From Jihad Unspun
The chief of Al-Qaida, Osama Bin Mohammad Bin Laden, has confronted American forces many times inside Afghanistan says a Taliban spokesman. Speaking to Ausaf sources in Khost, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Saif ul Adil has said that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri are both in Afghanistan and not Pakistan as some officials claim. He went on to say that Osama Bin Laden has confronted Americans numerous times but the Americans did not recognize him.
In one interesting incident, Osama Bin Laden stayed very close to an American outpost for 15 days to observe its activities and Mujahideen later destroyed that base in a successful operation. He also said that Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan but is not in contact with Osama bin Laden as of now.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 9:21:47 PM ||
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I guess my definition of confrontation doesn't include hiding in the bushes for 15 days.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 21:31 Comments ||
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The truth behind this story is pretty easy to pull out of the lies. You see, the only part of Osama that survived the collapse of his cave was his head, from the neck up. So they recovered it, preserved it as best they could, then hollowed it out and stuck a pair of binoculars in so they could peer out of the eye sockets.
So, you see, Osama HAS been observing US troops. They haven't recognized him because the last pictures anyone had looked nothing like a dried out rotting husk.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 22:01 Comments ||
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Three Pakistani gang rapists who are facing life in jail yesterday begged a judge to be pardoned, citing cultural differences that led to the brutal attack, immaturity on their part and hardship within their families if they were imprisoned.
Which culture condones gang rape? Oh. I forgot...
But Supreme Court Justice Brian Sully said "culture or no culture", a strong message needed to be sent to other young men that such horrific sex crimes against women will not be tolerated in modern society. Andrew Haesler, for one of the defendants, known as MMK, 17, said his client was immature and had lived in Australia for two years without the "restrictive boundaries" in his home country.
That's why he went out and raped somebody? Do all immigrants do that?
But Justice Sully said the crime could not be passed off as a "youthful indiscretion that has somehow gone wrong".
Justice Sully sounds like he's got his head screwed on right...
"Sixteen or not, what he did is absolutely repellent behaviour, and it's adult-type behaviour," he said. "It has to be established once and for all that culture or no culture, wherever he came from, however old you are, this cannot be tolerated in modern society." Five males, four of whom are brothers, were found guilty last year of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault in company - which carries a maximum life sentence - on two girls, aged 16 and 17, at the brothers' Ashfield family home on July 28, 2002. The girls were repeatedly raped, threatened with knives and bullets and one was told the other had been killed because she had resisted her attackers. None of the men can be named because the younger brothers, MMK and MRK, 18, were minors at the time. Another man, known as RS, is 25. Two of the men, known as MSK, 25, and MAK, 23, sobbed openly in court, maintaining their innocence and begging for "another chance".
I'll bet the girls sobbed openly, too, during the festivities...
The brothers are representing themselves because they believe an anti-Muslim conspiracy has prevented a fair hearing.
"Yeah. If we wudn't Muslims, nobody woulda said nothin'!"
Their father, a practising doctor, told the court they should be pardoned because they "did not know the culture of this country".
... and the culture of their own country includes casual gang rape.
Justice Sully said the victims' impact statements had greatly affected him: "I have not heard . . . anything like it . . . something proper needs to be done to get the message out to the adolescents and teenagers." The men are the first to be convicted of the new offence of aggravated sexual assault in company, which carries a maximum life penalty.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 21:21 ||
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I hope that rapists fare poorly in Australian jails. The bit about telling the other girl that her friend has been killed is the mark of some really sick sociopathology not immaturity. Rehabilitation money could probably be more effectively on other inmates, To the rockpile with these clowns. Swap those initials for some multi-digit numerical identifiers.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:02 Comments ||
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They will be sentenced March 12. I'm looking forward to that one, but why the delay?
Wonder if they'll get to meet Spike while they're in the slammer. Yet another culture to learn.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/01/2004 23:00 Comments ||
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A JORDANIAN woman convicted of murdering two children was hanged twice today after the rope broke the first time because of her weight, police officials said. Itisam Hussein, 21, fell to the ground when the rope broke but did not fracture any bones, said one of the officials who attended the execution. She was frightened and in pain, but was not given any sedatives, he said, on condition of anonymity. The rope was changed and she was hanged within the hour, after a delay as prison wardens tried to calm her down.
"Calm down, girly. They can't hang you when you're blubbering like that!"
Today's hanging took place in Swaqa Penitentiary, 100 km south of the Jordanian capital, Amman. Hussein was found guilty in December 2002 of drowning two children in a canal near the biblical Jordan River. She was convicted of premeditated murder for the January 2002 murders and sentenced to death by hanging. Court records showed Hussein was seeking vengeance against her fiance's family, who opposed their marriage. She coaxed her fiance's sister and brother -- aged 5 and 6 respectively - to the canal, where she drowned them. It was the second strange hanging incident in Jordan since 1997, when the head of another woman convict split from her body during execution.
Ow. I don't even want to think about it.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 21:07 ||
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RICKETY TICKETY TIN
About a maid I'll sing a song
Sing rickety tickety tin
About a maid I'll sing a song
Who didn't have her family long
Not only did she do them wrong
She did every one of them in, them in
She did every one of them in.
One morning in a fit of pique
Sing rickety tickety tin
One morning in a fit of pique
She drowned her father in the creek
The water tasted bad for a week
And we had to make do with gin, with gin
We had to make do with gin
[snipped other verses]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 21:25 Comments ||
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Islam confuses me. Wasn't it Allah's will that the woman live? Any imam worth his salt should have known that broken rope was a sign from paradise.
Gunmen shot dead a prominent adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses and medics said. They said unknown assailants gunned down Khalil al-Zebin, 59, a veteran journalist who ran a Palestinian Authority-funded magazine and advised Arafat on human rights and media issues, outside his office in Palestinian-ruled Gaza. Zebin was shot several times shortly after midnight and died soon after arriving at Gaza's Shifa Hospital. Police said they were investigating but no arrests had been made. Zebin was a longtime Arafat loyalist whose monthly magazine focused on the rights of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Palestinian journalists have recently staged protests demanding that the Palestinian Authority investigate a recent series of attacks against them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "We strongly condemn the assassination of veteran journalist Khalil al-Zebin and urge the Palestinian Authority to intervene immediately to find the perpetrators," said Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Journalists Union.
Yep. They're gonna get right on it.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 20:59 ||
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The civil war is just coming out of idle and is Slowly and Gradually⢠throttling up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 21:28 Comments ||
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Turkmenistan Dear Leader President Saparmurat Niyazov has passed a decree forbidding young men in the country to wear long hair or beards. What about women?
The president said the Education Ministry should be in charge of checking peopleâs hair as the issue was most pressing among the young. Mr Niyazovâs rule in the central Asian state has always been authoritarian. But his latest decree takes to a new level the degree of state intervention in peopleâs private lives. ... President Niyazov appeared on television saying that men can no longer grow their hair and that beards are not allowed, at least among the young. He gave no reason - but that is not unusual in Turkmenistan. or Iran or Saudi Arabia or ... oh, nevermind.
In this part of the world, rulings on hair are generally connected to Islam in some way, but it seems likely that Mr Niyazovâs decree is more broadly directed against individualism of any kind. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
The goatee beard is currently in vogue in the capital, Ashgabat, and these will probably be the first to be shaved off. Well, at least we wonât have to look for Taliban ex-pats there. Theyâd sooner look at a womanâs ankle than shave their beards.
It is forbidden now to listen to car radios or to smoke in the street; opera and ballet performances have been banned on the grounds that they are unnecessary. On Sunday he is to fire 15,000 nurses and other health workers and replace them with army conscripts.
#1
A number of the ex-soviet union 'stans' look like north korea with the efficiency removed. Of course the mainstream completely ignores what is happening.
EFL
HAVANA, March. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Insurgent groups headed by Guy Philippe who took arms against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide entered Monday the countryâs capital, Port-au-Prince, reports received here said.
They paraded across the city in trucks and stopped in several abandoned police stations. Accompanied by 50 heavily armed men wearing military helmets, Philippe moved in a caravan of vehicles around Petionville, a neighborhood in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
The rebels told the press that just as Philippe had promised, they would not go to the Presidential Palace, headquarters of the new government chaired by the former judge of the Supreme Court Boniface Alexander. The insurgent leader said his forces would cease fighting as they awaited the arrival of an international peace force and asserted to back the interim government that replaced Aristide on Sunday.
The US marines arrived in Haiti early on Monday as an advance of the multinational force and were deployed in the streets of Port-au-Prince. US President George W. Bush assured that the troopsâ main objective was to avoid a power struggle among rebel groups and to restore order. The chief of the US contingent David Berger added their first priority was to keep the capitalâs international airport open.
The Iraqi Governing Council voted on 28 February to cancel the controversial Decision 137, which sought to alter the personal status law in Iraq, Londonâs "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" reported. The decision, which was ratified in December, sought to replace civil law with Islamic Shariâa law with regard to family issues, potentially setting back womenâs rights in Iraq
Governing Council members Mahmud Uthman and Nasir Kamil Chadirchi supported fellow council member Raja Habib al-Khazaâi in her request to revisit the decision, while Adnan Pachachi, who chaired the council meeting, put the vote on the agenda. Fifteen members of the council voted to repeal the decision, while five members -- all reportedly Shiâites -- voted against the repeal.
Hamid al-Bayati, spokesman for Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), told Al-Jazeera television on 28 February that al-Hakim and fellow Shiâites walked out of the Governing Council session in protest of the "arbitrary way" in which Decision 137 was presented for cancellation. "Discussing Law No. 137 was not on the agenda," he said. Al-Bayati added that Decision No. 137 was designed to protect all sects in Iraq. "This law came to serve all denominations, ethnic groups, and sects because it gives the right for each denomination, ethnic group, sect, and religion to be legally tried according to its ethnicity, religion, sect, and principles in civil-status issues." "
However, some parties tried to take advantage of the law to tarnish the reputation of SCIRI, saying it was a law aimed against women and liberties and that it encourages sectarianism," he added. He further contended that had Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer signed the December decision, which was introduced and passed when al-Hakim served as council president, it would have "restored matters to their normal condition" by "giving everyone their rights."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 6:28:11 PM ||
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A development that gives me a little hope that we might actually make something of this place.
#2
Well, this is excellent news indeed! This is one person breathing a sigh of relief. This also kind of take Bremmer off the Veto hook which he wisely threatened. All in all, a happy development.
#3
Well, folks, this was a secular nation under Sammy, even though he did it with the truntsion and the gun. It seems that the Shiites, though in a majority are making their move. I do not think that negotiation with the Shiites will come to anyything. They are fanatics. "I will negotiate with you as long as I get my way." These self-flogger and massive headwound Harry-type leaders need some highly directive supervisory techniques. S-1.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 20:44 Comments ||
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Eight of the 11 people killed near Wana, in Pakistanâs South Waziristan region on 28 February were Afghans, including a 14-year-old boy, the Islamabad daily "The News" reported on 29 February. Six others were injured in the shooting.
The incident occurred when Pakistani soldiers opened fire on two vehicles that did not stop at a roadblock, the BBC reported 28 February. Initially, Pakistani military sources said that while some civilians might have been killed, militants initiated the attack. However, an unidentified Pakistani intelligence source called the incident "mistaken fire."
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has called for an immediate inquiry into the incident, and has expressed his deep sorrow to the families of those killed, the Karachi daily "Dawn" reported on 1 March.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 6:23:49 PM ||
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Shall we include, "stop at @#$% checkpoint," in the lessons learned?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 21:34 Comments ||
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NASA is going to announce something important concerning the current Mars missions tomorrow. The most likely possibility: positive evidence that Mars once had surface water.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/01/2004 5:18:45 PM ||
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Posted by: Michael ||
03/01/2004 17:49 Comments ||
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#5
Or Binny's DNA.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/01/2004 17:50 Comments ||
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#6
Mike, you were 21 seconds faster than me.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/01/2004 17:50 Comments ||
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#7
I'd love it to be the skeletal remains of a completely alien life form but right now I'd settle for evidence of water. As the Islamofasicts explore the tenth century we explore the universe
#8
I think you're all in for more of a surprise than that. Mars *currently* has liquid water, right below the surface. It's mixed with high amounts of salt which causes it to resists freezing until it's "expressed" and hits the direct surface. This was first hinted at when the rovers turned their camera around and your could see what looked like mud in the wake. It's a big deal as it means water is probably freely available all over the planet just inches below the surface. Could mean life as well.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/01/2004 22:13 Comments ||
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#18
I'm so proud of our geeks. We still raise'em here better than anywhere else. (On a related note, Uh man... Sorry about kicking your ass in Jr. High.)
A top decision- making body in Palestinian President Yasser ArafatâsFatah group on Saturday reiterated calls for a ceasefire with Israel but failed to announce major reforms of the group.
"Nope. Nope. We're fine. What's to change?"
The Fatah Revolutionary Council said in a statement after a four-day meeting that it was in favour of a mutual ceasefire. The meeting was a bid to head off a slide into chaos signalled by mass Fatah resignations, accusations of corruption by the groupâs ruling old guard and its faltering control over Fatah militants. âFatahâs Revolutionary Council announces Fatahâs commitment to the peace process,â the statement said. âBased on this, the Revolutionary Council urges Israel to an immediate mutual and binding ceasefire agreement.â
"Set the peace processor on 'puree' and fire 'er up!"
The council said it would form a committee âto carry out internal reforms... within (Fatahâs) central committee, down to the smallest organisational cell (in Fatah)â. It was the councilâs first meeting since the start of a Palestinian uprising three years ago. It said it would reconvene in a year.
"Yup. We're right on top of it. Next year'll be here before y'know it!"
Participants in the session said there was no discussion at the council on disarming Fatahâs armed wing, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, that has carried out dozens of attacks on Israelis since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian uprising.
"Do we look like we're crazy? We ain't bullet-proof, y'know!"
Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatahâs Revolutionary Council, said that should Israel agree to a ceasefire, the resolutions of the council would be binding to al-Aqsa as well.
Even cheddar isn't binding to the al-Aqsa Martyrs...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 17:05 ||
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Sounds like they need time to regroup for the next round of bombings. That's weird - I thought they were on a roll with the most recent bombing. Maybe they're just about tapped out. Time will tell.
#2
Sounds like they need time to regroup for the next round of bombings. That's weird - I thought they were on a roll with the most recent bombing. Maybe they're just about tapped out. Time will tell.
Reagan Library Lecture, Feb. 26, 2004
The world is watching. The failure of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan would condemn millions to misery and embolden terrorists around the world. The defeat of terror and the success of freedom in those nations will serve the interests of our nation because free nations do not sponsor terror and do not breed the ideologies of murder. And success will serve our ideals, as free and democratic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan inspire hope and encourage reform throughout the world. Like the "free" Iraqis whose Ashoura Blood-Fest is featuring children banging chains on their back, and adult men hacking themselves with swords until they bleed. If thatâs part of the "freedom" we gave them, letâs take it back.
These principles of freedom must also apply to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. President Bush, the first American president to issue a clear call for a Palestinian state, has stated plainly that there can be no peace for either side until there is freedom for both sides. Your "Roadmap" creates conditions for a HAMAS-Hizbollah federation, armed and in preparation to destroy Israel, and wage terror against American interests. Hitler had massive public support, so we beat the Nazi out of the public. Pales need freedom from Islamofascist indoctrination.
The nature of the Palestinian state and the quality of its leadership is as important as its borders. Palestinian leaders need embrace democracy, eliminate corruption, and fight terrorism. For its part, Israel must help create conditions for a Palestinian state to emerge. It must do nothing to prejudge the outcome of a final status agreement. And, it must do more to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, removing the daily humiliations that harden the hearts of future generations. Your credibility is on the line here. The leaders of the State of Israel go to any lengths to defend their security operations, which have been imposed on them by Pale-terrorists. If Pales find these humiliating, then they should send Arafat and the rest of the murder clique, to Hell.
The work of building democracy in these nations is hard -- the work of building democracy is always hard. Success will require the work of a generation. Winning the Cold War wasnât easy, either -- and it took 40 years -- but the free worldâs alliance of strength and conviction prevailed because we never abandoned our values or our responsibilities. As in the Cold War, progress may at times seem halting and uneven. Times of great strategic importance are also times of great turbulence. It is always easier for Presidents, no less than citizens, to do the expected thing -- to follow the accepted path. Boldness is always criticized, change is always suspect, and Presidents from Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, to Harry Truman, to Ronald Reagan knew that history is, indeed, the final judge. I can tell you that, like those Presidents, this President knows that his obligation is not to the daily headlines but to securing the peace and that it is history that will be the final judge. The American electors will be the final judge, and your administration will be pressured to deliver something workable. And finger-pointing at Israel wonât wash.
Posted by: Prince Vlad ||
03/01/2004 2:24:29 PM ||
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" And, it must do more to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, removing the daily humiliations that harden the hearts of future generations."
Arik Sharon recognizes that Israel is better off when it can reduce checkpoints, curfews etc. But that security cooperation is required so this can be done compatibly with Israels security. I see nothing in Condies statement that suggests she takes a different position. She merely indicates the quid pro quo for "Palestinian leaders need embrace democracy, eliminate corruption, and fight terrorism."
I see no finger pointing at Israel.
As for self-flagellation, thats part of historic Shiite culture. And yes, letting them do what they want is part of freedom. How are we gonna take it back - put Saddam back in charge????
#6
Condi has to give out something for public consumption. The ONLY way for the Paleos to become Palestinians is to BOTTOM OUT just like junkies and alcoholics do, and to quit making excuses for themselves. They have to decide on a society of Life or a society of Death. If they choose Life, then they climb back up. The Israelis have not levelled their precious little shitholes with airstrikes, which they very well could have done. Now the Paleos are being quarantined while they get their act together or die, whichever comes first.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 17:26 Comments ||
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LH -- their carrot is that they'll stop being "humiliated" if they stop supporting terrorism. If they continue supporting terrorism, they'll continue to get humiliated.
Your comment about "WHATEVER you do" doesn't make sense, since the Palestinians have NOT stopped supporting terrorism. If they had, and the Israelis behaved as if they hadn't, then you'd have a point. As the facts exist, you don't.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 17:30 Comments ||
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liberalhawk:
Can't you see the problem in absoluting "freedom"? The Aztecs practiced cannibalism as a religious exercise. Mormon polygamy isn't legal, anywhere. American Muslims can't abandon their wives by saying "I divorce thee!" 3 times. The CPA is carrying out "de-baathization" in Iraq, while letting Shiites unite politically with Iran, a Charter member of the "axis of evil." I assume they will chose to do "evil." See CPA Order #1:
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/index.html#Orders
#9
I watched the speech on CSPAN. She made strong parallels to what is happening today and Reagan's prosection of the Cold War through increasingthe pressure on the Soviets. What Bush is doing to AQ, Sadaam, Cuba, Syria, Iran and NK seem to be a continuation of what Ronnie was doing.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:46 Comments ||
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Seven months after a group of Cubans boarded a customized â51 Chevy pickup and headed out to sea, only to be returned by the U.S. Coast Guard days later, the remaining camionautas -- or ââtruckonautsââ -- have yet another chance at freedom. Friday, eight of the Cubans whose political asylum claims were denied by U.S. officials were summoned once again to resubmit their paperwork, according to family members and reports from the island.
A ninth truckonaut, Ariel Diego Marcell -- whose asylum application is still being processed -- fainted on the steps of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana after showing up for interviews. ââHe just passed out from nerves,ââ said Ruben Garcia of Miami, a relative of several of the Cubans who left the Havana coast aboard the battered, diesel-powered Chevy.
The second effort -- this time aboard a â59 Buick this month -- was also halted by the Coast Guard. The close-knit crews of both vessels hail from the Havana neighborhood of San Miguel del Padrón, which was abuzz Friday with the news of Diegoâs swoon. ââMy mother said he was so nervous, the poor guy,ââ Garcia said. ``He hadnât eaten in days.ââ
After a five-hour interview, interrupted by the fainting spell that sent him briefly to the hospital, Diegoâs status was still uncertain. ââIâm going home to wait. I feel like my wings have fallen off my body,ââ he said Friday.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sent a letter on behalf of the 28-year-oldâs Miami relatives, asking that Diego and his family be allowed to enter. She wrote that Diego has been subjected to increased âârepression and discriminationââ since the groupâs return, ``making their life hopeless on the island.ââ
Included in the group is Marcial Basanta López, one of the mechanics who masterminded the rigging of the â51 Chevy -- outfitting it with makeshift propellers and boosting it onto homemade pontoons in hopes of motoring to Florida in July.
ââItâs unbelievable,ââ said cousin Kiriat López, who lives in Lake Worth. Twice now, heâs expected Basanta to make it to Florida, first in the Chevy and then in the Buick. ââHeâs got nine lives, like a cat,ââ López said. All but three of the original Chevy crew still live in the neighborhood: Luis Grass Rodriguez, and his wife and toddler son.
The Grass family was also aboard the Buick but were taken to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, because Grass -- whose visa application was still being processed -- presented ââcredible fearââ of persecution if he were returned to Cuba. Ros-Lehtinenâs office has said it would work with the familyâs Miami relatives to place the couple and their son in a third-party country. ââThey better give visas to the rest of them, too,ââ said Garcia, adding that Basantaâs red â52 Ford pickup is still parked in San Miguel del Padrón. ``Otherwise, they are going to try this again with another vehicle. They donât have anything else to lose.ââ
Let them in until they start arriving in Toyotaâs. Sink any imports.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 2:18:31 PM ||
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Time to airdrop a few SS 396s, should be able with a decent prop to outrun the CGs.
Or perhaps a hemi superbird.... with a catamaran hull setup... that's should be able to outrun an F-16 (at least until takeoff).
There was a cow named Lola in the office of Dr. Perry Smith. The doctor was a veterinarian, after all, and the cow was not fully grown. But she was a cow. this in very educating!
Lola grazed peaceably on some fax paper until nurse Maryann Iturralde distracted her with some Honey Nut Cheerios. Lola sniffed but did not eat. that doesnt say much for cheerios.
ââIs your tummy full?ââ Iturralde coaxed. ``Is it full?ââ fax paper not very filling.
Perhaps it was. Lola made a deposit, hugely and shamelessly, on the tile floor. Then she walked off in the direction of the dog pens. accidents happen.
ââOh Lord,ââ Iturralde said and grabbed the Wet Naps. better use two.
Lola has lived at the Trail Animal Clinic in West Miami since the day after Thanksgiving. She arrived early that morning, scrawny and bewildered, in the back of Smithâs big gray pickup. ââShe didnât bond with her mother,ââ Smith said. ``Normally, theyâre nursing from the mother for six months, learning to eat grass. Sheâd probably have starved to death if weâd left her on the ranch.ââ see what happen when baby dont breast feed!
She was a calf then, 4 days old and not more than 60 pounds. She was Smithâs. He keeps a ranch outside of Palatka, land thatâs been in his family for years. Smith is a severe man, tall and stooped, with American Gothic looks. He worked at a feedlot to pay for college and veterinary school, milking and slaughtering from the time he was a boy, and archives his copies of the Florida Cattleman Journal. The man knows cows. ââA calf will put on 2, 3 pounds a day,ââ he said. Lola weighs 172 pounds. guess how old that make her.
ââSheâs still got to learn to eat grass,ââ Smith said. ``Then she goes back to the ranch.ââ maybe if you stop feed her fax paper she will! sheeesh!
Lola walked back through an examination room, down the hall and back into the office. She scratched her chin on the computer keyboard and billing files flashed across the screen. ââLola!ââ Iturralde said. ``Lie down! Go lie down on your bed!ââ now that pamperin! and no this aint in italian.
The nurses had fixed a nest of pink and blue blankets on the floor next to the computer, and Lola laid down, heavily. She closed her eyes and her eyelids began to twitch. dreaming sweet cow dream.
She is attractive, as cows go, caramel-colored with dark haunches and a white ââTââ on her forehead. She is svelte, with a glossy coat and a gentle face. Her ears are enormous and floppy. if you go to link you can see how cute lola is! id put little bow on her head.
She may not be a cow genius but if she has not progressed as Smith would like on the grazing front, the fault is surely not hers. there no such thing as bad cow just bad owner
Nurses bottle-feed her a gallon of milk every morning. She gets treats like ââpizza, bagels, dog chow, sometimes McDonaldâs,ââ Iturralde said. ``Sometimes the clients will bring her chicken nuggets. And for a while we tried to housebreak her with M&Ms.ââ pizza! mcdonald! chicken! what the hell they doing! she better off with fax paper!
Who in their right mind, save some bovine fitness fanatic, would choose grass under the circumstances? certanly not lola
Smith had left the room to attend a patient, a puppy small enough to fit in a manâs palm. He was displeased to see Lola napping when he returned. ââLola!ââ he said. ``You going to sleep all day? Or you going to get up and be somebody?ââ sound like my father.
Lola did not want to be somebody. She wanted to sleep. But in good time, after much tugging and prodding, she got up. It was time for her walk. Nurse Iturralde fixed a leash and led her into the alley behind the clinic. many people here walk they cows.
It was hot and dusty out back and Lola walked slowly, without enthusiasm. ââNot in a roaming mood, today, huh?ââ Iturralde asked. Lola did not answer. duh.
They walked down to the end of the alley and back, with a pause along the way to taste some interesting-looking leaves. i hope ituralde wasnt party to that.
Soon -- two weeks, maybe three -- Lola will return to the pasture. She will graze and grow to half a ton. She will give birth yearly for the next decade, give milk in between bouts of pregnancy and eventually become many, many hamburgers. now that aint right! what the hell kind of story this!
Iturralde did not dwell on the future.
ââYou bottle-raise her, you play with her, but you realize you canât keep her,ââ she said. but we will always keep lola in our heart. time to contact peta on this one!
#2
As an old southern farm boy, I can relate. I can't remember a time when Dad didn't have a couple of cows, a few pigs, chickens and turkeys. Some idiot took the cow to the wrong vet - I'm sure even in Florida there are "large-animal" vets and "small-animal" vets. The large-animal variety usually live and work outside cities, and usually have ten to twenty acres they can use to stable, feed, and care for livestock. I sense a bit of stupidity at work in this story, on all fronts. Possibly less in the cow, but then, we've never met...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/01/2004 15:54 Comments ||
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#4
I sense a bit of stupidity at work in this story, on all fronts.
That would be the poster.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 17:50 Comments ||
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#5
He was displeased to see Lola napping when he returned. ââLola!ââ he said. ``You going to sleep all day? Or you going to get up and be somebody?ââ
As every smart cow knows: A heifer loaf is better than none.
Palestinians Monday demanded the execution of four men for the rape and murder of a Gaza girl of 16, a rare sex crime that has deepened fears of a slide into lawlessness accelerated by the conflict with Israel.
Where the hell are my Milk Duds?
"Human wolves," the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam headlined in reference to the arrested suspects in a case that has shocked the Palestinians' conservative Muslim society, where rape has long been a taboo topic. Gazans knew that the girl was abducted as she left school last September and found strangled 48 hours later in a garbage bin. But investigators did not confirm until Friday, when they announced the arrest of the suspects, that she had been raped. "Death to the filthy killers!" chanted at least 4,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of students and militants firing rifles into the air, in a rally at a seaside refugee camp near the family home of the slain teen-ager, Maiada Abu Lamdi. "We are asking the Palestinian Authority to implement the law of Allah -- let the killers' hands and legs be cut off and let the killers be hung in public!" they shouted.
I'm all for shooting them. I don't think sadism is usually considered good public policy, though...
Colonel Majed Abu Shammala, Gaza's chief criminal investigator, said the suspects in the girl's case, all taxi drivers aged 22 to 24, had confessed under questioning and were charged with rape and murder. They were jailed pending trial.
Or until the victim's relatives break in and kill them all, whichever comes first...
Armed gangs, often drawn from militant groups fighting Israel in an uprising and sometimes from the security organs themselves, have been behind a sharp rise in robbery, extortion, abductions and murder in the cities of Gaza and the West Bank. "We are following cases of abuse of weapons, especially official weapons, in family feuds and the settling of accounts," said Hamdi Shaqoura of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. "We don't want to worry about our children as they play in the street and go to school," a refugee woman told Reuters as Monday's protest march passed by her house. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie called at a meeting of the dominant Fatah movement's Revolutionary Council last week for a crackdown on the militia gangs, but no action was decided.
I'm not surprised in the least...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 14:14 ||
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#1
Wow I didn't know how bad things were over there! Civil war cannot be too far away.
#2
"We don't want to worry about our children as they play in the street and go to school," a refugee woman told Reuters
"we want them to die for the greater good....like on a bus full of Jooooos!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 14:32 Comments ||
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#3
No wonder the Pals are pissed. Only close relatives are allowed to rape their 16 year olds.
Posted by: ed ||
03/01/2004 15:26 Comments ||
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#4
I forgot ed. They are only allowed to rape close family members. If the member gets pregnant, they have to restore the 'family honor' (sic). Great people those Paleos, we have much in common.....NOT!
#5
Two things: First, I just knew that Israel would somehow figure into this. Second, does everyone just accept the word of "investigators" that they caught the right suspects? Knowing Muslim clerics, uh, penchant for young girls, could this be a coverup for one of them?
Posted by: Seynour Paine ||
03/01/2004 16:37 Comments ||
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Hey Frank, allow me to fill in the blank at the end of your quote, too!
"We don't want to worry about our children as they play in the street and go to school," a refugee woman told Reuters, "It detracts from our efforts to make the Jooooos do that!"
#8
It's a good thing I'm not Sharon,cause if I was and had a little too much wine one night,I would publicly call for a UN Peacekeeping Mission to oversee Gaza and the West Bank.What laughs I'd have watching the UN and Western Europe squirm to avoid taking any action or responsibility for the Palestinians.Then what hilarity would ensue when I announced that I was returning Gaza to Egypt and most of West Bank to Jordan-the day after my Army had finished rounding up every Hamas,Islamic Jihad,etc. member a complete house-to-house search could find,including clerics,wouldn't want my prisoners to be denied their religious leaders.
Of course there would be casualties among civilians as there would be some resistance,but hey,the UN and Europe refused to help,so it's their fault I have to use such methods.
Posted by: Stephen ||
03/01/2004 18:20 Comments ||
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#9
Did somebody let a bunch of Pakistani teens loose in Gaza?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:50 Comments ||
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The long-running case of Canadian businessman James Sabzali, charged with violating the U.S. embargo against Cuba, came to a quiet close Friday as he received a yearâs probation in exchange for pleading guilty to a single charge of "smuggling" several thousand dollars worth of supplies destined for the island. He was also fined $10,000 US. Sabzali had been charged with 75 counts of violating the 1917 U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act and a single count of conspiracy for sales of nearly $3 million worth of water-purification supplies to Cuba. He faced a possible life sentence and a fine of over $19 million. Sabzaliâs conviction on the single charge of smuggling references his importation of goods in violation of U.S. law: in this case, re-export to Cuba by a U.S. business, Bro-Tech, with which he was working. Prosecutors allowed the 45-year-old Canadian, a Philadelphia-area resident since 1996, to plead guilty to this new offence to avoid the automatic deportation required by all of the original charges. He is lucky to have settled right now. I think that coming position on re-importers will be pretty harsh. Khan ruined everything for smugglers. It is curious that the Janet Reno chose to prosecute this case and that the imbecile thought it was a good idea to come to America while he was engaged in a re-importation scam.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 2:13:22 PM ||
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Ten days after Pakistan tested its first atomic bomb in 1998, the wife of a major North Korean arms dealer was shot to death near the heavily guarded home here of the nuclear program's leader, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Authorities hushed up the mysterious shooting of Kim Sa Nae, and it was more than a year before news broke that she was probably killed by North Koreans.
Another chapter in a very bad novel. Kinda hard on poor Kim Sa Nae, though...
After Khan's confession in early February that he secretly sold nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya, Kim's death is taking on a new meaning as fresh details emerge. Pakistan's government and military say that Khan and at least seven associates were motivated by greed and acted without official knowledge or approval. But details of Kim's death on June 7, 1998, and the way Pakistani authorities handled it, may hold clues to what officials actually knew about Khan's activities. Kim previously has been described as the wife of a mid-ranking North Korean diplomat. But present and former staff members at Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL say that was a cover story. The officials said Kim was part of a 20-member delegation of North Korean engineers and scientists whom Khan had invited to witness Pakistan's first underground nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, and to learn how to enrich uranium for a North Korean bomb. There has long been speculation that Kim was killed by her own government because she was suspected of spying for the United States or another Western power. Officials in both Pakistan and India backed that version of events. A Pakistani official said his country's intelligence agents suspected that the United States was using Kim as a mole inside the North Korean delegation, but that her actions were uncovered by Pakistani and North Korean agents.
An Indian official who is familiar with his government's assessment of the killing said bluntly: "She was in fact killed by the North Koreans on the grounds that she was in touch with certain Western diplomats." A Pakistani intelligence source said Kim and the rest of the North Korean delegation was staying in a guest house in the compound of Khan's home when Kim was killed. Even after reports the next year revealed she was probably killed on purpose, few Pakistani officials would talk about it. They said a neighbor's cook accidentally killed the North Korean woman when he fired a shotgun borrowed from a guard. Another account at the time claimed that one of Khan's neighbors accidentally killed Kim when his gun fired as he was cleaning it in the garage. A coroner was not allowed to carry out an autopsy on Kim's body, and authorities told local police not to open a file on her death. Khan told The Times in a 1999 interview that Pakistani intelligence services told him that Kim's death was an accident. "You Americans always try to put the blame on us," he said.
Seems like there may have been some justification, doesn't it?
Three days after she was shot, Kim's body was spirited out of Pakistan on a chartered Pakistani cargo plane, a source said. The plane, a U.S.-built C-130 military transport, was the same one that Khan recently told investigators he had used to ship plans and equipment for making a nuclear bomb, according to the official, who is familiar with Khan's signed 12-page confession. The plane carried Kim's body back to North Korea along with P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material, according to the source. The cargo also included drawings, sketches, technical data and depleted uranium hexafluoride gas, which is converted into weapons-grade material in centrifuges, the source said. The Pakistani source said the aircraft was under the control of his country's air force. The Indian official said the charter flight was operated by Shaheen Air International, one of several large corporations run by Pakistan's military. The company began operating in 1993, and its current chairman is the air force chief of staff, Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat. Six of its seven directors are retired air force officers.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 14:05 ||
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The plane, [The plane, a U.S.-built C-130] carried Kim's body back to North Korea along with P-1 and P-2 centrifuges
How...fitting.
Posted by: B ||
03/01/2004 14:23 Comments ||
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#2
Chef Mustard, in the garage, with the shotgun.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 14:54 Comments ||
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EFL
President Bush on Thursday strengthened emergency powers to choke off previously legal fishing and yacht trips to Cuba. Since 1996, 1,500 U.S. pleasure boats have received Coast Guard permits to tie up in Cuba, said a U.S. diplomat. Now, after a three-year interagency process, the Bush administration has found a formula ââto stop this pleasure boating traffic to Cuba, which has the effect of putting money in the pocket of the regime,ââ the diplomat said. In Washington, the three Republican Cuban-American Congress members from Miami issued a statement celebrating the move. Rep. Lincoln DÃaz-Balart called it ``another firm step in the global war on terrorism. . . . President Bushâs commendable action will reduce the resources available to the Cuban terrorist regime.ââBut in Key West, a charter boat operator who has taken part in Cuban Blue Marlin tournaments based at the Hemingway Marina in Havana lamented it as pre-election political maneuvering. I find it laughable when someone calls the embargo a blockade. Can anyone imagine Abe Lincoln allowing the Coast Guard to rubber stamp "pleasure trips into the port of Willmington or Charleston?
ââIf he puts the pressure on Cuba, the Miami Cubans vote for him and get him back in the presidency,ââ opined Mark Baumgarten, 46, who said he has tied up his 36-foot Hatteras, The Cowboy, there eight times with Coast Guard permits. The State Department official said a range of different Bush administration agencies had worked on the measure for three years. He said the goal was to increase enforcement of the embargo, and denied it was an election-year ploy. ââHonestly, weâve been working this for years,ââ he said. Hemingway Marina is known in international sailing circles as an exotic, well-equipped port-of-call; Castro opponents call it an insidious aspect of Cubaâs tourism apartheid -- enticing foreign funds for the government rather than ordinary Cubans through a market economy. Under an earlier 1996 presidential emergency order, pleasure boaters wanting to visit Cuba needed to get a Coast Guard permit, or security pass, to enter Cuban waters legally. They had to give an itinerary and list of passengers, none of whom could be felons, said Baumgarten. The Coast Guard then issued the permits. Why would Clinton have cared about felons transitting to Cuba and back?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 2:04:08 PM ||
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1 March: The visit Iranian defense minister, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, paid to Damascus Saturday, February 28, distanced the Assad regime further than ever from Washington and Europe. He and Syrian defense minister General Mustafa Tlas affixed their signatures to a new military pact. DEBKAfileâs military and intelligence sources reveal its key clause as being an Iranian pledge to invest in additional long-range Scud C missile production lines at Syriaâs underground missile facility in Hamah. Tehran will also transfer technology for the manufacture in Syria of advanced Iranian Shihab-3 missiles as well as financing expanded production of long-range artillery and ammunition.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/01/2004 1:54:47 PM ||
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#1
have Iran and Syria basically agreed that if one go's to war then the other will be its ally.Seems to me to be a panic type move and shows so transparently the fear each nation has of American forces wedged inbetween.
#4
This is the problem with waging war PIECEMEAL. Greasing the Saddamite regime, while leaving the Islamic fascist regimes of Syria and Iran standing is the equivalent of having taken out Italy in WWII, but left Germany and Japan to be dealt with via the League of Nations, half-assed diplomacy and EUropean-initiated mediation. Unfortunately, this nation or an ally will have to take another major hit before serious steps are taken to clean house in the Mideast and beyond.
#5
We're waging war piecemeal because that is all our resources allow. End. Of. Story.
It's stories like this that make me wonder whether the Guard brigades converted into half-baked constabulary units are really up to a potential emergency.
#6
Garrison, I thik the plan was originally to take Italy first. We only invade France to relieve pressure off of Stalin.
We have now seperated Iran and Syria, begun to topple Syria economically, and are watching Iran eat itself. We would be in a bad position only if the Iraqi security forces were not taking over our positions in the cities and helping us tighten up the borders. This will free up our troops to move at the time of our choosing.
The scuds might as well be spuds. We have the initiative and will keep it as long as a leader who will continue the drive wins in November.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:59 Comments ||
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The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that upheld the government's decision to freeze the assets of a Texas-based Muslim charity accused of funding a militant Palestinian group. Without comment, the high court rejected an appeal by the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, headquartered in Richardson, Texas. The foundation, which called itself the largest U.S.-based Muslim charity, was shut down when the government seized its assets. On Dec. 4, 2001, the Treasury Department designated the charity a "terrorist" group and froze its assets because it said the foundation funneled millions of dollars to Hamas. The United States designated Hamas a "terrorist" group in 1995. Holy Land Foundation challenged the freezing of its assets and the designation. It said it was not linked to Hamas and was not a terrorist organization. But a federal judge and then a U.S. appeals court rejected the charity's arguments. The appeals court cited evidence the foundation operated as a fund-raiser for Hamas in the United States and that Hamas officials provided it with funds. In appealing to the Supreme Court, the charity argued the Treasury Department's procedures violated its constitutional due process rights.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 13:53 ||
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#1
"the charity argued the Treasury Department's procedures violated its constitutional due process rights." -Boo FRIGGIN HOO!
Cry me a river Achmed. I bet they are finding it hard to recruit homocide bombers or make bombs without any cash. The sad part is that it took 9/11 for the Feds to open their eyes about these organizations. Taking their cash away is MINIMAL, they should prepare charges on everyone associated with these organizations and send them to prison or to the gallows.
A breakthrough experiment using embryonic pig insulin cells could lead to a new treatment for diabetes.
In a study at Washington University in St. Louis, researchers took pig cells from very young embryos and transplanted the cells into diabetic rats. The rats, even without drugs to prevent immune rejection, adopted the pig cells as their own and produced their own insulin.
If the procedure works in humans, it could not only treat but potentially cure diabetes. The rats continued to produce insulin via the pig cells for the rest of their lives.
"We envision this technology as a means to replace insulin in type 1 diabetic humans using pig insulin -- which works just fine in humans," said Dr. Marc Hammerman, a professor of renal diseases in medicine at Washington University and leader of the study, published in the April issue of The American Journal of Physiology -- Endocrinology and Metabolism. ...more...
#3
So Homer was right? The pig *IS* a magical animal!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 14:19 Comments ||
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#4
Four Wet Pigs
Here's a little song about four wet pigs
Here's a little song about four wet pigs
Two of 'em little and two of 'em big
They danced all night at the Pigtown Jig
The two that were little were just half-grown
The two that were big were big as a barn
Big as a barn and tall as a tree
Took 'em right down to the factory
Slice 'em into bacon, chop 'em into ham
Roll 'em into hot dogs, squeeze 'em into Spamâ¢
Throw their little eyes out in the rain
Pickle their feet and scramble their brains
Here's a little song about two wet pigs
Standin' by the slop trough, smokin' their cigs
Hopin' to God that they never get big
They danced all night at the Pigtown Jig
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 14:22 Comments ||
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#5
What will diabetic muzzzlums do?
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/01/2004 14:26 Comments ||
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#6
LOL, YS. The answer depends on whether you are a prince or a pauper, a Sunni or Shiite, a Wahhabi or a wannalive.
(2004-03-01) -- Oscar-sweeping director Peter Jackson this morning said he would team up with Pixar Studios, which last night won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, to produce a rollicking adventure tentatively titled "Finding Smeagol."
Mr. Jackson, whose trilogy capstone âReturn of the Kingâ (ROTK) captured 11 Oscars, inluding Best Picture and Best Director, said he was "eager to explore what ever happened to Smeagol (also called Gollum) after he disappeared into that river of molten lava at the end of ROTK. Because the film already had six endings, we really didnât have time to resolve Smeagolâs story. It was a cliff hanger, if you will, which shouts for a sequel."
For Pixarâs part, a studio spokesman said âFinding Smeagolâ will challenge its computer animation experts to "create a whole believable world in spectacular, graceful orange, all at about 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyone whoâs ever seen a lava lamp has imagined what it would be like to live in that stuff."
The story will follow the adventures of Smeagolâs father, voiced by Albert Brooks, as he searches for his jewelry-obsessed, prodigal son.
Mr. Jackson plans to shoot much of âFinding Smeagolâ on location at New Zealandâs Ruapehu volcano. The film will combine live actors with computer-generated imaging (CGI) animation in ways never before attempted. Andy Serkis will reprise the role of Smeagol/Gollum, and is already being fitted with a special âheat resistantâ costume.
From the files of Democracy Now!:
Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was "kidnapped" and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Multiple sources = Larry, Moe and Curly.
Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. "Heâs surrounded by military. Itâs like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped," said Waters. We always let the people we kidnap make phone calls.
She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. Threatening diplomats? Sure theyâre ours?
According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. Fred, is that where you went this weekend?
According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristideâs US security. What happened was his private contract security guards called the US Embassy and asked if they could get military help if rebels stormed the palace. We said no. Iâm sure they told Aristide that he was screwed.
TransAfrica founder and leftist wacko close Aristide family friend Randall Robinson also received a call from the Haitian president early this morning and confirmed Waters account. Robinson said that Aristide "emphatically" denied that he had resigned. "He did not resign," he said. "He was abducted by the United States in the commission of a coup." Robinson says he spoke to Aristide on a cell phone that was smuggled to the Haitian president. Sure he did.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 12:53:02 PM ||
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Well, now, if Maxine "Burn, Baby, Burn!" Waters and Randall "Reparations" Robinson say it's true, then it must be true. Right?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/01/2004 13:03 Comments ||
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#2
Is it me or does Maxine remind you of Claire of the UK? Both talk out of their ass and make WILD accusations. Note to Maxine: When you find yourself parroting and believing dictators, itâs time to retire. Also how close does Randall Robinson act and sound like Randall Flagg (from âThe Standâ)? My imagination is just wondering today!
#3
DEMOCRACY NOW is -- like the Congressional Black[guard] Caucus -- an extreme left-wing, America-hating, anti-democratic group of reactionaries. As far as I am concerned, have the State Department return Aristide to Haiti. Let the US dominant left-wing media video Aristide being turned to hamburger meat by the rabid mob.
#4
Now the Brits handle this sort of thing differently.
The plane landed from London and an SAS officer, two burly noncoms and the Crown Prince of Oman got out. They got into an embassy car and drove to the Palace. All went in. A short time later, out comes the officer, the noncoms each with a hand on the elbow of the Emir, get into the car and off to the airport. Fly back to London, and Oman can now have running water and sewers.
#5
Bear with me. The truth is relative to the listener. The same stragegy we've been using for a few other forigen leaders. We saved his job in the 90's, he's ours. His performance as employee was unsatisfactory and he broke company policy. We layed him off in '04, Aristide. Of all the other methods we have for this senerio, it's rather humane.
Solution:
There are a few countries that this will work, hopefully Haiti is one of them. I have faith for peace, but just as in the 90's, this will not be the last time we intervien, unless island thugs, southern hemisphere kingpins, local gangs are forced to keep Haiti's elections clean in the first place.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 16:35 Comments ||
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Just to prove to Maxine, the Marxist, and all other doubters that Aristide was not kidnapped, bring him back to Haiti and deposit him on a street corner in downtown Cap-Haitien.
#11
Wonder if they'd get this worked up if Aristide had been a card-carrying capitalist?
I'd be more than happy to watch JB get dropped off in the center of Port Au Prince. Maybe we can get Kerosene Maxine and Reparations Randall to go along for moral support....
#12
I think all left-leaning assholes are assholes. They lie a lot and they never tell the truth. They are commies and they should join the communist party. Shouldn't they? Huh? Shouldn't they?
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday said it is prepared to sign a peace deal with the government anytime, âprovided that it will answer to the root cause of the Bangsamoro peoplesâ centuries old problem.â
Namely that they want a chunk of the country for their very own. No outsiders allowed. And no infidels, dammit!
âResolving the Mindanao conflict through peaceful dialogue is our standing commitment and part of our existing policy,â MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told Arab News when asked about his organizationâs determination to forge a peace agreement with the Manila government. Peace talks started in 1997 but got derailed in 2000 when then President Estrada launched an all-out war against the MILF. President Gloria Arroyo resumed the talks when she assumed power in 2001. A fragile truce had been in place, although it had been repeatedly disrupted. Both sides have blamed each other for the violations. Kabalu said that for a peace agreement to be acceptable in particular to the MILF and to the Bangsamoro people at-large, it âmust not be imposed.â He noted that the Bangsamoro people and civil society groups have been calling for a âreferendumâ supervised by the United Nations to end the conflict in Mindanao. âSuch formula will likely acceptable to the MILF, which could still be possible before May 2004,â he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:48 ||
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The ETA cried for a truce, then was later caught trying to ship in a huge load of explosives.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday said the best possible treatment was being given to eminent litterateur Prof. Humayun Azad at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH). The prime minister assured the members of Prof. Azadâs family that he would be sent abroad for treatment, if necessary. The assurance came when Prof. Azadâs daughter Mouli Azad and son Ananyo Azad met the prime minister at her office. They expressed gratitude to the prime minister for the government measures in arranging better treatment of their father and also thanked her for her regular personal inquiry about his treatment at the CMH. Prof. Azadâs brother Sajjad Kabir and sister-in-law Shamsunnahar Gafur, and the PMâs political secretaries Harris Chowdhury and Mosaddeq Ali were present.
Prof. Humayun Azad was critically injured in an attack by miscreants on Friday night, near the Bangla Academy. It may be mentioned here that the prime minister in a public rally in Dhaka yesterday indicted the Awami League for enacting the drama by organizing the attack on Humayun Azad so as to prepare the ground for calling another general strike in Bangladesh. The AL enforced four strikes in February alone.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:45 ||
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Turkeyâs Muslim preachers must speak out in favor of womenâs rights and condemn so-called honor killings, a government minister was quoted as saying yesterday. âHonor killingsâ involve the murder of women by male relatives to defend what is regarded as family honor. They are not uncommon in Turkeyâs conservative, impoverished southeast. State Minister Mehmet Aydin made his appeal after Turkish newspapers reported the fatal shooting of a woman on Friday by her two brothers as she lay in a hospital bed in Istanbul recovering from an earlier assassination attempt. The papers said Guldunya Toren, 22, who came from the town of Bitlis in southeast Turkey, had been killed after giving birth to a child outside wedlock a few months ago. The Vatan daily said she had been raped by her cousin.
"Been raped, huh? Well, she must be killed! Maybe her cousins'll do it?"
âIn the coming weeks, I think sermons will be read in the mosques on the rights of women,â the Anatolian state news agency quoted Aydin as saying. âOur people and our laws already define the killing of people for traditional reasons (honor killings) as âmurderâ... Taking the life of another, and indeed suicide, are deemed a sin in our religion and are forbidden. It is not people but laws which punish the guilty.â Aydin is a professor of the philosophy of religion.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:42 ||
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It's pretty sad when the preachers need to be told to condemn honor killings and rape.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:04 Comments ||
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Ousted Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristideâs flight into exile was the result of intense consultation and "perfect co-ordination" between Paris and Washington, Franceâs foreign minister said Monday. The dialogue with the United States since the start of the crisis in Haiti was conducted in an excellent atmosphere and the departure of president Aristide was the result of perfect co-ordination" between the two governments, Dominique de Villepin told reporters here. Guess he didnât get the word from Sen. John Kerry. He said Bush waited too long, as usual, before intervening. Kerry said he would have gone in without international support, thatâs very unilateral of him, donât you think?
De Villepin said he had been in touch with US Secretary of State Colin Powell several times by telephone since Sunday before the choice of the Central African Republic (CAR) as Aristideâs destination was decided. Amid a mounting insurrection and after intense pressure from the international community, Aristide and his wife fled Haiti on Sunday and arrived in the CAR on Monday. Aristide sez he was kidnapped.
An official of the state protocol department in the capital Bangui said Aristide and his wife would stay for a few days before heading to South Africa, but the foreign ministry in Pretoria said it was not aware of any such plan. "Who? He said what?"
"We had to find a quick way out of this crisis to avoid getting bogged down and avoid the violence escalating, and to bring about the deployment of a multi-national force," de Villepin said. US Marines arrived in Haiti early Monday to launch an international force to restore order, while French troops and gendarmes were expected later in the day. First group of French troops have landed.
The final size of the force has not been decided. De Villepin underlined the importance of sending aid urgently to ease the plight of the increasingly desperate Haitian population. He said that following the appointment of a caretaker president, "it is now advisable to install a prime minister, and with the ceasefire, to support the move towards national reconciliation." "All the political forces which renounce violence can take part in this move," said de Villepin, on the first day of a visit to Japan. "Just like our successful intervention in, er......"
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 12:37:35 PM ||
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#1
Wow, it must've been quite an achievement for France to help in deciding where Aristide was going to flee to.
#2
quite an achievement for France to help in deciding where Aristide was going to flee to
France is the world's expert on fleeing dictators. Or is that world expert on fleeing?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 13:00 Comments ||
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#3
Here's Kerry's quote from the New York Daily News:
Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush yesterday of deliberately helping insurgents in the bloody Haitian uprising and said he would use American military forces to stop the violence if he were in office. Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Without international support? Gee, that's very unilateral of you, Senator.
"President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan." But he insisted the White House "has empowered the insurgents, and they've done it quite purposely out of their dislike ... for Aristide."
Yeah, we overthrow everyone we dislike, why just look at when we invaded Cuba........
A Kerry administration would have given the rebels a 48-hour ultimatum to come up with a peaceful agreement - "otherwise, we're coming in," he said.
Gee, now where have I heard that before?
"I would intervene with the international community, and absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally," he said, adding the most important thing was to protect democracy.
Right.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 13:43 Comments ||
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#4
Somebody should explain to Kerry that if we intervened before Aristide left than we would be required to maintain the status quo. Bolstering the current regime has been tried unsucessfully. Colin Powell's statement should be rephrased as, "there is no enthusiasm among the international community to keep Aristide in power, but we have several ships full of marines that are ready to help out once he is gone."
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 13:50 Comments ||
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#5
sounds like Senator "I was in Viet Nam" is advocating unilateral invasion of sovereign countries, even when they pose no "imminent threat" to us, and obviously own no WMD's...hmmmmm
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 13:58 Comments ||
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#6
what's that sound you hear??? It's the sound of the French diplomats opening new bank accounts in expectation of UN aid flowing to Haiti.
Posted by: B ||
03/01/2004 14:31 Comments ||
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#7
Part of the Food for Refugees program?
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/01/2004 17:04 Comments ||
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#8
An official of the state protocol department in the capital Bangui said Aristide and his wife would stay for a few days before heading to South Africa, but the foreign ministry in Pretoria said it was not aware of any such plan.
Funny, South Africa has been very supportive of Aristide. Back on Feb. 2nd they sent a plane load of weapons and body armor for use by Jean's forces.
#9
how long before aristede appears in california supporting michael jackson who was also targeted for removal as the king of pop by a u.s. government entity
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 23:58 Comments ||
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Syria joined Saudi Arabia and Egypt in opposing Washingtonâs plan for political and other reforms in the Middle East, according to an interview published yesterday. "Nope. Nope. Ain't gonna do it."
âOur position is that we donât want any reform project to be dictated to us from abroad. Reforms must spring from the specifics of the region and not through the diktats of external forces,â Syrian Information Minister Ahmad Al-Hassan told the London-based daily Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. âNo regime would accept the implementation of reforms under external pressure or diktats from abroad.â Saudi Arabia and Egypt said last week the Arab world was going through its own reforms and would reject any change imposed from outside. They were reacting to Washingtonâs Greater Middle East Initiative, which proposes funding for projects which would promote free elections, civil society, the empowerment of women and the modernization of education. "Nope. Nope. Can't have any of that!"
Hassan defended Syriaâs emergency laws on the grounds that part of the country, the Golan Heights, is under Israeli occupation. The laws, in force since 1963, give the security authorities wide powers of detention. "They've only been in effect for 41 years. Give us time!"
âThere is no country to the world which has part of its territory under occupation that does not have exceptional laws that might be used if its security is at risk,â he said. The US State Department, in its annual human rights report released last week, said members of the Syrian security forces committed numerous serious human rights abuses in 2003. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, arriving in Cairo yesterday for Arab League meetings, also objected to the Greater Middle East Initiative.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:37 ||
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Police arrested one of the two gunmen who attacked a mosque in Taifâs Shuhada neighborhood on Saturday morning and threatened the mosqueâs muezzin as he was preparing to call for Fajr prayers, Al-Jazirah reported. âThey entered the mosque while I was praying. One of them came toward me, wielding a gun, and threatened me and started abusing me,â said Hadyan Al-Duwaiby, the muezzin. The two damaged the mosqueâs roof by opening fire. âBoth were acting in a strange manner. One of them took his mobile and called the police and told them that a murder had taken place in the mosque.â Police later cordoned off the area to arrest the gunmen.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:32 ||
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Investigators are grilling some 50 people, mostly expatriates, for allegedly attending a gay wedding in Madinah last Wednesday. The case has now been passed to the investigation and prosecution department. The suspects deny they were attending a gay marriage, which is prohibited in the Kingdom, saying they took part in a ceremony to mark the wedding of a Chadian friend.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
But investigators say that invitations to the ceremony indicated it was a gay function and point to the suspicious behavior of guests, who fled the venue at the sight of the police cars, some leaving their vehicles behind.
"Cheeze it, Bruce! It's the coppers!"
The incident sent shock waves through Saudi society when it was first reported on Friday by Al-Jazirah Arabic newspaper. The paper said police arrested guests at the wedding of an all-male couple from Chad. But the accused Chadian told the police that he was rehearsing for his legal marriage, to be held at a wedding hall on Friday. His Saudi sponsor confirmed the manâs story saying he had given him some money to meet the marriage expenses. Security sources said they raided a rest house in Madinahâs Aziziyah District after a tip-off from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. They also said participants left more than 30 cars in the area, which police impounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 12:29 ||
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Hope they didn't do no practicing kissing or some such.
Pet owners in a central Italian town must pamper their dogs, cats and birds and even show mercy to supper-time lobsters or face fines as high as 500 euros. According to a new bill regulating the treatment of animals that will be implemented next week in the wealthy town of Reggio Emilia, canary owners will have to buy a significant other for their bird, who otherwise might suffer from loneliness. how you like it you lock in cage and never get lay!
Dog owners will have to provide sufficiently spacious dog houses in shady, sheltered locations and pet owners of all stripes will be prohibited from dyeing the fur of their animals. The rules, spelled out in 39 different articles, also make it illegal to throw live lobsters in boiling water. "Itâs a useless torture, they should be killed first," a spokeswoman for the town said on Saturday. they shouldnt be kill period!
Fines for breaking the rules run from 25 to 495 euros.
Posted by: muck4doo ||
03/01/2004 10:53:32 AM ||
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#1
Next: A few words from the Earthworm Protection League...
#6
Does this mean no more raw oysters? This could ultimately be a bigger Nanny State than we have here.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/01/2004 11:49 Comments ||
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#7
Would we be able to eat the meat of animals and fish that die of natural causes? "I'm not dead yet..."
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 11:53 Comments ||
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#8
Hose -- those are "downer" animals, and need to be disposed of, not eaten.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 12:19 Comments ||
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#9
The best way to kill a lobster is like they do over at Haliburton with an intense burst of gamma rays from the umm, uh never mind. Mr. Chainey said we weren't supposed to talk about that until after the 'demonstration' for Big A over in Ramallah.
#15
Skykilled Ptarmagan is my flavorite. Final approach on a village airstrip in late fall after a snow. Surprised a flock pecking gizzard stones, they flew up, I was landing. 2 hit the wheels, 2 hit the struts, 1 pink misted into the prop. I landed picked them up. 4 clean kills, 1 write-off. They had been eating fermented blueberries, so the meat was already marinated. Best roadkill I ever had.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 17:00 Comments ||
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#16
I hope the poster wasn't honestly looking to rally PETA sympathy at Rantburg. Might just as well show up at a college frat house on Saturday night flogging a message of temperance.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 17:12 Comments ||
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#17
Hell, AP send us your location that we might load that sucker into Micro$oft Fligt Sim. (Yes I have a weakness for it)
Saudi Arabia said on Saturday it would create a body that will exclusively run charity work abroad, after some Saudi Islamic charities faced Western charges of funding terror. A decree by King Fahd approved "the establishment of a charitable body called 'Saudi Civil Council for Relief and Charity Work Overseas' which would be set up and run by a group of citizens involved in charity work and renowned for their experience, integrity and good reputation," said a royal court statement.
Does that mean they get their heads cut off when they're caught funding exploding airliners?
The council would "exclusively run all charity and welfare activities overseas," said the statement carried by the official SPA news agency. This would enable the Saudi people to "continue assisting their Muslim brethren everywhere" in keeping with Islamic teachings while shielding Saudi welfare work abroad from any harmful activities which might undermine it or tarnish its reputation, the statement said. The decision to establish the body was taken after the Saudi government decided to lay down "clear rules to regulate Saudi welfare work outside the kingdom," it added. The new body would announce its statutes and modus operandi as soon as the procedures of its establishment are completed "within the next few weeks," the statement said. A number of Saudi charities were accused by the United States of financing terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington in which 15 of the 19 suspected suicide hijackers were Saudis. The head of one of these charities, Al-Haramain, was dismissed last month by the Saudi minister of Islamic affairs.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 10:44 ||
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#1
Create a commission of Wahhabis to oversee all the Wahhabi charity work? Yeah, that'll do the trick.
#4
Looks as if Princess Fahda bint Saud ibn Abd Al-Aziz is out as the chairwoman of Saudi charities.
This will give âthe daughter of King Saud and the historian of her fatherâs reignâ more time to write her venomous articles.
The first Arab reality TV show ended Monday after three months of controversy over its format â parading women before suitors in a luxury apartment for 24 hours a day. Critics damned the ground-breaking dating show Al Hawa Sawa (On Air Together) as too liberal, but fans writing on internet diary sites said it supported traditional values of limited contact before marriage. Suitors could view the girls 24 hours a day and contact them before a possible meeting in the flat to propose marriage. In a region of 280 million Arabic speakers, such shows have huge potential audiences and provoke much public debate.
"She picked him? Why the hell did she pick him?"
"I thought he was cute!"
"He's buck-toothed and cross-eyed!"
Al Hawa Sawa ended just after an Arab version of the hit reality TV show "Big Brother" was launched to furious protests from conservatives in the Gulf state of Bahrain, who branded it "indecent" â it shows six men and women living in the same villa. Traditional values in Arab societies require the segregation of unmarried men and women, but television networks have increasingly been pushing back the boundaries. Viewers of Al Hawa Sawa suspected in January that three of the eight girls from around the Arab world taking part in the show were secretly smoking, flouting a ban on cigarettes and alcohol in the luxury Beirut apartment they moved into in December.
Cigarettes! Oh, horrors!
"Hey â they are human. We all have our demons," one online diarist who gave his name as H. Qureshi said. "Itâs not a shocking thing for me. I feel sorry and sad for these ladies. They are living a hypocritical lifestyle." The show ended early Monday morning when one of the last two contestants dropped a bombshell on-air, saying she refused to get married. She then locked herself in a bedroom until she was flown back to her native Algeria. "Believe me, I do not want to get married. Please, please -- Iâm not feeling right. They will know the reason in the media when I get out -- Iâm going to talk," emotional 21-year-old Aicha Gerbas told the camera minutes before the finale.
"There ain't no way I'm hooking up with some beturbanned goober from Egypt and spending the rest of my life tending to his goats! I'm entering a nunnery!"
Gerbas had earlier agreed to marry Hossam, an Egyptian who was sitting in the living-room next door to the "truth room" where Gerbas shocked viewers with her sudden change of heart. "This is completely inappropriate behavior," the showâs "voice" responded.
"Just shut up and marry him. We don't care if he does have buck teeth and he smells funny!"
The Arab channel MBC, which ran the show, declined to comment on the incident. "Aicha has made fools of you all!" one viewer gloated in a text message that trawled across the bottom of the screen.
... but not of herself!
The show saw another hiccup earlier in the week when Lebanese authorities unexpectedly turned back the suitor Hossam at Beirut airport, refusing to grant him a tourist visa. "One wonders why the production company doesnât stop the show with all the problems itâs facing," the Lebanese paper Assafir wrote recently after some contestants who had left complained of boredom and jealousy. Minutes after Gerbasâs bombshell, the viewersâ vote chose Mervat Foani from Lebanon as the "Bride of On Air Together," sending her with her chosen suitor on a honeymoon to Malaysia, where conservative Islamic values are also strong.
I'll bet they're just thrilled to death.
Posted by: muck4doo ||
03/01/2004 10:41:45 AM ||
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Al Hawa Sawa: That must be Arabic for "Who Wants to Marry a Moon-barking, Sexually Backward Oil Millionaire?"
#2
This may have been the first reality show on that station but there are many reality shows on arabic TV. I've seen a version of 'millionaire', a version of 'weakest link' and others on cable.
A court here rejected the bail prayer of a madrassah superintendent and assistant teacher, two accused in a rape and blackmailing case. They were sent to Rangpur jail hajat on Sunday. Khejmotpur Dakhil Madrassah Superintendent Md Ruhul Amin and two assistant teachers Shafiqul Islam and Anisur Rahman raped a female teacher five months back. The culprits also took snap shots of rape scenes to blackmail the teacher demanding a big amount of money. Later, the victim lodged a case with Pirganj police station against them. Among the accused, Anisur Rahman was caught by the people and handed over to police a few days after the incident. He has been in Rangpur Jail for last five months. The rest two escaped arrest. But they appeared in the Special Court for Women and Children Repression, Rangpur for ad-interim bail on Sunday. The court rejected their bail prayers.
Well, that's surprising. They raped a woman, rather than a boy...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 10:39 ||
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Special Court for Women and Children Repression
Is this a court for the repression of women and children?
An aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraqâs most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, said even in an Islamic state, people should be free to drink alcohol or women to wear veils. Err, what about the women who donât want to wear veils?
Hokay. But none o' them Capri pants, dammit!
"We donât want to put pressure on the people. Everyone was born free," Seyed Ali Abdul-Karim al-Safi al-Musawi, al-Sistaniâs representative in Basra, said on Sunday. "I would like an Islamic state, but it should come about only if the people vote for it." That would be the "One Man, One Vote, One Time" policy. You donât get to vote to disband a islamic state once you have one.
Iraqi leaders agreed early yesterday to the interim constitution that would serve as the framework for the government through next year, Iraqi officials said. Even before the hard bargaining began, there was agreement on many of its features, including the freedom of speech, press, assembly and the free exercise of religion. The constitution provides for equal treatment under the law, regardless of sex or ethnicity. It also provides for civilian control over the military. Sounds good, itâs the implementation part that gets tricky.
"This document protects the rights of individuals more than any other document in the region," said Feisal al-Istrabadi, an Iraqi-American lawyer who helped draft it. It wouldnât take much to do that.
The Governing Council members reached compromise language on several difficult issues, the Iraqi officials said. Islam was to be designated "a source" of legislation, not "the primary source," as had been demanded by several Muslim members. That compromise was finessed when Iraqi leaders agreed to insert language prohibiting the passage of any legislation "against" Islam, Mr Qanbar said. Theyâll be arguing about the definition of "against" for years.
In another important compromise, Iraqi officials agreed to allow thousands of Kurdish militiamen to hold on to their arms as part of a "national guard" under the command of regional governments, he said. Well, itâs not like they were going to lay them down anytime this century.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 10:37:15 AM ||
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"An aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraqâs most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, said even in an Islamic state, people should be free to drink alcohol or women to wear veils.
Err, what about the women who donât want to wear veils?"
I presume we've got some kind of mistranslation here, or an Iraqi with a great sense of humor.
Get 'em drunk, then put veils on them??? Only allow women with veils to buy liquor???
#2
"In another important compromise, Iraqi officials agreed to allow thousands of Kurdish militiamen to hold on to their arms as part of a "national guard" under the command of regional governments, he said"
That the Shiite leaders were willing to accept keeping the Peshmerga intact, and allowing multiprovince federations (including Kurdistan) is probably a bigger deal (and better news for the US and anyone who wants a democractic Iraq) than anything else. Id take "sharia as A source of law' in return for the Peshmerga.
Armed pirates looted fish and equipment worth about Tk 30 lakh from seven trawlers and threw five fishermen into the sea off the Patharghata coast on Friday.
Yar! Made 'em walk the plank, did they?
At least 20 fishermen were injured as the pirates hacked them. The incident came to light on Saturday when four of the five fishermen rescued by other trawlers reported to their association at Pathanhgata. They said one fishermen - Faruk, 26 - was missing. Two of the injured fishermen --Jalil and Ainal-- have been admitted Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital. Sources in Patharghata Trawler Owners Association and police said, pirates attacked three trawlers in the sea 30 kilometers south-east of Patharghata at noon and four others near Andha Buoy, ten kilometers from Patharghata at night. They looted 500 maunds of fish, engines, oil and other things. Quoting the victims, Golam Mustafa, president of the association said, the pirates boarded fishing trawler FB Juboraj of Patharghata Khudra Matsojibi Samity (Patharghata Small Fishermen's Association), which was hijacked some days ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2004 10:33 ||
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How come every Afghani has a cheap AK but nobody in their Bengal bretheren are going without? Where's the justice? The UN should take care of this, pronto.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 17:47 Comments ||
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A man dubbed "the cruelest farmer in Britain" by the UKâs leading animal charity was jailed for two years Monday for pushing a woman vetâs face into a mire of manure and cow urine.
Now, that is nasty!
Roger Baker, who also dragged a male animal health inspector into the slurry during the attack, was found guilty of affray at Taunton Crown Court in western England in January. Sentencing the 61-year-old, who has convictions for animal cruelty spanning 30 years, Judge Stephen OâMalley said the incident was a "deliberate and violent attack" from a man who had a history of violent behavior and had shown no remorse. You and others have to be shown that the court will protect public officials who are exposed to violence in the course of their normal duties," the judge said. Veterinary surgeon Susan Potter and animal health inspector Jonathan McCulloch were filming a dead lamb and emaciated cattle on Bakerâs land near Truro in Cornwall when the attack took place in February 2003. that a lie! they are still living on the farm so how are they emaciated! that dont sound like a freedom to me!
Baker first dragged McCulloch, 27, into the knee-deep liquid manure. When Potter went to her colleagueâs aid, the farmer pushed her in the mire and held her face down, the court was told. Potter, 47, "fought like a wildcat" as Baker pushed her into the slurry, she told the court during the trial. "I went completely underneath the liquid," she said. "I thought he was trying to drown me."
Sounds a lot like he was...
The jury at the trial failed to reach a majority verdict on a second charge against Baker of making a threat to kill and the case was left to lie on the file by the prosecution. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) said Baker had been banned for life from keeping sheep and had been jailed twice in the past six years for neglecting animals and failing to bury carcasses. An RSCPA spokesman described him as "the most consistently cruel person" they had dealt with when Baker was jailed for 165 days in 1999. he probly chainey buddy! time to break out the checkbook again.
Posted by: muck4doo ||
03/01/2004 10:30:15 AM ||
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#1
Muck - it's only a matter of time before you get yours! Bwahahaha
#2
Does emaciation effect the taste of the meat? I would think that the meat would be too tough and stringy. Maybe it would be OK if you ground it into a burger or used it for sausage.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 12:00 Comments ||
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Posted by: B ||
03/01/2004 14:36 Comments ||
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#5
Mr. Muck4doo,
I hope you realize that there are rather harsh Federal penalities for impersonating a retard. Please stay by your computer until the Sensitivity Agents arrive.
Authorities in the United States have sent seven Russian citizens home from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday. This is the first time the release of any Russian prisoners from the U.S.-run camp in Cuba has been announced. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the prisoners would remain in custody on their return. I have no doubt.
"The individuals were received by the relevant department of the Justice Ministry for further dispatch to a place of detention for preliminary investigations into their criminal cases," a Russian foreign ministry statement said. "Could take years, itâs a very complex case."
One detaineeâs mother last year pleaded for the U.S. not to send her son back home, saying indefinite detention without trial by them was better than being in a Russian prison. Life sucks, donât it?
According to Russian media reports, there were originally eight Russians at the detention center, where U.S. authorities are preparing to try their prisoners at military tribunals. Hummm, still holding one, are we? He must be the one talking.
Russian officials had said the Russians detained in Afghanistan included Chechens detained fighting for the Taliban. I donât think weâll see these guys again.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 10:09:02 AM ||
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"Boys, I've got some good news and some bad news for you..."
...Putin continued: "If you are determined to become a complete Islamic radical and are ready to undergo circumcision, then I invite you to Moscow. We are multi-confessional. We have experts in this sphere as well. I will recommend to conduct the operation so that nothing on you will grow again."
#4
I've been to the Russian prison in St. Petersburg, just across the ways from the Finland train station.
I'd rather have a bullet in my head that spend a day in there.
Posted by: Scott ||
03/01/2004 18:39 Comments ||
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A patrol from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment responded to a drive-by shooting directed at an Iraqi police traffic control point by four assailants in a car and on a motorcycle. Working with the Iraqi police, the patrol engaged the car, killing two of the assailants. Then the police stopped the motorcycle and detained two suspects who are currently in a Mosul jail.
Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment conducted a cordon-and-search operation in Mosul and discovered an improvised explosive device that consisted of plastic explosive, ball bearings and blasting caps. The soldiers detained three suspects in connection with the device. In another cordon-and-search operation, a second element of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment detained one person suspected of involvement in planning attacks on coalition forces.
This should sound familiar to some of the old grunts around here.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Task Force 1st Armored Division soldiers from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment began the first Iraqi Civil Defense Corps Primary Leadership Development Course for approximately 100 ICDC noncommissioned officers at Camp Muleskinner here Saturday.
The PLDC is designed to build a professional noncommissioned officer corps and follows the "be, know, do" principle. It will reinforce basic soldiering skills such as land navigation, but it will focus on developing noncommissioned leaders for the ICDC.
This class is the first of four and is primarily filled with senior noncommissioned officers at the first sergeant and sergeant major level. It is scheduled to last two weeks, culminating with a graduation March 11. The course instructors are U.S. Army drill instructors from Fort Sill, Okla.
Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Divisionâs 3d Brigade Combat Team conducted a joint raid with ICDC forces in coordination with the Baghdad police to capture Nahdem Al Marsumi, the leader of a terrorist cell trying to operate out of Samarra. During the raid, coalition forces captured seven individuals including Marsumi and five men known to be a part of the terrorist cell. The ICDC also captured an individual suspected of being involved in an attack at the Samarra City Council building last month. Once the ICDC soldiers received a tip from a local source on the whereabouts of Marsumi, they organized and initiated the raid and were on site within two hours of receiving initial reports.
Task Force Ironhorse soldiers from the 555th Engineer Group located a cache of ammunition buried approximately five kilometers east of Forward Operating Base Speicher Feb. 27. The soldiers found more than a thousand rounds of high explosive artillery and mortar rounds and 50 BLU-97 submunitions. The site was secured and an explosive ordinance team will destroy the cache in place.
While on his way to work Feb. 27, an ICDC soldier observed some men digging near a house north of Baiji. He reported the suspicious activity to his supervisor who sent an ICDC patrol to investigate. The patrol discovered an ammunition cache. They established an over-watch position on the house and captured one individual suspected of burying the ammunition when he returned to the site later that afternoon. The ICDC seized the cache and turned in it to 4th ID soldiers. The cache included 20 68 mm helicopter rockets, seven rocket-propelled grenades, 17 82 mm mortar rounds and six 60 mm mortar rounds.
Working together, 4th Infantry Division soldiers from 3d Battalion 67th Armor Regiment, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and Iraqi police captured five individuals suspected of anti-coalition activities in a joint raid in the town of As Sadah in Diyala Province 27 Feb. The individuals are suspects in the bombing of a local health clinic.
An Iraqi led soldiers from Task Force Ironhorseâs 14th Engineer battalion to three weapon caches approximately 20 kilometers north of Tikrit Feb. 27. The caches included five 82 mm rockets and 15 rocket warheads. All three caches were destroyed in place.
While on patrols as part of Operation Trailblazer to clear the highways of IEDs, soldiers from the 14th Engineer Battalion discovered a cache consisting of 201 100 mm tank rounds located approximately 150 feet off the north side of Highway One west of Balad. The cache was destroyed in place without incident.
#3
Shipman, sounds like they picked up the ones that didn't go off: The BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb contains a shaped charge, scored steel casing and zirconium ring for anti-armor, fragmentation and incendiary capability. The bomblet case is made of scored steel designed to break into approximately 300 preformed ingrain fragments for defeating light armor and personnel. CEB is an effective weapon against such targets as air defense radars, armor, artillery, and personnel. However, because the bomblets are dispensed over a relatively large area and a small percentage of them typically fail to detonate, there is an unexploded-ordnance hazard associated with this weapon.
If they picked up 50 of these you gotta wonder how many others went boom when they tried.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 10:52 Comments ||
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#4
If they picked up 50 of these you gotta wonder how many others went boom when they tried.
"However, if the submunitions are disturbed or disassembled, they may explode, thus, the need for early and aggressive unexploded-ordnance clearing efforts."
One can only hope that a number of terrorists managed to get their hands blown off in such a manner.
#6
Steve, my guess is that it's a fulcrum, intended to pivot the casing pieces as they fragment. It lasts just a tad longer in the explosion than the casing, so it affects the movement of the fragments.
An Islamist activist has been arrested in connection with the suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta in August, which killed 12 people and injured about 150, the police said yesterday. The suspect, identified only as Dahlan, was detained on Thursday in the town of Ngawi, about 350 miles southeast of Jakarta, according to a police official. The police declined to disclose his alleged role in the bombing. Have to wait for more details.
There have been 32 convictions so far for the Bali bombings, with sentences ranging from three yearsâ jail to death. The Indo police have been busy.
Two main suspects in the Marriott and Bali bombings, the Malaysians Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top, are still on the run, as are two Indonesians, Zulkarnaen and Dulmatin. Since nothing has gone boom lately, they are either still running or planning a new attack.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 9:44:01 AM ||
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Egyptian police say they have arrested nine people following a five-day siege at a village beside the River Nile. That would be members of the Awlad Al Hanafi clan, as reported here yesterday.
They also seized large quantities of drugs, including half a ton of marijuana, in Nakhila village, 400km (248 miles) south of Cairo. However, some witnesses said that police had only regained partial control and gun battles continued. About 6,000 members of the security forces with 200 armoured cars had surrounded the town, witnesses said. The clan only had 37 members, must have been a tough bunch.
Police moved in on Wednesday to try to arrest a local clan leader wanted on drugs and weapons charges. There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 9:12:14 AM ||
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#1
chainey a goin to be pissed when he find out they took his stash!
.... "Dear sons of our nation, we call upon you to close ranks and elevate yourselves above your grudges so that we may open a new chapter in the life of our country," the fatwa begins. "We condemn any act of violence against Iraqi state government workers, police and soldiers, because it is aggression under Islamic law."
The document issued in Ramadi declares that killing fellow Iraqis not only runs counter to the idea of holy war, but also constitutes what is known in the Muslim world as haram, the unpardonable act of killing another Muslim.
"Targeting any Iraqi organization, is not holy war but aggression," it continues. "Everyone should be warned against staining their hands with Muslim blood." ....
The idea for this [fatwa] came about after the fatal attack on the Falluja police station two weeks ago. That attack, staged by insurgents in the middle of town in the middle of the morning, resulted in the deaths of 15 Iraqi police officers and 3 civilians. The day after the attack, the clerics in Falluja got together and issued the fatwa. Word spread quickly throughout the province, and the idea caught on. Within a week, imams from all over Anbar, an arid region the size of Wyoming, had signed up. The clerics printed up 3,000 copies and have begun distributing them at mosques and kebab houses around the province. ....
The big question, of course, is how much influence the fatwa will have. "The people donât listen to us anymore," said Imam Sulaiman, director of the Islamic Affairs Department for Anbar Province. The clericsâ uncertainty illustrates the divided nature of the population here. Across Anbar Province, many people have declared their support for the new Iraqi government either by taking part in local government meetings or by volunteering to become police officers. Yet at the same time, the insurgency goes on.
Nevertheless, the Sunni imams of Anbar say they are encouraged. It has been a quiet week across the province. The fatwa received a warm reception all over the country, even among Shiites. Some of Anbarâs clerics are thinking of trying to persuade their fellow clerics across the country to sign on.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 8:52:51 AM ||
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"The clericsâ uncertainty illustrates the divided nature of the population here. Across Anbar Province, many people have declared their support for the new Iraqi government either by taking part in local government meetings or by volunteering to become police officers. Yet at the same time, the insurgency goes on. "
Yup, not surprising. Some in Al anbar were in bed with the old regime, some were its victims (yes even in the sunni triangle) and many were neither. Some have lost relatives to the occupation forces, while others have lost relatives to the insurgents. The insurgency here is real, but the population is divided. The marines will find a place to test their small wars doctrine and attempt to win hearts and minds. This will be difficult, but will require patience, against both those who would cut and run, and those who would overreact.
hat tip to Drudge - Interesting development
The United States has struck a deal with Pakistan to allow U.S. troops to hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this spring in an area of Pakistan where he is believed to be operating, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday. Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washingtonâs support of President Pervez Musharrafâs pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue that goes on sale on Monday.
It's another Seymour exclusive. I think I'd wait a week or so to see if anybody else picks up on it. Salt block's over there...
Full disclosure of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khanâs activities would have exposed him as "the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world," an intelligence official is quoted as saying.
I think it's already done that...
"Itâs a quid pro quo," according to a former senior intelligence official. "Weâre going to get our troops inside Pakistan in return for not forcing Musharraf to deal with Khan." Musharraf has also offered other help in the hunt for bin Laden, according to the article. "Musharraf told us, âWeâve got guys inside. The people who provide fresh fruits and vegetables and herd the goatsâ for bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers," the intelligence official added. The spring offensive could slow the tempo of U.S. operations in Iraq, the magazine said. "Itâs going to be a full-court press," one Pentagon planner was quoted as saying. The article added that some of the most highly skilled U.S. Special Forces units would be shifted from Iraq to Pakistan. Already were, according to RB news
Special Forces personnel have been briefed on their new assignments and in some cases have been given "warning orders" -- the stage before being sent into combat, according to a military adviser.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 8:32:31 AM ||
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Denial in 3, 2, 1.. Pakistan denied Monday a report that it had struck a deal to allow U.S. troops to hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on its territory.
"This report has no truth in it and there is no such deal," military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said. The New Yorker quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying it was "a quid pro quo" deal with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf. "We're going to get our troops inside Pakistan in return for not forcing Musharraf to deal with Khan." Sultan rejected this, saying: "There are no quid pro quos on issues of national sovereignty. We totally deny it." He said he could not comment on reports that the United States planned to shift an elite commando unit that took part in the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to hunt for bin Laden. "If the U.S. is shifting a special unit from Iraq into Afghanistan, I have no comment on that, but there is none coming in to Pakistan," he said.
"Nope, nope, nobody here, nothing to see, move along."
Posted by: Steve ||
03/01/2004 9:25 Comments ||
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#2
Damn! Is Binny going to be confused when he gets his copy of the New Yorker! Such conflicting signals! What's a guy to do?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 9:56 Comments ||
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#3
Seems that the days of the Raj are returning as English speakers scour the hills of the NW Frontier. Kipling would love it.
#6
I agree with those folks who figure that the ISI know exactly where ol' Osama is lying low and this is all kabuki theater to effect the handover. This is assuming that the ISI doesn't decide that their best interest is simply offing Musharref and blowing us off.
#7
While I do believe that there will be a full court press on AQ this Spring, I wouldn't rely on Sy Hersh's reporting. For someone who's still employed as an investigative reporter, he's been wrong an awful lot.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/01/2004 14:25 Comments ||
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#8
Is a hunting liscence required? Is there a bag limit?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 17:41 Comments ||
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Three years and five months after Palestinians began their second uprising against Israel, the Palestinian Authority is broke, politically fractured, riddled with corruption, unable to provide security for its own people and seemingly unwilling to crack down on terrorist attacks against Israel, according to Palestinian, Israeli and international officials. The turmoil within the Palestinian Authority is fueling concern that the agency â created almost 10 years ago to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip â is disintegrating and could collapse, leaving a political and security vacuum in one of the Middle Eastâs most volatile regions. None of the analysts or officials interviewed said they believed a collapse was imminent, and many noted that the key players in the Middle East, including Israel, the United States, the European Union and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, have a strong interest in preventing the Palestinian Authorityâs demise. However, most agreed that the key issue affecting its survival is a lack of money, and they noted that even on the verge of bankruptcy, the authority has not imposed many of the reforms that frustrated donors are demanding.
Arafat and Qureia reportedly are at loggerheads over security and financial reforms -- the same issues that led to the resignation of the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, after 130 days in office. Edward G. Abington, a former State Department official who is now a Washington consultant to the Palestinian Authority, said he told Arafat during a meeting at the Palestinian leaderâs bombed-out compound here recently that the governing body was in danger of collapse. "Let it collapse," Arafat said, according to Abington. "It will be the fault of Israel and the Americans."
As long as there's fault assigned, what's it matter that the populace is plunged into chaos and anarchy?
One of the authorityâs main responsibilities was to police the Palestinian territories, cracking down on militant groups and stopping terrorist attacks against Israelis. Israeli officials say the authority failed in its most important task, as evidenced by the mounting death toll â 928 Israelis and more than 2,400 Palestinians â during the 41-month-old Palestinian uprising. Palestinians say the authority was put in the untenable position of being the security subcontractor for Israel at the same time that Jewish settlements were expanding in areas slated for eventual Palestinian control.
"See? See? It wudn't our fault!"
U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials say they fear a collapse of the Palestinian Authority could result in a violent power struggle among remnants of Palestinian security agencies, crime bosses, Islamic militants and others. Arafatâs Fatah movement â the political backbone of the Palestinian Authority â has begun losing its once solid grip on key political and social institutions within Palestinian society. Three weeks ago, a gunfight erupted inside the Gaza City police headquarters between officers under Arafatâs appointed police chief and security forces aligned with former Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, now an Arafat rival. One police officer was killed and 11 others were wounded. Other conflicts are being waged on the political front. The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, has long challenged the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip by providing residents with a wide range of social services. Now it is also eroding the Fatah movementâs control over a large network of influential student, worker and professional unions across the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas and other militant organizations have seized total or majority control of student governing bodies at major universities in the West Bank, wresting from Fatah the loyalty of an important segment of the next generation of Palestinian leaders.
Fatahâs Revolutionary Council, a critical decision-making body, met last week for the first time in three years. The meeting reportedly erupted into shouting matches several times over Arafatâs failure to control the growing lawlessness on the streets of Palestinian cities and his refusal to hold internal party elections, which many members say believe would give younger Palestinians a greater voice in Fatah. Some Palestinians have begun arguing that the Palestinian Authority should dissolve itself, saying that such a move would force Israel to assume the full burden of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "I think the Palestinian Authority should push the button" and disband itself, said Ali Jerbawi, a political science professor at Ramallahâs Birzeit University. The authority has no political strategy for combating the Israelis, Jerbawi said, and dissolving itself could help it regain the initiative by forcing Israel to "bear the consequences" of occupation.
Or they could dissolve themselves and Israel could not bother to assume the burden, just standing back and watching as the Paleo tough guys burn themselves out slaughtering each other.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/01/2004 4:37:32 AM ||
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Fatahâs Revolutionary Council, a critical decision-making body...
Yes, as in, "Hey guys, it's been a while. Let's decide to put more Jewish bus riders in critical condition"
I guess it's Israel's fault that Arafat has now been acknowledged by even the selectively blind EU, to have embezzeled, or just lost, millions and millions of euros.
"Let it collapse," Arafat said, according to Abington. "It will be the fault of Israel and the Americans."
Funny, back when he was the bold young leader of the PLO, I don't remember him giving the credit of building the organization to Israel or the U.S. . But now he's basically saying that it was someone elses responsibilty to support his murderous evil government.
..."I think the Palestinian Authority should push the button" and disband itself, said Ali Jerbawi, a political science professor at Ramallahâs Birzeit University.
What a curious statement. Kind of like homicide bomber mentality - I'm going to make Israel miserable by blowing myself up or in terms more familiar to normal society, a temper tantrum. "boo hoo! my life sucks because Mommy and Daddy won't buy me an ice cream cone! I think I'll just make them pay by publically screaming and thrashing until they have to give in and bribe me to be quiet. No, of course it never occured to me to control my urge to pig out, or better yet, become a mature person who can obtain his own ice cream cone through proper means."
I ache for the suffering that Israel has had to endure, being handcuffed to the PA all these years, especially in these violent death throes. However, the PA has been a cancer upon the world and it's good to see it revealed as just that, a cancer and nothing more. It produced nothing of it's own, and only lives by consuming what's fed to it in appeasement then spewing out death, evil and contagion. finally choked of it's outside resouces, it's doing exactly what a cancer would do - consuming itself. When President Bush spoke after 9/11, he spoke of a global war against terror, causing the terrorist organizations to even turn against themselves. Although he was speaking more directly at the moment about al quaeda, three years later, look at the taliban, look at Saddam's regime, look at Quaddafi, and look at the pathetic condition that Arafat is now in. Contrast the current conditions to those during the previous administrations' 8 years.
He may not be perfect by a long shot, but G-d bless President George W. Bush, may he keep on keepin' on!
#3
"U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials say they fear a collapse of the Palestinian Authority could result in a violent power struggle among remnants of Palestinian security agencies, crime bosses, Islamic militants and others"
fear it? I'm counting on it. Pass the popcorn
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2004 9:54 Comments ||
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Wonder how long it will take the American Left to cry out that we must provide more aid to the Palestinians and that failure to do so is cruel and oppressive.
#5
You dont think for a miniute that Arafish, his Fatah group, or Hamas or any of the other groups give a rats ass about the average Palistinian person do you? Didn't think so...
The sooner the wall is built the sooner these assholes can kill each other off. Then the Palistinians might have a chance at peace.
In the meantime buy stock in popcorn and beer companies...
#6
"Let it collapse," Arafat said, according to Abington. "It will be the fault of Israel and the Americans."
The authority has no political strategy for combating the Israelis, Jerbawi said, and dissolving itself could help it regain the initiative by forcing Israel to "bear the consequences" of occupation.
Blame is this society's only export. There is nothing of substance, nothing of quality that it produces. The LAST thing they want, and need, is their own country. They've spent generations doing nothing but tearing down and destroying, and haven't got a clue as to how to build anything. There is NO WAY they can succeed with a "Palestine." I think that goes a long way in explaining why arafat has not done anything to truly create a palestinian state -- he knows it would fail miserably. And he'd rather be the hero of a terrorist movement than a failed leader of a miserable plot of dirt called palestine.
#7
Well, the Evil Plan⢠is working. The Arafish tank is almost drained and the bubbler is wheezing. Pretty soon it will be flopping time for the 'fish. Wonder how Suha will be doing with the French money laundering investigation? If she kept a low profile, everything would be cool. But embarassing the French govt was a dumb thing to do. The Arafish and Mrs. Fish, what a couple! What an example for Paleos to look up to and die for! Pathetic.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 11:24 Comments ||
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Have to chime in again guys:
The speech of a real leader, paraphrased: "My country is splitting at the middle. I have to use my office and authority to preserve the Union, that this nation, under God... shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln knew that it was his watch, and he wasn't going to let down the nation on his watch.
The speech of a cretinous, self-interested "leader", verbatim: "Let it collapse, It will be the fault of Israel and the Americans." ... pathetic.
#12
Mojo---off topic, but like your email address...
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2004 14:40 Comments ||
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This is not as stupid as you make it out - its actually strategy on Yassers part - the audience is not the locals this time, its US and Israel. "You do things that weaken me to much, and im gonna pack it in, and take the PA down with me. Then you'll get chaos, and you WONT like it - you'll get Hamas, Hezbollah, whoever. Who will fire rockets over the border, and do other nasty things. Think about it before you ditch me" Its the natural last strategy for YA. Counters are to have a PLAN of some kind - plan could take several forms
A. We can live with chaos, cause we're gonna quickly finish the wall and have capability for efficient counter battery fire against firing across wall (do they? evidence from Lebanon border suggests not)
B. We think we the younger Fatah types and others will keep PA going without Yasser. (Hard to outmanipulate Yasser in PA politics, but maybe US and Israel intel know things I dont - especially about recent "debates" in Fatah
C. We have someone lined up to win a Pal civil war - probably Mo Dahlan. Yeah it will be messy for a while, and some rockets will come over the wall, but Dahlan will kill off plenty of Hamas ground troops in his march to power.
#14
or D. Let the PA split into a number of different factions and play them off against each other, never letting one gain true dominance.
WRT A., Counter-battery fires are never enough. (And you're right, they'll never work. You could remotely fire some 122mm rockets from a playground or use shoot and scoot tactics with a mortar in the back of a pick up. You'll never get the bad guys and you will kill lots of civilians.) Constant armed sorties and raids into the occupied territories will be a necessity after the wall is up. The only defense that works is an active defense. The Israelis learned that on the Bar Lev line, I'm sure. An obstacle is just an anchor point. If you never come out from behind it, your enemy will eventually find a way to defeat it or use it against you. The other, political reason that the Israelis want to keep a presence in the occupied territories, is that they never want the Pals to establish true sovereignty. That was their big mistake in southern Lebanon. If they had reserved the right to make incursions at will, then their problems on the northern border would have been much more manageable while keeping casualties to a minimum.
Spanish police averted a possible massacre by intercepting a van carrying more than 1,100 pounds of explosives on Sunday that Basque separatist guerrillas ETA planned to detonate in Madrid, the government said. Two suspected ETA members were arrested in the early morning police operation, which came two weeks before a general election and 11 days after ETA declared a partial cease-fire limited to the northeastern region of Catalonia. The men were driving two vans and heading for Madrid when they were stopped in the province of Cuenca, 75 miles southeast of Madrid, officials said. One of the vans contained the explosives which ETA planned to detonate in the Spanish capital "in the coming days," Interior Minister Angel Acebes said, without giving a specific target. It was one of the biggest bombs ETA had attempted to use in recent times, he told a news conference. The van contained 1,116 pounds of chloratite explosive, 66 pounds of dynamite and a timing device, Acebes said. A bomb of that size could have caused a 115-foot crater, serious damage in a 100-yard radius and hurt people one mile away, he said.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/01/2004 4:10:17 AM ||
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Interesting. I believe it was not more than two weeks that the ETA cried uncle and for a truce. It appears the Spaniards were right in calling their bluff, since it was obvious ETA wanted security to be relaxed as a "trust building" measure during negotiations so they could smuggle this load in. This much "construction material" takes a loooong time to assemble.
In the annals of rock ânâ roll, there is no greater legend than Brian Wilsonâs lost masterwork known as "Smile." Wilson was the fragile musical genius who wrote, produced and performed on the Beach Boysâ exuberant hits during the 1960s. "Smile" was reputed to be his ultimate achievement, a densely packed song cycle of intriguing melody and rich harmony that should have appeared about the same time as the Beatlesâ classic "Sgt. Pepperâs Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. But somewhere on the road to completion in the spring and summer of 1967 Wilson lost his way, scrapping large chunks of "Smile" and descending into nearly three decades of drug-induced madness from which he began to emerge only a few years ago. And "Smile" descended with him. A few pieces of the puzzle appeared on various albums to tempt and torment Wilsonâs fans. But the great work itself vanished, as if it had never existed.
Until now. This past week, Wilson, now 61, has been treating British audiences to a modern version of "Smile," performed for the first time live onstage at Royal Festival Hall here. Itâs been an event of extraordinary power and poignancy, sold out for five nights, fronted by a man who barely makes eye contact with the audience, whose voice often struggles to remain on key, and whose every hesitant gesture suggests a lifetime of pain and turmoil. To pull off this remarkable performance, Wilson has surrounded himself with a battalion of young, gifted and empathetic musicians, led by Darian Sahanaja and his Southern California band, the Wondermints. Tuesdayâs concert began with 10 musicians and singers clustered around Wilson like a human cocoon, exchanging well-rehearsed patter. Playing acoustic guitars and bongos, they launched into a series of Beach Boys hits, including "Surfer Girl," "In My Room" and "Please Let Me Wonder," before expanding into a fully amplified rock band, supplemented by eight string and horn players. The highlight of an evening of highlights was "God Only Knows," a wistful loverâs plea from "Pet Sounds," the 1966 album that Paul McCartney once called "the classic of the century."
After the break, they returned for "Smile." The work, which Wilson once described as "a teenage symphony to God," was in three movements, each anchored loosely by a theme and a song suite. "Heroes and Villains" opened the first segment, which focused on Americana; "Surfâs Up" the second, which seemed to be about childhood; and "Good Vibrations" climaxed the symphony with an ode to elemental emotion. The band played with great enthusiasm - at one point, the string and horn sections donned bright red firemenâs helmets to perform "Mrs. OâLearyâs Cow," a somber, atonal dirge. They also ostentatiously munched on carrots and broccoli for the "Vegetables" medley.
No one is claiming that this concert version of "Smile" is a note-for-note reproduction of the original. In program notes, Sahanaja says he, Wilson and original lyricist Van Dyke Parks worked out a rendition that could be performed live, with certain new melodies and ideas that were faithful to the original in spirit. There are no plans yet to perform "Smile" in the United States, but such a tour seems inevitable. This weekâs performances were taped and are likely to wind up on DVD, CD or both, as did a similar concert presentation of "Pet Sounds" three years ago.
Wilson began churning out increasingly ambitious and difficult music that strayed further and further from the pop formula. He entered into an open competition with the Beatles: They produced "Rubber Soul" in 1965; he countered with "Pet Sounds" in 1966; they answered with "Revolver." It was a brief moment when pop music and the creative ambitions of a handful of restless, self-taught twentysomethings came together to produce a version of art. Eventually Wilson and Parks put together the pieces of passion and whimsy that became "Smile." When the band returned from an Asian tour, so the story goes, lead singer Mike Love said he found "Smile" weird and incomprehensible. I can understand why
Wilson, by this time heavily into LSD, freaked. He disappeared, and so did "Smile." The version issued in 1967 as the album "Smiley Smile" was an impostor - "a bunt instead of a grand slam," according to Brianâs brother Carl. Thirty-seven years later, Carl is dead, as is Brianâs other brother Dennis. Mike Love fronts a group calling itself the Beach Boys that specializes in oldies. Iâve seen this show and Mike Love is cool
Looking like someoneâs slightly eccentric grandfather. He mostly sat on a stool in front of an electric piano he never played, his hands moving feverishly to the music as he delivered lyrics he clearly was reading from two monitors flanking the piano. It was both exhilarating and deeply sad. Although his young acolytes hovered nearby, he seemed alone. "Smile" lasted about 40 minutes. He sang them like a prayer. I have the Capitol Records remix of "Smiley Smile" together with "Wild Honey" and some additional material. "Smile" is in that. I canât say itâs all there but the stuff is there. harmony, changes, melodies, thought, deep thought, madness, This is not Rock. If you havnât listened to "Pet Sounds" or "Smiley Smile" and "Wild Honey", your missing the best of the best.
"A teenage symphony to God".
Posted by: Lucky ||
03/01/2004 1:29:50 AM ||
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Thank you! Love Potion #9 is the first song I remember enjoying at around the age of 5, but the Beach Boys were the first group. My tastes veered more toward the classic side of rock in later years, but Brian's music would always make me smile when I heard it. Even if the lyrics were sad, the incredible harmonies and music behind them seemed to project an innocent awareness of the song's subject. It was nice to come across by accident a solo release "Imagination" that I really enjoyed and another "The Making of Stars and Stripes", which features country stars and most of the original group remaking some of the classics in interesting fashions. He has a website at http://www.brianwilson.com and the message board there is frequented by a lot of European posters who are sure to be posting a lot of observations on the described show.
At least 12 people were killed and 29 were wounded after fighting erupted between militias from rival clans in the village of Herale in central Somalia on Sunday, elders said. Village elder Ahmed Osman, contacted by radio on Sunday, described the fighting as "intense" and said that residents had fled Herale by the time the violence subsided in the afternoon, but with no ceasefire agreement. "Most residents abandoned the village, but left behind a strong militia to guard civilian property," Osman said. The fighting pitted the Marehan against the Dir clans, who have previously lived side by side peacefully in Abudwaaq, a district in Somaliaâs Galgudud region. The latest clashes are part of tit-for-tat confrontations resulting from the April 2003 murder of a Marehan elder, allegedly by Dir clansmen. The Dir are affiliated with the Southern Somalia National Movement (SSNM) of several sub-clan factions, while the Marehan belong to another factional grouping, the Somalia National Front (SNF). Both were among 27 factions that signed a ceasefire agreement in Kenya on October 27, 2002, to stop all hostilities in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.
Yeah. But that's business. This is personal. It's different.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 1:14:52 AM ||
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Rebels in Sudanâs western Darfur region said on Saturday they have killed more than 50 soldiers and pro-government militiamen in response to an army offensive. âOur forces have won a victory against government forces and their allied militias in repelling an offensive against villages in the Karnei region,â a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) told AFP by telephone here. The Karnei region is 90 kilometers from Al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. SLM spokesman Hassan Ibrahim said âmore than 50 soldiers and members of pro-government militias were killedâ and that the SLM had snatched arms and munitions during the military raid with air support from Antonov planes.
Meanwhile, a newspaper said yesterday Khartoum has suspended contacts with the umbrella opposition group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), for admitting rebels fighting in Sudanâs Darfur region into its ranks. The Al Rai Al Aam daily said Vice President Ali Osman Taha informed NDA envoy Jaafer Ahmed Abdallah that Khartoum had decided to stop contacts until the NDA âcorrects its decision to admit the Darfur rebelsâ as members. The government and the NDA had been meeting to implement an agreement they signed in Jeddah in December which they had hailed as a major step toward reconciling the nation and ending a 20-year civil war. Taha told the NDA envoy that the decision had been taken by the ruling National Congress (NC) party because the Jeddah agreement with NDA chairman Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani called for rejecting violence. He recalled that the rebels in the western Darfur region were still fighting government forces, according to the independent newspaper. The NDA said in mid-February that during a meeting in Asmara, where it is based, its leadership unanimously accepted a request from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), the main rebel grouping in Darfur, to become a member.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 1:08:16 AM ||
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Military scouts attacked a seven-strong militant group near the village of Borzoi, the Shatoi district on Friday. The group was secretly moving towards the forest. In a brief armed clash two extremists were destroyed. Hunting for remaining gunmen is underway.
"Destroyed." I like that terminology.
At the scene of the clash the scouts found two assault rifles, a pistol, a grenade launcher, hand grenades, cartridges and a Kenwood walkie-talkie, a source at the headquarters of the federal forces in the region told Tass on Saturday.
Chechen police killed one more rebel in the Oktyabr district of Grozny. According to the press centre of the Russian Interior Ministry in the North Caucasus, police had carried out a detention of an armed criminal in this region. During the operation policemen stopped a car a driver of which opened fire on them. The policemen fired back and killed the attacker. His name was Magomed Kasumov a member of bandit formation led by Yunadi Turchayev. Chechen policeman Muslim Shabazgariyev was killed in the clash.
In addition, Chechen police detained three gunmen in Grozny and the Urus-Martan district of the republic. All of them were behind staging acts of terrorism. From the gunmen detained in Grozny Zaindi Mukhtarov and Magomed Shovkhalov the policemen confiscated a landmine prepared for usage. The land mine was made of a mortar shell. The third detainee, Anzor Umayev, was on a wanted list for detonation of a landmine in Grozny in 2003. Three local residents were injured in the bomb attack then.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 1:02:04 AM ||
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Hunting for remaining gunmen is underway.
"Destroyed." I like that terminology.
Perhaps they meant, "Hunting for gunmen's remains is underway..."?
Four Russian soldiers and one police officer were killed in Chechnya in the past day by separatist rebels, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen civilian administration said today. Russian warplanes and artillery opened up on suspected rebel bases in the republicâs southern mountains and foothills, the official said on condition of anonymity. Two soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded in rebel attacks on military outposts. One died and two were wounded when rebels ambushed a military car on the outskirts of Grozny, and a Russian sapper was blown up by a land mine that he was trying to defuse in the Grozny suburbs. A policeman was killed and another wounded when the driver of a car opened fire on them at a checkpoint in the capital, the official said, adding that the drier was killed in return fire.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 1:00:49 AM ||
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Relatives of a key al-Qaida operative reported killed earlier in the month, Nidal Arabiyat, celebrated his martyrdom in Jordan Saturday. Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language TV network, reported from his family home that Nidalâs father said he was pleased with the news of the martyrdom of his son in what he considers to be legitimate resistance to the American presence in Iraq.
I'm also pleased that the lad is gone. Wotta coincidence!
Nidal, about 30 years old, was reputed to be an aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qaida aide reported to be in charge of operations in Iraq.
The family members remember Nidal as someone who left his hometown of Al-Salt city around 1990 with about 50 others to search for God. Al-Jazeera reported that Al-Zarqawi, who grew up elsewhere in Jordan, left his hometown about the same time, going to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to fight Russians before returning to Jordan where he stayed in touch with his al-Qaida on the Internet. The network played the audio tape Al-Zarqawi issued, recruiting fighters to act against Americans. Yet people in his home town remain split on whether he became a terrorist or whether he is acting as a resistance fighter against an occupying country, the network said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:51:20 AM ||
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they should be proud--he found god in a hale of american bullets--straight to paradise with intercesstion for open spots for the whole family
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 1:09 Comments ||
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his hometown of Al-Salt city around 1990 with about 50 others to search for God.
They couldn't find God anywhere in or near Al-Salt City, that's for sure.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 8:17 Comments ||
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"I'm glad they whacked the little bastard, y'hear? Glad!"
Lawyers for the prominent Saudi businessman and philanthropist, Yasin Al-Qadi, who has been listed by US authorities among individuals allegedly linked to the Al-Qaeda network, have revealed how a French investigator used the name of the United Nations to try to validate and promote a report falsely accusing the Saudis of financing terrorism. Al-Qadi also had his assets in several countries frozen.
The investigator, Jean-Charles Brisard, wrote a report in 2002 entitled âTerrorism Financing: Routes and Trends of Saudi Terrorism Financingâ which he claimed had been commissioned by the UN. The UN, however, denied any link to the report. Brisard stated that the report had been prepared for the President of the UN Security Council at that time, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso. The ambassador, however, said he had never met or spoken to Brisard. Al-Qadiâs London lawyers, Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners, said Brisard, an investigator for certain plaintiffsâ lawyers who filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, stands to benefit from publishing the report and using the UN to give it credibility. Al-Qadi feels he has been subjected to a great injustice on the basis of flawed and grossly inaccurate accusations by the authorities in the US, the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Albania. He is nevertheless confident of his position, saying that he will be cleared now that almost 95 percent of the legal issues have been settled. Al-Qadiâs lawyers sent letters last month to the Security Council, the Senate Finance Committee and the American media, notably USA Today, saying Brisardâs claims are false. Arab News has been shown copies of the correspondence.
The Senate Finance Committee referred to Brisardâs report in a letter it sent last year to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The letter repeated the allegation that Al-Qadi was one of the âmain individual Saudi sponsors of Al-Qaeda.â The lawyers wrote to the chairman of the committee and to the Senate minority leader that Brisardâs claim that the UN had commissioned his report was false and demanded that the incorrect reference to the report as an official UN report be corrected.
In the letter to the current President of the Security Council, the lawyers said their investigations had shown conclusively that Brisard had never been commissioned by Ambassador Valdivieso to write a report on terrorism. The lawyers demanded that the Council contact Brisard and require him forthwith to âremove from his website all representations that the report was published by or with the authority of the UN, and to publish on his website a correction withdrawing his false claim that the report was prepared with the authority of the UN.â
Ambassador Valdivieso says he never met Brisard and that it was absolutely false that he had commissioned Brisard on a personal or official basis to write a report on terrorism. âBrisard has been asserting that in my capacity as president of the Security Council, I asked him to present a report on terrorism. I personally never met or spoke to Mr. Brisard, whose conduct and attitude have been deceitful and marked by the intention to mislead. He has used the name of the UN and also mine to try to validate and promote reports that very likely have little significant value,â Valdivieso said.
According to Valdivieso, one of his assistants was approached by a man named Damien Peres. Peres mentioned Brisard in connection with a lawsuit that he â Peres â had handled on behalf of the families affected by Sept. 11 attacks. Peres volunteered to provide information on the financing of terrorism and in June 2002, Brisard came to New York and gave the ambassadorâs assistant a report which supposedly has been submitted to the US Congress.
Valdivieso said media reports then began circulating about a report âcommissionedâ by the Security Council or by the Council president. The UN has on several occasions confirmed that no such commission was issued and that Brisardâs claim was false.
Al-Qadiâs lawyers also wrote to Karen Jurgensen, editor of USA Today, regarding a âhighly defamatoryâ article by the paperâs foreign correspondent, Jack Kelly, entitled âSaudi Money Aiding Bin Laden.â The article, said the lawyers, contained untrue allegations and was based on discredited press reports. The report claimed that purported money transfers from a Saudi bank to Islamic charities, including Blessed Relief (Muwafaq Foundation), of which Al-Qadi is a founding trustee, were used to finance terrorist acts. Kelly was said to have repeated an allegation published by the London-based magazine Africa Confidential, claiming that an employee of Muwafaq had been arrested in connection with the 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia. Muwafaq trustees initiated successful libel proceedings in the High Court in London and the magazine was instructed never to repeat the allegations, apologize to the trustees and pay substantial damages. The lawyers said Kelly made no attempt to contact the solicitors acting for the trustees who could have corrected many of the allegations before publication.
They requested that an immediate investigation of this article be undertaken, that while the investigation was in progress the article be removed from the USA Today website and that upon completion of the investigation an appropriate correction be issued.
The lawyers said they spent over two years studying the case. After going over thousands of documents and meeting scores of witnesses, they said they are convinced of Al-Qadiâs innocence. Al-Qadi said despite the great damage done to him personally, to his family and his business as a result of the American decision to freeze his assets, he understood the shock the Americans felt after Sept. 11 which led some officials to point accusing fingers at innocent people all over the world. âAfter more than two years of having my name listed among those suspected of financing terrorism, it is time that the authorities reconsider and end this stark injustice by immediately lifting the ban on my assets,â Al-Qadi said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:48:48 AM ||
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aq's money comes from selling dates in peshawar--give the golden chain a golden shower
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:52 Comments ||
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"You say Al-Queda -"
"I say Al-Qadi -
"You say Osama-"
"I say Usama -"
"Al-Queda!"
"Al-Qadi"
"Osama!"
"Usama!" "Let's wipe the whole bunch out!"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/01/2004 1:25 Comments ||
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he will be cleared now that almost 95 percent of the legal issues have been settled
What's the five percent that isn't settled?
The report claimed that purported money transfers from a Saudi bank to Islamic charities, including Blessed Relief (Muwafaq Foundation), of which Al-Qadi is a founding trustee, were used to finance terrorist acts. Kelly was said to have repeated an allegation .... [and] that an employee of Muwafaq had been arrested in connection with the 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
What exactly was not true in these allegations?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 7:27 Comments ||
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Golden chain member??
For a second, I thought this guy was involved with the Australian motel chain of the same name. :)
Pakistan Army still appears to be helping Taliban in Afghanistan as they prepare for a major confrontation in coming spring, a media report said. American intelligence officials possess satellite photos that "purportedly" show Pakistani Army trucks picking up Taliban troops fleeing back across the border after a failed attack. After the US confronted Pakistani officials with the photographs, signs of visible Pakistani aid to the rebels ceased, Time magazine said. It quoted US and Afghan officials as saying that the US has also provided Islamabad with specific locations of two dozen suspected Taliban hideouts in the tribal badlands.
Afghan security officials, Time said, complain that their Pakistani counterparts continue to tolerate -- and even encourage -- militancy by the Taliban. At the highest levels, Pakistanâs establishment remains "nostalgic" for the Taliban, says a Western diplomat. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has cooperated in the hunt for Al-Qaedaâs top officials but has shown less enthusiasm for rooting out the Taliban. Until Pakistanâs security services stop sheltering Taliban leaders, US officials say, Afghanistan will never be free from the threat of their return.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:44:59 AM ||
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scourge and crucify hamid gul and the rest of the isi islamists--otherwise your playing against the house which occasionally lets you win
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:50 Comments ||
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The prisoner in cell 12 in Sulimaniyahâs security jail lives in a four-by-six foot square, with no windows and a fluorescent light that is never switched off. But despite the tiny space, he harbors grand visions of a holy war against American occupiers.
"Fighting a jihad against the Americans and their allies is something obligatory in our religion," says Wushyar Salah Hama Aref, 26. Until he was arrested last October by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Aref was a top commander in Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish terror organization. "We know that the Americans have the technology and the power," he said last Saturday, when TIME was allowed into the Kurdish-run jail to see imprisoned Ansar leaders. "But our belief is stronger."
Tiny cells lining a long, dimly-lit corridor contain people who until recently were considered some of Iraqâs most dangerous insurgents. Their inspiration, they say, comes directly from al-Qaeda. So too did some of their instructions, until the American invasion of Iraq smashed Ansarâs base in northern Iraq, and sent its members fleeing into Iran. "About 35 Saudis came to see us from al-Qaeda before the war, in order to cement their relationship with us," says Quds Hassan Abbas, 32, who led one of Ansarâs fighting battalions until shortly before the war erupted.
Both men concede that the invasion dealt a heavy blow to Ansar. With no base to call their own, ranking members lie low just over Iraqâs eastern border in the Iranian town of Marivan. Iranians there do a busy trade producing fake identity cards for Ansar fighters for their return to Iraq across the 5,000-foot mountains. With overburdened Iraqi border patrols guarding a 1,000-mile frontier, Ansarâs return is almost impossible to block, and Kurdish guards expect little help from Iranian officials in stopping the infiltration.
Both Aref and Abbas say it was simple walking back over the mountains into Iraq to join the war against the Americans. Once inside, however, they faced a splintered insurgent movement, continually hiding from the Americans. "We had different ideas. Some of us thought the suicide bombs were useless," said Abbas. When he was arrested last October near Baqubah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, he had been trying to start a break-away armed force of radical Muslims, which could operate separately from Ansarâs forces.
Resuming that work might be a long way off. Months after they were imprisoned, the men have yet to see a lawyer, or receive a date for their trial.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:42:36 AM ||
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how do you say "deluded by religion" in arabic
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 1:01 Comments ||
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I believe it's "Allahu Akbar".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 7:09 Comments ||
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A lawyer and trial won't do these two clowns much good if they keep blabbing about their past and future criminal activities to journalists.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 7:44 Comments ||
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"We know that the Americans have the technology and the power," he said last Saturday, when TIME was allowed into the Kurdish-run jail to see imprisoned Ansar leaders. "But our belief is stronger."
The "source" of a report which made a buzz around the world about the arrest of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, turned out to be a journalist based in the northern city of Peshawar, Pakistani authorities announced Sunday, February 29. Pakistani officials told Islamonline.net that a brief investigation was launched to know the facts about the report and the sources it quoted. They later found out that the sources quoted by the Iranian radio was a Peshawar-based Pakistani journalist who works for the English daily The Nation. The radio interviewed the reporter a day earlier about the situation in the tribal areas following a military operation. He apparently expressed his opinion that Bin Laden could have been arrested because he detected some VIP movement in his area. The authorities have concluded that the radio actually misquoted the reporter and made a big story out of it.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:37:50 AM ||
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The Iranian Press is now propogating the rumor. I wonder what their angle is.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 12:07 Comments ||
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Probably just "He ain't here, please don't come looking for him."
Eleven men go on trial in Paris this morning accused of carrying out a string of attacks in the name of the Breton Revolutionary Army, a minuscule, amateurish separatist group which killed a waitress in a bombing in April 2000. Six of the suspects have spent up to five years in pre-trial detention for 17 attacks committed by the group, known by its French initials ARB, from 1993 to 2000. The attacks, invariably carried out in the middle of the night, were mainly harmless and symbolic, targeting public buildings such as town halls and tax offices, mainly in the constituencies of leading government ministers.
The Gang that Can't Shoot Straight, except they met the ETA.
Bretons have been fighting for independence ever since a wayward ruler of Brittany, François I, signed the Indissoluble Act of Union with the Crown of France in 1524. The region lost all administrative autonomy in the 1789 revolution, and Napoleon's obsession with centralisation and uniformity all but killed off Breton customs and culture. Worse, the Breton language, related to Welsh and Cornish, was effectively banned: as late as 1900, teachers in Brittany would beat pupils speaking it. But Brittany now has as much autonomy as, if not more than, any other French region, and its culture is blooming. An estimated 200,000 people speak the language daily, most town halls fly Brittany's black and white flag alongside the tricolour, and Celtic music festivals are more popular than nightclubs. This has tended to make the ARB seem absurd. Its members, thought to number 20 at the most, have been portrayed as a bunch of incompetent drunks: until Turbec's death, their 250-odd attacks since 1960 had claimed just two victims, both members killed trying to defuse bombs they feared might hurt someone. But its strategy changed radically in early 1999 when it developed links with the Basque separatist movement Eta and stole eight tonnes of explosives from a quarry.
Soon as they learn to make car bombs and link up to al-Q ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:36 ||
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a bomb blew up ... at the fast-food chain's drive-through restaurant ... on the morning of April 19 2000
The Oklahoma City bombing was on April 19, 1995.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 6:54 Comments ||
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Preparations for the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were finalised in the Spanish Mediterranean port of Tarragona, newspaper El Pais said on Sunday, quoting US intelligence sources. At a âterrorist summitâ in Tarragona between July 9 and 17, 2001, the alleged head of the suicide squads was reported to have briefed secret contacts on attack plans for on passing to the al-Qaeda leadership, the paper reported. El Pais said Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to be al-Qaedaâs second in command, had given information about the meeting to US intelligence agents after his arrest in Pakistan in 2002. The information had then been passed on to the Spanish secret services, El Pais said. It said the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan had not been informed of the exact date set for the September 11 attacks until the end of August or the beginning of September, less than two weeks before they took place. At the Tarragona summit, which was attended by three other (alleged) extremists, the alleged head of the suicide squads, Egyptian Mohammed Atta, reportedly discussed with Ramzi Binalshibh âthe main aspects of the attacks so that this information could be passed on to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan, the newspaper said. Atta had later told the leadership, via Binalshibh, of the exact date of the attacks. Four days before the suicide attacks, Binalshibh had returned to Spain, âpicked up a false passport and fled to Kabul,â El Pais said. The passport had been supplied by Khaled Madani, an Algerian remanded in custody in Spain last week for alleged collaboration with al-Qaeda, it said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:35:34 AM ||
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two sticks and cake and a stick--11/9--atta to binalshib over the phone--ayman zawahiri is number two in aq [number 1 in brains]--binalshib was just number two in the hamburg cell so let's not promote him--he tried to shahid himself in the attack but couldn't get into the u.s.
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:45 Comments ||
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But at what point did Mossad take over the planning?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 7:02 Comments ||
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Osama Bin Laden crossed into Pakistan on Feb 27 and is closely guarded by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters disguised as a Pakistani tribesman, US media reported on Sunday. The reports said Bin Laden "is currently hiding" in a remote area in South Waziristan near the Afghan border. But when a Pentagon spokesperson was asked to comment on the reports that Bin Laden was seen in Waziristan and that US and Pakistani authorities had stepped up their efforts to catch him, she said: "Yes, we have seen the reports." Asked to confirm or deny the report, she repeated: "I told you, we have seen them."
"That means we aren't commenting on them. Next question, if any?"
The reports said recent US military advances in southern Afghanistan forced Bin Laden and his Taliban supporters to quit their hideouts in Afghanistan. The reports also said more than once US military search teams had come close to these hideouts. Such close encounters, the reports said, convinced Bin Laden and his protectors to seek refuge in the tribal areas of Pakistan and on Feb 27 they crossed into southern Waziristan. But the reports suggest that Bin Laden and his followers are not safe in Pakistan either because US and Pakistani forces have already marked the area where they believe he is hiding. They are, however, reluctant to launch a full assault because of hundreds of Pashtun fighters protecting the Al Qaeda leader.
That's not a bug, that's a feature!
Pakistan is particularly concerned that any offensive that leads to a large number of Pashtun deaths could have very negative political consequences for the government in Islamabad, the reports said. Instead of a direct assault, Pakistan has urged the Americans to isolate Bin Laden and his fighters by severing food and water supplies.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:32:47 AM ||
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i got a better idea--how about severing his windpipe--along with his pukhtun and arab protectors--how do you like them adam's apples!!
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:38 Comments ||
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#2
Now that was an interesting quote by the pentagon spokeswoman... assuming it is really what she said. I'd like to see this from a US news source before I believe those were the words used...
#3
Osama Bin Laden crossed into Pakistan on Feb 27 and is closely guarded by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters disguised as a Pakistani tribesman, US media reported on Sunday.
I'd just like to thank the media, who told Binny we're on to what he's doing.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/01/2004 7:20 Comments ||
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Instead of a direct assault, Pakistan has urged the Americans to isolate Bin Laden
What a chicken-shit country.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 7:33 Comments ||
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Pakistan is particularly concerned that any offensive that leads to a large number of Pukhtun deaths could have very negative political consequences for the government in Islamabad hmmm.. right they may try to assinate the head of the country or something.
#6
Somebody redraw the maps. If Pakistan is too chicken-sh*t to send its troops into the western part of the country, then guess what? It ain't part of your country.
#7
BH - in the '50s there was a "pashtunistan" movement to annex the Pashtun areas of Pakistan to Afghanistan. US opposed it, since at the time Afghanistan was friendly to the Soviets, and Pakistan was firmly pro-Western.
Probably wouldnt be a good idea today. Too many Pashtuns in Afghanistan would make Afghanistan impossible to stabilize. Better leave them in Pakistan, and work around as well as we can.
Suspected militants on Sunday fired two missiles at a military checkpoint outside Wana, the regional headquarters of the remote South Waziristan tribal region, officials told Dawn. The missiles were fired hours before a jirga of tribal elders endorsed an official ban on carrying and display of weapons in the regional headquarters area, but no loss of life and property was reported. Officials said missiles had targeted the Shulam military checkpoint, the area where 11 civilians were killed in a shooting incident on Saturday. They were killed when troops mistook them as militants and and opened fire. The officials said the first missile on Sunday was fired at around 4am followed by another at around 7am.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:31:00 AM ||
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Sounds like we're getting closer.
Posted by: Daniel King ||
03/01/2004 12:44 Comments ||
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Pakistanâs law enforcing agencies Saturday arrested six persons including three Algerians suspected to be members of al-Qaeda in western Pakistan city of Peshawar, according to a report of local newspaper the Nation here on Sunday. The personnel of Pakistanâs Criminal Investigation Department and other secret agencies arrested three Algerians and three Afghani in a joint raid on an Afghan refugees camp Kacha Gari in Peshawar, the report said. Police sources said that all the six person suspected to be member of al-Qaeda have been shifted to unknown place for further investigation. The names of those have been taken into custody were withheld. However, the sources told that they have recovered some CDs and documents, but declined to provide details, saying, "we are probing the matter and for certain reason do not want to disclose the detail."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:28:26 AM ||
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three Algerians suspected to be members of al-Qaeda in western Pakistan city of Peshawar
Hey, you Algerians in Peshawar, get a clue. People all around you are snitching on your sorry Arab asses.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 0:32 Comments ||
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"any native arabic speakers in here--hit the rubble and spread 'em"
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:34 Comments ||
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While security forces remain on high alert due to the terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda last Novemeber, the Istanbul Police have been trying to solve the secret of a mysterious Moroccan for the past month. It is known that the Moroccan, Zakaria Soubah, entered Turkey through Syria on January 30th. He then Came to Istanbul from Hatay by bus, and began staying at Bergama Hotel in Laleli. He then went to the Fatih District Police Department on February 11th with the intention of surrendering to the authorities. He said he had reconnoitered the Israeli Consulate and collected intelligence for Al Qaeda.
When asked, âWhy did you surrender?â, Soubah replied, "I have a guilty conscience, that is why I have surrendered to the police." The police were weary at first, believing that the Moroccan might have been lying in order to seek refuge.
"If you made up such a story to be deported, we can arrange that," said the interrogating officer to Soubah, "We can send you to Morocco via the foreigners unit." However, Soubah persisted with his claims. The Istanbul Anti-Terrorism Unit interrogated him for four days. Soubah was eventually confronted with the Israeli Consulate security officers and they were able to positively identify the Moroccan.
Soubah maintained that he had been ordered to Istanbul to perform reconnaissance on the Israeli Consulate. Upon arriving at his hotel in Laleli, he asked for the Israel Consulateâs telephone number from the receptionist. Soubah paid $10 for the number and then went to Yapi Kredi Placa C Block, where the consulate is located. He explored the plaza and discovered that the 7th floor was protected very well.
Soubah then disclosed that he met with a person code named Usama at the Great Hamit Hotel. During their meeting Soubah gave Usama the news, "It is impossible to attack the Israel Consulate. It is protected very well."
After Usama received this news he gave some money and a red passport to Soubah. Usama then said to Soubah, "We will meet in front of the Sheraton Hotel in Washington a week later."
Soubah said that his ties with AL Qaeda began during the time when the Moroccan was working at a PVC factory in Tripoli, Lybia. It was in Libya that Soubah first met the man codenamed Usama. Usama provided Soubah with US$100 a month while the Moroccan was working in Libya. The National Intelligence Agency (MIT) has become involved in the case and is trying to track down the suspected Libyan Al Qaeda militant, Usama.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:26:52 AM ||
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he gave some money and a red passport to Soubah
I think Soubah told this yarn to explain why he has a false passport.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 7:08 Comments ||
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If I had a guilty conscience, I would surrender also .. in Canada. Their inmates live better than our soldiers.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:07 Comments ||
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The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Sunday night to authorize the immediate deployment of an international military force to Haiti for three months to restore order.
An eventful Sunday for Haiti.
The vote came minutes after the Pentagon announced that U.S. Marines had arrived in Haiti as the vanguard of an international security force. The Marines are expected to be joined in the coming days by soldiers from France, Canada and several Caribbean nations.
Wonder if the French force violates the Monroe Doctrine?
The resolution states that "the situation in Haiti constitutes a threat to international peace and security and to stability in the Caribbean, especially through the potential outflow of people to other states in the subregion." It authorizes "a multinational interim force" to remain in the lawless Caribbean nation for "not more than three months" to help restore stability and security and to support "the constitutional political process underway in Haiti." The Security Council will then be prepared to establish a U.N. peacekeeping force to remain in Haiti for a longer, unspecified period, it says. The council received a letter from Haiti's Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre, who replaced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sunday morning after he fled the country, requesting an international force, said China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya, the current council president. The force would also facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid and international assistance to the Haitian police "in order to establish and maintain public safety and law and order and to promote and protect human rights," according to the resolution.
That would be a first in Haiti.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was in the Security Council chamber for the vote, said later that it sent a signal to the Haitian people "that the international community has stepped to one side to avoid getting a mess on their shoes not forgotten them." Annan was asked why Haitians should expect a better outcome now than 10 years ago, when U.S. forces restored Aristide's elected government to power. "This time," said Annan, "I hope the international community is not going to put a band-aid on, and that we are not only going to help stabilize the current situation, but assist the Haitians over the long haul and really help them pick up the pieces and build a stable country."
That would be the biggest magic trick in a while.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:25 ||
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OK, so they DID have a vote. Damn, that's shocking.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/01/2004 7:05 Comments ||
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The vote came minutes after the Pentagon announced that U.S. Marines had arrived in Haiti as the vanguard of an international security force.
They had a vote after we were already there. Then again, they probably assembled after we announced that marines were on the way there. What really suprises me though is this:
"This time," said Annan, "I hope the international community is not going to put a band-aid on
Did Kofi just insult Clinton?
Posted by: Charles ||
03/01/2004 7:29 Comments ||
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Did Kofi just insult Clinton?
I would think that he insulted himself. After all, isn't the worthle, *AHEM*, U.N. supposed to handle this sort of thing?
#4
One of my friends at work says his son, an Army Officer, told him that the marines were embarked several week ago and stayed at sea. I think Aristide was hoping that if he held out for long enough, we would be forced to invade with him still in power and continue to prop him up.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 12:04 Comments ||
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I take it this was the 24th(?) MEU deployment that was previously announced?
#6
Pappy, is it a MEU or the Marine ESG thingy? The Wasp would be the giveaway.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 21:46 Comments ||
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SH, I thought it might have been the ESG, but there was a MEU deployed from Lejeune about the same time. If I had to lay money on it, I'd say the ESG is steaming east, waaay east...
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party was handed a stinging defeat by voters in Hamburg in Sunday elections reflecting the pent-up anger over his push to cut cherished state benefits. Schroeder's Social Democrats slumped to a postwar low in the northern port city they ruled for decades until 2001, while the conservative Christian Democrats surged to a majority on a campaign built on Mayor Ole von Beust's personal popularity.
So long, Gerhard, nice knowing ya. Sorta.
The Social Democrats won 30.5 percent, down from 36.5 percent in 2001, while the Christian Democrats polled 47.2 percent, up from 26.2 percent, according to official results. The Greens improved, but not enough to help the Social Democrats unseat the conservatives. The ballot in the traditionally liberal city was the first of 14 elections in Germany this year at local, state and European levels. Though the rout was less severe than some polls predicted, Social Democratic leaders conceded that Schroeder's unpopular drive to trim pension, health care and jobless benefits didn't help.
Perhaps because he spent most of his political capital opposing the Iraq war.
Schroeder has spent much of his energy in recent months battling resistance in his own party to limited welfare-state changes he says will make Germany more competitive, while preserving a social safety net.
Which is needed, as is needed in the US. But he's the wrong messenger.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:25 ||
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#1
"reflecting the pent-up anger over his push to cut cherished state benefits". Is this true?
Or is he the new pin donkey? Hey Germany. Are you pissed about your social welfare system not keeping pace with your demands or are you pissed....?
It is certainly true that people don't like cuts in the welfare system (who does?). The tragedy is that people are far less dumb than you might think: Most Germans know that reforms are inevitable. And they know the CDU will go for reforms more painful than Schroeder's "Agenda 2010"
The problems the SPD has now is that they allowed themselves major blunders when enacting necessary reforms. The best thing is: Get elected, have a plan ready, do the painful things in the first months. The SPD got elected in 1998 and spent its political capital by doing next to nothing. They banked on a weak opposition embroiled in a Kohl legacy with rumors of bribing and corruption. In 2002 the CDU/CSU had recovered, but presented a candidate from Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, who was very popular in the South but couldn't get sympathies in the North. Then came the summer floods, which gave Schroeder an opportunity to look like a hands on politician (later people discovered that many promises were never kept). And there was the Iraq issue. Schroeder used it to lure leftist voters (who would have gone for the not-so-ex-communist East German PDS).
Unfortunately it worked: The PDS didn't make it back into the Bundestag and Schroeder was handed the narrowest win in modern German history. Since then the SPD has experienced a sharp decline: About every election promise was broken, Schroeder pushed for "reforms" that can be classiefied as too little, too late, too inconsequent and poorly planned. Chaos rules, nobody knows what to expect next and people are fed up with it.
Now it's just a matter of time until Schroeder resigns. He has already given up the chairmanship of his party... I think after some more catastrophic results he'll beat it.
The SPD will do everything to hang on to power (and so will the Greens who are drawing from the popularity of Fischer), because new elections would of course sink them.
The opposition is ready, and if they have their plan ready when time comes, you'll see sweeping reforms in months, including a revolutionary tax reform.
In some way, Schroeder prepares the ground for all this. Still German history books will not treat him kindly as the weakest German chancellor this country had since 1949. We can't afford another one.
What we need is this:
Health reform with more responsibility on the individual.
Tax reforms: Dropping subsidies, eliminating most paragraphs, making it transparent, simple, easy and of course enact CUTS to boost the economy. Slovakia has a flat tax of 19% on everything. Easy, huh? Guess where German companies are going to? And in a few months Slovakia will join the EU. We don't need China to have something to worry about.
Bureaucracy reforms: Cut down regulations to the essential. German bureaucracy has a thousand ways to keep businesses from making money and creating jobs. They limit shopping hours, have the most absurd regulations. Of course, the same goes for EU bureaucracy.
Pension reforms: Gradually shift the responsibility of the state to the individual. Right now people are forced into a one size fits all system and the young people who pay into this sytem now won't even get the full amount they paid back, let alone interests. Do you know how much money the German state pension fund has? Nothing, zero. Money flows in, money flows out...but no reserves. This works well when enough young people finance the pensioners. But that's no longer the case. The model only works well with the traditional population pyramid. Which we no longer have.
And that's why Schroeder is doing something good: He'll sink the SPD for a long time, and this will mean the CDU/CSU will soon hold power in both houses. No more blockades. Then I hope they will have a person who is not afraid to "clean house". Even if he doesn't get reelected after his term is up. That would be a real statesman.
Unfortunately this is some problem the opposition has: No compelling candidate right now.
You know, I didn't think any other country would have a pension system as screwed-up as Social Security. It sounds like Germany did exactly the same thing.
Is the next national election 2006, or could it be earlier (or later)? In the US it's a fixed term, while the UK it's variable (with a max limit). Which does Germany use?
#7
Jackal, the pension system was invented by Bismarck and it survived two world wars without problems. It would still work if the population pyramid was still working. But people get older, and birth rates are down, and now the system is cracking. Unfortunately the Kohl government took a wait and see approach, and Schroeder is doing too little and the wrong way.
As for elections: They have to be every 4 years, so next scheduled national elections will be in fall 2006. But if the chancellor loses his majority in the Bundestag, he can be replaced by the opposition ("constructive vote of non confidence"). This happened with Helmut Schmidt. With a few tricks (done by Kohl in 1982) you can then dissolve the Bundestag and call for new elections. Of course this is not likely to happen because the SPD/Greens know they have no chance to win in 2004, so I think they will just replace Schroeder (the Willy Brandt method) and hope that the new guy gains momentum.
#8
TGA,
Our Congress seems to have trouble saving funds left idle in the General fund. As a citizen, I would rather have my social security taxes withholdings invested in our economy by a bonded and accountatble expert investor rather than wasted on pork barrel splurges to kiss up to contituents. A percentage of investment in reasonable municiple bonds - ones that don't facilitate irresponsible projects - would be acceptable.
Sounds like Germany is going to teach us about social security reform and Russia/Iraq will teach us about flat taxes. At some point in history we used to lead.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 17:38 Comments ||
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#9
Sounds like Germany is going to teach us about social security reform
#10
We'll have a long way to go until we can start teaching other about it... again.
It did work rather well.. it gave us economic stability... but we need to adapt to new challenges.
I don't want to scrap the system. Social stability is good. But it should be designed to only help people who really need it and have no choice. Why a young healthy man should receive social benefits just because he has no job is beyond me. He may not get the work he likes. But he WILL get work. And nobody is "too good" for a humble job. And Germany provides many opportunities for people who want to succeed. If you don't want to succeed, don't complain about McDonalds paying 5 Euro an hour.
Just don't ask ME to pay you that.
#11
..the SPD/Greens know they have no chance to win in 2004, so I think they will just replace Schroeder (the Willy Brandt method) and hope that the new guy gains momentum.
Who do the SDP/Greens have on the short-list of potential replacements?
Two American brothers arrested in the Philippines last year for alleged ties to al-Qaida-linked groups were deported to the United States, immigration officials said Monday. Michael Ray Stubbs, 55, of Antioch, Calif., and his brother James Stubbs, 56, who also goes by the name Jamil Daud Mujahid, of Newark, N.J., were arrested in December and ordered deported.
"Welcome to the United States, boys! Assume the position!"
Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. said the brothers were deported to Japan on Saturday, where U.S. marshals escorted them on a flight to the United States. Relatives of the men confirmed they have returned to the San Francisco Bay area.
First a shower, then a de-lousing, and then some full-contact discussion.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:25 ||
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#1
"Paging Michael and James Stubbs, please pick up the white courtesy truncheons at baggage claim."
US State Departmentâs ambassador-at-large J Cofer Black has claimed that the Iranian government is in contact with al-Qaeda and that it must expel or extradite all members of the network to the countries of their origin. In an exclusive interview with Geo TV, Black said that our intelligence agencies are aware of the presence of some senior al-Qaeda leaders in Iran who are dangerous. He said that "these al-Qaeda operators are not only a threat to the US but they are also a threat to Pakistan". He was not sure that Osama bin Laden would be captured alive but he said one thing with full confidence: "We will capture him very soon, if he does not surrender, then I donât know what will happen?" While responding to a question, Black confirmed that coalition troops in Afghanistan are preparing for a major "hunt Osama operation" but he refused to comment on the reports that Osamaâs deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahri was spotted by US spy planes recently in the Waziristan region.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:25:24 AM ||
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#1
Denial in 5, 4, 3, 2...
Posted by: Charles ||
03/01/2004 7:30 Comments ||
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#2
What's an ambassador-at-large? I thought the ambassadors were assigned countries.
Posted by: Bill ||
03/01/2004 19:18 Comments ||
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Opposition politicians in Pakistan walked out of parliament to protest the killing of at least 11 civilians in a tribal area where soldiers have been hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. ``They were not terrorists, they were civilian people,ââ AFP cited Senator Khursheed Ahmed of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance, as saying yesterday. ``Either it was an error of judgment or a planned act and there was no justification for it.ââ
On the other hand, MMA spends most of their time walking out. People would probably take them more seriously if they didn't do it that often.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:24:05 AM ||
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#1
wait 'til the infidels start strollin' inside the nwt in the springtime offensive--these guys are going to walk all the way to mecca--inshallah
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:28 Comments ||
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The United States is rounding up relatives of fugitive Al-Qaeda leaders to question them on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. A similar tactic had generated the information that helped lead to the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. So far, the information received is unconfirmed and does not mean the terrorist leaderâs location has been pinned down or his capture is imminent. US officials have cautioned that rumours of significant progress are overstated. But US officials are saying they have been able to extract useful information from Afghan and Pakistani relatives and friends of Al-Qaeda fugitives, and this had provided hints on the possible whereabouts of the organisationâs leaders.
"I'll talk! I'll talk! Just ease off with the pliers!"
With the weather improving in Afghanistan, the US military has sent troops and technology to the region to help in the search and to give forces on the ground more opportunity to track down Osama.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/01/2004 12:22:26 AM ||
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#1
I saw this on cable today. The family tree has been plotted out, roots and all. Even the gay boys' sons.
#6
BH-
Respectfully, I disagree with you there. Do not kill them. Let them live out very long, healthy lives...in a comfortable room on Diego Garcia, with only a skylight.
Contemplate Allah's will from there.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/01/2004 12:41 Comments ||
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#7
Castrate the men (including any male children, regardless of age), neuter the women, and make them all work the phosphate (guano) mines on the Juan Fernandez Islands for the next 100 years. If they still haven't reformed, kill them then...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/01/2004 18:15 Comments ||
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#8
After careful contemplation, let's do the same thing with the Saudi al-Saud family and all its tentacles, as well. Won't have to import any more Chilenos for awhile...
and it's a long way to Mecca! Have to decide whether to face left or right...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/01/2004 18:18 Comments ||
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Iraqi politicians agreed on the draft of an interim constitution early Monday, reaching a compromise on the role of Islam and putting off the details of Kurdish autonomy, an Iraqi official said. The charter will likely be signed Wednesday.
Not too shabby, couple days late.
Members of the Iraqi Governing Council, with U.S. administrators mediating, ended a second late night of negotiations at 4:20 a.m. with "full agreement ... on each article," said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Shiite Muslim council member Ahmad Chalabi. The interim charter, officially the Transitional Administrative Law, will remain in effect until a permanent constitution is drafted and ratified next year. It underlines that the rights of all Iraqi citizens will be respected and sets aside for women 25 percent of the seats in the provisional legislature, Qanbar said.
That ought to put a stop to Islamic law.
According to Qanbar, the interim constitution charter will recognize Islam as a major source of legislation and ban any laws which violate the tenets of the Muslim faith. U.S. officials and secular-minded members got their way with the phrase "a source" - out of many sources - but the ban on laws that violate Islam was aimed at pleasing conservatives. U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer had hinted he would veto conservatives' phrasing setting Islamic law as "the" main basis of law, which some feared would create an Islamic state and restrict women's rights.
Keep the wymyn in the legislature and Bremer won't need to veto.
The interim charter affirmed the principle of federalism but left details of how this would be implemented - particularly in areas where ethnic Kurds enjoy self-rule - to a future elected government. The document will likely be signed Wednesday, after the Shiite Muslim religious holiday of Ashoura ends, said Qanbar, of the Iraqi National Congress. Bremer must then sign the document.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:09 ||
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#1
oy--zarquari must be gaspin' for air--oh learned noble brother leaders of this holy jihad--SEND OXYGEN--I CAN'T BREATHE
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
03/01/2004 0:25 Comments ||
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#2
"the interim constitution charter will recognize Islam as a major source of legislation and ban any laws which violate the tenets of the Muslim faith".
No more marrying cows Omar. Or you Dad, your bitch, your buddies best friend. Thats all out!
#3
I'm sorry Steve but I don't see 25% woman participation in the provisional legislature as being effective as a stop against the pernicious effects of radical Islam. Who know how these women will vote, (more importantly who will select them, even more importantly, who will be whispering in their ear?)
Likewise, this "Not in conflict with Islam," is more than troublesome. For me Democracy has never been a touchstone, ( often this is only a way-stop on the way to a Tyranny of the Majority).
No, Freedom of Conscience, Guaranteed Individual Liberty, the great Liberal gifts of the West's Enlightenment is what the War in Iraq should have been fought over, (not that silly WMD thingy), and these should be explicitly placed in the forefront of Iraqi Constitution.
They are, to me, non-negotiable. But people ask, "Well then, if people don't accept this, just how many people are you willing to kill to see it implemented?"
My general answer is...a lot...over the years, a hundred million or so. But am I really serious in this?
To avoid this distressing conclusion, I have been toying with the idea of targeted assassinations as a regrettable but maybe necessary means to get the world to where it needs to get to.
And yet, as I wrote a little while back elsewhere:
âFor months now the rise of Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq has troubled me. He stands for everything I am opposed to....he may be the single largest obstacle to the reformation of Iraq into a form I would find acceptable.
But you see this in your mindâs eye, the ability to have him taken out...but should you? What comes after? What are the short and long term ramifications? This is not an easy question. And yet, the mind muses, What would Iran look like now if The Shah had killed Khamenei, in 1978?
Shakspere said it best:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied oââer with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
I confess when faced with this stark choice, not as a thought, not as a potentiality, but as an actuality...I also probably...âLose the name of action.â
And yet the idea remains appealing. I donât know. Iâm thinking, Iâm trying on new ideas like clothes, to see how they feel, to see how they fit, to see if they are any good. Because I actually see this as a conflict of irreconcilable Ideologies...I squirm, I wiggle, I am trying to find some acceptable solution."
So Iâm curious how Rantburgerâs would handle this Question. It you could have Sadr, maybe even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani , taken out, to be brutal...assassinated, Would you? Or would you, âLoose the name of action?â
There are smart people here....I am really curious over what you may have to say to this.
#4
In the long run, of course, it's a big mistake to put this Islamic nonsense in the Iraqi constitution. In the short run, though, this wording will sufficiently deflate the religious opposition to a national accord.
Our own Constitution had to permit slavery in order to be ratified by all the states. Later, though, we had to fight our Civil War.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/01/2004 8:37 Comments ||
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#5
Given that this war is supposedly aiming to the defeat of Islamofascism, this proposed provisions are a bit like having the post-War II German constitution enshrine Nazism as a major source for law.
When the *Turkish* constitution doesn't to my knowledge make a single reference to Islam, I don't see why the Iraqi constitution should make any such reference.
Traveller> I would arrest Sadr for all the crimes and intimidation his men have commited. Assasination? I wouldn't want to create such a precedent.
#6
aris - surely youre not saying that islam = nazism?? Im all for seperation of mosque and state (and church and state, and synagogue and state) myself, but surely we can all understand that the Islamofascist goal of a renewed Khalifa involves far more than say making Sharia the source of say inheritance law for muslims(Sharia is the source of family law for muslims in Israel, for crying out loud)
Turkey managed Kemalism under different circumstances than Iraq, and it took decades of military rule to make it stick. The attempt to use force to secularize Iraq didnt give us Kemalism, it degenerated into Baathism (which didnt Kemalize the population, but alienated it). With the Baathist officer corps out to pasture, there is no institutional basis for a Kemalist authoritarian rule in Iraq. US forces would have to impose Kemalism - this would be a vast drain on resources, would probably fail, and would turn much of the rest of the Islamic world against us.
Shakespeare in Hamlet, was having Hamlet contemplate killing the murderer of his father, not establishing assasination as the means to rule Denmark. If you want to see the bards view of what happens when "Action" replaces "the pale cast of thought" you should look at Macbeth - or for that matter the entire cycle of history plays, when England spends the better part of a century paying for the sins of Henry Bolingbroke, that man of action.
We've probably got the best deal possible in Iraq with the above constitution.
#7
Traveller, it is in the nature of liberty that you don't know in advance what's going to happen. No one can guarantee that the women will support their own needs rather than succumb to the well-worn path of being "led" by the men. Or the mullahs, may Allah send a billion fleas to bite their private parts.
Hummmm....people are a little more rational on this than I thought. No Trigger pullers, at least within a political context...even given the Khamenei example of being assassinated in 1978, something akin to killing Hiter in 1938 in my mind, there are still no takers.
As to the Iraqi Constitution and a reference to Islamic law I suppose that we did leave the Emperor in place in Japan after WWII for good and sufficent reasons. However, I think that Aris's reference to the Turkish constitution is a good one. If there, why not Iraq?
Lastly, Liberalhawk, why down so much on Henry Bolingbroke, or Hennry the IV? I presume that you are not Lancasterian...lol. Hennry the IV did begat Hennry the V, the Hundred Years war in France, but also Agincourt and a lot of interesting English history.
Well, as people have noted, History and the future are wiggly sorts of things.
#9
I seem to remember reading an interpretation of WS that said that WS saw the wars of the roses as englands punishment for Henry IV, who despite his abundant justification, still sinned by overthrowing and killing an anointed king - redemption comes only with Henry VII, who is reunites Lancaster and York, and is untainted by the original (political) sin (and who just happens to be grandad to Liz) WS cant help but glorify Henry V - Agincourt is too rich in English glory - but thats a brief respite in a century of disaster. Henry V begat Henry VI, whose regents lost Henry V's gains, and whose madness and weakness allowed the bloodshed of the Wars of the Roses, and the final tyranny of Richard III.
And it all began with an assasination (of Richard II)
#10
Traveller, asassination is rarely a good method for creating civil society and promoting democratic reform. The Iraqi people seem to know that Al Sadr is a punk with an Iranian accent, but even if he was powerful their challenge is to confront what he represents not have us make the boogie man go away.
MLK, JFK and Malcom X are two examples of political asassination in the US. The result of MLK dying before he finished his work is that his movement got taken over by Jesse Jackson, LBJ perpetrated welfare enslavement of blacks, and we are saddles with pepetual race quotas that MLK didn't intend. Malcom X was killed leaving crooks like Louis Farakan to twist Pan-Africanism into a vehicle for his theft. JFK died and we are left with a mythology that makes John Kerry attractive to some voters.
I read Fred's fisking of Kerry's speech that you posted. As a son of an English teacher, I was struck by the simularity of his speech to a plot summary of the WOT. Kerry's case for how he would have done better can be summarized with the statement, "I would have been more of a unilateral multilateralist."
I guess I was looking to see whether his vision for the future agreed with mine. The message that I got from his speech is that he has a secret vision that will be revised as events unfold.
I think I have a non-secret vision that I am willing to throw on the table for debate purposes. For instance, I believe that the WOT should proceed by having a coalition force replace Syrian troops in Lebanon. There is no reason that the world community should allow Syria to occupy Lebanon perpetually, espcially if they intend to allow it to be a terrorist haven. The effort to replace the Syrian force would take the political will to suffer casualties in the interest of bringing the likelihood of peace in the Middle East.
While Middle East peace might not follow from booting Syria out of Lebanon, I cannot picture the middle East being peaceful with Hizbolah running amok in Lebanon. I wonder what Kerry would think of my idea. I bet if I asked him in a press briefing, I wouldn't get a definite answer.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 18:19 Comments ||
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#11
A couple of points:
As to Henry V, a really excellent book is Desmond Moris's The Hundred Years War. The dominent theme was that the wealth of Elizabethan England was actually built on plunder from France. It is an interesting thesis for which he offers a lot of support. It is a nice popular history read.
In reference to Super Hose, I also read Fred's Fisking of Kerry and commented that I thought it nicely done. You also correctly note an almost peculiar American adversion to assassination. The point is well taken and it is something that is built now pretty firmly in the American psyche.
I suppose that having done some sniper work long ago that my mind almost automatically tends toward this area of expertise of mine. Just a little niggle in my consciousness.
However, I cannot see the US unilaterally moving against Syria. Nor do I see in the foreseeable future any international concensus on Lebanon being freed of Syria. I recently saw a report that seems to indicate that Lebanon, at least along the coast, is moving forward reasonably well as a nation. I understand your impatience but as previously noted, this is probably a generational war if not longer, and therefore, historical patience may be a necessity.
Well, heck, while I am getting things off my chest, I will return to the point that the core problem with Islam is the crucial question of apostasy. The Koran is quite clear and specific as to this and there could be no reformation of Islam without resolving this essential question of Freedom of Conscience.
Without this question being forthrightly confronted and defeated, I fear that anything the West does is merely...pissing in the wind.
#12
Traveller, let me clarify. My belief is that sniping and asassination can be effective tools in causing chaos within an enemy society town or camp. The predator attack in Yemen was both effective and warrented. If our special forces could infiltrate Iran to pickoff an AQ clown, I would support that action as well. I just can't see too many asassinations that could be an effective part of "nation building."
Even killing Castro, Chavez or Mugabe would seem to be counter-productive. For instance, there seems to be some kind of societal malady underneath that keeps generating Aristides in Haiti.
As for Lebanon, I don't think there will be a surprise unilateral invasion. I expect that the spotlight will be focussed on the Syrian presence there. Kofi will then be given a chance to work out a solution. Assad will be encouraged to cleanout the camps or to turn control of the militant areas over to an international force. Nobody will volunteer for the force other than us.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/01/2004 22:35 Comments ||
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#13
Well this has at least been an interesting and thoughtful thread. You seem to shy away from political assassination, as do I when I seriously think about it, as do most people.
Still, it is a question I did want to put out there. And yet, if anyone had a shot at Osama, I am sure that everyone would take it...lol
A parliamentary report Monday broadly cleared the Australian government of exaggerating the threat of Iraq's prewar weapons programs, saying Canberra was "more moderate" than coalition partners Britain and the United States. "The committee found that the presentation by the Australian government was more moderate and more measured than that of its alliance partners," said David Jull, chairman of the committee that wrote the report. Jull is a lawmaker with Prime Minister John Howard's government, and his committee is made up of five government lawmakers and three from the opposition Labor Party.
Now if only the Blair government could be this sensible.
The report did point out that ministers sometimes did not mention caution expressed by intelligence agencies about the size of Iraq's arsenal and the speed with which it could be deployed. "The presentations by the government seemed to suggest large arsenals and stockpiles, endorsing the idea that Iraq was producing more weapons and that the programs were larger and more active than before the Gulf War in 1991," the report said, after noting that "the Australian agencies did not think the amounts of (weapons of mass destruction) to be large." The report recommended setting up a second independent inquiry into the performance of Australia's intelligence agencies, something the government immediately announced it would do. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the report, "vindicates the government's use of intelligence in stating the case for disarming Iraq." Downer meanwhile said the report should put an end to doubts over the government's assessments of the Iraqi threat. "It is now clear to all that the government has been open and honest with the Australian people on this critical issue of national security," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2004 00:09 ||
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#1
We should have killed all of the Iraqis and any anti-war demonstrators. Commies. Assholes.
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.
