's resistance would finally be broken. And my gut feeling is that the aforementioned three wouldn't be around long after that in their current form either. Normally, I'm a big believer in diplomacy, but I don't think that diplomacy has ever failed so spectacularly. In the immortal words of Heinz Guderian, "Punch them, don't tickle them."
Posted by: Carolyn Brown ||
05/19/2003 20:51 Comments ||
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#12
Carolyn: The ol' "do something" school, eh?
Spell it out... the "outrage and action of a people who have had enough and to hell with their government" sounds like the action plan of the Global Trade protesters. Are we thinking national tantrum here?
I'm thinking that what they did was to elect the current government and entrust them to use the intel, the military, and the black ops forces to do their best. Kinda like we did.
I guess you're hinting that the average Israeli should just whip the Galil out of the closet and hose every Pal he sees, and that if enough of them do that, there won't be a problem anymore? Or there still will be, but at least they will get some respect?
Or are you saying they should march around the streets with signs, demanding Something?
How does one shed the Bison Head of Shame, in your somewhat cryptic opinion?
Posted by: Mark IV ||
05/19/2003 22:37 Comments ||
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#13
They don't seem to have a strategy. They are locked in this endless back and forth of tit-for-tat (as defined in game theory) -- in short a tactic and not a strategy.
The U.S. tried something like that once, in a faraway place called Vietnam. Look what happened....
#14
Carolyn,
good question.
Yes, I do mind being blown up! and No, I dont have a ship's head on my shoulders.
Don't look at the short term stuff, look at the overall trend.
I myself am a former Labor(center-left) voter who supported Rabin and Ehud Barak's peace efforts. After the intifada began I reconsidered my set of views and I voted for Ariel Sharon because of the hard facts and the realization that deep down there the paleo's have not abandoned their hope of destroying us. I also know that many people in the voter base have undergone a similar shift.
The steam is building up within the country now. It may seem that we collectively have resigned to being butchered but dont underestimate us. What the palestinians don't realize is that by what they are doing now (and particularely by the thunderous silence and lack of action of any peace supporting paleos, if they ever existed) they are permanently and maybe irretrievably eroding any support for their cause within the israely population.
I, as most israelis, hate the idea of massive indiscriminate retaliation because it is barbaric. However, when the situation deteriorates further and further and when the moment comes that we finally realize that our economic and personal survival is on the brink,some drastic measures will be taken.
I believe we are very close to the realization that a second palestinian "Nakba" may be imperative, if israel is to survive.
maybe tit-for-tat is not enough anymore ?
maybe its time for brute force actions and the hell with the UN/EP aligator tears, and the Bush roadmap.
I hope I dont have to wake up to the news of a neutron bomb dropped on Ramallah, but who knows what the future holds?
WASHINGTON - White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, the public face of the Bush administration through two wars and a terrorist attack, said Monday he will resign in July to enter the private sector. His replacement will likely be deputy press secretary Scott McLellan.
"I've decided my time has come to leave the White House," Fleischer said in a telephone interview.
The spokesman said he wanted to leave the hard-driving job before President Bush's re-election campaign geared up.
If I had to listen to Terry Moron (D-ABC) and look at Helen Thomas (D-Jurassic Period) every day, I'd resign too. That's too much to ask for any man to bear
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/19/2003 09:20 am ||
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#1
He said "bear". Huh, uh huh!
(Think Beavis & Butthead referencing the sub-eating bear item - sorry folks, I couldn't resist!)
#2
I shake my head at how a relatively young guy (41) would leave such a plum assignment. I understand that he probably wants to get out there and make some real money, but to be that close to the President during this momentous time is priceless.
#3
" ...but to be that close to the President during this momentous time is priceless."
I don't know so much about that... Some headaches are just not worth the cost, no matter what. Fleischer has a super-headache job that probably takes 18 hours a day or more. I think I'd opt out too, after a few years.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 16:24 Comments ||
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#4
buy low... sell high...
Mr. Fleischer paid his dues and is now cashing in his chips... Can't say I blame him.
The Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed on Monday a body discovered on the shore of Tel Aviv last week was British suicide bombing suspect Omar Khan Sharif. Sharif, 27, was thought to have been the accomplice of fellow Briton Assif Mohammed Hanif, 21, who died after setting off explosives during the attack in Tel Aviv, which killed three Israelis. Israeli authorities have been hunting Sharif since he vanished from the scene of the bombing on April 30. According to the Israeli media, two British detectives provided DNA samples, used to identify the body as that of Sharif, a British citizen of Pakistani extraction. The cause of his death was recorded as drowning.
Y'see, if you set off on a suicide mission, and you come back alive, that ain't healthy...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 08:14 am ||
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#1
I'd be really curious to know the full autopsy details--did he really drown (was there water in his lungs)? If so, was that sea water or bath water? Was he punished for his failure, or did he swim out to sea in shame and humiliation until he exhausted himself?
Posted by: Dar ||
05/19/2003 9:04 Comments ||
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#2
A general FYI. Lots of drowning victims don't have water in their lungs. Severe bronchiospasm keeps it out.
I wonder if his belt was "reused" in one of the recent bombings, or if he got rid of it?
#6
Dar, the spasm is somewhat unique to immersion. And other methods would leave bruises, fibres, the funny hemmorages in your eyes, etc. Do you get "CSI" on television where you live?
#7
Chuck--Yep, I get CSI--just don't watch it that religiously now that it's SPRING and the sun doesn't go to bed at 6:00! ;-)
I'm still curious how one can prove drowning. It seems from the descriptions you're giving me (not definitive, granted) that it's proved by the absence of proof of another cause, rather than proof positive of drowning.
Not to nitpick--just curious how it is done. Guess it's time to Google!
Posted by: Dar ||
05/19/2003 11:41 Comments ||
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10. There are no autopsy findings pathonomonic of drowning. ...[T]he diagnosis is largely one of exclusion.
...
13. It is disputed whether sand, silt, weed, and other foreign matter, found in the airways constitutes proof of immersion during life. The presence of large quantities of water and debris in the stomach strongly suggests immersion during life. Conversely, the absence of water in the stomach suggests either rapid death by drowning, or death prior to submersion.
...
15. There are no universally acccepted diagnostic laboratory tests for drowning. The diatom test is used in some British laboratories and may provide corroborative evidence of death by drowning.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/19/2003 11:46 Comments ||
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#9
Jeez. And he was so good in "Dr. Zhivago". Wonder what made him go bad?
The U.N. refugee chief on Sunday blamed Liberia and warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor for the conflicts and refugee crises roiling West Africa and said in unusually blunt terms that Taylor should be forced out. Ruud Lubbers, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, also urged the United States to act on what he said was its responsibility toward Liberia, a timber-rich country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century.
Cheeze. Lubbers actually said something of substance? Wowzers. I'm not too sure where we fit in with Liberia, though, since it was never a U.S. colony, and was actually peaceful and fairly democratic — its government modeled on the U.S. — until about 20 years ago...
Internationally, "Saddam Hussein had more stature than Taylor. (Slobodan) Milosevic did too. But it's too selective" for the world to act against the Iraqi and Yugoslav dictators and do nothing against Taylor, Lubbers said.
Agreed...
"If you're serious about democracy in the rest of the world, then you should be serious about democracy in West Africa as well," the U.N. refugee chief said. "My preference is that one would force Taylor to step down."
Good idea. You make him step down, Ruud...
Lubbers, the former Dutch prime minister, spoke at the end of a five-nation tour visiting the capitals and refugee camps of West Africa. As he closed the trip, Taylor's forces were battling rebels on Liberia's border with Guinea. Liberian Defense Minister Daniel Chea also accused Guinea on Sunday of sending troops directly into Liberia to fight alongside the anti-Taylor forces. Liberia's internal conflicts have displaced 1 million people inside the country, and sent 300,000 fleeing to neighboring nations, including Ivory Coast, itself wracked by a civil war. With pressure on him growing externally and internally, Taylor was a no-show last week for a scheduled meeting with the U.N. official in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. In Taylor's absence, Lubbers bluntly criticized Taylor's officials over the refugee crisis, telling them, "You're killing your own people."
Gosh. That's never happened before. And in West Africa, of all places, too!
Lubbers' words Sunday, and throughout the tour, marked some of the most public and sweeping condemnation of Taylor yet by an international figure. However, the United Nations and rights groups for years have accused Taylor's regime of rights abuses and fomenting instability in the region. Taylor has denied any wrongdoing.
"Nope. Wudn't me."
A former Boston, Mass.-area gas station attendant and U.S. prison escapee, Taylor has led Liberia since 1997, winning elections one year after the end of Liberia's devastating seven-year civil war. Taylor launched that war with a failed coup attempt in 1989.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 03:51 am ||
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#1
It'd be nice if we paid a little more attention to Latin America and Africa than we do. Long term, it could really come back and bite us in the rearend.
And, besides, the French could use another lesson in how to do things right.
#2
Since Charles Taylor is obviously a *bad* guy and would be a bad European, why don't they indict him before the majestic International Criminal Court! That'll have him shaking in his boots in no time.
Posted by: Ray ||
05/19/2003 8:15 Comments ||
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#3
I will *not* make the obvious juke on Ruud Lubbers' name...I will *not* make the obvious juke on Ruud Lubbers' name...I will *not* make the obvious juke on Ruud Lubbers' name...
Well unfortunately it was peaceful only cause of the limitations on democracy - it was ruled by americo-liberians (descendants of freed black american slaves) who only made up 3% of the country - when the locals took over, it all went hell.
#5
Maybe they should have stayed in charge? If the limitations on democracy staved of what they've had since the limitations went bye-bye, maybe the tradeoff was worth it? Rule by Tubmans seems to have been somewhat less despotic than rule by Charles Tayler.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/19/2003 13:19 Comments ||
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#6
It'd be nice if we paid a little more attention to Latin America and Africa than we do.
Chuck,
IF we pay attention, we're called "interfering", "imperialistic", and "meddlesome". If we don't pay attention, we're called "inattentive", "myopic", and "self-centered". It's a total no-win situation. All we can do is to allow Africa and Latin America to do whatever they wish, until it reaches the point where Americans and American interest are seriously affected. Then it's time to knock heads, run the really NASTY party over the cliff, and pull back again. It'll take doing this ten or twelve times before anybody catches on that their ACTION is why we RESPOND. Eventually, though, even the worst regime will either get the message, or there won't be enough bad guys left to reach critical mass.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/19/2003 16:43 Comments ||
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#7
Last year we heard a lot about Al Qaeda's profiting from the dirty diamond trade in Liberia and especially Sierra Leone. Is this no longer an issue? If it still is, is it not reason enough for active intervention -- intervention that would bring massive collateral benefits to the people of those two miserable countries?
Posted by: Brian ||
05/20/2003 0:03 Comments ||
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#9
There has to be a confluence of national interests and national security before we militarily intervene anywhere. Funny, though, how a UN official turns into a bloodthirsty warmonger calling for the US to save someone's bacon.
As I recall there are a few other vetoing nations on the "Security Council." Now would be a great time for Russia, China, and France to show their stuff.
Posted by: R. McLeod ||
05/20/2003 0:27 Comments ||
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In the fourth Hamas suicide attack in two days, a Palestinian riding a bicycle detonated a bomb near an Israeli jeep in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing himself and lightly injuring three soldiers. The spate of bombings by the Islamic militant group underscored how difficult it will be to carry out the U.S.-backed "road map" plan, a three-stage prescription for ending violence immediately and setting up a Palestinian state by 2005.
"Underscored how difficult" is pretty weak terminology. The Paleos are trying to cause the Roadmap to just go away, and maybe take Abu Mazen with it...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
05/19/2003 03:28 am ||
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#1
Only idiots, State Dept drones or EU crats thought the 'road map' plan would be teneble in the first place. The most interesting thing about this is that the attempted murder used a bicycle. Using a bicycle probably reduces the amount of explosives you can carry.
#3
Hmm. I saw another report on this saying that the explosives weighed 60 pounds. With the roads as rough as they are I would think you would have to use a very stable compound for the explosives.
#5
All the people involved in this need to realize that nothing is going to happen with Arafart and his cronies in any position of authority. Arafart and Co. need to be removed and the West Bank and Gaza cleaned out of "militants" and weapons before even thinking that any sort of plan for achieving any kind of peace between Paleos and Israelis is possible.
#6
mhw - The main purveyor of 'road map', is GWB. I'm not yet ready to call him an idiot.
Agreed Bomb-o - Why is the Hamas leadership still taking air? They know who they are. (or they can check with Fred's Thugburg) In some cases they know WHERE they are. Why are they still alive? Why are the jihad preaching imams not in hiding for their lives (a la OBL)?
How many more sheep get slaughtered, on both sides, before the shepherds are targeted? If no heads roll in Saudi, Syria and Pak, then we need to take the war to them. And I'm not talking about 4th division blunt force. That just kills conscripts and the occasional fanatic, while the power-brokers loot the antiquities and book it to Russia. If we don't start killing the roots, it's gonna be said that another Bush choked in the 4th quarter.
Posted by: Scott ||
05/19/2003 15:11 Comments ||
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#7
We have been putting the heat on Syria to get Hez and Hamas out of that place and shut down. I do not think that this is really happening. To get rid of Hez and Hamas one will nead to cut off the money AND decapitate the leadership, and then see what else wiggles and needs a pop. The 'road map' (to hell) was an accommodation gesture to the Arab leadership. The time to negotiate with the Paleos is premature. The time to decapitate the terrorist leadership, both literally and figuratively, is now.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/19/2003 18:23 Comments ||
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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.
