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4 arrested in Berg murder
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Arabia
Yemen: trial of terrorism suspects this week
The Minister of Interior, Dr. Rashad al-Alimi said Wednesday that the trial of some terrorist suspects will kick off this week. Al-Alimi said that the number of arrested people on charges of terrorism are 195 including suspects of some terrorist operations against the USS Cole, Limburg, Hunt Oil company helicopter, medical convoy in Abyan, explosion of al-Qadisya in Sana’a as well as the attempted assassination against the US ambassador and bombing of the friendship bridge in Sana’a.

He denied information that there is pressure exercised on Yemen by the US administration not to start the trial of the USS Cole bombing suspects. He said that 43 suspects have been referred to prosecution while 95 others were released last year and 92 this year. He said only 86 are still in custody and that dialogue conducted by some clerics with them is going on. The minister said that 20 wanted Yemenis were turned over to Yemen by some countries in addition to one of the Guantanamo bay detainees. He added that police forces arrested some 81 persons whom he called ‘troublemakers’ inside mosques in different governorates and that they were set free upon giving guarantees that they would stop their ‘troublemaking’ acts.
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:57 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Saudi police chief wounded
Riyadh, , May. 18 (UPI) -- A Saudi police chief was shot and injured by three brothers wanted for security reasons, reports said Tuesday.
Cue "Family Affair" theme song
Several Saudi newspapers reported Brig. Mohammed al-Audeh, the chief police officer in the northern city of Kohafiyah, was wounded in the shoulder Monday night when the suspects opened fire on police who had surrounded their house in an attempt to arrest them.
They still seem to be having problems with this "surround the suspects" thing
Al-Audeh was rushed to a hospital for surgery and his condition was said to be stable Tuesday. Police arrested the brothers who are not among the kingdom's 23 most wanted terror suspects.
Just normal security suspects, nothing to see, move along
Posted by: Steve || 05/18/2004 9:46:56 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Brigadier? Something wrong with "Chief" as a title?
Posted by: mojo || 05/18/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Family Affair? I'm thinking "My Three Sons" starring "Abu Fred MacMurry" and "Abu Uncle Charlie" as played by Prince Naive
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 18:30 Comments || Top||

#3  ima always hated familiar affair
Posted by: Shipman || 05/18/2004 18:40 Comments || Top||

#4  slipping into surprisingly "Mucky" lingo there, Ship...ssshhhhh
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 18:57 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Fidel Castro can live to 140, doctor says
Fidel Castro’s doctor denied rumours that the president’s health was ailing, saying today the 77-year-old leader is in excellent health and claiming he can live at least 140 years.

I guess Fidel and Kim Il have the same doctor and publicist
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 05/18/2004 10:55:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
Senior al-Qaeda leader based in Japan for over a year
A senior al-Qaida member was based in Japan for more than a year, and investigators suspect he was trying to establish a terror cell, a media report said Tuesday. Investigators believe that Lionel Dumont -- a French citizen of Algerian descent -- used a fake passport to enter Japan in July 2002 and stayed here until he left for Malaysia in September 2003. The report said Dumont provided money and equipment to the network. Dumont, 33, was in contact with about 10 other foreign residents of Japan, and investigators suspect he may have been trying to set up a terror cell. Dumont was arrested in Munich by German authorities last December and had been on Interpol's wanted list. Local media reported in February that al-Qaida had planned to carry out attacks in Japan during the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament, just before Dumont allegedly arrived here.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 4:30:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why do they hate the, uh, Japanese.....
Posted by: Wuzzalib || 05/18/2004 17:57 Comments || Top||


North Korean Train Explosion Foiled Syrian Missile Shipment
The picture is starting to clear up a bit.
A North Korean missile shipment to Syria was halted when a train collision in that Asian country destroyed the missile cargo and killed about a dozen Syrian technicians. U.S. officials confirmed a report in a Japanese daily newspaper that a train explosion on April 22 killed about a dozen Syrian technicians near the Ryongchon province in North Korea. The officials said the technicians were accompanying a train car full of missile components and other equipment from a facility near the Chinese border to a North Korea port. A U.S. official said North Korean train cargo was also believed to have contained tools for the production of ballistic missiles. North Korea has sold Syria the extended-range Scud C and Scud D missiles, according to reports by Middle East Newsline. "The way it was supposed work was that the train car full of missiles and components would have arrived at the port and some would have been shipped to Syria while others would have been transported by air," an official said.

Officials said the North Korean shipment to Syria was not meant to have contained chemical or biological weapons. They said foreign rescue crews summoned to the train explosion did not report any chemical contamination. The explosion was said to have been caused by a collision of two trains. The collision downed an electrical power line, the sparks from which detonated the fuel from the train. On May 4, the Tokyo-based Sankei Shimbun quoted a military source that reported the death of the Syrian technicians. The newspaper said North Korean military personnel, wearing protective suits, removed the vestiges of the destroyed equipment meant for Syria. The technicans were representatives of Syria’s Center for Scientific Research, which has been cited for helping develop that country’s weapons of mass destruction program. The technicians were said to have been trained in North Korea to operate the equipment. Sankei said the bodies of the Syrians were flown home by a Syrian aircraft, which had arrived in Pyongyang to deliver aid supplies.
Posted by: AzCat || 05/18/2004 11:50:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Baby Kim - Baby Assad

Baby, baby
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Crocodile tears in Tel Aviv....
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 12:55 Comments || Top||

#3  I would dearly love to believe that this was an "accident".
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/18/2004 12:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Nice to watch such murderous payloads serve some sort of constructive purpose for a change. Quite refreshing as well to see Syria's missile technician crew go home in pine boxes. I wonder if this will dampen their weapons R&D staff's enthusiasm for future junkets to North Korea.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 13:07 Comments || Top||

#5  "Sparks detonating train fuel" is ridiculous: fire yes, massive explosion no. Cruise missile on a train schedule is more likely.
Posted by: Tom || 05/18/2004 13:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Zenster: Quite refreshing as well to see Syria's missile technician crew go home in pine boxes.

Pine boxes? More like ash trays.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 13:39 Comments || Top||

#7  The explosion measured 3.6 Richter... 0.8 megaton blast.
There is a lot more of this than meets the news. Maybe the 'sharp spears' are active.
Posted by: john || 05/18/2004 13:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Uh, guys, these details don't make sense to me.

What _sort_ of missiles are we talking about?

I thought North Korea's IRBM's were mostly liquid fueled; this would mean they'd be shipped _empty_ and fueled on the launch site.

I know that solid rocket fuel can sometimes explode, but I thought it was more likely to deflagarate than detonate? (Unless there were a very strong shock wave?)

(Oh drat, now I have to read up on solid rocket fuel accidents when I get home).
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 05/18/2004 13:55 Comments || Top||

#9  No chem/bio? Howabout radioactivity?
Posted by: someone || 05/18/2004 14:51 Comments || Top||

#10  Pine boxes? More like ash trays.

I was going to insert Zip-Locs but it just didn't roll off the tongue quite right. Besides, they could be little bitty wooden matchboxes.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 15:46 Comments || Top||

#11  How about radioactivity?

I'm confident that aerial and ground based atmospheric monitors were deployed after the incident. North Korea would have plenty of 'splaining to do if there were any radioisotopes present in the collected samples. It would kinda ruin their claims that they are not going to market their nuclear wares abroad.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 15:50 Comments || Top||

#12  I would love to know the details behind this (CIA, SKor, Japan?). Whoever it was apparently did a good job. Got rid of missles (and related infrastructure), technicians, and sent a strong message to Kimmie (back off jack: go watch your internet porn and trouble us no more).
Posted by: Spot || 05/18/2004 16:06 Comments || Top||

#13  Nope, no radioactity, that'd be easy.

But their still the chance that Kim was lost
in a heroic manner saving the kimmchee children
of the blown away school

but I doubt it.
Posted by: Shipman || 05/18/2004 18:46 Comments || Top||

#14  Anda yes! I read the Lucky Guy! and underatnd.
Posted by: Shipman || 05/18/2004 18:47 Comments || Top||

#15  Shipman, say it ain't so. 27 Braves up 27 Braves down. They do the shake, the rattlesnake shake.

But I'm watching a veteran M's team eat all sorts of Humble pie
Posted by: Lucky || 05/19/2004 1:21 Comments || Top||

#16  The two remaining Axis of Evil states both have massive train explosions (the biggest in the last 50 years) within two months of each other that destroy trains apparently carrying weapons destined for terrorists or rogue states. Weapons destined for Afghanistan in the case of Iran.

One hell of a coincidence! I bet Kimmi won't be taking his train for while.

My guess is a stealth UAV firing a missile.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/19/2004 4:13 Comments || Top||


Down Under
More on Roche
Islamic convert Jack Roche was recruited by the al-Qaeda terrorist network to form an Australian cell and ordered directly by Osama bin Laden to blow up the Israeli embassy with a truck bomb, a court was told here Monday. The trial of British-born Roche, 50, the first Australian resident charged under the country’s tough new anti-terrorist legislation, began before a jury in the District Court here Monday under tight security.

Roche denies a charge of conspiring to damage the Israeli embassy in Canberra by means of explosives, and as a consequence harm diplomatic staff. Prosecutor Ron Davies QC told the jury that Roche had travelled to Afghanistan to meet senior figures from the terrorist organisation — including bin Laden — in March 2000.

Several discussions with a man named as bin Laden’s then-deputy, Abu Haifs, and one sit-down meeting with bin Laden, led to the plan to target Israeli interests in Australia. Davies said that after undergoing 10 days of explosives training at an al-Qaeda camp 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Kandahar, Roche then returned to Australia and began surveillance operations on diplomatic buildings in Canberra and Sydney.

He had also begun a recruitment process — of Caucasians, so as not to raise suspicion — and made inquiries about the availability of explosives. Explosives expert Ibrahim Fraser, who met Roche at a Sydney mosque, told the court Roche had boasted to him he was going to destroy Canberra’s Israeli embassy — and that bin Laden had told him to do it. "He told me (of the plan) between 20 and 25 times over a couple of years. He said it was bin Laden’s way to remind the people of the problems in Palestine," Fraser told the court.

"I thought he was crazy." Fraser, a former mine site shot firer, said Roche had asked him how he could obtain TNT, and had discussed at length his belief in waging jihad against non-Muslims. Fraser said he was so disturbed at Roche’s plan he contacted the Australian High Commission in Singapore in mid-2001 to warn them, but they never returned his calls. Raids on Roche’s house in Perth recovered video recordings, stills and notes made during the surveillance, the court was told.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 4:41:24 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Roche trial hears he hated non-Muslims
The son of a man accused of conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra has told the District Court in Perth his father wrote to him about jihad and that he hated non-Muslims. Jens Holland is giving evidence at the trial of 50-year-old Jack Roche, who is alleged to have committed the offence in 2000. Mr Holland told the court his father sent him a letter in early 2000 saying that Muslims were obliged to make jihad and he would be making a sacrifice to enter paradise. He told the court the letter said non-believers were out of control, that their ways were based on inequality and arrogance and that he needed to learn more to combat them. The court heard that Mr Holland later that year he drove his father around Canberra to film embassies. The trial continues.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 05/18/2004 8:07:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mr. Holland's Opus:

'Muslims were obliged to make jihad and he would be making a sacrifice to enter paradise'.
Posted by: mhw || 05/18/2004 8:39 Comments || Top||


Europe
German intelligence sez Islamists a major threat
Germany's domestic intelligence service warns in its annual report that Islamic extremists and foreign terror groups pose the greatest danger to the country's security. Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV), one of three national intelligence services in Germany that is charged with gathering information on domestic as well as foreign extremist and terror groups active on home soil, stressed on Monday that Islamic terrorism posed the biggest security threat in Germany. Presenting the annual domestic security report 2003 in Berlin, German Interior Minister Otto Schily said, "Unfortunately we still face diverse dangers in Germany of which Islamic terrorism and Islamic extremism form the focal point."

Schily added that recent terrorist attacks such as the ones in Madrid in March this year that killed almost 200 people targeted so-called soft targets worldwide. "We can't assume that Germany lies outside the reach of such targets," Schily warned, saying that in the eyes of Islamic terrorists Germany counted as an ally of the United States and Israel and was also actively involved in the war against terrorism through its peacekeeping deployment in Afghanistan.

According to the report, around 7.3 million foreigners lived in Germany at the end of 2003, among them over three million Muslims. Though the BFV described 57,300 foreign individuals as "radical," the report pointed out that only a tiny majority of the Muslim population -- around 31,000 Muslims -- were active in 24 Islamist organizations. The largest membership potential was found in six Turkish organizations which together have 27,300 followers. Though the number of foreigners joining Islamist organizations remains almost the same as last year, Schily said the BFV believed that extremist Islamist groups command a much larger number of covert sympathizers and had extended its influence to a wider swathe of the Muslim population than a year ago. The interior minister added that Islamist groups were reaching many more people in mosques and community centers. Describing the groups as "fanatic" and "religious," Schily spoke of their "disintegrative activities" that were in particular, attracting a younger following. The minister pointed to the largest Islamic organization in the country, Milli GörÌs, which operates legally in Germany but has been on the watch list of the BFV for some years now, as having a strong anti-western and anti-democratic character. The organization specifically tries to indoctrinate Muslims living in Germany. "We're very critical of their youth work," Schily said.

The report also said that Islamists, who followed the model of Jihad or holy war, posed one of the most potent dangers to the country. It mentioned the militant Islamist Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, whose al Qaeda-affiliated Jordanian-based al-Tawhid group was accused of carrying out attacks on Jewish targets in Berlin and DÃŒsseldorf. According to the BFV, Zarqawi also plays a central role in the radical Islamic Kurdish group Ansar-al-Islam, which last year was supported logistically by members in Germany. The report also included the names of the Mideast-based Hamas militant Islamic group, which has about 300 members in Germany and the Lebanese Hizbollah militia, which is believed to have around 800 sympathizers in Germany. Also mentioned is the now banned Islamic organization led by Metin Kaplan (photo), the so-called "Caliph of Cologne" which had 800 members before it was disbanded at the end of 2001. The domestic intelligence services point out in the report that former members are attempting to once again set up the organization structures of the group despite the ban.

The BFV however reported an eight percent drop in membership among rightwing extremist groups in the country to 41,500 individuals -- the first significant decrease in nine years. Politically motivated rightwing crimes and violent acts also dipped by ten percent each. At the same time, Schily said he was concerned about the 15 percent rise in Neonazis to 3,000 members. Skinhead music fuelled by the Internet is "the number one gateway drug" for many young people, the minister said, adding that anti-Semitism was the distinguishing mark of the scene.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:19:18 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  damn german intell gettin good aren't they

Posted by: smokeysinse || 05/18/2004 17:46 Comments || Top||

#2 
Metin Kaplan, the so-called "Caliph of Cologne ...."

... and one of Israel's best secret agents.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 17:59 Comments || Top||

#3  that in the eyes of Islamic terrorists Germany counted as an ally of the United States and Israel and was also actively involved in the war against terrorism through its peacekeeping deployment in Afghanistan

Still trying to maximize anti-American/Israel sentiments for impact. How long will it take for these EU morons to realize that no amount back slapping with the Islamists will ever keep the Islamists from trying to establish a caliphate there too.
Posted by: B || 05/18/2004 18:17 Comments || Top||

#4 
Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV), one of three national intelligence services in Germany that is charged with gathering information on domestic as well as foreign extremist and terror groups active on home soil, stressed on Monday that Islamic terrorism posed the biggest security threat in Germany.


Huh. And only two and a half years after 3,000 Americans were killed in an attack plotted and run through conspirators based in Germany.

Damn, those Germans are swift.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 19:53 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Aznar warns US of terror during elections
Spain’s former prime minister warned that terrorists will try to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election as they did in Madrid with the March 11 attacks.

"It’s important to realize that the terrorists will do all they can to disrupt the upcoming U.S. election," Aznar said during his first visit US after he was voted out of office. He did not specify where the terrorists might strike. When the war in Iraq was launched Spain, then headed by Aznar, was among the staunchest allies of the Bush administration despite the strong opposition of the public. Aznar’s Popular Party lost general elections to the Socialists three days after the Madrid train bombings, which claimed the lives of 191 people. The newly elected government promptly started a withdrawal of the Spanish troops from Iraq.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 12:56:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm not totally convinced that the jihadies had the Spanish election even on their minds. May have just tried to pull a trigger when all the pieces were in place.

Jihadies, is their nothing they don't know? I wonder, but lets not just go for whatever is the reason dur jour.

The jihadies will do whatever to lash out and kill. Thats their deal.

"We'll kill you. It is our rightous duty! Our promise to the brotheren who have gone before, our fathers and grandfathers, Abu, I swoon".

Lets not be fools. If they go boom before the election and pull the vote for....? Will they not still look for anything to lash out at. This isn't some chess game for these guys, it's a blood libel.

For fun, I think these clowns are useing the Missouri blast as a root cause. Just for fun.
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 2:18 Comments || Top||

#2  If they attack innocent people in America again, I expect that our country will be moved to follow the teachings of Karl Childers.
Posted by: Super Hose || 05/18/2004 2:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry Lucky you are wrong, although the Jihadis were probably surprised how well it worked in Spain, but the lesson has been learned. Booms in the USA before the Nov election are a cast iron certainty.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 2:27 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm not totally convinced that the jihadies had the Spanish election even on their minds

They do now. The Spaniards gave them a morale boost such that they have never seen. A slogan for every future election: "Will they? Or won't they?"
Posted by: Rafael || 05/18/2004 2:32 Comments || Top||

#5  what was I wrong about?
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 2:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Rafael, they may. But if not, will they not pull the trigger when they are ready, election or not?
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 2:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Allow me to quote an applicable sections of Karl's wisdom:

Karl: [on the phone] Yes, Ma'am. I've killed Doyle Hargraves with a lawnmower blade. I hit him two good whacks in the head with it. That second one just plum near cut his head in two... It's a lil' ol' white house on the corner of Vine Street and some other street. There's a pick-up truck out front that says "Doyle Hargraves Construction" on it. Doyle said besides sending the police, you might wanna send an ambulance or a "hearst". I'll be sitting here, waiting on ye.
Posted by: Super Hose || 05/18/2004 2:41 Comments || Top||

#8  FORMER PRISONER OF TALIBAN SAYS .....
The more I see and read about US behaviour inside Abu Ghraib prison, the more I thank Allah that I was caught by the Taliban and not the Americans when I entered Afghanistan illegally in September 2001.

I almost want to laugh when I recall how George W Bush described the Taliban as the most evil, brutal regime in the world. At least they knew what the words courtesy and respect meant.

Sis. Yvonne Ridley
England
Posted by: Flap Fedouka || 05/18/2004 2:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Super Hose, I did see the flick. I enjoyed it too. Karls action were profound. His actions can be argued both ways. But I found his reasoning, if not right, well reasoned.
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 2:54 Comments || Top||

#10  Lucky, the timing of the Madrid booms was deliberately just before the elections.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 3:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Phil B, was that officially stated? By whom?

Or was that an educated guess? Of course if al jizz, The Madrid Trib, or El Mundo say so, well must be true, no?

My point is that jihadies pull the trigger when they are ready. Rafael has a good point and I don't discount it. But I'm not sold on the idea that jihadies had/have a wrench ready to turn to flip Spain's or our election. Easy rhetoric but lets not be easily lead. As I'm so easily lead to be.

But okay, two weeks before the election lets go code red.
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 3:22 Comments || Top||

#12  Lucky, while AQ did threaten Spain prior to the bombing. You are right there is no direct evidence that the timing was intended to influence the elections. I consider it a reasonable presumption and even if it was entirely coincidental, I am sure the lesson has been learned that elections can be influenced by terrorism to produce governments that are less hawkish on the WoT.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 4:08 Comments || Top||

#13  While the possibility of jihadist violence before the elections exists, I'm more concerned about pre-election violence from the leftists. That would have a much more corrosive effect on American life than another jihadist strike.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 7:06 Comments || Top||

#14  While the jihadists may have read Spains reaction right,doing the same here would be a huge mistake.
Just look at how America reacted after 9/11,2 countries struck fro the list.
Posted by: Raptor || 05/18/2004 8:45 Comments || Top||

#15  I'm sure the Taliban would be courteous and respectful to a US soldier or to a western garbed female of any nationality.
Posted by: Anonymous4912 || 05/18/2004 12:19 Comments || Top||

#16  "I'm sure the Taliban would be courteous and respectful to a US soldier or to a western garbed female of any nationality."

-are you 'mucking' w/us? If your being serious, then please, buy a one-way ticket to Kabul, pack your best set of army surplus duds and walk due east until picked up by friendly hospital diaper-headed talibanos and test your hypothesis for real. I'll be awaiting your made for internet video.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 12:26 Comments || Top||

#17  Some of you might have forgotten what the Norweigan Defense Research Establishment ran across link Bjorn Staerk 3/12:

"The research group regularly gathers information which appears on Islamist website on the Internet, but doesn't have time to go through everything in detail. After the attack in Madrid yesterday, they did a search on "Spain" in the documents they have gathered, and made an interesting discovery. ..

- What we found was a 42 page strategy document, where an anonymous author discusses what strategy to use to force the coalition lead by the US out of Iraq, says researcher Thomas Hegghammer. .. It concludes that one should go for a domino effect, where one first pressures one country to pull out, so the others may follow. The author points to Spain as that country in the coalition which it would be most convenient to attack.

Of the 42 pages in the document, which is written in Arabic, and was probably made last autumn, there are six pages about Spain.

"To make the Spanish government pull out of Iraq, the Muslim resistance forces must direct blows against the Spanish forces, and these must be joined by information about the situation in Iraq .. one must take maximum advantage of the approaching election in Spain in March next year .. we expect the Spanish government won't withstand more than two, maximum three, such attacks, because of pressure from public opinion. If they nevertheless should remain in Iraq, their continued presence will become an important issue for the Socialist Party."

The information in the document indicates that the person who wrote it is familiar with Spain and Spanish politics. It contains a discussion on Spanish election results all the way back to 1982."

---

But we've always expected booms here, just a matter of when.


Posted by: Anonymous2U || 05/18/2004 13:48 Comments || Top||

#18  re: Yvonne Ridley

Yvonne Ridley, Al-Jazeera.net

YVONNE RIDLEY, TALIBAN CAPTIVE, SOON-TO-BE MUSLIM

The famous burka that led to Ridley's arrest
"They tried to break me mentally by asking the same questions time and time again, day after day, sometimes until 9 o'clock at night," she recalls.
Where was the Red Cross? Oh, the Cross was forbidden in pious Afghanistan.
Muslim Convert
Whilst in prison Yvonne tried to secure her release by offering to read the Koran or Qur'an. It was the start of her conversion to Islam.
Check out her photo. Her past and future condensed into a single image.
Posted by: ed || 05/18/2004 14:07 Comments || Top||

#19  Raptor is right. An attack on American soil right before the elections would have an influence on the outcome, but it would be the opposite of that in Spain. Bush would win easily and the gloves would come off.
Posted by: jn1 || 05/18/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#20  Re: Yvonne Ridley

She is identifying with the aggressor (classic psychological to hostage/prison types of trauma).

She took her nine-year-old daughter to Afghanistan with her (oh dear) . . . revisiting the place of trauma to gain a sense of control (post -trauma). Her willingness to endager her daughter evidences the high level of emotional/psychological impact her experience had on her. Rape victims will often revisit the site of the crime in order to try and come to terms with what happened to them.

She is a hurting unit and is being played (to the hilt) by the Islamics as a convert "poster child". This is a known strategy of theirs in the war against the West (see #17 Anonymous 2U for other such examples of forward-planning).

She can no longer be considered a legitimte journalist in any respect, and certainly not an ivestigative reporter.

She needs serious therapy and "reality" education.


Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
9/11 Panel Scolds Ex-Police, Fire Chiefs
The former police and fire chiefs who were lionized after the World Trade Center attack came under harsh criticism Tuesday from the Sept. 11 commission, with one member saying the departments’ lack of cooperation was scandalous and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."

Commission members, in New York for an emotional two-day hearing, focused on how leaders of the two departments failed to share information effectively in the early frantic moments after two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.
Former fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former police chief Bernard Kerik shot back with infuriated responses to commissioner John Lehman’s questions, the strongest of a series of pointed statements from the panel.

"I couldn’t disagree with you more strongly," Von Essen replied. "I think it’s outrageous that you make a statement like that." Outside the hearing, he called the questioning "despicable."

Families of Sept. 11 victims applauded the tough questioning and shook their heads sadly as the panel enumerated a litany of communication breakdowns between the departments. Family members sporadically mocked and booed Von Essen, Kerik and Richard Sheirer, former Office of Emergency Management commissioner, and they wept earlier in the day as they watched videotape of the buildings collapsing.

As Von Essen testified, Sally Regenhard — who lost her firefighter son — held up a piece of paper reading: "LIES."
Sorry for your loss Sally but get a grip - the intent of the hearing was supposed to be lessons learned not blame game. Congrats you just got suckered by some politico trying to make a name for himself.
The 10-member bipartisan panel has been holding hearings over the last year, including high-profile meetings in Washington last month about intelligence failures, to examine what led to the attacks and determine ways to avoid future attacks. Like deporting suspicious muslims, particularly those on visas from Saudi Arabia. The panel will issue its final report July 26.

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was scheduled to testify at the second day of hearings Wednesday.
wonder if billary will be there for that.
While the New York hearings — held 1 1/2 miles from ground zero — were meant to examine problems in the city’s emergency response system, officials also were asked about what they knew about terrorism threats in the months before Sept. 11.

The former director of the World Trade Center told the commission that he knew nothing of Osama bin Laden’s terror network until the summer before the attacks, and was never privy to FBI intelligence that Islamic terrorists might hijack U.S. planes. Alan Reiss said he first heard about bin Laden’s al-Qaida network when ex-FBI agent John O’Neill was hired in the summer of 2001 as head of security at the trade center. O’Neill, who had hunted bin Laden for years, was one of the 2,749 people killed in the attack.

"I was aware of the plot against some of the other Port Authority tunnels and the U.N.," Reiss testified. "But we were never briefed" by the FBI. Reiss also said he was more focused on fending off possible bioterrorism attacks such as anthrax, spending more than $100,000 to protect the building from such an assault.

"We felt this (anthrax) was the next coming wave," he said. "We had developed plans on how to isolate the air conditioning system and shut it down but never did we have a thought of what happened on 9-11."

Reiss bristled under questioning from commission member Bob Kerrey, who asked him if he is angry that "things might have been different had they (FBI) trusted you enough" to deliver important intelligence.

Reiss said he was not angry at the FBI, but rather at "19 people in an airplane," referring to the hijackers.
Bingo - quote of the day. Let that sink in Kerrey, yes, I respect your MOH to the max but your still an asshole
Kerrey said he shared Reiss’ anger. "These 19 people ... defeated the INS, they defeated the Customs (Department), they defeated the FBI, they defeated the CIA, they defeated a network gutted by my boy willie the huxter" the former Nebraska senator said as family members of the victims chimed in with the loudest applause of the morning.

But Kerrey said he was more concerned that "we may not be delivering the key intelligence, the facts, the information" to the first responders.

Later, the miscommunication was termed "a scandal" by Lehman, who then complained it was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city."

Hindsight is always 20/20. I am pissed that this seems to be turning into a witchhunt. No one could of saw this scenario on 10 Sept 2001 - time for everyone to take a deep breath and remember we’re all on the same damn team.

Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 10:46:05 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I am pissed that this seems to be turning into a witchhunt.

They're desperate to rescue their sister Gorelick, so they'll slime anyone they can.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/19/2004 9:45 Comments || Top||


Slavery and Islam in Sudan
There were two Herald articles of particular interest recently. The first, an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof (liberal-elite Christian-bashing N.Y. Times word-slinger) on April 15, titled "Cruel choices." The second, a smallish Rutland Herald world news article of April 19, titled "Sudan clashes force 50,000 to flee homes." Both discuss the seemingly endless strife in Sudan. Both touch upon some of the atrocities there. Both entirely sidestep the central issue in the region: Islamic expansion. Indeed, Islam is never mentioned in either article.

Only an arch-liberal could perform the mental and literary gymnastics needed to write articles about a civil war without bothering to mention why there’s a civil war. This is the literary equivalent of a ham sandwich without ham, but plenty of mustard to cover up the omission (nobody will notice, right?).

Sadly, Sudan has been wracked by civil war for 35 out of the last 45 years. In 1989, the National Islamic Front seized power (via fraudulent "gun control"), and in 1991 openly declared jihad on the native black population with Iranian support. Now known as the government of Sudan, this Arab group has embarked on a systematic pogrom of killing, rape, torture, engineered famine, and slavery to vanquish its southern foe - the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM). To date, over a million have died, and 4 million have been displaced in this Arab jihadist tutorial in sadistic Koran-slapping fascism. The twofold aim of the government of Sudan is straightforward: Subdue and convert the remaining black Christian and non-Muslim population under Islamic law (Shari’a) by force, and secure a sizable supply of slaves in the process. Yes, slaves.

Reputable human rights groups like Human Rights Watch have somewhat quietly noted the resumption of slavery among the Arab ruling class of the north, as have Christian missionaries. It seems, however, that the United Nations and our fawning native press don’t want to deal with this dirty little Islamic secret.

As it turns out, Sudan and Mauritania, both Islamic African states, have a long and ugly past in the slave trade. As the United States was putting its slave trade to death in mid-19th century, Arab slave traders were just warming up. While historians estimate that Americans imported about 10 million slaves over its history, the Arab slave trade was many orders of magnitude larger, comfortably coddled by warm and fuzzy Koranic teachings.

The last two countries on earth to "abolish" slavery were Saudi Arabia (1962) and Mauritania (1980) - both Islamic. Despite these paper declarations, Mauritanians were estimated to possess over 100,000 black slaves in 2000, and the Mauritanian head of state from 1960-1978 kept slaves behind the presidential palace. The Saudis have long refused to sign U.N. treaties on slavery or human rights, or allow international scrutiny to ensure that they are free of slaves. They have long been suspected of orchestrating an elaborate international sex-slave operation, and have been openly accused by the president of Indonesia, who stated, "The Saudi people still believe in the old Islamic teaching, which is belief in slavery." (Indonesian Observer, March 2000).

The grand irony of this situation is this: Liberals are supposed to be the champions for the oppressed, the under-classes, the poor. So where is the liberal outcry on these distinctly Islamic abuses? Why is the loud, lucid and accurate analysis of these issues coming mainly from Christian sources (mostly missionaries and Internet news sites)?

Perhaps it has much to do with the identity of the victims - many are Christians. Like a slobbering dog with a bone, it seems the left is loathe to put down their favorite chew-toys (Christians, conservatives and Bush) long enough to mount a credible challenge to Islamic abuses, militant expansion, and attendant U.N. corruption and complicity (aptly demonstrated in the recent reappointment of Sudan to the U.N. Human Rights Commission). Like placing a child molester in charge of a kindergarten.

Vladimir Lenin, the architect of all communist repression, brutality, and nearly 100 million brutal deaths, applied the term "useful idiots" to western apologists blindly sympathetic to his virulent ideology, while eager to castigate their own. Lenin’s present counterparts - militant Islamofascists and brutal dictators - must be delighted with the current efforts of our own bleating "useful idiots."
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 05/18/2004 9:40:49 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  . . ." the United Nations and our fawning native press don’t want to deal with this dirty little Islamic secret. Like a slobbering dog with a bone, it seems the left is loathe to put down their favorite chew-toys (Christians, conservatives and Bush) long enough to mount a credible challenge to Islamic abuses, militant expansion, and attendant U.N. corruption and complicity (aptly demonstrated in the recent reappointment of Sudan to the U.N. Human Rights Commission). Like placing a child molester in charge of a kindergarten. "

Ha! Nice, TS! And so very true.

Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 22:04 Comments || Top||

#2  "The Saudis have long refused to sign U.N. treaties on slavery or human rights, or allow international scrutiny to ensure that they are free of slaves."

What would anyone call (except muslims, of course) a person who is forced to work 7 days a week, doing absolutely every chore in the house, taking care of 5 or 6+ brats, being beat up when the "Madam" is not satisfied and only being paid the equivalent of $160 a month? Out this amount, she/he has to pay a monthly fee (to a saudi, of course) for having the "privalege" of sponsoring her/him into the country. This is how the majority of the labor hand in this country is treated. Everytime I hear a westerner feeling sorry for a saudi assholes being discriminated, I feel like spitting on his/her face.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 05/19/2004 1:14 Comments || Top||


Al-Qaeda seeks to launch chemical attack on US
The top intelligence official at the Homeland Security Department, worried about an increased risk of attack in coming months, says al-Qaida wants to strike on U.S. soil with something other than a conventional explosive -- perhaps with a chemical or biological weapon. Retired Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes said in an Associated Press interview that America has gotten better at predicting and safeguarding itself against attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. But Hughes said he fears that new terrorists "are being made every single day on the streets of the Middle East."

As Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge prepares to testify Wednesday before the Sept. 11 commission in New York, Hughes and his deputies at the agency's information analysis division say the nation's security has improved since the terrorist attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives. "We had a dark age on 9/11," Hughes said in the interview Monday evening. "Now, we are trying to make ourselves more secure in a way that is palatable and constitutionally right."

Still, significant threats remain, especially now, as high "background noise" from terrorists and heightened sensitivity during the election year has officials on guard for a possible attack whose nature they can't quite pin down. Hughes marks the orange alert at the holidays as the start of a new era of threats. "We have a new norm," said Hughes, who believes terrorists learned about security checks and changes implemented during that alert and have adapted.

Now -- based on captured material, interviews and other sources of information -- Hughes said he believes al-Qaida wants to strike with something other than a conventional explosive device. He worries about chemical and biological attacks, including a dirty bomb. And, in particular, he points to the possibility of another anthrax biological attack, following the one that wreaked havoc on the postal system, closed a Senate building for three months and killed five in 2001. "It's not the only one," Hughes said of that possibility, but anthrax is easy to produce and disperse, he said, noting that the recipes for it and the deadly poison, ricin, are on the Internet. "It's not hard to do."

U.S. officials are adapting, too. Unlike before the attacks, encrypted networks now link hundreds of law enforcement and security officials across the country to an operations center at the department's campus, about six miles from the White House. When threat information indicates a heightened risk, a 24-hour operations center opens there, run out of a windowless conference room. And, bulletins to state and local officials routinely go out to inform about threats. In late April, in one example, Homeland officials and the FBI put out a lengthy warning advising local law enforcement authorities to be on guard for possible truck bombs, or vehicle-borne explosive devices, according to a copy of the four-page document obtained by The Associated Press.

Hughes ticks off a list of terrorist attacks that began in the 1990s -- Khobar Towers, the African embassy bombings, the USS Cole, bombings in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and 9/11 -- and worries that terrorists are able to show much patience. "If the past is indeed prologue, then we are going to screw up, or they are going to get lucky," Hughes said. "I can't sleep."

Aides note it is his job to worry. Still, for reasons Hughes can't explain, there was no attack at the holidays. Ridge, too, has said he believes an attack was averted. Perhaps, Hughes said, it comes down to the work of the government, here and overseas: Passengers and flights, most originating out of Europe, were searched in extraordinary ways. Some were canceled. "It is an axiom of terrorism that you don't conduct terrorist attacks without absolute secrecy," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:22:47 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I suppose it's good to be reminded that the world is still full of bad guys, but this isn't exactly news.
Posted by: Mike || 05/18/2004 18:06 Comments || Top||


Snipers in need have friend in States
Attention, deployed snipers: Your brothers-in-arms back home want to send you gear. A group of police and military snipers has started “Adopt a Sniper” to donate equipment to deployed military members. It’s the brainchild of Brian Sain, a police SWAT member for 15 years who works as a detective in the Port Arthur (Texas) Police Department. Sain said he was inspired by the close-knit “sniper fraternity,” whose military and civilian police members are unusually interwoven. “A lot of SWAT [members] are former military, and a lot of them are reservists who are now going over” to Iraq and Afghanistan, Sain said. “And even if you’re not military, getting shot at is getting shot at, no matter where you are.”

Sain said he knows “what it’s like not to have the equipment you need.” In 1994, Sain said, “I watched a guy hold a baby out a door through my sniper scope. I couldn’t see [well enough to shoot the man]; it was dark and I didn’t have night-vision equipment.” As Sain watched helplessly, the man shot the baby in the back. Sain said he is determined to make sure no deployed military sniper will ever be in that spot — unable to do his mission or worse yet, in danger, because he doesn’t have the right gear. In the six months since he started, Sain estimates that he’s sent at least $10,000 worth of sniper supplies to troops overseas.

Sain’s rules for who gets the goods are simple: deployed American servicemembers with a sniper military occupational specialty, regardless of branch of service. “If they need [anything], they don’t have to do nothing but e-mail me. It takes about two weeks for me to get it to them in the mail.”
E-mails requesting equipment have come from all over — Iraq, Afghanistan and places Sain won’t name for security reasons. Gear requests range from long cotton-tipped swabs for cleaning weapons to ultra-high-tech electronics that only an expert could use. Among the most requested items are specialized batteries, “any and all kinds of Surefire” (a line of tactical flashlights), and S.T.R.I.K.E. (Soldier Tactical Retro Integrated Kit Enhanced) Commando Recon chest harnesses. Almost all of the gear Sain ships has one thing in common, he said: It’s specific to the very specialized sniper community and thus often very hard for civilian family and friends to supply to deployed servicemembers. “It’s easy for [snipers] to write home and say, ‘I want a can of shaving cream,’” Sain said. “But trying to explain a Gen 4 Molle gear to Mom is a lot harder. She’d gladly spend the money, but she doesn’t know where to get it.”

There is one problem with getting gear to military snipers: They move around a lot, especially special forces, Sain said. In fact, he has “six huge boxes” of expensive gear, including spotting scopes and binoculars, packed and ready to ship at the request of a SEAL team whose last known address was Bahrain. But the team appears to have moved on, and now the donation is “just waiting for a mailing label and a customs stamp,” Sain said. So drop him a line, SEALs. “You know who you are,” Sain said.
— For more information or to make a donation, go to www.adoptasniper.com or www.snipersonline.org. Military snipers requesting gear must send their name, rank, service, date of graduation from and location of their sniper school, direct overseas contact information, and contact information for their commanding officer. All requests are verified for authenticity.
Posted by: Steve || 05/18/2004 8:48:34 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  this is f*cking cool, good for Mr.Sain.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 9:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Jarhead is correct. Tossing a few dollars to them won't hurt you.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 9:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Do I get a picture of my adopted sniper and a chatty newsletter every other month? How 'bout a "Adopt-a-Sniper" umbrella to go with my "Air America" tote bag? And a VHS copy of the "3 Tenors".
/sarcasm
I'm off to throw some change in their tip jar.
Posted by: Seafarious || 05/18/2004 11:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Kim du Toit also started something like this last week at his website.
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/18/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Seafarious...maybe they can throw in one of those handsome thongs with cross hairs.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 13:44 Comments || Top||

#6  "Tossing a few dollars to them won't hurt you"

Done. Thanks for the heads-up, Steve.

Dang, my PayPal account is drawing down. Gotta find more stuff to sell on eBay. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/18/2004 15:53 Comments || Top||


Lileks: "This war is ours to lose if we want to."
Excerpted from today’s Bleat.

Time magazine had a Brad-Holland-style cover illo of the prisoner in the Klan hat, and over the magazine’s logo the editors deployed this plaintive cry: How did it come to this?

The crucial word in that sentence is “It.” What is “it,” exactly? The Iraqi campaign? The world birthed on 9/11? The American experience? Us? Them? I suspect it’s intended to be all of the above. It is the promise and glory of America that took a horrid wrong turn and ended up with “this.” That’s the sum total of the planet, right there, a man in a pointy hood. The potential: it. The result: this. The postlapsarian dialectic, as the academics might say, if they wanted to impress their tenured peers.

The story of the prison abuse might have had a different impact if the media had chosen a different tack. The only news that hits the front page is bad news; the innumerable small fragments of good news don’t make A1 because papers have their standards, you see. We are expected to repair Iraq’s dilapidated electrical grid, so replacing an old generator and turning on the power to a neighborhood that’s had brown-outs for ten years is not news. Two Marines dead in an ambush is news because A) death leads, and B) that “mission accomplished” aircraft carrier photo op needs to be debunked, however subtly, as often as possible. The media has come to believe that reporting more good than bad somehow makes them suspect; it goes contrary to The Mission, which is to find out what’s wrong. I had the idea before Jarvis, but he was first to float it: a rebuilding beat. Every day, a story about what’s being accomplished large and small. I’d also pump for the occasional story of heroism, but I suspect that this would make editors uncomfortable. It might be true but it’s not . . . helpful. It would seem like cheerleading.

And we can’t have that.

This smothering gloom, this suppurating corrosion – this isn’t us. This isn’t who we are. If it is, well, we’re lost, because it contains such potent self-hatred that we’ll shrink from defending ourselves, because what we have built isn’t worth defending. Thanks for the push, al Qaeda! We’ll take it from here.

But it’s not us. It’s some, but they don’t set the national temperament. They can set the mood, but not the character. Yet. This war is ours to lose if we want to.

You want to lose it? Me neither.
Posted by: Mike || 05/18/2004 12:52:31 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In terms of the 'war': The 'war' is not restricted to only Iraq, nor Afghanistan.

The robot like suicidal jihadists have declared war on the entire world except those small pockets of ultra-Islamists dedicated to the insane idea of a modern Islamic world-wide empire, and even at that, the radical Muslims battle between Sunni & Shi'ite. Iraq proves that point day after day.

A world war is underway for the very survival of the global economy and Western civilization.

Losing is not an option for America, the U.K, Italy, Poland and all other Coalition members, plus those national leaders grasping the reality of the international situation.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  The Mission!!!! Find out whats wrong!!!!

And then sow seeds of doubt.

I don't think there is anybody who hangs here that doesn't know this. Can pick it out within the first sentence by a professional wordsmith.
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 2:35 Comments || Top||

#3  That's not "The Mission", Lucky. During a Democratic administration, they don't do nearly as much nitpicking and armchair quarterbacking.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 8:58 Comments || Top||

#4  This is an absolutely brilliant commentary.

Perception is reality.

President Bush needs to read and heed. He still has time to clearly desribe our successes (two wars won...nations liberated), our direction and exit strategy. He needs to beat the drum on this and let his advisors address any negative media.

He needs to talk to the people of the nation and not the media - take the media out of the mix.
Posted by: JP || 05/18/2004 19:30 Comments || Top||


Mark Helprin Blasts the Left and the Right
Helprin, the author of "Winter’s Tale" and others, has some harsh words for both Bush and the Left. If I remember correctly, Helprin served in the Israeli army and he has some soldier’s view bones to pick.
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/18/2004 12:32:00 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This was the first rational criticism suggesting more forces that made any sense to me. Worth reading since legitimate criticism without an overwhelming political agenda is so rare.
Posted by: joe || 05/18/2004 9:59 Comments || Top||

#2  But the criticism reeks of circular logic. Bush is being criticized for not going with a much larger force structure when he's having trouble getting the political capital to sustain the one we have.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 05/18/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Man jailed over Marriott bombing
A second Muslim militant has been sentenced in Indonesia over the bombing of Jakarta’s Marriott hotel last August, which killed 12 people. Mohammed Rais was found guilty of transporting chemicals used in the attack and jailed for seven years. Rais, who had denied knowing what the explosives were for, was cleared of being a main player in the bombing.
It’s a safe bet they weren’t for mining operations.
He was impassive as the verdict was read out and later said he would consider whether to appeal. Judge Yohannes Binti told the South Jakarta district court that Rais had been "proven to have legally and convincingly provided assistance for a crime of terrorism". Prosecutors had sought a 10-year jail sentence for Rais. Rais had admitted to transporting explosives from Sumatra to Jakarta after a request from his brother-in-law, fugitive Malaysian terrorism suspect Noordin Mohammad Top. But he denied knowing what the chemicals would be used for. The court ruled there was no evidence to support the accusation that he introduced Asmar Latin Sani, who carried out the bombing, to Mr Noordin and Azahari Husin in January 2003. At previous court appearances Rais apologised to victims of the bombing, and wept when he saw harrowing images of the bomb’s impact.
Time to pay the piper.
He also called on Jemaah Islamiah - the group suspected of being behind the bombing and other attacks in the region, including the 2002 Bali nightclub blast - to renounce violence. Sardona Siliwangi became the first person to be convicted of the Marriott attack in February, when he received a 10-year prison sentence for having stored explosives used in the blast. The main suspects in the case - Mr Noordin and fellow Malaysian Dr Azahari - are still at large. Dr Azahari is accused of masterminding the Marriott hotel attack, and Mr Noordin of helping to build the bomb. Dr Azahari allegedly helped build one of the bombs used in the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002, which killed 202 people, while Mr Noordin is suspected of helping to finance the attack.
Ya just gotta keep hoping that one of these b@stards will eventually finger Bashir. It would be sweet justice to see that maggot’s claims of non-involvement shown for the lies they probably are.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 4:01:33 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Abu Bakar Bashir sues police for ‘US-ordered’ arrest
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh boy! This is really going to have me laying awake during the long winter nights.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iranians Protest US Strikes on Shia Military Bases in Iraq
President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami said in Tehran on 16 May that the United States must apologize for the "desecration and disrespect" it has shown Shi’a Muslim shrines in the holy cities of Al-Najaf and Karbala, where it has fought militiamen loyal to Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.... Meanwhile, clerics reportedly gathered in the central Iranian city of Qom on 17 May to protest against the "desecration" of Shi’a shrines in Iraq, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran reported. The radio station also reported on 17 May that residents of Tehran plan to hold their own rally on 19 May to denounce "the desecration of the holy cities in Iraq and massacre of innocent people by occupying forces." Similar rallies are planned in other cities throughout Iran on 21 May.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 11:03:03 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami said in Tehran on 16 May that the United States must apologize for the "desecration and disrespect" it has shown Shi’a Muslim shrines in the holy cities of Al-Najaf and Karbala, where it has fought militiamen loyal to Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr...

Two words: Fuck OFF.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/19/2004 0:16 Comments || Top||


Lebanon foils Israeli plot against Hezbollah
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 13:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ooh! Deep-laid Zionist(TM) Conspiracies! I love it!

Wonder if the woman was stoned to death; the article does mention she had a "lover" and not a "husband." And you've got to love the quotes around "terrorist" near the end.
Posted by: The Doctor || 05/18/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Lebanon has jailed some 30 people since December over a string of bomb attacks on American-style food outlets, foiled attacks on the fortress-like US embassy on the edge of Beirut and alleged plots to assassinate US ambassador Vincent Battle.

Nope, no "terrorism" at all. Nobody here but us chickens!
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 14:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Lebanon has jailed some 30 people since December over a string of bomb attacks on American-style food outlets

Anyone seen Jose Bove lately?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||


Editor of the Syrian Ruling Party Paper Attacks Supporters of Liberalism
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:55 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Excellent. Well said. This meme seems to be taking hold recently, as true liberals are waking up to discover whose bed they are sleeping in.

Let's just hope this attempt to restore sanity, and others like it, can sink in before American efforts to establish democracy in the ME are destroyed - leaving millions more to die and be subjected under tyranny - all for a few cheap slogans and in-crowd party invitations.
Posted by: B || 05/18/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Reality check: Hmmm. The Bush government has pressured Egypt to release almost half of the 20,000 Ikhwan detainees that it held on Sept. 11, 2001, in the name of political participation. The promotion of "political Islam" by the Bush-Powell cartoon-government, is: surrender to terror. Bush will do nothing that would delegitimate the Saudi tyranny, because they own him.
Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls || 05/18/2004 14:07 Comments || Top||

#3  dog bites trolls - you are so full of it. the sauds own Bush? what world are you living in? there are many of corporations/people in the US that have had business dealings (going back decades) with the sauds! dumbass

it is easier to control the house of saud then it would be to control a jihadis govt in soddy. keeping the house of saud in place ensures our oil supplies and means we do not have to occuppy soddy..dumbass

if you think Bush has surrendered to terror who do you want in the white house? kerry who calls this a police matter?

dog bites trolls is no other than man bites dog or better known as MAN BITES DOG DONG
you are very anti Bush but also very extreme in your views. i just do not see how a kerry admin will tackle the wot with more energy and decisive and bold action than the Bush admin..

Explain how the soddys own Bush.....it is the soddys who are changing policy to keep the US happy right now.
Posted by: Dan || 05/18/2004 14:28 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
One Muslim tells it like it is
From Healing Iraq:
Strange coincidence that the Nick Berg video was released almost simultaneously with the video of Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’ displaying the severed head of an Israeli soldier on a table. Al-Jazeera had the head blurred out, and the Nick Berg video was casually mentioned near the end of their news bulletin, and that was that. No extensive discussions with Arab ‘intelligentsia’ followed, no replaying of the video over and over again for days (as the Abu Ghraib images), no talk shows with enraged, fist shaking, name-calling Arab figures discussing the effect of these videos on the ‘image’ of the Islamic or Arab world. Just shame and guilty silence. Apparently, pictures of an American female soldier taunting a naked man with underwear on his head is much much more gruesome to Arabs. I guess not everyone is perfect.

So, to distance myself from the shameful hypocritical Arab and Muslim masses. I wish to denounce this barbaric act and the pathetic ideology that fueled it, to disown any person from my part of the world who would justify it, and to offer my sincere condolences and sympathy to the family and countrymen of Nicholas Berg. And for Muslims, who are definitely going to say ‘this isn’t the real Islam’:
“When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.”
Surat Mohammed:4
Grow up, and leave the 7th century.

Update:
Some angry readers have interpreted the above last statement as an attack against fellow Muslims. That was not what I had intended. I usually do my best to avoid theological debates on Islam for safety considerations but I’ll indulge them just this once. My purpose was to point out that Islam indeed excuses such barbaric acts. This is not the same as saying that all Muslims believe in such acts or commit them, moderate Muslims exist, but Islam is not moderate. Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists have not deviated from Islam, in fact all their practices are derived from the Quran and Hadith. So yes, Islam is the problem here. Poverty, economic conditions, abuse by so called colonialism, and political frustration are not. Similar conditions elsewhere in the world have not prompted non-Muslims to commit suicide bombings or fly planes into towers. Islam, along with favourable cultural, tribal, and social values existing in the Arab world has prompted that drive. Islam and the Quran alone are the root cause.

The solution is not however to alienate all Muslims, or to expel them, or annihilate them. It is up to ‘moderate’ Muslims and their clerics to carefully examine their scriptures and to reform, the same way Jews and Christians did. The Quran is a book, and its tenets were appropriate for a certain era in history. Most of it does not apply today, so it is not ‘untouchable’. You either believe in the whole book, together with its violent verses, or you should stop claiming to be a consistent believer. You cannot select verses which appeal to your argument and ignore the rest.

How would you explain these, for instance:
“The just retribution for those who fight Allah and His messenger, and commit horrendous crimes, is to be killed, or crucified, or to have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or to be banished from the land. This is to humiliate them in this life, then they suffer a far worse retribution in the hereafter.” Surat Al-Ma’ida:33

“O believers, do not take Jews and Christians as allies, they are allies of one another. Those among you who ally themselves with these belong with them.” Surat Al-Ma’ida:51
I can go on and on, but I would rather not. I have intensively examined the Quran and Sunna, and I might have a few things that would scare some pious believers. Maybe, some other time, when I’m in a safer environment, I would devote a website or a book to the subject.
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/18/2004 1:27:32 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hot damn! Someone's got a clue!

Problem is, anyone who realizes this is instantly denounced as a heretic and an apostate, and becomes targeted for death. This is the problem with Islam: it does not tolerate criticism. Christianity went through a similar period ("NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"), and it is indeed regrettable. Difference was, our holy books don't say that those who speak ill of us should be condemned to death. Until the mullahs and imams and other assorted idiots who make up the Islamic "leadership" start allowing criticism and debate, it's not going to change, and it's not going to leave the seventh century. I applaud this man for his realization, and I wish him the best. May others come to the same conclusion and reform what they can before it's too late.
Posted by: The Doctor || 05/18/2004 21:50 Comments || Top||

#2 
Because of illiteracy, censorship, suppression of dissent, and a lack of information, Moslem clerics have been able to exert decisive influence over social thought in Moslem countries. Now that monopoly is rapidly crumbling. The author of "Healing Iraq" and many other dissidents like him will exert a strong and profound influence on many Moslems. The simple fact that individuals now may openly dissent from the common opinion indicates an incipient revolution that cannot be stopped.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 22:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Mike S, let us hope a revolution like you mention comes to fruition. I'd say it will if we stay the course, if we cut and run then bad things are bound to happen.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 22:17 Comments || Top||

#4  [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls TROLL || 05/18/2004 22:27 Comments || Top||

#5  I appreciate Zeyed's introspection. From the American standpoint I suggest that we randomly think of the first 20 people we talk to each day. From those people I think we should internally tally how many could correctly answer the simple question: Who is most responsible for Nick Berg's death? (Hint: there is really only one correct answer.) I speculate that 10 out of the 20 people I speak to at work would answer that question incorrectly. There is our most immediate problem.
Posted by: Anonymous4828 || 05/18/2004 22:49 Comments || Top||

#6  An interesting and good perspective which I like, but there are two takes on this -- Zeyad's probably the one we've heard of more, but I think he confirmed that he's a atheist and "ethnic Sunni" while Sam Hammorabi is a devout Shi'a and managed both to defend Islam and use it to bash Mr. Berg's murderers ...
Posted by: Edward Yee || 05/18/2004 23:12 Comments || Top||

#7  Islam cannot reform. The so-called "liberal" periods of Islam began when Muslim conquerers were in a minority position and had to acquiesce to acceptance of non-Muslim practices. As they approached majority status, fundamentalism arose in every case.

A text-book of Islamofascist revival is: Malaysia. Now that secular ethnic Chinese are in the minority, Malay clerics have now gone so far as to impose Islamic garb requirements on non-Muslims.

The unholy Koran is allowed by the savages to be the "word of Allah" (the Muslim tribal deity), whereas other doctrine, sacred to other faiths, is taken to be the work of scribes. Muslims have to take Mohammed's fabrication literally, and they cannot interpret the Koran as ecclesiastical parable.

Therefore: get these pigs out of my neighborhood; your neighborhood; and Western Civilization in general.

Civilization and Muslims are like oil and water. To hell with these pigs, and their apologists.
Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls || 05/18/2004 22:27 Comments || Top||


Guts
From the same New York Army National Guard unit that picked up escaped hostage Thomas Hamill comes word of a young soldier who killed 20 or more Iraqi insurgents when his patrol was ambushed on Easter Sunday. Spec. Timmy Haag of South Glens Falls, N.Y., made his remarkable display of courage and cool under fire as C Company, 2nd Battalion of the 108th Light Infantry was conducting a sweep of southern Samarra in open 5-ton trucks. The vehicles are so slow and high-riding that it borders on the criminal to transport soldiers on them into a known hot spot bristling with rocket-propelled grenades. Troops nicknamed the trucks "RPG magnets," Staff Sgt. Troy Mechanick said on Friday.

The nickname proved tragically apt when the truck carrying Haag and 13 other members of his platoon was roughly 100 yards past a mosque flying the fedayeen flag. An RPG slammed into the left side, killing 21-year-old Pfc. Nathan Brown of South Glens Falls. Many more might have died had Brown not taken the brunt of the blast. Two others were seriously wounded, including Mechanick, who was lifted to his feet by the concussion. "It turned everything yellow and green, then everything goes slow," Mechanick recalled.

The grenade was followed by automatic weapons fire, and Mechanick tried to reach for his M-4 rifle. His left hand did not go where he commanded it and he realized his arm was hanging limp at his side, broken in four places. He reached with his right hand and saw the middle finger was dangling, all but severed. "I said to myself, 'I don't need that to shoot,'" Mechanick recalled. He managed to undo the safety and raise his rifle, but the weapon failed to fire. "It was full of shrapnel," Mechanick said. Mechanick turned to a wounded soldier and asked to use his weapon. "His response was I'm crazy," Mechanick recalled. "My response was, 'No, I want to live.' ... Somebody called out, 'Nate's dead.' I called out, 'We've got to keep security up, or we'll all be dead.'"

Haag had begun returning fire with his SAW machine gun from the first moments after the blast. "First thing he did was stand up on the driver's side," Mechanick recalled. "He saw a couple of enemy soldiers. He suppressed them, killing two or three immediately." Haag turned to the passenger side and suppressed the fire coming from that direction. He and fellow soldier James MacDonald then clambered down and fought their way down the line of vehicles to notify their commander their truck had been hit. "Small arms fire, AK-47 and RPG," Mechanick recalled "Haag's just running though it and as he's running he's shooting, killing people." Haag and MacDonald passed four alleys, each of which had between six and 15 enemies armed with automatic weapons and RPGs. Haag is said to have shot them all. "Timmy Haag was phenomenal," Mechanick said. "When the firefight happened, Timmy Haag was the man."

Haag and MacDonald dashed back to their truck. Haag emptied the last 200-round drum of his squad automatic weapon and clambered into a truck so high-riding the unit had welded on a ladder in the back. An RPG skipped off the road where he had been standing. Haag grabbed another weapon as the line of a half-dozen vehicles began lumbering toward the nearest American outpost. Haag called out that he would cover the right side while another soldier covered the left. Mechanick had numerous other wounds and he was pale and short of breath from the loss of blood. Haag kept calling to him and nudging him with his boot as he fired. "He knew I was going to sleep, and if you go to sleep you don't ever wake up," Mechanick said. "He's shooting at the enemy, kicking me, shooting at the enemy, kicking me: 'Sgt. Mechanick, don't you go to sleep.' Shoot a couple of rounds. Kick me. 'Sgt. Mechanick, don't you go to sleep.'"

Two roadside bombs went off close enough to lift the truck off the ground. Haag spotted an Iraqi fleeing a courtyard, detonator still in hand. Haag cut the bomber in half and kept firing, by one estimate 1,500 rounds in all. Mechanick clung to consciousness as the patrol reached the outpost, and he was flown out by helicopter. He was later told that Haag stayed on the truck with Brown, covering the body with a poncho and keeping a kind of honor guard. Haag saw that Brown's American flag shoulder patch had been blown off. Haag retrieved it, cleaned it as best he could and handed it to Staff Sgt. Patrick Abrams. Finally, Haag and Abrams gently lowered the fallen soldier from a vehicle that never should have been used to send them into harm's way. Mechanick later described Brown as "the perfect kid" and recalled that the Army promised when they headed for Iraq in February that they would be given armored vehicles. "They lied to us," Mechanick said. No armor guarantees protection, but even unarmored Humvees would have at least been low to the ground and fast. One detail did not escape Mechanick's attention as he lay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, watching news reports of his company's May 2 encounter with Thomas Hamill. "What was in the background? Five-tons," Mechanick said.

Mechanick is now back home, trying to adjust to a country that imagines itself not at war and hoping we will learn something from Brown's death. Haag is still in that place called The Sandbox, riding RPG magnets, known to be extraordinarily bright and a talented artist as well as a soldier whose courage would be called uncommon had he not so many brave comrades.
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/18/2004 13:35 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Haag and 13 other members of his platoon was roughly 100 yards past a mosque flying the fedayeen flag."

rules of war - knock it down - they appreciate nothing less
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 21:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Wow.

Mechanick is now back home, trying to adjust to a country that imagines itself not at war
Thanks to the leftist "mainstream" media and the Democrats, none of whom are worthy of licking these men's boots.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/18/2004 21:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Well said, Barbara! (In my daughter's high school US history class, the teacher is daily comparing the WOT to Vietnam "thanks to the leftist "mainstream" media and the Democrats." )

Many honors to our True American Heroes. We love you Timothy Haag.
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 21:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Haag had best receive a Silver Star for valor in combat. In an age that adulates overpaid and undereducated sports stars he is a genuine hero.

Would that those who held the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were such professionals.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 22:05 Comments || Top||

#5  ex-lib, I'd suggest your daughter ask her prof some pointed questions on whether he/she knows the difference between a triple canopy jungle and a desert - because they have about as much in common as 'Nam and the WOT.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 22:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Jarhead: Yeah . . . but she'd get slaughtered. This teacher has everyone in the class believing the LLL lies. But, if you can give me 5 or 6 simple comparisons, I'll pass them on to her.

I have a question: Why weren't these guys given the appropriate type of vehicles? What's going on about that? " . . . the Army promised when they headed for Iraq in February that they would be given armored vehicles. "They lied to us," Mechanick said. No armor guarantees protection, but even unarmored Humvees would have at least been low to the ground and fast." That sounds kind of "Nam"-ish. Any ideas?
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 22:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Speaking of Humvees, a Soldier of Fortune bashed them as too weak to stand up even with up-armoring, and suggested switching to a light, tracked APC called the M113 Gavin ...
Posted by: Edward Yee || 05/18/2004 23:10 Comments || Top||

#8  Thanks for posting this!!!

Our local upstate paper so severly edited down this story that it appeared that the survivors were just embittered and disillusioned about Brown's death.

Haag is a bona fide upstate NY hero yet we were not given any of this information. Incredible.
Posted by: JDB || 05/18/2004 23:34 Comments || Top||

#9  A lot of this has to do with how the Army classifies infantry. There are mech, Bradley, light, airborne and air-assault varieties. IMO, the Army needs to learn from the Marines who consider infantry to be infantry. If the mission is airmobile, they cover down on helicopters. If the mission requires light armor, they cover down on LAVs. Amphibious -- amphtracks. Jarhead, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Marines train on all of these platforms as they go through their training cycle.

For the Army to put a light unit like this into M113's (which as EY suggests would save a lot of lives and additionally would be pretty cheap since we have a lot of M113's sitting around) is pure heresy. We'd have to re-train them, put them through NTC, conduct an EXEVAL, change the TO&E. etc. While all of that is true, it ignores the basic fact that the mission dictates that these soldiers need armored protection, not their TO&E. They're using the trucks as APCs anyway. Why not put them in real ones?
Posted by: 11A5S || 05/19/2004 13:25 Comments || Top||

#10  11A5S/EL> The Marine Battalions have three rifle companies and one weapons company. The weapons company usually has anti-armor and heavy gun units in Hummers. They sometime detach out their 81 mortars platoon. The grunt companies are dedicated each to AAVs, Helos, and boats respectively - hence combined arms meets combined maneuver platforms - and all in one battalion. We do cross train on all of them, that's just basic sops so no matter what your on you can operate well. The big difference in culture between us and the soldiers is that we often task organize for the mission. Not sure why these guys were in 5 tons so close to ambush sites or for that matter how a Sgt so far down the totem pole says how he was promised armor other then hearsay running around the platoon. No Sergeant in the Corps is going to know any high level logistics having to do w/armor. My guess is that they were or are supposed to be motorized infantry not mechanized, hence motorized lads need lots more flank security during movements. Sounds like the unit made a tactical mistake or didn't recon the area well and was lucky a guy like Haag step up to be the hero. This is just my initial guess but I could be off.

Ex-lib> Sorry to hear a pinko is teaching revisionist history to your daughter.
(1) have her ask her prof how many men died between Mar 1965 and Mar '66 in 'Nam compared to 1 yr. in Iraq.
(2) There is actually some sort of Iraqi exit strategy, the 'Nam exit strategy was almost non-existant to say the least.
(3) Rummy's about a million times better then McNamara.
(4) 'Nam had Giap and Ho, who the hell does Iraq have?
(5) The only thing that's similar is the number of morons we still have in the media and in the school system. (maybe she shouldn't use the last one but it would be funny)
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/19/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||


Former Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Abuse Scandal
May 18, 2004 — Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

Does anyone woder how this piling on seems to be occuring now that the WMDs have started to be located? It is as though, even though the military is non-political, certain events get broadcast to help certain opposition candidate, and the real cover up of the big story about WMDs, and the threat that looms bigger now? Or am I paranoid?

It would be interesting to know the political leanings of this "Sgt. Samuel Provance" even though the military is non political.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 7:46:22 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think you're paranoid, yes.
WMD have surfaced, yes: a grenade from the Iraq/Iran war. Even the US Army in Iraq doesn't think it is worth wile speaking about this grenade as being WMD (check the CPA website, you'll find nothing)
Posted by: Fredje || 05/18/2004 19:54 Comments || Top||

#2  "Or am I paranoid?"

Yeah, you are. The thing about the Sarin gas happened AFTER the abuse scandal broke out, and many many months after the actual abuses occured.

Let's have a sense of time linearity here.

---

As a sidenote -- there was a chaplain at Gitmo some months ago that was first accused of holding sensitive info (aka possible espionage) in his computer, but then *those* charges got dropped and were transformed to charges of holding pornographical material. With the agreement that he'd remain quiet about the whole affair to reporters.

So far this is only guesses in the dark, but I've heard people wondering whether the pornographical material and the "sensitive" material were one and the same -- in short, depictions of similar abuses.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 19:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Fredje: WMD have surfaced, yes: a grenade from the Iraq/Iran war.

WMD grenades - a real handy thing to have around - deploy by throwing it, jumping into the nearest hole and kissing your ass goodbye.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 20:00 Comments || Top||

#4  WMD have surfaced, yes: a grenade from the Iraq/Iran war.

Uh, no.

It was an 155mm artillery shell. I don't know how well you know metric, but 155mm is BIG. here's a picture of a 155mm artillery piece.

Hardly a "hand grenade", eh, spanky?

As to the importance the military gives it, well, maybe the CPA site doesn't have anything, but, damn, go to www.centcom.mil, and it's the first item on the page.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 20:08 Comments || Top||

#5  AK: That don't make no sense. If you're going to prosecute the porn charges, then you have to introduce the evidence in a court-martial. Which would mean that the defense would demand that the porn images be introduced into evidence. Result: abuse photos in the public domain. If you wanted to cover up, you'd drop the porn charges and go for an administrative discharge. Get the guy out of the way and the proceedings (if any) can be sealed.

A little insight into US Military culture. "Morals" charges are usually only pursued in two circumstances. 1. You've pissed a lot of people off, they can't get anything else on you, and they want to blackball you (i.e. Kelly Flynn). 2. You're caught doing it red-handed on government property. I'm not saying that morals prosecutions aren't pursued for vendettas or by bible thumping commanders, just that 90% are in category one or two.
Posted by: 11A5S || 05/18/2004 20:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Aris--

"Let's have a sense of time linearity here."

Indeed. BigEd was specifically asking about "piling on..... occuring now".

Posted by: Wuzzalib || 05/18/2004 20:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Wuzzalib understands my point even thru the typos which happen when I get really pissed.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 20:36 Comments || Top||

#8 
It would be interesting to know the political leanings of this "Sgt. Samuel Provance" even though the military is non political.

Why did you put quotation marks around his name? Are you suggesting that his name is fake? Are you suggesting that "Sgt. Samuel Provance" is a liar? Do you think the name "Samuel" suggests he's a Jew? Do you think that's significant?
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 20:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out.

In other words, Provance was involved and is throwing wolf meat to the press in an attempt to save his own ass.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 20:53 Comments || Top||

#10  Sylwester - I thouroughly resent your implicatons that I am anti-semitic . . far from it if you have seen any of my other postings here. My brother-in-law is Jewish. As to the quotes. Yeah. Is that really his name? I don't know . Is he a liar? Maybe. I think RC in #9 has a interesting theory though.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 21:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Aris - I bet if one of these was released at the Olympic stands you'd change your tune
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 21:19 Comments || Top||

#12  If one of these grenades was released at the Olympic stands, I'd still think that it's absurd to think that the abuses are being revealed to coverup for WMD discoveries, especially since the current "piling on" occured before the Sarin thing.

Since I didn't comment otherwise on the Sarin thing, I don't see how I could change my tune on it.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 21:23 Comments || Top||

#13  BigEd: I apologize for my insinuation. I meant to extend your own "paranoid" insinuations along the line that paranoia often extends. I should have restrained myself.

#9: Another explanation is that Fay is trying to intimidate "Sgt Provance" to prevent him from disrupting the attempt to pin all the blame on seven "bad apple" enlisted military policemen.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 21:23 Comments || Top||

#14  I stand corrected, however it becomes apparent that the media and Democratic party (not so different over here) are perpetuating the story of abuses past all reason, simply because nothing else has had traction against W. Look for the backlash and media complaints against being "shot as the messenger"
I really fear for American athletes in your Olympics, and I expect the Greek security to fall short. I would really hope to be proven wrong
Frank G
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 21:28 Comments || Top||

#15  I'm also worried. Never said I wasn't.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 21:49 Comments || Top||

#16  Interesting that Provance would speak to ABCetc against his commander's orders. Doubt a political ajenda, I'd guess there were some definite f*ck ups but nothing (until the supposed homicides are dealt with) too surprising other then the two drunk assholes who tried stripping that female iraqi epw - but even they were subdued by other MPs who were obviously doing the right thing. He claims definite intel coercion against the mp's to turn up the stress - I can see that scenario. However, much of his statement seems to be hearsay from intel bubbas and not much in the eyewitness department on his own behalf.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 22:01 Comments || Top||

#17  Aris: the point is that the leftist American press has a political agenda and is doing what is called, in the news business, "puffing" one story over another in order to turn the tide of public opinion in the direction the publisher-owners want it to go.

I'm sure you have a lot of that kind of manipulation going on in Greece, so you can relate.

The chemical weapons they're finding are important and newsworthy, but the press has been told to "puff" the abuse scandal at the prison, most likely in order to take attention off the finding of chemical weapons, so that public opinion will remain against the WOT and against the current administration.

The prison abuses were revealed already, before the discovery of the chemical weapons--not that they were revealed to take attention away from the WMD find--it's the extra, overblown, sensationalized coverage that's the give-away regarding the left's aims.

They do the same thing by NOT reporting on the good things happening with the Kurds, NOT reporting on the slavery/Islam problems, NOT reporting on the regular abuses of women and children which are condoned by Islam, and NOT reporting on the self-stated aims of the Islamic fundamentalists. These stories are all quite newsworthy, but aren't covered for political reasons. People forget the news outlets are businesses--out to make a buck. They do what they think will make them money, whether they're right or not.

That's the point BigEd was making.

Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 22:19 Comments || Top||

#18  Another explanation is that Fay is trying to intimidate "Sgt Provance" to prevent him from disrupting the attempt to pin all the blame on seven "bad apple" enlisted military policemen.

Doubtful.

If the sickos who did this were really following orders, they should name the person who gave them the order. Then they should explain why they forget their basic training classes about the laws of war and illegal orders.

There's also the little issue about Sivitz (sp?) saying that the officers had no idea what was going on, because they would have stopped it. Hard to square that testimony with the "they wuz framed" mindset, unless you want to declare the entire military justice system complicit.

Once you head down that path, you may as well claim the photos were actually taken by Rumsfeld while Rice called out directions.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 22:23 Comments || Top||

#19 
If the sickos who did this were really following orders, they should name the person who gave them the order.
They should and maybe they will. In the meantime, some have said that the photographs were staged and some have said they were directed by interrogators.

There's also the little issue about Sivitz (sp?) saying that the officers had no idea what was going on, because they would have stopped it.
I think Sivitz meant that the officers would have objected to the guards jumping onto piles of prisoners, stomping on toes, random punching, and other wild horseplay that he described.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/19/2004 0:32 Comments || Top||


Abu Ghraib Families: Culprits Should Face Death
On the eve of the first court-martial in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, relatives of those still held at Abu Ghraib prison said Tuesday the only suitable punishment would be death -- illustrating the potential gap in expectations in the case.
Obviously these are people who benefitted under Saddam. The’ve grown used to having their ’enemies’ killed out of hand for ’justice’ and expect the U.S. to do the same.
"If they actually committed such offenses, they should be executed," said Odai Ibrahim, 55, as he waited in a line with hundreds of other Iraqis to visit relatives at the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad -- notorious as the site of executions and torture during Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Sorry dude, we have this little thing called the rule of law here.
But the first defendant, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, faces only a year in prison, a fine, reduction in pay and a bad conduct discharge. He has cooperated with authorities and is expected to testify against the others, who face more serious charges.
I think he should serve his year in Abu Ghraib prison myself. Poetic Justice and all...
Three others -- Staff Sgt. Ivan Fredericks, Sgt. Javal Davis, and Spc. Charles Graner Jr. -- will be arraigned Wednesday before Sivits goes on trial. The arraignments and the Sivits trial will be open to media coverage. Nine Arab newspaper or broadcast journalists are among 34 news organizations to be allowed seats in the courtroom. The U.S. military hopes the presence in the courtroom of such prominent Arab media as the Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera television networks will demonstrate American resolve to determine who was responsible for the abuse and punish the guilty.
Is it me or is including terrorists such as Al-Jitzz a bad idea?
However, the U.S. military has barred the broadcast of Wednesday’s hearings on radio or television, and is prohibiting all recording devices and mobile phones from the courtroom... However, comments heard Tuesday outside Abu Ghraib suggest the outcome may not satisfy Iraqi demands for justice, especially since the first defendant faces the least severe charges. "Some of the people inside have spent two years in prison and they are innocent,"
Yeah right... all of our prisons are filled with innocent people too...
Ibrahim said. "The maximum sentence for the Americans is one year. Is that justice?"
Yes. It is.
The International Committee of the Red thingy Cross, which inspects prisons in Iraq and elsewhere,
But, for some reason, not in Saddam’s Iraq, Iran, Syria, or North Korea....
has said up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake. A 24-page Red Cross report also cited abuses, some "tantamount to torture," including brutality, forcing people to wear hoods, humiliation and threats of imminent execution.
These people obviously hadn’t visited the mass graves or people-shreadders which Saddam and his sons loved so much.
Sharhabil Abdul-Rahman, 41, said he and his brother were arrested by U.S. soldiers during a raid of their Baghdad home in March. He was released, but his brother remains in custody. "This court will not bring justice," he said outside the prison. "It’s nonsense. They should be tried by the Iraqis. According to Islamic law they should be executed."
Of course according to Islamic law (as practiced by Saddam) you and your entire family should be dead. Please line up with your family along this trench here for some Islamic/Saddam Justice. Where’s my damn M16?
Thunijah Jassim Mahmood, 70, waited for hours Tuesday in the desert heat to see her son Abdul-Razzaq Mahmood, 34, who has been held for more than a month. "They stacked them naked, one upon the other," she said. "I don’t believe there will be real justice by the Americans. I want them to leave Iraq and go home."
Must be one of Saddam’s supporters..
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 6:42:08 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It was terribly inhumane what we did to the Sadaam supporters at the AG prison. A sad display of man's inhumanity to man. The only solution to remedy this would be to torture and kill the perpetrators. Making them really suffer would get the point across that we will not tolerate this type of behavior in a civilized world.
Posted by: B || 05/18/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey Odai, STFU. NO Arab can even approach the U.S. on any kind of human/civil rights issue. So a few of our guys screwed up, don't think you can begin to preach to us.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 05/18/2004 19:13 Comments || Top||

#3  "NO Arab can even approach the U.S. on any kind of human/civil rights issue."

Yeah, they can. No Arab *state* can, but individual Arabs still can. Unless you have reason to believe that these individual Arabs had violated human/civil rights themselves?

And the death-penalty is still part of American law AFAIK, even though you don't apply it to torturers, only to murderers.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 19:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Yep, Aris, and if one of these creeps were guilty of murder, he'd be facing the gallows. But so far none of them are accused of that.


"This court will not bring justice," he said outside the prison. "It’s nonsense. They should be tried by the Iraqis. According to Islamic law they should be executed."


Well, yes, because they're kafirs who had the gall to touch one of the Most Holy.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 19:50 Comments || Top||

#5  And the death-penalty is still part of American law AFAIK, even though you don't apply it to torturers, only to murderers.

Actually, very few murderers in the US get the death penalty. There are about 16,000 murders a year. If you assume about 2 murders each, that implies about 8,000 perpetrators. The execution rate is about 100 a year. That's about 1.25% of all murderers.

As usual, Aris tries to confuse the issue. Human/civil rights are rights granted by the state. Arab individuals have nothing to do with it. (This is probably Aris's way of saying that not all Arabs are terrorists. The unfortunate thing is that most international terrorists are Arabs).
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 19:52 Comments || Top||

#6  I think Aris is making more of a tranzi "separate the individual from the nation" argument
Posted by: docob || 05/18/2004 19:54 Comments || Top||

#7  "Human/civil rights are rights granted by the state."

No, human rights are inalienable. They are not *granted* by the state, anymore than life itself is, they are simply protected by it, the same way that life itself is.

"I think Aris is making more of a tranzi "separate the individual from the nation" argument"

Or from the race. You might have just as well argued that no black slave should have gotten civil rights back in the 50s since there existed no sub-Saharan country that was more democratic than the USA.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Sorry, the last sentence meant to say "black slave gotten freedom in the 1800s or black person got civil rights back in the 50s"
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Aris: No, human rights are inalienable. They are not *granted* by the state, anymore than life itself is, they are simply protected by it, the same way that life itself is.

Political rhetoric and practical reality are two different things. Aris can talk all he wants about individuals providing rights, but the fact is that individuals don't enforce the law - governments do. And even if you leave out the government, Arabs individually don't begin to approach the US in terms of accepting the rights of various categories of outsiders in their society - without prompting by the government, Arabs kill converts to other religions, their female relatives for dishonoring them, foreign missionaries for preaching to Muslims in the most brutal ways possible.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 20:10 Comments || Top||

#10  Aris - an Olympic stadium update, if you would...
Posted by: Anonymous4930 || 05/18/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||

#11  Aris: You might have just as well argued that no black slave should have gotten civil rights back in the 50s since there existed no sub-Saharan country that was more democratic than the USA.

Black slaves had civil rights in the 1950's. It just wasn't enforced in certain regions of the South - the US has a federal system, after all. Many Arab countries have slavery even today, and in the Arab countries where it was made illegal, that happened for the most part, only in this century. As to slavery, Europeans used millions of Jews and Gypsies (Germany) in the 20th century, in addition to millions of political prisoners (Russia) in Siberia as slave labor, working millions to death. Whatever you might say about American slavery, slave owners kept their chattel alive, and ended in in the 19th century. Note that Greek democracy itself was based on slave labor - only the aristocrats had a vote.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 20:16 Comments || Top||

#12  "but the fact is that individuals don't enforce the law - governments do"

And governments occasionally are tyrannical and get overthrown.

"And even if you leave out the government, Arabs individually don't begin to approach the US in terms of accepting the rights of various categories of outsiders in their society "

Arabs individually are individuals, which means that you don't know how they accept the rights of others unless you've talked to each of them on an individual basis, not a statistical one.

"without prompting by the government, Arabs kill converts to other religions, their female relatives for dishonoring them, foreign missionaries for preaching to Muslims in the most brutal ways possible. "

Many Arabs do, yeah. And many Arabs don't. That's the thing that makes them individuals.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:16 Comments || Top||

#13  Uh, #10 was me, my bad...
Posted by: Raj || 05/18/2004 20:17 Comments || Top||

#14  "Black slaves had civil rights in the 1950's. It just wasn't enforced in certain regions of the South - the US has a federal system, after all."

Which means they didn't actually have them in those certain regions of the South.

And your talks about what Arab or European countries are or were doing is still irrelevant, since we're talking about individuals.

Raj> Here

And can the stalker be banned?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:19 Comments || Top||

#15  Raj> "Uh, #10 was me, my bad..."

How did I ever guess?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:20 Comments || Top||

#16  Aris - cool video, thanks!
Posted by: Raj || 05/18/2004 20:23 Comments || Top||

#17  bottom line is the US will correct and learn from it's missdeeds. we are not perfect but the world at large thinks we are. everywhere people are hung up on what the US does - positive or negative. if the US farts it is on the local news before news from thier own country.

this so-called abuse scandal will be handled and as stated no one was killed so there will be no death penality.

it is a ludicrous for an arab to be calling for the US to take action when they will not look at themselves and demand similar action. until the arabs can do this they will not be taken seriously.
Posted by: Dan || 05/18/2004 20:25 Comments || Top||

#18  Aris, can you point out some individual Arabs who have stood up and said "We will not tolerate this" against an Arab government. WITHOUT voilence of some sort.

In fact, if individuals are different, then a majority of Kurds should be allowed to make their own state. Only a small group of individuals are fighting Turkey, the rest are trying through peaceful means. This seems to be implied by what you're saying Aris.
Posted by: Charles || 05/18/2004 20:26 Comments || Top||

#19  since we're talking about individuals.

No, that's what you're talking about, as Zhang points out in #5.

It seems to me that the proposed Iraqi 'eye for a bite of a shoe' punishment (in accordance with sharia law, natch) cannot be reasonably argued in the affirmative other than to satisfy Arab blood lust, so I'm hard pressed to understand what your point is.

And the death-penalty is still part of American law AFAIK, even though you don't apply it to torturers, only to murderers.

In one scenario, people die. In the other, they don't. I'm no Perry Mason, but I think that's the distinction we make.
Posted by: Raj || 05/18/2004 20:33 Comments || Top||

#20  Aris, is there a point here or are you just trolling to get an angry reaction from someone?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 05/18/2004 20:33 Comments || Top||

#21  "Aris, can you point out some individual Arabs who have stood up and said "We will not tolerate this" against an Arab government. WITHOUT violence of some sort."

I don't know that many individual corpses.

"In fact, if individuals are different, then a majority of Kurds should be allowed to make their own state."

Am not at all sure how the idea of national independence flows from the idea of individual rights.

But yeah, I think that it'd be good if the part of Kurdistan currently in Turkey were to become independent in a velvet divorce, ASSUMING that it'd be *atleast* as fully democratic and protective of human rights as Turkey is. Among other things Turkey would no longer have borders to as many Arab and Middle-eastern states as previously, which would make the EU a bit less fearful of turning Turkey's borders into its own.

I also think that it'd be currently bad if the part of Kurdistan currently in Iraq were to become independent, because I think that Iraqi division would lead to Iran and Syria being all too capable of intimidating the pieces. But as for whether they have the *right* to become independent -- yeah, I think they should have that right. Even though it'd probably end up being bad in the long term.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:43 Comments || Top||

#22  Raj> "No, that's what you're talking about, as Zhang points out in #5"

No, that's what Cyber Sarge talked about -- he said "No Arab can even...".

My English isn't yet so bad not to know that he was talking about *individual Arabs*, not Arab states. Perhaps your English is that bad, but not mine.

whitecollar redneck> Read my words. Then try to parse them. The point that is in them is the one I've already stated repeatedly: Individual Arabs have the right to complain about human rights abuses. Arab *states* don't.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 20:47 Comments || Top||

#23  The argument that the US "soldiers" who abused Iraqi prisoners should be killed reminds me of the animal rights activist who said "These people are like Nazis! They should be killed!" after viewing a film about slaughterhouse workers.
Posted by: Tibor || 05/18/2004 20:49 Comments || Top||

#24  I believe individual Arabs (and all people)have the right to speak out. Folks like Saddam and Assad didn't provide their Arab populations with the opportunity to voice any objections. The point in this thread is the lack of perspective of some in the Arab world. So far, no reported event in the prison has risen to the level of a capital offense.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 05/18/2004 20:54 Comments || Top||

#25 
Some of the people inside have spent two years in prison and they are innocent .... The maximum sentence for the Americans is one year. Is that justice?

An occupied population has the right under international law to demand that the occupation force not abuse prisoners. On the other hand, the occupation force has the right under that same international law to hold prisoners until the conflict ends. We do not have to put prisoners on trial and sentence them in order to keep holding them for years and even decades.

That's the trade-off -- long established and universally recognized in the civilized world -- that we upset when we decided to abuse prisoners in Iraq to make them talk. This attempt is a form of trial. We have justified legal claims that normally are irrelevant with regard to wartime prisoners.

Now when this Iraqi alleges that "some of these people are innocent" his argument has more validity than it normally should.

By the way, the maximum sentence for Sivitz is one year, because he made a deal and will be tried in a special court-martial. The other six will be tried in general courts-martial and face much longer sentences.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 21:55 Comments || Top||

#26  Mike Sylwester: The other six will be tried in general courts-martial and face much longer sentences.

These guys may end up serving sentences that are longer than those served by murderers in this country - about 3-5 years.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 22:04 Comments || Top||

#27  Graner's prolly screwed either way, if they don't get him for the abuse they might get him for knocking up one of his subordinates (England). I'm not sure how the Army deals w/inner command fraternization but we'd have his ass if he was in the Corps pulling that shit.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 22:20 Comments || Top||

#28  Jarhead -- they had already been warned to stop. I suspect that will compound his offense -- failing to comply with a lawful order can't be good.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 22:24 Comments || Top||

#29  RC> didn't know that, then yeah, he is f*cked. A smart jag prosecutor will tie that disobeying one lawful order w/the abuse - I call it piling on the shitbird theory. They'll show a trend that he was already a scumbag w/this pregnancy situation and warning.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 22:30 Comments || Top||

#30  Zhang Fei, these military policemen got caught committing the wrong crime at the wrong time and so will be punished with extraordinary severity.

The same is true for all the foreigners who were caught overstaying their visas on September 11 and for John Walker Lind and for those Yemeni Americans in Buffalo, NY, and for everyone else who decided to go adventure in Afghanistan.

Punishments are harsher than normal, because we are in a war. That is why the "fraternity pranks" excuse is not acceptable now.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 22:31 Comments || Top||

#31  On the eve of the first court-martial in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, relatives of those still held at Abu Ghraib prison (search) said Tuesday the only suitable punishment would be death -- illustrating the potential gap in expectations in the case.

Sorry, but we don't put people to death for anything but the most severe crimes. Those naked Iraqi prisoners didn't kick the bucket as a result of being stripped naked, so.......yer all SOL.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/18/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||

#32  LAte to the thread, but back to the article, it struck me as another bit of evidence that in the Arab world, death is the solution to everything.
Posted by: virginian || 05/18/2004 22:44 Comments || Top||

#33 
Conservatives often criticize liberals for proposing new policies that excessively assume individual virtue. Conservatives wisely point out that individuals and organizations require some clear rules and limits.

This scandal is an excellent lesson in that conservative wisdom. Here a few people believed they could ignore established rules, could succeed by using clever gimmicks, could count on all their fellows to act in concert with their own clever efforts. They moved bravely along the edge of the slippery slope -- and then they slipped down the slope all the way to the very bottom.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 22:52 Comments || Top||

#34  Where's male honor killings when Arabs need them?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 05/18/2004 23:40 Comments || Top||

#35  The cinicism of these muslim scums is bottomless. They want the death penalty for these seven soldiers where not death was involved but under their sick religion, any muslim can kill an infidel and they can get scott free.
"A Muslim may not be punished for killing a non-Muslim: “No Muslim should be killed for killing a kafir (infidel).” Vol 9:50"

Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 05/19/2004 4:44 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Full text of Basayev's claim of responsibility for Grozny boom
Operation Retaliation

In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Beneficent

Praise Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who created us Muslims and who blessed us with Jihad on His Straight Way!

Peace and blessing be to Prophet Muhammad, to his family, to his disciples and to all of those who follow the Straight Way until the Day of Judgment!

And then:

In His Holy Koran Allah says:

«Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Satan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Satan; surely the strategy of Satan is weak!» (4:76 'The Women')

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: «Out of my community, the group that fights for the truth will be winning until the Day of Judgement» ('Muslim').

By the mercy of Allah, the Chechen people have celebrated the double holiday on May 9: victory over fascism and a small yet important victory over Russism (Russian nationalistic chauvilism).

As part of Operation Retaliation, our fighters (the Mujahideen) have successfully carried out the NAL-17 Operation and served the sentence pronounced by the Shariah Court concerning national traitors and apostates Kafir-ov (Kadyrov) and Isayev.

We apologize to President of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) Aslan Maskhadov for not being able to bring Kadyrov's head to his feet literally, as we promised a month ago.

We hope that in the near future Almighty Allah will also allow us to successfully accomplish special operation Hersi-4.

We are calling on all Munafiqs (hypocrites, national traitors) to come to their senses and stop being lackeys and cannon fodder for Russians. It is never too late to repent and to stop.

We are warning that the motto of the Mujahideen (Fighters) in this season is:

«Each Munafiq gets decorated with Medal of Courage posthumously!»

We wonder who will be appointed president of Russia, - Katya or Masha, - if by mercy of Allah we successfully accomplish special operation Moska – 2.

Great and Almighty Allah says:

«Soon shall the hosts be routed, and they shall turn (their) backs. Nay, the hour is their promised time, and the hour shall be most grievous and bitter». (54:45-46 'The Moon')

And may Allah help us on His Straight Way!

Allah Akbar! (God is Great!)

Amir of Islamic Brigade of Shaheeds 'Riyadh as-Salihiin',

Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:33:21 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank God I was not born a Chechen. How would you like to be at the total mercy of a person like this?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 17:47 Comments || Top||

#2  This is a really great example of the mindset of this cult and how they operate. It's scary if they actually believe it--which at least a lot of them do. I find their need for ultimate authority claims, interesting. Since the Moslems do not value self-empowerment, they instead turn to an all-powerful, yet distant and twisted archetype of an "individual" and father figure, i.e., "Allah," to obey without question. Those that can threaten the infidels (i.e. infidels being those who do believe in the value of self-empowerment) most effectively, using "Allah" as back up, are most revered. Then those who do the bidding of these spokesmen (the underling terrorists and fighters) are given approval as a substitute for love, from the distant father figure "Allah" through the surrogate (spokesman). Too weird. And doesn't it just prove that the founding fathers of the USA knew that self-empowerment was the only way to assure freedom, peace, and social advancement. Go figure.
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 19:03 Comments || Top||

#3  More people in the West hear rabid jihadists screaming what they are going to inflict on the 'infidel world', plus watch their monstrous evil actions filmed for the media in Iraq, coupled with horrific homicide bombings against Israel, (less with the national security barriers) and have arrived at the obvious conclusions these die-hard jihadees have all the ingredients of the death cults the world has ever witnessed.

If the rest of the free nations can understand the evil we are confronted by is not a passing phase of some wackos, but an international cancer which must be reacted to now, before these lunatics stage an unthinkable act of terror, resulting in hundreds of innocents being lost.

The principal source of funding for the various networking Islamic terror groups is derived from OPEC oil profits. Solution, re-take the petroleum fields we developed, not the Arabs or Iranians preventing the enemy from using what we are forced to shell out at the local Shell station ........against us!


If the West does not take increasing stronger measure we can not complain later on when the cultist enemy slaughters hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It's rather difficult taking stronger action when some in America are more concerning in regaining political power from the President, and treating the world war to counter the jihadic cult as a joke!

Wake up people, we are being attacked by a viscous death cult, not a peaceful religion as some appeasers continue stating.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/19/2004 2:52 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Muslim Brotherhood accused of Egyptian coup plot
Prosecutors have indicted 52 members of the Muslim Brotherhood for sending men to Iraq, Chechnya and the Palestinian territories to undergo training to overthrow the Egyptian government. Forty-six of the indicted members were arrested in various parts of Egypt on Sunday and are now in detention for 15 days for investigation. The remaining six members are at large, a security official said on Tuesday. The security official said indictment states that as part of a plan to establish an Islamic state in Egypt, "they sent some Brothers to Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya to train for military operations."

A lawyer for the detainees, Abd al-Munim Abd al-Maksud, rejected as false both the charge of sending men abroad for military training and that of trying to overthrow the government to establish an Islamic state. "The danger is that such accusations might lead to a military trial," he told The Associated Press. Since Egypt suffered an Islamic insurrection in the mid-1990s, the government has put scores of Muslim Brotherhood members on trial in military courts.

Rights groups have criticised the prosecution of civilians in military courts, saying they do not meet international standards of due process and their verdicts cannot be appealed to a higher court. The detention of the 46 members appears to be part of a bid to curb the Brotherhood. Its members say the government resents their role in protests against the US-led occupation of Iraq and pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:31:39 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Sun confirmed to have rose in the east this morning by further tests. Some experts argue that there is a strong chance it might set in the west later this evening."
Posted by: Mitch H. || 05/18/2004 18:10 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope to God these men are not subject to the dreaded "panties or maxipads on the head" treatment! ICRC and AI should investigate immediately! What? they're not allowed access? hmmm
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 19:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Now, now. AI and the ICRC are allowed into Egyptian prisons. Mind you, they're not allowed to leave, but they're perfectly able to get in them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 19:51 Comments || Top||

#4  OK, that was unfair. Sorry, Dan.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 05/19/2004 7:55 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Pankisi Chechens are scared
As Georgia and Russia attempt to improve relations, Chechen refugees in the Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge are reporting increased police harassment and a growing sense of insecurity.
Gee, golly. I really feel for them. My sympathy meter reading's a hefty... ummm... 0.0...
While Tbilisi maintains it has no intention of forcibly returning refugees to Russia, Chechens in the Pankisi Gorge are expressing a desire to be resettled in the West.
You mean, like Europe? Yeah. That'll help.
Chechen concerns have been spurred by a recent Russian demand that Georgia take action to eradicate suspected Chechen militants from the Pankisi Gorge. Many Chechens believe Georgian officials will fulfill the demand, issued shortly before Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze’s resignation and departure for Russia, as part of a quid pro quo for Russia’s cooperation with President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration on Ajaria. Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees believe that the increasing government scrutiny of Chechen refugees is tied to the Saakashvili’s administration’s broader anti-crime crackdown. However, this possibility has done little to assuage refugee fears.
Lessee, here... There's a broader crackdown on crime... So they're nervous. I wonder why?
"The problem is that there is a growing concern among the refugee population about their security situation due to their feeling that the Georgian-Russian relationship is improving," said Naveed Hussain, the UNHCR representative to Georgia. "They think that the best option for them, given that they cannot return home, is resettlement. Our position is that if there are any [Chechen militants] in the Pankisi, any activity the government takes should not affect the living conditions of the refugees."
Unless the Bad Guys are "refugees," of course...
To call attention to the growing uncertainty about their future, a group of 60 Chechens in Pankisi started a hunger strike May 6.
Anybody want some of this barbecue? I can't eat it all...
Their chief demand was a government commitment to resettle them in a Western country. Hunger strike participants asserted that local police have been harassing the almost 3,900 Chechen refugees in Pankisi since January, when Saakashvili assumed the presidency. Many reported being subjected to security and documentation checks by armed, plain clothes police. They also said Chechen men in Pankisi are frequently arrested on flimsy charges. In the aftermath of the May 9 assassination of Chechen President Ahmed Kadyrov, Moscow is unlikely to ease its pressure on the Georgian government to contain the perceived Chechen threat. "Georgia will need to pay a price for Russia’s help with Ajaria, just as Georgia will expect to be paid a price for any action taken in the Pankisi," said Dmitri Trenin, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow.
"Nice tits!"
"Thanks. I like your tats, too. Wanna trade?"
Although Tbilisi over the past two years has reestablished its authority in the gorge, the area is still burdened with a reputation as a haven for terrorists and Islamic militants. "The problem with the Pankisi Gorge," said UNHCR assistant program director Kellie Hynes, who works with refugees in the valley, "has always been the threat of a problem."
That, and the explosives...
Georgian officials insist that their Pankisi crackdown aims solely to root out militants and Islamic radicals. It may be difficult, however, to distinguish between refugees and militants, Trenin suggested.
"The guerilla is the fish, the people are the sea."
"Some of those refugees might have ties to the rebels; they could be their kith and kin. Or the rebels could also just be normal people. The problem with rebels is that they live in the midst of the population."
That's what I just said. Actually, Chairman Mao said it, but he's dead now. What's he gonna do? Sue me?
The OSCE has not detected any "serious crossing" of Chechen militants into Georgia from Chechnya in the last year, Peter Marron, deputy head of the OSCE’s border patrol unit, said in a recent interview with EurasiaNet. Monitoring, however, is not conducted in the Pankisi area.
... which renders the previous statement nonsensical...
On a recent visit by EurasiaNet to the main Pankisi village of Duisi, refugees dismissed Russian reports that armed fighters still roam the gorge. "Of course, people stood up to the Russians," said one male refugee who declined identification. "But does that make you a fighter when planes come and bomb your village? When OMON [special assignment militia] comes and terrorizes your family? " At the Kontura collective center -- a facility housing 21 refugee families in rooms heated by coal stoves and with no indoor plumbing or electricity -- residents said that they had one goal in mind: to leave Georgia. "I’m willing to wait, but how long can I wait? I want to live as a normal person, with normal food," said Khaifa, a 42-year-old woman who lives with four children in a single room. There’s one solution, interjected Usain Izmailov, a writer. "Let Georgia bring in two planes and take us out, and the problem will be solved."
Good idea. Dump them in France. When the gorge fills up again, do it again... No, wait. It can't be France. They can't wear their headscarves there. Maybe Spain would like them?
Chechen refugees, most of whom do not speak Georgian, say they have little chance to improve their living conditions. "If we stay in Georgia, there’s no future for our children," said Khaida Azimova, who has been living with her husband and two children in the valley since 1999. "The Pankisi is the poorest region of Georgia. Chechens can live anywhere. We would go anywhere, to any region of the West."
She means they can live anywhere but Georgia. They can't learn the language, which is admittedly hard... Maybe they should go somewhere where the inhabitants speak Esperanto?
An ongoing resettlement program so far has transferred 10 families out of the Pankisi to various countries in Western Europe and North America. Resettlement decisions are made on a case-by-case, and country-by-country basis. Canada and the United States, for instance, refuse men who were ex-fighters in either of Chechnya’s two wars (1994-1996 and 1999-present) with Russia. Scandinavian countries like Norway have no such restrictions. Some countries only want families; others refuse men with more than one wife.
I think it'd be a good idea to exclude anybody with a turban...
The mass resettlement of Pankisi’s Chechens has so far not been seriously considered. "It [the existing resettlement program] is a solution for a rather limited number of people. Everyone cannot be resettled," Hussain said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:28:57 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Saudi Arabia has a lot of open space.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 17:56 Comments || Top||

#2  why is it taht no muslim country is mentioned for re-settlement - ya know islamic brotherhood and all that garbage..step up to the plate and do something real for your fellow muslim and stop complaining about muslim humiliation...
Posted by: Dan || 05/18/2004 18:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Agreed - offer to repatriate them to a Muslim country. Nobody in the West will want them.
Posted by: B || 05/18/2004 19:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Anybody want some of this barbecue? I can't eat it all...

You're sick, twisted and perverted ... and I respect that in a man.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/19/2004 0:25 Comments || Top||


Caucasus Corpse Count
At least 12 servicemen were killed when rebels ambushed two military vehicles in forested mountains in Chechnya, officials said Tuesday. Another seven soldiers died in separate attacks and land mine explosions.

A vehicle carrying five Interior Ministry troops hit a land mine planted by the rebels near the village of Alkhan-Yurt in southern Chechnya while on a patrol mission Monday. Rebels then fired on the vehicle, killing four servicemen, said an official with Chechnya's Moscow-backed civilian administration who asked not be identified. The soldier who survived called reinforcements, and a federal armored personnel carrier arrived at the scene and pursued the rebels only to detonate another mine. Rebels then fired rockets at it from a forest, killing eight more servicemen. One soldier went missing and nine were wounded, the Chechen official said.

In other fighting over the past 24 hours, rebels attacked federal positions 15 times, killing two soldiers and wounding seven. Another three soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their vehicle exploded outside of Prigorodnoye on the outskirts of Grozny, the Chechen official said. In Grozny, a military truck hit a land mine, killing two soldiers and wounding six.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:25:19 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: North
El-Para arrested in Chad
A suspected leader of the radical Islamic group that took 32 Europeans hostage in Algeria's vast Sahara desert last year has been arrested in Chad, German federal prosecutors said. Ammari Saifi, known as Abderrezak "the Para", was arrested along with one other person, the federal prosecutor's office in the western city of Karlsruhe said in a statement. "The prosecutor's office has received information that 'the Para' was taken prisoner in Chad along with one other person," said spokeswoman Frauke-Kathrin Scheuten, adding that "the circumstances still have to be clarified."

A diplomatic source in Mali said the group holding Saifi was either the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT), a rebel group based in the north of the country, or a breakaway organisation. "It is becoming clearer and clearer that for several weeks Abderrezak has been held by an armed group which could well be the MDJT," said an African diplomat in Mali, who asked not to be named. "His movements are restricted. And this armed group would do the fight against terrorism a real service by handing him over to the appropriate people."
Or by lopping his head off and handing that over...
In March a Chadian military source said that government troops had killed 43 members of the GSPC close to the border with Niger. He alleged that the GSPC had infiltrated the country and was trying to join forces with the MDJT. "For the time being all the signs, descriptions and evidence provided confirm that 'the Para' is indeed the prisoner of an armed group in Chad," a source working for a foreign security agency in Bamako said. "Two African countries closely involved in counter-terrorism have this information." He said Abderrezak had been formally identified.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:15:19 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: Horn
Kenyans probing terror suspects
Kenyan police said on Tuesday that they were probing possible terrorism links of three "suspicious looking" people arrested over the weekend near the Israeli embassy in Nairobi. "Three people were arrested on Sunday at about 11:30 after they tried to book rooms at the Fairview hotel, near the Israeli embassy, without passports or any other identification documents," Nairobi's Kilimani police chief Richard Ngatia said. Another police official said "they also wanted to book rooms for two people, who are expected to come from Dubai."

Ngatia explained that after becoming suspicious when the three failed to identify themselves, the hotel management informed officers from General Service Unit (GSU), a paramilitary wing of the Kenyan police, who were guarding the embassy. "We have handed over the case to anti-terrorism police to investigate if the three, a Kenyan-Somali, a Somali and a Bosnian lady, have any links to terrorism since its is suspicious that they did not have their passports at the time of arrest."

"Australian passports of two the people, who claimed they were husband and wife, were later brought to the police station" he said, adding that the third person claimed to be a Kenyan-Somali student, but that he failed to produce identity documents. "We also need to verify whether the two passports are genuine," he explained. Criminal Investigations Department's (CID) spokesperson Gedion Kibunja said that the three people were "suspicious looking characters" arrested near the embassy, a high security facility with a 24-hour GSU guard.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:14:14 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Passport? No, no, I was born here, effendi..."
Posted by: mojo || 05/18/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
IGC head might not have been whacked by Zarqawi
INVESTIGATORS now suspect that a car bombing that killed the president of the Iraqi Governing Council may not have been the work of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as first believed. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters that forensic evidence obtained at the site of Monday's bombing suggested that "it might have been an attack conducted by a different group because of methodology in some of the techniques that were used." Kimmitt declined to elaborate.

Yesterday, Kimmitt said the attack showed the "classic" hallmarks of an al-Zarqawi operation. A previously unknown group - the Arab Resistance Movement - claimed responsibility for the attack that killed Izzadin Salim near a US checkpoint outside the green zone, headquarters of the US-run coalition. In a statement posted on a website, the Movement identified two of its members who supposedly carried out the suicide attack as part of a "jihad" or holy war until Iraq and Palestine are liberated. The website carried other messages of praise for the killing. It also prominently mentions Anbar province, a Sunni-dominated area of activity against the US-led coalition in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 5:10:39 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Extortionist used al-Qaeda name to threaten jewellers
A man who allegedly issued extortion threats in the name of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to leading jewellers and businessmen in Delhi was arrested on Sunday from a cyber cafe in Paharganj. Rakesh Kumar Kashyap of Ambala allegedly sent e-mails demanding cash from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1 crore. Police said they have recovered e-mail IDs of various industrialists and jewellers from his possession. A computer, CPU, and floppy allegedly containing the contents of the letter he sent have also been seized.

A jeweller, who have offices in Delhi and Jaipur, complained to the police a few days back that he has been receiving threatening e-mails written by one Mohammed Hussein Al-Almadi of the Al Qaeda. The sender demanded Rs 25 lakh and increased the demand to Rs 50 lakh. An industrialist and another prominent South Delhi jeweller also lodged similar complaints about receiving extortion e-mails and letters from the Al Qaeda demanding Rs 1 crore. Another case was also lodged at the Greater Kailash police station. In all, the accused had allegedly sent threatening mails to five persons. During interrogation Kashyap confessed that he had used the name Al Qaeda to threaten businessmen and jewellers. The accused told police that he use to come to Delhi to send e-mails and letters. Police said Kashyap had borrowed Rs 11.25 lakh from a relative in Ambala for opening up a petrol pump and a travel agency. When he could not return the money, he thought of this gameplan.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 4:39:26 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
3-4 liters of sarin confirmed in Iraqi artillery shell
Tests on an artillery shell that blew up in Iraq on Saturday confirm that it did contain an estimated three or four liters of the deadly nerve agent sarin, Defense Department officials told Fox News Tuesday. The artillery shell was being used as an improvised roadside bomb, the U.S. military said Monday. The 155-mm shell exploded before it could be rendered inoperable, and two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to the nerve agent.

Three liters is about three-quarters of a gallon; four liters is a little more than a gallon. "A little drop on your skin will kill you" in the binary form, said Ret. Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, founder of Homeland Security Associates. "So for those in immediate proximity, three liters is a lot," but he added that from a military standpoint, a barrage of shells with that much sarin in them would more likely be used as a weapon than one single shell.

The munition found was a binary chemical shell, meaning it featured two chambers, each containing separate chemical compounds. Upon impact with the ground after the shell is fired, the barrier between the chambers is broken, the chemicals mix and sarin is created and dispersed. Intelligence officials stressed that the compounds did not mix effectively on Saturday. Due to the detonation, burn-off and resulting spillage, it was not clear exactly how much harmful material was inside the shell. A 155-mm shell can hold two to five liters of sarin; three to four liters is likely the right number, intelligence officials said.

Another shell filled with mustard gas, possibly also part of an improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered on May 2, Defense Dept. officials said. The second shell was found by passing soldiers in a median on a thoroughfare west of Baghdad. It probably was simply left there by someone, officials said, and it was unclear whether it was meant to be used as a bomb. Testing done by the Iraqi Survey Group — a U.S.-organized group of weapons inspectors who have been searching for weapons of mass destruction since the ouster of Saddam Hussein — concluded that the mustard gas was "stored improperly" and was thus "ineffective."

"It's not out of the ordinary or unusual that you would find something [like these weapons] in a haphazard fashion" in Iraq, Edward Turzanski, a political and national security analyst, told Fox News on Tuesday. But "you have to be very careful not to be entirely dismissive of it," he added. "It remains to be seen whether they have more shells like this."
No doubt in my teeny-tiny little mind, chum...
New weapons caches are being found every day, experts said, including "hundreds of thousands" of rocket-propelled grenades and portable anti-aircraft weapons. "Clearly, if we're gonna find one or two of these every so often — used as an IED or some other way — the threat is not all that high, but it does confirm suspicion that he [Saddam] did have this stuff," said Ret. U.S. Army Col. Robert Maginnis. "It is a bazaar of weapons that are available on every marketplace throughout that country," Maginnis added. "We're doing everything we can to aggressively disarm these people, but there were so many things that were stored away by Saddam Hussein in that country ... it's a huge job that we're tackling."

Some experts were concerned that enemy fighters with access to potential weapons of mass destruction in a country full of stockpiles could mean more risk to coalition forces and Iraqis. "What we don't know is if there are other shells, which there certainly could be," said Dennis Ross, a former ambassador and special Middle East coordinator and a Fox News foreign affairs analyst. "We also don't know whether or not these kind of shells could be used as explosives, which could have a more devastating effect on our troops."

Other experts said the individual shells themselves don't pose a threat to the masses. "I'm not as concerned they're going to use a lot of chemical munitions," Maginnis said. "They're not gonna use these as improvised explosive devices because they don't have a big blast associated with them, but they do combine those two compounds into the noxious sarin gas. But they can't do it all that well with a small explosive charge. The reality is, they'd have to have a whole bunch of these things, have to find some way of blowing them with a large charge to even create a cloud." That doesn't mean insurgents couldn't find a better way to make the devices to create a more "terrorist-type of attack" against U.S. forces, Maginnis continued.

The task of military analysts in Baghdad will be to determine how old the sarin shell is. A final determination will have a significant effect on how weapons researchers and inspectors proceed. Some experts suggested that the two shells, which were unmarked, date back to the first Persian Gulf War. The mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles that Saddam failed to account for in his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began. Iraq also failed to account for 450 aerial bombs containing mustard gas. It's not clear if enemy fighters simply found an old stockpile of weapons, or if they even knew what was inside.
My guess is that they knew. My other guess is that we're going to see more of them, now that the cat's out of the bag...
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reacted cautiously to the news of the discoveries. "What we have to then do is to try to track down and figure out how it might be there, what caused that to be there in this improvised explosive device, and what might it mean in terms of the risks to our forces," Rumsfeld said Monday.

An Iraqi Kurdish official had no doubt similar substances will be found as the weapons hunt continues. "We don't know where they are, but we suspect they are hidden in many locations in Iraq," Howar Ziad, the Kurdish representative to the United Nations, told Fox News on Tuesday. "It's quite possible that even the neighboring states who are against the reform of Iraq ... are helping the Saddamites in hiding."
He means certain unnamed neighboring states to the east, west, and south of Iraq...
"As we know, the Baathist regime had a track record of using" these chemicals against people in Iraq, such as the Kurds, Ziad continued. "He's [Saddam] never kept any commitment he's ever made to the international committee nor to the people" to not use such deadly materials. Ziad said the United Nations, the World Health Organization and others had not "bothered" to travel to the Iraqi Kurdistan to see the firsthand effects sarin and other chemical weapons had on people and to get proof that Saddam did in fact possess such weapons. "We have evidence — we have victims of the use of those agents, and we're still waiting for WHO and the U.N. to come investigate," Ziad said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 05/18/2004 4:32:33 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Roughly how big a cloud would that much Sarin create?

#enum ob_LLL_Excuses
{
"They were old, anyway.",
"They probably didn't know what they had.",
"So one shell, eh?",
"I'm sure Saddam MEANT to destroy it, but it must have slipped by. And We All Know that it is Intentions that are the important thing.",
NULL
} LLL_Excuses;

Posted by: eLarson || 05/18/2004 17:11 Comments || Top||

#2  A CNN reporter actually reported that "this was possibly a chemical weapon at one time and was just a random shell that was just out there."

"Possibly a chemical weapon at one time" - what they hell does that mean? CNN needs to report the facts and drop the liberal bullshit bias.

Posted by: JP || 05/18/2004 19:38 Comments || Top||

#3  So, a WMD has not only been found, it has been used against our troops. Where's the outrage? {crickets chirping}{deletion of story][change the subject]ABU GHRAIB!
Posted by: Tresho || 05/18/2004 20:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Via the blogfather from Blasters Blog:


Iraq never declared any binary 155mm artillery shells. In fact, they never claimed any filled with sarin at all in the UNSCOM Final report (Find on "Munitions declared by Iraq as remaining"). Not declared as existing at the end of the Gulf War, not having been destroyed in the Gulf War, not having been destroyed unilaterally. The only binary munitions claimed by the Iraqis were aerial bombs and missile warheads. Not in an artillery shell.



According to this UNSCOM factsheet (PDF):



Iraqi CW agents were not comparable in quality to those stored in the arsenals of the USA and the former USSR, however. Impurities meant that the toxic compounds lacked stability and easily decomposed; as a consequence, Iraq developed a crude type of binary munition, whereby the final mixing of the two precursors to the agent was done inside the munition just before delivery. This had a major impact on the logistics of and preparations for chemical warfare, which may partly explain how overwhelming coalition air superiority prevented the use of CW during Operation Desert Storm.




Posted by: Anonymous2U || 05/18/2004 23:46 Comments || Top||

#5  So therefore, anony2u, Iraq was much further along and more sophisticated in its weapons development than even the fabled UN knew. This isn't good news...
Posted by: RMcLeod || 05/19/2004 0:19 Comments || Top||


Reuters ’Reporters’ ’Abused’ by U.S. Troops In Iraq
Scare quotes are fun! Link via Drudge.
U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday.
"Your Allah wears combat boots!"
The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Basically jumping on the bandwagon / Reparations ’R UsTM.
An Iraqi journalist working for U.S. network NBC, who was arrested with the Reuters staff, also said he had been beaten and mistreated, NBC said Tuesday. Two of the three Reuters staff said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their mouths, particularly humiliating in Arab culture.
Tell me what, exactly, doesn’t ’humiliate’ Arabs? I’m sick and fuckin’ tired of this limp dick whining. Don’t these guys wipe with their left hand, or is that an Afghan ’tradition’?
All three said they were forced to make demeaning gestures as soldiers laughed, taunted them and took photographs. They said they did not want to give details publicly earlier because of the degrading nature of the abuse.
And we all know that Arabs never lie...
The soldiers told them they would be taken to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, deprived them of sleep, placed bags over their heads, kicked and hit them and forced them to remain in stress positions for long periods.
Right out of the Abu Ghraib playbook? Seems a tad, ummm, unconvincing to me.
The U.S. military, in a report issued before the Abu Ghraib abuse became public, said there was no evidence the Reuters staff had been tortured or abused. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said in a letter received by Reuters Monday but dated March 5 that he was confident the investigation had been "thorough and objective" and its findings were sound. The Pentagon has yet to respond to a request by Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger to review the military’s findings about the incident in light of the scandal over the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
It’s called ’flooding the zone’.
Asked for comment Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said only: "There are a number of lines of inquiry under way with respect to prison operations in Iraq. If during the course of any inquiry, the commander believes it is appropriate to review a specific aspect of detention, he has the authority to do so." The abuse is alleged to have happened at Forward Operating Base Volturno, near Falluja, the Reuters staff said. They were detained on January 2 while covering the aftermath of the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter near Falluja and held for three days, first at Volturno and then at Forward Operating Base St Mere.
No bias in that paragraph, natch. I wonder if these ’reporters’ happened to arrive at said helicopter shootdown ’conveniently early’, shall we say?
The three -- Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Falluja-based freelance television journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani and driver Sattar Jabar al-Badrani -- were released without charge on Jan. 5. "When I saw the Abu Ghraib photographs, I wept," Ureibi said Tuesday. "I saw they had suffered like we had." Ureibi, who understands English better than the other two detainees, said soldiers told him they wanted to have sex with him, and he was afraid he would be raped.
Cue the ’Deliverance’ soundtrack.
Did he squeal like a pig?
NBC, whose stringer Ali Muhammed Hussein Ali al-Badrani was detained along with the Reuters staff, said he reported that a hood was placed over his head for hours, and that he was forced to perform physically debilitating exercises, prevented from sleeping and struck and kicked several times. "Despite repeated requests, we have yet to receive the results of the army investigation," NBC News Vice President Bill Wheatley said. Schlesinger sent a letter to Sanchez on January 9 demanding an investigation into the treatment of the three Iraqis. The U.S. army said it was investigating and requested further information. Reuters provided transcripts of initial interviews with the three following their release, and offered to make them available for interview by investigators.
Yeah, that’s gonna happen...
A summary of the investigation by the 82nd Airborne Division, dated January 28 and provided to Reuters, said "no specific incidents of abuse were found." It said soldiers responsible for the detainees were interviewed under oath and "none admit or report knowledge of physical abuse or torture. The detainees were purposefully and carefully put under stress, to include sleep deprivation, in order to facilitate interrogation; they were not tortured." The version received Monday used the phrase "sleep management" instead. The U.S. military never interviewed the three for its investigation. On February 3 Schlesinger wrote to Lawrence Di Rita, special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying the investigation was "woefully inadequate" and should be reopened.
On what grounds, I wonder, was it ’woefully inadequate’, in that it didn’t result in a court martial or two?
"The military’s conclusion of its investigation without even interviewing the alleged victims, along with other inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the report, speaks volumes about the seriousness with which the U.S. government is taking this issue," he wrote.

The U.S. military faced European Democratic international outrage this month after photographs surfaced showing U.S. soldiers humiliating and abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. An investigation by Major General Antonio Taguba found that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees" in Abu Ghraib. Seven U.S. soldiers have been charged over the Abu Ghraib abuse and the first court martial is set for Wednesday. U.S. officials say the abuse was carried out by a small number of soldiers and that all allegations of abuse are promptly and thoroughly investigated.
As bad as it was, I’m still not sure if shoe in mouth and such constitutes torture. Abuse, yes, but torture? As noted elsewhere on Rantburg, if this type of treatment is what’s required to extract information from jihadists and (likely) Fifth-column Reuters ’reporters’ and helps us to avoid a) attacks against our troops and b) civilians from being blown up by car bombs, then I have a serious problem with our stated policy of no longer using these tactics. What are we supposed to use now, harsh language?
Nope. Can't do that. Telling them you want to be butt buddies is demeaning. They'd be humiliated, and then seethe for years, and then where would we be? Best just to go with the local customs and cut their heads off.
Posted by: Raj || 05/18/2004 3:26:57 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I guess I am cruel, but, until a Fox News employee starts claiming abuse I am dubious of the accounts. I take ALL OTHER news organization employee claims with a grain of salt.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 15:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I suppose it is impossible for Reuters to ever realize how their own slanted reporting about all those "civilian" deaths in Fallujah might have resulted in extra casualties for Coalition troops. They're sure good at raising a ruckus when their own tit's in the Bendix but have no problem stirring up trouble when they don't have their own lives on the line.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 15:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Ureibi, who understands English better than the other two detainees, said soldiers told him they wanted to have sex with him, and he was afraid he would be raped.

"I'm gonna f*ck you up!"

Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 15:41 Comments || Top||

#4  As I understand it, the "news" agencies kept most of the Baathists who had worked for them while Saddam was in power. I think I've figured out why so many Iraqis are so negative about the US when interviewed by these reporters. Ditto for the pollsters. Think about the people who were in the best position to take English language classes and serve as interpreters. Baathists. These guys are good.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 15:51 Comments || Top||

#5  "Don’t these guys wipe with their left hand, or is that an Afghan ’tradition’?"

It is a muslim thing. And from what I heard, it has do be done in the precise way as prescribed by some hadith.


Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 05/18/2004 15:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Cheezus K Reist, here we go. Every asshat along with their syphilitic grandma is gonna be claiming abuse at the hands of the US military.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 05/18/2004 15:54 Comments || Top||

#7  Ureibi, who understands English better than the other two detainees, said soldiers told him he could go to the place where Saddahm was captured, and get inside the hole as it was filled in.

Well? If we're going to make the story good for the apologists, then lets make it REALLY GOOD
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 15:59 Comments || Top||

#8  ’Reporters’ is the enemy. If they have nothing to offer as far as information goes, line them up and shoot them for helping the enemy. Case closed.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 05/18/2004 15:59 Comments || Top||

#9  Can anyone imagine having every detail of ones life spelled out in a book? This is beyond brainwashing. This is robotization!

" Muslim 97 The Prophet said: "When anyone awakes from sleep, he must clean his nose three times, for the devil spends the night in the interior of his nose."

Also: "When anyone wipes his anus with pebbles he should do this an odd number of times."

Muslim 98 The Prophet said, after some people had hurried in to prayers: "Woe to dry heels because of Hell-fire. Make your ablution thorough."

Muslim 100 The Prophet said: "He who performs ablutions well, his sins come out of his body, even from under his nails."

Muslim 103 The Prophet said: "Five are the acts of Fitra: (male) circumcision, shaving the pubes, cutting the nails, shaving the hair under the armpits and clipping the moustache.

Muslim 104 The Prophet said: "When answering the call of nature neither turn your face or back to Mecca." "After excretion the right hand is not to be used, nor is a bone to be used nor camel dung. "Nor should you hold your penis with your right hand while urinating. Nor should you breathe into the vessel from which you drink."

Muslim 107 The common practice with the Holy Prophet was that he urinated in a sitting position. He then performed ablution and wiped his socks.

Muslim 110 The Prophet said: "When anyone wakes up from sleep, he should wash his hands three times before putting them in the utensil, for he does not know where his hand was during the night."

Muslim 112 The Prophet said: "You should not urinate in stagnant water, then wash in it.

Muslim 116 A'isha said: "I used to scrape the drop of semen off the Prophet's garment and he then went out to prayer in that garment."

Muslim 119 A'isha said: "When any of the Prophet's wives menstruated, the Messenger of Allah (would not have sexual intercourse with them but) would get them to wrap up their lower half and embrace them."

Muslim 124 The Prophet said: "If a woman experiences orgasm in a dream she should take a bath."

Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 05/18/2004 16:01 Comments || Top||

#10  Ooops....(sheepish stoopid grin) I meant "Reuters"
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 05/18/2004 16:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Tell me what, exactly, doesn’t ’humiliate’ Arabs?

Beheading innocent people?

Blowing up school buses?

Setting injured people on fire, stringing their corpses from a bridge, and dancing around screaming "Allahu Akbar"?

None of those things humiliate them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#12  IF they actually whacked a couple of news whores reporters around I can understand that. As a matter of fact I wouldn't mind slapping a few around just on GPs. Did the abusee give a name? rank? cell block? I think not!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 05/18/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#13  "When anyone wipes his anus with Pebbles he should do this an odd number of times."


"And don't let Fred catch you."

The common practice with the Holy Prophet was that he urinated in a sitting position. He then performed ablution and wiped his socks.


"Because his aim absolutely sucked."

The Prophet said: "When anyone awakes from sleep, he must clean his nose three times, for the devil spends the night in the interior of his nose."

The Prophet said: "When anyone wakes up from sleep, he should wash his hands three times before putting them in the utensil, for he does not know where his hand was during the night."


Any direction on which is to be done first?

The Prophet said: "You should not urinate in stagnant water, then wash in it.

If you need a prophet of God to tell you this, you deserve what you get.

A'isha said: "I used to scrape the drop of semen off the Prophet's garment and he then went out to prayer in that garment."

Iew. Just. Iew.

The Prophet said: "If a woman experiences orgasm in a dream she should take a bath."


Methinks ol' Mo' was confused about "nocturnal emissions".
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 16:15 Comments || Top||

#14  "They cut my head off!!"
"Let's 'ave a look at you, then. You look alright"
"I got better"
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 16:22 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Israel brings death to Rafah camp
Sort of like "carrying coals to Newcastle" but there you have it.
Tuesday 18 May 2004, 19:26 Makka Time, 16:26 GMT

Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians at the start of a major ongoing raid into occupied Gaza Strip’s Rafah refugee camp. The latest victim on Tuesday was a 24-year-old who Israeli troops shot dead, claiming he was armed. Another 25 people were injured in the aerial attacks early on Tuesday, Palestinian medical sources told Aljazeera’s correspondent. Eight of those are in critical condition.

In the first attack, three Palestinians were killed when Israeli helicopter gunships fired three missiles at the Qishta neighbourhood, said Aljazeera correspondent in Gaza Samir Abu Shamala. Israeli occupation forces claimed the victims were members of President Yasir Arafat’s Fatah movement and had been armed when the missile was launched at them. However, residents who dug their bodies out of the rubble said the three had posed no threat to anyone. 
Not any more.
Israeli tanks and infantry are pouring into Rafah in defiance of international outcries, drawing UN and European Union criticism over concern it could make thousands of Palestinians homeless. Israel has threatened to carry out a systematic destruction of homes in the impoverished area. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saib Uraiqat said Israel was carrying out war crimes after the latest killings in Rafah.
And mass murdering bombers aren’t a form of war crime?
Second attack

In another attack shortly after dawn, helicopters killed another five civilians near Bilal Bin Rabah mosque in Tal al-Sultan district where they had gathered to pray. The mosque was set ablaze.
The mosque was set ablaze? Heavens to mergatroid!
The identities of the dead were not immediately known, but all were men in their 20’s and 30’s.
Sounds like fighting age to me.
In the Badr neighbourhood, occupation forces stormed homes and took positions on rooftops. "They are shooting whoever moves in the area," said correspondent Abu Shamala, leaving three Palestinians dead. Another Palestinian was killed in street fighting. Medical sources also said Israeli forces detained ambulances trying to move the wounded from Tal al-Sultan district.
Maybe transporting those Israeli soldiers’ body parts in UN ambulances wasn’t such a good idea after all.
An Israeli military official said "an operation is underway in Rafah at the moment", but declined to give details, other than that "there will be arrests at first and later on, demolitions of homes". Israeli troops earlier sealed Rafah off from the rest of the occupied Gaza Strip in a search for resistance fighters and possible smuggling tunnels.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 1:35:37 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are they using the patented Zionist Death Ray?
Posted by: Mike || 05/18/2004 16:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I just saw they upped the body count to 20. Doesn’t that qualify as a ‘massacre’ by Arab standards? Not like the cleansing that takes place when homicide bomber takes out a pizza place or a grocery store. I am sure the NONE of these 20 was attacking our Zionists overlords and were just trying to pick flowers in the field on their way to prayers. I also believe in the Easter bunny too…..NOT! Sorry I have lost my compassion for the Palestinian infestation of the world. I think it was the second or eighth homicide bomber that changed my mind about them.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 05/18/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Tests Confirm Nearly One Gallon of Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 13:34 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  **Self Edit** Nearly One Gallon. Uhg!
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Interesting comment in an e-mail which Jonah Goldberg posted to NRO's "The Corner:"

Jonah, [a source which Jonah linked to in an earlier entry] got very close to, but missed, the really huge news behind the sarin gas shell. The thing was not marked. This is not the way you manufacture, store or deploy chemical munitions. They require special handling and careful considerations when used to avoid endangering your own troops. So why in the world would this chemical munition not be clearly marked?

1. Hiding the things from inspectors. Chemical weapons, disguised as conventional ordinance, would be extremely difficult to detect by anyone, especially if they were mixed in with conventional ordinance at weapons dumps, with innocuous markings (perhaps simple numbers) to allow handlers to tell the difference. If this be the case, our missing WMDs may very well be hiding in plain sight to this day, undiscovered until terrorists grabbed what they thought was a regular conventional artillery round from an unsecured sight that inspectoirs may have already gone through.

2. Disguising the things from Saddam's own commanders. It was no secret that America was serious about WMDs, and threatened war even during the Clinton administration over it. It was also no secret that WMDs were what American military commanders most feared in the event of an Iraqi invasion (remember the worries during the first Gulf War?). Saddam surely would have anticipated America appealing directly to Iraqi field commanders not to use chemical weapons, and may have known that we would hold those who did personally responsible in war crimes trials post invasion. We threatened exactly that. Faced with the possibility that his own commanders may not follow orders to use chemical weapons, he issues artillery shells and other weapons that are devoid of known markings that distinguish between types of ordinance. That means that if Iraqi cammanders shoot anything at all, the will likely shoot chemical weapons in the mix. Ironically, that may have backfired on Saddam. Many Iraqi Republican Guard Units deployed around Baghdad melted away faster than expected. What if that is because Iraqi commanders that suspected they had chemical weapons "in the mix" refused to use any of their weapons and abandoned their post?

Of course, this is loaded with speculation. But whatever the reasoning, the story of unmarked chemical weapons munitions turning up randomly in central Iraq is bound to get real interesting. Real fast.

--Joe Frye

Posted by: Mike || 05/18/2004 13:39 Comments || Top||

#3  But whatever the reasoning, the story of unmarked chemical weapons munitions turning up randomly in central Iraq is bound to get real interesting. Real fast.

Bull. The story won't get the coverage it deserves. Instead we'll get All Lyndie, All The Time.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 13:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Looks like we need to take anyone locals associated with this shell to the undisclosed location and pull out some lavender panty hats. We NEED to find the source of this. F**K the Geneva convention. F**k the Dems in the Senate especially Levin, Biden, and BAGOGAS. Just do it, and keep it quiet.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 13:47 Comments || Top||

#5  BigEd. I dont think they Geneva Convention covers these asshats.

And I think we need to make it very-very clear and very-very public that we will not abide by the GC if the opposition doesn't.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 13:52 Comments || Top||

#6  I dont think they Geneva Convention covers these asshats.

Isn't use of chemical weapons one of the Big Ones as violations of the GC go?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 13:57 Comments || Top||

#7  CF & RC - And I think we need to make it very-very clear and very-very public that we will not abide by the GC ifsince the opposition doesn't.

Hey, panty head come here and sniff this. . .is it yours?
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||

#8  RC has got it right regarding coverage. The media is focused on defeating Bush. This will get short mention, massive spin, and then will be buried. One day...tops.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 05/18/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#9  NBC now has an excuse for not reporting this. Iraqi employee of NBC is claiming abuse by soldiers. But, good ol' Fox; "Gallon of Sarin in Iraqi Artillery Shell" as its banner.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 15:30 Comments || Top||

#10  CrazyFool

The Geneva convention works only for people who respect it, if your opponent violates it you are free to ignore it. For instance, your opponent fires at you from a hospital or hiding between civilians. Not only are free to shoot back but if you are capture him you can execute him for war crimes.
Posted by: JFM || 05/18/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||

#11  RC, I don't think my satellite catches that Lynndie network. Is it with the Spice channels?
Posted by: Anonymous4021 || 05/18/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||


Iraq Says UN Must Reduce Reparations Paid from Oil

Tue, May 18, 2004

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi delegation will travel to the United Nations on Wednesday to demand full control of the country’s oil revenues and a cut in war reparations imposed on Iraq. "Iraq must have a say in the next U.N. resolution," Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Bayati told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We will negotiate on the basis that Iraq must be fully in charge of its resource wealth and the five percent of oil revenues we pay must be reduced further," he said in reference to reparations for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Iraq has paid around $20 billion of reparations of an estimated $300 billion. A U.N. resolution a year ago reduced war reparations from 15 percent of oil proceeds to five percent. Bayati said Iraq should not be held accountable now for wars waged by Saddam Hussein in which the people had no say and for which they suffered and had paid enough already.
Horseradish! Why should the remaining world foot the bill for Saddam’s thuggery? Iraq can be bled white for all I care. It will serve to discourage them from ever again considering any sort of regional aggression. Furthermore, I’d like to see some repayment of the United States for our costly campaign to liberate these sniveling ingrates.
"Iraq seeks to cancel debt and reparations incurred by Saddam. The next sovereign government will be under domestic pressure to do the same," Bayati said six weeks before the U.S.-led occupiers are due to hand over formal sovereignty. Iraqi officials say the reparations, estimated to be largely owed to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are unfair. They say these countries benefited by producing more oil when Iraq was prohibited from exporting any from 1990 to 1996 under an economic embargo.
Ain’t free market economics a b!tch?
Iraq exported 3.2 million barrels per day before the 1990 Gulf War, but exports are now down to 1.8 million bpd as the crippling embargo limited the country’s ability to maintain the infrastructure. Under last year’s U.N resolution, Iraq’s oil revenues are deposited in a Federal Reserve Bank of New York account controlled by the United States.
This structure may need to be retained for a longer period until Iraq demonstrates the capacity for responsible leadership.
The next Iraqi government is expected to have control of expenditures, but U.S. officials want an international board monitoring the accounts to remain in place. Iraqi crude oil sales since last year’s U.S.-led invasion reached more than $9 billion, which were deposited in the Development Fund for Iraq.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 1:16:57 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iraq can be bled white for all I care.

That'll help them build a free country.

Zenster -- the guy responsible for the crimes they're paying reparations for is in custody and facing trial. Let's not punish the innocent for his crimes.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#2  I understand this, Robert, but when all is said and done, Iraq must accept some of the consequences for offenses committed by their leadership, however much it was imposed upon them. There is no reason for the outside world to shoulder the entire financial burden instead.

Iraq will have plenty of money from their oil production. It is only fair that some of this wealth serve to make reparations. For all their blather about "Arab unity" (one of my favorite oxymorons) and pan-Arab brotherhood, why isn't fabulously wealthy Saudi Arabia stepping up to the plate and forgiving Iraqi debt in a gesture of support for this newly liberated country?
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 14:22 Comments || Top||

#3  You might want to look at history before you get all hepped up over the idea of reparations. That was part of the mistakes made in the Versailles Treaty, part of what led to the poverty and anger that led to WWII.

Supposedly we learned our lessons, and instead of forcing Germany to pay reparations for war damage (as opposed to the Holocaust), we pumped money into their economy. That seems to have worked pretty well, at least so far. Sixty years since the last war started by Germany is better than twenty, no?

You apparently would rather punish the people for the crimes of a tyrant and ignore the lessons of history.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe the profits Kuwaiti businesses have made from doing biz in Iraq in the past year should partially offset this?

Posted by: Anonymous2U || 05/18/2004 15:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Robert, your points are well made, but at what point does a country manage to absolve itself of any responsibility for the crimes of its government? There are leigons of Iraqis who also went along with Saddam's tryannical regime, kept it in place and profited from it. There needs to be some sort of accountability for this. That is what I'm trying to point out here. Not all Iraqis are victims in this situation.

Also, Germany has paid out reparations to more than just the Jewish Holocaust victims. It is not as if Iraq is entirely without an ability to pay, unlike ravaged post-WWI Germany.

In recent years Germany has paid out nearly 1.8 billion marks on the basis of special bilateral agreements concluded in 1991 and 1993 with Poland and three successor states of the former Soviet Union -- the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus (White Russia) -- even though in 1953 Poland and the Soviet Union each renounced any further reparations payments from Germany.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 15:26 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe the profits Kuwaiti businesses have made from doing biz in Iraq in the past year should partially offset this?

Good point, A2U.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/18/2004 15:28 Comments || Top||

#7  This is as much about the traditional rakeoff for Iraqi officals as anything. Control of the purse means that their retirement funds just went sky high.

Right now the ministries are as much puppets of the Governing Council as anything. The Council is as filthy a bunch of scallywags and ne'er-do-wells as exists. They're in the council because we can keep an eye on them there. June 30 is approaching, and each one of them has a militia.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 05/18/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Pay the reparations out of the billions stolen by UN members in the Oil-for-Palaces scandel; that should more than cover the debt.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/18/2004 16:13 Comments || Top||

#9  #8 - Right on!
Posted by: eLarson || 05/18/2004 17:25 Comments || Top||

#10  Everyone has a good point. At one level, the Iraqui people were responsible for Saddam. At another level, cutting off reparations to Saudi Arabia (but not Kuwait), would be fit payback for their demanding that Bush Sr. not proceed to Baghdad.

Another thing about this: The Iraquis are beginning to act on their own and making demands on their own, as an independent state would. Bravo to them for at least getting into the UN's face.
Posted by: Ptah || 05/18/2004 17:57 Comments || Top||

#11 
Iraqis are complaining and complaining about the military occupation of their country. Let them pay and pay for their military occupation of Kuwait, so they don't forget about that.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 18:14 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Palestinian Authority still pushing crack for peace
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
US and Afghan troops fire rockets at Pakistani border tribe
American troops and Afghan militia fired three rockets at the Macha Madakhel tribe on Monday near the Pakistani-Afghan border in North Waziristan Agency. The rockets were fired from an American military base at Seerkot Zadran in Afghanistan and hit Ghardai, Charkhel and Arakh areas but no loss of life or property was reported. Seven families living in the area left for safer places following the rocket attacks, residents from the affected areas told Daily Times.
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:48:02 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  hit Ghardai, Charkhel and Arakh areas but no loss of life or property was reported.

Can't be our's, we don't miss.
Posted by: Steve || 05/18/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe a"Shot across thier bows".
Posted by: Raptor || 05/18/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||


Lashkar to start operation today
A 1,200-strong tribal lashkar (army) will start an operation today (Tuesday) to either get foreign militants in the tribal areas to register or expel them from South Waziristan Agency as a senior administration official on Monday did not rule out force against the militants mainly from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and some Arab countries.
Yeah, yeah. We know.
According to Associated Press, Federally Administered Tribal Areas Security Chief Brig (r) Mehmood Shah on Monday said the Pakistan Army had deployed fresh troops in the tribal areas for possible military action after the foreign militants hiding there had failed to accept an amnesty offer. The lashkar will travel to the Azam Warsak area today and arrest a Tojikhel sub-tribe tribesman for allegedly abusing an army officer. South Waziristan Agency Chief Administrator Asmatullah Gandapur warned the tribes that military and political action under the Frontier Crimes Regulation could be taken if the lashkar moved slowly. Meanwhile, tribesmen in North Waziristan also formed a lashkar against militants, Daily Times correspondent in Miranshah, Rehmatullah Darpakhel reported.
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


MMA sends notice to Sami
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Supreme Council (SC) on Monday issued a show cause notice to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Sami) chief Maulana Samiul Haq seeking an explanation on why he accepted the chairmanship of the Senate Standing Committee without the approval of the Supreme Council, sources privy to an MMA SC meeting told Daily Times. Sources said that the MMA leadership had also accused Mr Haq of continually violating the alliance’s constitution while giving statements against the MMA leadership. “The MMA leadership has also asked Samiul Haq to explain why he is not participating in Supreme Council meetings,” sources said.

“The MMA supreme council has issued a similar notice to Member of the National Assembly Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani, Samiul Haq’s son, because he too accepted the chairmanship of a National Assembly Standing Committee,” sources said. “This has been the first practical step taken by the MMA leadership against Samiul Haq and his son since Sami accepted the chairmanship of the Senate Standing Committee,” sources said. “The MMA Supreme Council has decided that the reconciliation committee of the alliance headed by Professor Sajid Mir will meet Samiul Haq and ask him to clear his position at the next Supreme Council meeting,” MMA Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman told a press conference after the MMA SC meeting. “It was also decided in the meeting that if Maulana Samiul Haq would not participate in the next meeting, the MMA Supreme Council would amend its constitution and elect its president,” sources said.
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:45:38 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Turnaround in US Support Will Be Catastrophic, Zibari Warns
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Zibari should make sure he's got access to lots of ocean going vessels.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 05/18/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Mr. D. - You may be sadly right. The appeasers outnumber the rest of us as of now.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:59 Comments || Top||


Iraqi Official Says Bombs Made in Fallujah
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:34 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We, the allies of U.S., are hampered by law from protecting ourselves, but the terrorists are free to roam around and they have been given sanctuary in Fallujah," Ahmad Chalabi said hours after the suicide bombing that killed Saleem, also known as Abdel-Zahraa Othman.

Wasn't it the Governing Council who brokered the deal in Fallujah? Hello??
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 13:40 Comments || Top||

#2  "Fallujah" is being taken by Arab savages as a symbol of alleged "American defeat." And why the hell not? During the anti-Taliban/al-Qaeda war, the Wahabi whore in the White House pressured the Northern Alliance to accept status quo armistice arrangements, on the pretext of politicizing hitherto military jihad. The whore then re-activated his stupidity, to deliver Fallujah to al-Qaeda supporters.

"Neo-Con" Troll Mentality: must defend bush; must defend bush; must defend bush.

Every con-man needs a pigeon.
Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls || 05/18/2004 14:16 Comments || Top||

#3  The comments by Chalabi were a criticism of an arrangement under which U.S. Marines ended a siege of Fallujah last month and allowed an Iraqi security force led by former officers in Saddam Hussein's army to oversee security in the rebellious Sunni stronghold.

So...the head of the IGC died as a result of "negotiation" in Fallujah?? Oh, say it isn't so!!
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/18/2004 18:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Chalabi said: "We are all now threatened, and I believe that drastic action must be taken by Iraqis."

That works for me!

Posted by: Wuzzalib || 05/18/2004 18:44 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Meshaal Rejects Truce
Posted by: Fred || 05/18/2004 12:33 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Khaled Mashaal - There's a air launched stinger missile with YOUR name on it. IDF helicopters are standing at the ready. Prepare to meet your virgins.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#2  stinger? thats an anti-heli/aircraft missile...
Posted by: Anonymous4602 || 05/18/2004 14:21 Comments || Top||


The Fish sees face of terror on the mirror.
ScrappleFace is back!
(2004-05-18) -- After the King of Jordan encouraged Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat to "have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not", Mr. Arafat reported today that he has "seen the face of terror."

"I was shocked and dismayed," said Mr. Arafat. "All of this time I have thought of myself as basically a good guy, working through legitimate means to help the oppressed. But after looking in the mirror, I realized that I am a dirty terrorist who murders innocent civilians to further my ambition for power. I was quite taken aback."

Jordan’s King Abdullah, who broke with the Arab world’s tradition of unmitigated support for Mr. Arafat, said "once we see ourselves for who we are, it’s the first step to recovery."

Both the king and the Palestinian leader will appear later this week on Dr. Phil to discuss Mr. Arafat’s "moment of personal enlightenment" and whether King Abdullah and the Arab League may have served as "enablers" to prevent him from seeing "the real Yassir."
Posted by: Korora || 05/18/2004 11:28:28 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All of this time I have thought of myself as basically a good guy

All that hashish addles the brain
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Wouldn't 'Springer' be more approprate?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 12:46 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Counterbattery tactics in Tikrit
Professor Robert Alt, posting at the Ashbrook Center website, prt of a series on his trip to Iraq:
Not long before we left Tikrit, a firefight broke out just outside the base. It gathered in intensity, until it sounded like mortars were fired. The insurgents tend to fire mortars from the other side of the river in a marshland area, because it is hard to patrol. The base has a simple but effective response: they place Abrams tanks at the perimeter of the base, with optics that can fix on a target 3000 meters away. Then, they unload the 120 mm main gun—which they did in this firefight. The firefight ended before we left, and we traveled back to FOB Bernstein without incident.
Posted by: Mike || 05/18/2004 12:24:19 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Four arrested over Berg murder
Four people have been arrested over the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, Iraq sources say. The 26-year-old businessman’s decapitated body was found 10 days ago in Baghdad. His killing was shown around the world on the internet. The poor quality website video showed Berg dressed in orange overalls kneeling on the floor with his hands tied back. There were five masked men behind him. One read a statement urging Muslims to take revenge over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. The masked men then pushed the American contractor to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams. His head was cut off with a knife and then held aloft. The website said the execution was performed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It is not known if he was among the four people arrested.
Posted by: Lux || 05/18/2004 10:49:40 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm not going to get my hopes up with respect to Zarqawi, but it would be a great thing if they got at least some of those responsible.
Posted by: eLarson || 05/18/2004 13:26 Comments || Top||

#2  I know which prison I hold them in......
Posted by: Anonymous4916 || 05/18/2004 14:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Anon4916 - the one 6 feet under?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/18/2004 15:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Hmmm,buried up to there necks near a red ant mound and pour honey on there head.
Posted by: djohn66 || 05/18/2004 15:34 Comments || Top||

#5  I think we should make a point of not treating these people according to the Geneva Convention.

And make it very public that we are not doing so because they did not abide by the GC themselves.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#6  excuse the mistype red ant should say fire ant.:)
Posted by: djohn66 || 05/18/2004 16:18 Comments || Top||

#7  Oh, I hope they don't humiliate these guys when they interrogate them. I wonder if a colonoscopy is justified to check their health.
Posted by: AST || 05/18/2004 18:36 Comments || Top||

#8  Maybe the liberals would want the U.S. Army to house these savages in the Hilton and serve them tea & cookies.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 23:53 Comments || Top||


Four people have been arrested over the beheading
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 10:49 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gen Kimmitt just said that the CPA has "no information on arrests today." AFP is source of report. Who knows, but I'll go with Kimmitt until he sez different.
Posted by: .com || 05/18/2004 11:15 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm willing to allow extremes in interrogating these mooks if it leads to Zarqawi...even making them wear panties or maxipads on their heads. Go ahead and call me inhumane...
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Something about that maxipad story didn't ring true for me. Sounds like Ms England is talking a big story to the press hoping to convince everyone she's innocent.
Posted by: ruprecht || 05/18/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Yeah - If one of the four would happen to be Zarqawi. . . All I can say is God may be great, but a chainsaw is very sharp. See the movie "Scarface"
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 11:58 Comments || Top||

#5  I now understand Zarqawi is NOT among the four arrested. All we can do is use the lavender panties on the four we caught. Maybe they will say something. And, I hope they are held at an "undisclosed location", with more discrete MPs.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 13:22 Comments || Top||


Mark Bowden: Lessons of Abu Ghraib
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 05/18/2004 10:45 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bowden: The only way to prevent interrogators from feeling licensed to abuse is to make them individually responsible for their actions. If I lean on an insurgent leader who knows where surface-to-air missiles are stockpiled, then I can offer the defense of necessity if charges are brought against me. I might be able to persuade the court or tribunal that my ugly choice was justified. But when a prison, an army, or a government tacitly approves coercive measures as a matter of course, widespread and indefensible human-rights abuses become inevitable. Such approval unleashes the sadists. It leads to severe physical torture (because there can never be a clear line between coercion and torture), to rape, and to murder.

This is Bowden in high moral dudgeon again. If we are going to rely on the rank-and-file to risk their careers and their personal freedom to get information out of recalcitrant prisoners, we will never get that information. The problem with Bush and Rumsfeld is lack of leadership - they won't come outright and say that these are some of the things we have to do to keep our men safe.* Instead, they persecute the people who risked put their jobs and futures on the line to obtain life-saving information. (Anyone who did it for kicks should be punished - but this is at most an extreme form of the hazing that new military recruits are subjected to).

* Although I understand why they do it - this hypocrisy is necessary to placate public opinion in other nations that are cooperating in the War on Terror. Hypocrisy is an indispensable part of diplomacy - we pretend to like them, they pretend to like us and we get along famously, some of the time.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#2  The problem with Bush and Rumsfeld is lack of leadership - they won't come outright and say that these are some of the things we have to do to keep our men safe.

Heh, they don't have to convince me. Given a choice between protecting our military personnel and giving the kid gloves treatment to captured insurgents/terrorists, I'll put the terrorists at the bottom of the list every single time.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/18/2004 11:34 Comments || Top||

#3  The problem with Bush and Rumsfeld is lack of leadership In this situation I agree, but what/who is the alternative.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 11:36 Comments || Top||

#4  "but this is at most an extreme form of the hazing that new military recruits are subjected to"

There was sodomy with electrical lights and a broom handle included in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. That goes far beyond "hazing" IMO.

If we are going to rely on the rank-and-file to risk their careers and their personal freedom to get information out of recalcitrant prisoners, we will never get that information.

*sigh* But part of the point is (and correct if I'm mistaken) that the information gotten out of the prisoners even *with* the abuse was characterized trivial.

Which, the way I see it, most likely means that most of the prisoners didn't know anything and were tortured for no cause whatsoever.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 05/18/2004 11:51 Comments || Top||

#5  If I lean on an insurgent leader who knows where surface-to-air missiles are stockpiled, then I can offer the defense of necessity if charges are brought against me.

Paging Col. West. Paging Col. West.

Didn't he 'lean' on an insurgant in order to learn about an upcoming ambush and saved the lives of himself and those under his command. Lot of good that defense did him.

Perhaps the most disturbing evidence of this mindset was Donald Rumsfeld's long initial silence on the Abu Ghraib photos.

It is my understanding he did not know about the photos at the time. Rumsfield does not micromanage what happens in Iraq.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/18/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Bowden makes a few mis-statements:

1) apparently 17 different members of congress did know about this investigation as far back as January - their mock surprise is duplicitous and Bowden needs to get his facts straight.

2) the Geneva convention (afaik) doesn't call for cushy treatment of non-uniformed combatants.

3) I'm still waiting on what these inmates were in for in the first place. All these media-morons make it sound as if all these inmates were just mere victims of circumstance (cue the little violins) - It's one thing to abuse their ordinary army soldier pow (which I don't condone at all) and it's quite another to beat the shit outta some asshole they just found w/a green scarf on his head planting IEDs. For the latter category I say whoop that ass or summarily execute BlackJack style.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#7  If political correctness is going to be the way we interrogate known terrorists, we have no business blaming them for successful terror attacks - we are looking at the culprit in the mirror every single morning.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/18/2004 11:57 Comments || Top||

#8  "There was sodomy with electrical lights and a broom handle included in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. That goes far beyond "hazing" IMO."

Aris> If that proves to be true, then your correct - far beyond hazing or anything ever done in a military boot camp from my experience. However, I'm still waiting on the military judicial system to see this through to the end. I know what the allegations are (besides the above) and have seen some pictures of the hazing stuff that everyone's seen but I am still waiting for what the court's can prove or not based on evidence. Anybody can make an allegation, the bottomline is what can or cannot be proved in the court and how the Geneva convention plays into it. As of right now, I beleive there a seven guards pending legal proceedings, actually a small percentage in the big picture and I am confident those found guilty will be dealt w/appropriately.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#9  Let's not forget the statement of the first one facing trial (his name eludes me at the moment): if the officers knew about it, they would have put a stop to it. The Abu Ghraib story is not the result of policy.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 12:15 Comments || Top||

#10  RC> Sivit? The other 3 I know about are Grainer, Javal?, and some guy w/the first name Ivan.
Posted by: Jarhead || 05/18/2004 12:17 Comments || Top||

#11  Lessons of Abu Ghraib : Anyone with a digital camera will be sent to Leavenworth for life plus 99 years.

Abu Gharib Defendants : Jeremy Sivits, Javal Davis, Sabrina Harman (female behind pyramid), Lyndie "Leash" England, Charles Grainer, and IVAN Frederick.

Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:50 Comments || Top||

#12  The US Armed Forces have doctrine and regulations in order to guide military operations on the basis of experience and proper coordination of various considerations. This interrogation scandal will forever be a great example of the disasters that might occur because doctrine and regulations are ignored and deliberately evaded during wartime.

One small group of people with one narrow focus have caused enormous problems for many other members of the Armed Forces and for many other participants in our national-security efforts.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 12:58 Comments || Top||

#13  This is apparently built on an article on torture that Bowden did for the Atlantic Monthly.

I highly recommend that article.
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 05/18/2004 13:35 Comments || Top||

#14  It's still the lady general's fault, IMO. Dumb-head backwater twerps are just not that hard to recognize as such, and it was her job (and nobody else's) to recognize them and/or at least have adequate inspections, assignments, etc. in order to prevent such heinous monkeying around. Any competant, trained military manager could have foreseen something like that getting started considering the circumstance and people involved, and could've stopped it before it happened Sure, the underlings did it. But she let them do it. It happened on her "watch."
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 14:30 Comments || Top||

#15  It's still the lady general's fault, IMO.

Which is why her career is over.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 16:17 Comments || Top||

#16  Bowden has gone totally over board with a "tsk, tsk" judgmental perspective in this new article.

#13, I agree, Bowden's October/03 article was much better. It was quite informative because he gave the reader a good overview of the use of coercion by various agencies in the past decade to extract intelligence from a detainee. That's why I referenced the October article in another thread. Also in his October article, Bowden made an effort, though not always successful, to restrain himself from moralizing on the use of "torture lite." This new article is pretty transparent and rather off-putting, IMO.
Posted by: rex || 05/18/2004 23:01 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Hard boyz shut Somalia hospital
The only free hospital in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has closed after medical workers went on strike because of threats from gunmen. Hundreds of women and sick children gathered outside the SOS Hospital, pleading for medical attention. Many were shrieking with pain. The patients inside were evacuated. Several women were sobbing because all the other clinics in Mogadishu are private, and prohibitively expensive for all but the rich.

The gunmen were sent to the hospital three weeks ago by the family of a woman whose womb was removed during a life-saving operation. Some 20 armed men have been patrolling the wards since the end of last month, preventing medical staff from performing operations and tending to the sick. The hospital workers say that they will carry on with their strike until the militiamen are withdrawn from the building. But the woman’s family are insisting that the militiamen will continue to occupy the hospital until they are compensated for the removal of her womb. The family is demanding 50 camels, which is the traditional Somali compensation offered for the death of a woman. The woman’s family say she is as good as dead because she can no longer bear children. However, Bashir Sheikh, the doctor who removed her uterus, says that he had to do so in order to save her life, as she was carrying a dead baby. "I was waiting to be thanked", he said, "but, instead, I am receiving death threats".

Mogadishu’s traditional elders have been trying to mediate between the woman’s family and the hospital, but have made no progress. Religious leaders, women’s organisations and ordinary citizens have also been calling on the family to withdraw their militiamen from the hospital.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 1:01:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vor" series--- "What do you call a couple of men with clubs in a back alley?" "A Vor-Lord's malpractice suit!"
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 05/18/2004 11:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, can any of you gunman give my grandfather an enema? Hey, where you going? A little help here.
Posted by: Super Hose || 05/18/2004 12:02 Comments || Top||

#3  just plain 7th century idiots! if these people could just look in the mirror and see how ridiculous they are.....
Posted by: Dan || 05/18/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Bomb attacks kill two, wound 13 in Algeria
Two booby-trap bombs laid by armed Islamic extremists killed two soldiers and wounded 13 others on patrol in highlands near the northeast Algerian town of Setif, newspapers reported on Tuesday. The bombs were laid on and beside a track regularly taken by an army patrol in a region where units of the radical Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) are known to be based and operate. Four of the wounded soldiers sustained serious injuries, the press reports said. Since the beginning of May, violence involving Muslim fundamentalists waging a guerrilla war against the secular government of the north African country has claimed 21 lives, according to official statements and press reports.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 05/18/2004 10:20:00 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: Subsaharan
Sudan’s war threatens disease for rest of globe
As the horrors of Sudan’s ethnic conflict mount, opportunities for pathogenic microbes - germs that could threaten people all over the world - rise in tandem. War and disease are often a matched set in Africa, with terrifying results: If the fighting doesn’t kill you, disease very well could. And without outside help to stop the cycle, the devastating results will only spread.

In the Darfur region of western Sudan, an estimated 1 million ethnic-African Sudanese are refugees, the targets of government troops and horseback "janjaweed" militia - ethnic Arabs - who are torching and raping their way across hundreds of miles of poor farmland. It is almost impossible to overstate how remote this region is. Permission to legally visit the area is rarely granted by the Sudanese government. So scientists know very little about the area’s plants and animals, much less its microbes. But what they can surmise is frightening.

Darfur is just 500 miles north of N’zara, where scientists believe the often lethal West Nile virus (which has now spread to nearly every state in the United States) resides. In 1976, N’zara also was the site of a major outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. And across Sudan’s southern border, Uganda is believed to be ground zero for the global AIDS epidemic. The circumstances of West Nile’s spread remain a mystery, but the Ebola outbreak and the AIDS epidemic owe a great deal to the treacherous mixing of war, refugees and microbes.

In 1976, an international team of scientists was in Yambuku, Zaire, doing battle with the world’s first known epidemic of Ebola, a virus that causes uncontrollable bleeding. Ebola was rare, to say the least, so the scientists were stunned to hear rumors of another outbreak in N’zara. American disease detective Dr. Joe McCormick drove a Land Rover across more than 400 miles of unmarked terrain to confirm the outbreak. To this day, however, scientists have no idea exactly how Ebola emerged in N’zara, or whether the virus normally inhabits the area. But they do know that ethnic warfare was under way in the region.

Most likely, infected animals -bats, perhaps - had taken up residence inside buildings in the area, probably as a result of human encroachment into the animals’normal habitat and changes in local weather patterns. It is believed that starving local residents hunted and ate infected animals, and once humans were infected, Ebola spread swiftly, thanks to the dire conditions in the region’s war-torn hospitals and clinics, where needles were reused and sterile techniques were virtually unheard of.

As for HIV, it also can be traced to the 1970s and another ethnic-cleansing campaign in the same region of Africa. Ugandan strongman Idi Amin set his soldiers against tribes in the Rakai district, with rape as a primary weapon. When the conflict spilled over into Tanzania, so did the rape, and when Tanzania’s army repulsed Amin’s forces, it carried out its own campaign of rape in turn. As it happened, however, another form of revenge spread along with the rape: HIV.

The genetic history of HIV shows that the virus made its first leap to our species from a primate -probably a chimpanzee - some seven decades ago. But in traditional village settings across Africa, the virus did not readily spread, and less than 1 percent of any society is thought to have been infected before the mid-1970s. It took a catastrophic event, like Amin’s brutal campaign, to amplify the rare virus into a pandemic.

Today, as then, a chief horror of the Darfur campaign is the militias’raping of women and girls. They brand their victims’ foreheads so that all will know that the women and their potential offspring are tainted. Nobody knows how prevalent HIV is in the Darfur region (Khartoum has never allowed surveys of the area).

In the Muslim north, surveys of pregnant women four years ago revealed that 3 percent of them were HIV-positive; a N’zara-area survey found infection rates twice as high. It isn’t unreasonable to suspect that the current Darfur "ethnic cleansing" campaign is spreading the disease, not only among the people of Darfur and their janjaweed rapists but also among refugees in camps in neighboring Chad. It is equally reasonable to posit that some other previously obscure sexually transmitted disease could be amplified to epidemic proportions via the bodies of the women of Darfur. And there is yet another chapter in the region’s disease history that has a bearing on what’s happening in Darfur. Ten years ago, the world stood by as hundreds of thousands were murdered in Rwanda and thousands more died in the refugee camps.

Initially, overwhelmed local medical workers believed that the disease causing many of the deaths was cholera. But it wasn’t chiefly cholera that ravaged the refugee camps; it was shigella, bacteria that cause dysentery. Amid the ongoing violence and the chaos of the camps, black market antibiotics were taken indiscriminately. Instead of curing the bacteria, the uncontrolled use of antibiotics created a brand new fully drug-resistant strain that still plagues Africa.

Surely it is in our collective interest, in light of this sorry history, to pay heed to those who implore us to save Darfur, to stop the rape, to resettle the refugees, to end the chaos that breeds disease. Even if we cannot find Sudan on a map or have no room left in our hearts to bear witness to another war, we surely understand that deadly microbes are our problem, as well as theirs.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 05/18/2004 8:54:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Nine Sadrites Killed in Karbala
Nine militiamen loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were killed in fighting with American forces in the southern city of Karbala early Tuesday, a witness said. Ten Iraqi fighters were also injured in the clashes, which lasted more than an hour on streets near the city's Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas shrines.
Mu'taz al-Hasani, a witness, said he saw nine bodies of fighters from al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army, which launched an uprising against the U.S.-run coalition in early April.
I always like to start the day with good news.
Posted by: Steve || 05/18/2004 8:41:57 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  like a ray of sunshine, Al-Sadr corpse count makes my day a little brighter, thanks
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Kill more of them. Much, much more.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/18/2004 10:32 Comments || Top||

#3  I wish the CPA would incorporate a Sadrite Tote Board into their daily briefing. The could brief in front of a bunch of people answering phones and the numbers could increase during the briefing.
Posted by: Super Hose || 05/18/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Is it just me or does it seem like there are two or three reports about Mehdi Army morons getting smacked every day--with no US casualties involved. Sounds like an effective slow decimation.
Posted by: Sludj || 05/18/2004 16:41 Comments || Top||

#5  1 little, 2 little, 3 little sadr-ites, 4 little, 5 litle, 6 little sadr-ites, 7 little, 8 little sadr-ites...9 little sar-ites smoked.

Let's make happen, Cap'n!!!
Posted by: anymouse || 05/18/2004 18:59 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
King of Jordan: Arafat should consider stepping down
Jordan’s king is quoted as saying Palestinian leader [ kleptothug for life Yasser Arafat should consider whether to step aside. King Abdullah tells The New York Times that Arafat should take "a long look in the mirror"
[yucky metaphor but at least he didn’t say ’stand naked’]
and decide whether his position is helping the Palestinian people or not. Israel and the United States often have pushed for Arafat to step aside. The Palestinian has even frustrated his fellow Arab leaders -- though it is rare that they publicly voice that frustration.
[Egypt and Jordan have supposedly been ticked at Arafat for many, many years now]
Abdullah had told reporters in Jordan that Palestinian leaders "need to get their act together." He also says Iraq’s next leader should be a "tough guy" with a military background, who’s capable of holding the country together.
Posted by: mhw || 05/18/2004 8:38:00 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jordan is a Palestinian majority state. I would point out to King Abdullah that whether he is helping the Palestinian people by staying in his current position is a question he needs to answer.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Abdullah hasn't gotten any of *his* Palestinians killed in clashes with the Israelis recently, nor have I heard of the Kingdom of Jordan financing, training, supporting, or protecting suicide bombing operations. Of course, that might have something to do with Jordan being a small, poor, weak tribal state with no oil to speak of, and heavily reliant on American aid and military assistance. But the point still stands.
Abdullah is positively benign by regional standards. Hell, even compared to his father, who had Black September and the 1967 to live down, he's pretty good.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 05/18/2004 9:48 Comments || Top||

#3  King Abdullah tells The New York Times that Arafat should take "a long look in the mirror" and decide whether his position is helping the Palestinian people or not.

If Arafart had any shred of decency, this would have happened a long time ago. That he's still in charge and made recent statements about "terrorizing" the enemy is proof enough that the "Palestinian people" isn't what he cares about.

Abdullah had told reporters in Jordan that Palestinian leaders "need to get their act together."

Their act is together. Arafart runs the show, and that is all.

He also says Iraq’s next leader should be a "tough guy" with a military background, who’s capable of holding the country together.

Arab populations and strongmen/dictators: like hand in glove.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 05/18/2004 11:22 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Gitmo General Proposed "Dedicated MPs" to Support Iraq Interrogations
The American officer who was in charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison has told a senior Army investigator that intelligence officers sometimes instructed the military police to force Iraqi detainees to strip naked and to shackle them before questioning them. .... The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, also told ... that his unit had "no formal system in place" to monitor instructions they had given to military guards, who worked closely with interrogators to prepare detainees for interviews. ....

Colonel Pappas confirmed in his statements that his unit had enacted several changes recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the head of detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, whom the Pentagon sent to Iraq in August and September to review detention operations. A major finding of General Miller’s visit, Colonel Pappas said, was "to provide dedicated M.P.’s in support of interrogations." Several military police officers and their commanders at Abu Ghraib have said that military intelligence officers directed them to "set the conditions" to enhance the questioning. ....

Last May, Col. Karl Goetze, the staff judge advocate for occupation land forces in Iraq, said at a Pentagon briefing that the military intended to segregate "unlawful combatants" from Iraqi prisoners who should be treated as prisoners of war. ..... only a small percentage of the prisoners in Iraq would be designated "unlawful combatants," ... the individuals who raised up, took arms, not carrying them in an open manner, not wearing uniforms; in other words, engaging in tactics and techniques that were not in accordance with the law of armed combat."

On Monday, however, a senior military officer said in an e-mail message that "no persons in Iraq have been declared unlawful combatants." The Iraqi prisoners held in the American-run prison at Abu Ghraib have been labeled security detainees. In testimony addressing the scandal over the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners there, American officials have said that the Geneva accords are "fully applicable" to all prisoners held by the United States in Iraq. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 05/18/2004 8:24:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Pak Islamic alliance vows to maintain religious laws
The leader of the hardline Islamic alliance vowed yesterday to resist any attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to amend Islamic laws that rights groups say discriminate against women and non-Muslims. One of the most controversial provisions of the so-called Hudood Ordinance states that a woman must have four pious male Muslim witnesses to prove a rape, or face adultery charges. Those convicted of adultery face stoning to death or 100 lashes. Musharraf told a human rights convention on Saturday that the laws passed under the military dictatorship of late General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1979 should be studied afresh to ensure they were not misused. Fazlur-Rehman, secretary-general of the opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Islamic alliance, charged that Musharraf’s statement on the Hudood Ordinances and laws relating to blasphemy were the result of American and Western pressure. “We will not allow the American agenda to be imposed on 140 million Muslims,” he told a news conference. “Islamic Laws will be protected with full force and in this connection everything will be done to resist the ideology of secularism.”

Secular political parties, civil rights and women’s groups say rape and other violent crimes against women have soared since the passage of Hudood laws. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says the incidence of rape could be higher than the one every two hours reported in the local media. But successive governments have failed to change the laws because of stiff opposition from Islamist groups. Musharraf said the country’s blasphemy law should also be reviewed.

Meanhwile, rights groups in Pakistan yesterday gave mixed response to calls by Musharraf to review Islamic laws. "It is a good and positive move by the president," Naeem Mirza, director of private women rights group Aurat Foundation, said. The private Human Rights Commission, which has long campaigned against the blasphemy laws, was cautious as to whether they could ever be repealed. "There have been discussion on blasphemy laws in the past but the government withdrew after...bowing to pressures from relgious leaders," legal officer Mehboob Ahmed Khan said. "Let’s wait and see how serious is the government this time. Hudood laws negate the rights of women and must be repealed."
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 05/18/2004 7:49:51 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Come on-how many rapes are committed in front of 4 witnesses? Muslim Pakistan's rape "laws" are just one more example of current day Islam's propensity for condoning psychopathic behavior. Instead of holding criminals accountable for their sexual weakness and apostatic crimes (I don't imagine the Quran advocates rape), Islam saddles rape victims with the culpability. What a bunch of cowardly degenerates they are. Ironic that they are hiding behind women’s (torn) skirts.
Posted by: jules 187 || 05/18/2004 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  And ironically, Mohammed made made up the Four Witnesses Law to protect one of his wives from stoning for adultery. Well, did he realize that it would make the ban on rape unenforceable unless the rapist was a Darwin-Award-level dumb crook?
Posted by: Korora || 05/18/2004 11:45 Comments || Top||

#3  It is un-islamic to rape a woman with four piuos male witnesses Jules.

About those blasphemy laws though. How you going to keep them down on the farm without them?
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 11:58 Comments || Top||

#4  "Pakistan's rape "laws" are just one more example of current day Islam's propensity for condoning psychopathic behavior." Thanks jules 187!

. . ."the so-called Hudood Ordinance states that a woman must have four pious male Muslim witnesses to prove a rape"

WTF! If four Islamic ass-holes are standing by (i.e., "witnesses"? WTF?!) as they watch (bet they love that!) a woman get raped, they are still considered "pious"?

Okay. So, Islamic guys are considered "pious" if they watch a woman get raped. Too much.

Witness 1: "Yes, by Allah, I saw the penetration, but was distracted by her screaming, so I can't be sure our cousin did it."
Judge: You are a defender of Islam. May Allah bless you.

Witness 2: "Yes, by Allah, I saw the penetration, and though I was not distracted by her screaming, her flailing arm hit me in the eye during my observation at four inches distance from the act, and when I hit her back, the act was over, so I can't be sure our cousin did it."
Judge: You are a defender of Islam. May Allah bless you.

Witness 3: "Yes, by Allah, I saw the penetration, but because I wanted her first, I was talking to the other three witnesses in order to organize the situation, but then our cousin had her down before I could manage my trousers, so I can't be sure our cousin did it."
Judge: You are a defender of Islam. May Allah bless you.

Witness 4: "Yes, by Allah, I saw the penetration, and as I was encouraging her through her tears to stop provoking men to rape her, she vomited, and the vomit go on my shoes, so I can't be sure our cousin did it."
Judge: You are a defender of Islam. May Allah bless you. Throw her in prison! She is a loose woman and a slur againt holy Islam! And she must make restitution for insulting the shoes of a defender of Islam . . . Next!

No wonder the rate of rape in Pakistan register about 1 per hour! Unbelievable. And they say "We will not allow the American agenda to be imposed on 140 million Muslims.”

This is another one of the many reasons why I keep saying that all Islamic pseudo-men must die.
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/18/2004 13:52 Comments || Top||

#5  [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls TROLL || 05/18/2004 21:33 Comments || Top||

#6  "By Allah, we demand to retain the right to discriminate against women and non-Muslims!"

Disgusting. It's just one more example of the depravity that exists in the Islamic world.

Although I just had an interesting thought. I was thinking how this can only change through a mass movement from the bottom - since those mullahs aren't going to let go of the power that comes from their "interpretations" - and despairing because I had remembered that the education system is one of the things that keeps the masses from realizing the lunacy in which they live - and yet, I says to myself, most of the worst terrorists are Western-trained. There are numerous examples throughout Muslim history which I'm too lazy to look up now (though I easily could) where a Muslim would come to the West to become educated, and during the course of his travels would undergo a transformation into a jihadi. And I wonder: could it be that they like the power that they see in the West, and knowing that they're better-educated and suited, that they go back actually intending to push ignorance on others who aren't as fortunate?

What disturbs me about this little theory is that it goes with the lifestyle of the Arabs, with the tribalism and the constant struggle to get yourself to the top, to conspire to benefit only yourself.
Posted by: The Doctor || 05/18/2004 21:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Duh! Therefore don't send Pakis $1,000,000,000 plus (bilateral resource sharing) per year.

Duh! Robert Crawford - I-want-to-be-part-of-something-big-even-as-a-kiss-ass - clones, lack the capacity to link Bush indulgence to Muslim depravity.

Re rape incidence. As few as one of ten gets reported in the civilized world where we don't execute rape reporters who can't meet hud' evidence rules.

I advocate depopulation of all Muslims from civilization, and imposition of imperial conditions on their savage tribal entities. What a concept! I wonder if I could conscript any of the I-want-to-be-part-of-something-big majority here?

Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls || 05/18/2004 21:33 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
’War rumbles on’ in southern Iraq /
Just after midnight, British tanks and armoured personnel carriers rumble into action. They are hunting down their enemy here, Shia rebels loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. Around Amara, it is not so much a question of peacekeeping as war fighting. The British troops fire flares to light up the landscape. Infantry then fan out and pursue four suspected insurgents who have been spotted through night sights. The flares set fire to vegetation. Just the night before, the British were ambushed down the road from here. In the end, they killed more than 20 of their attackers in close combat. [See yesterdays posting] The British troops even fixed their bayonets. They say they can’t afford to take any chances. "The Mehdi Army are a very ruthless and determined enemy," said Major James Coote of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.

"They will use any tactics available including using children to attack us, or to hide behind children, as they have done within the city in the last week or so. Unfortunately they are also very well armed. We have certainly won a few battles but we haven’t yet won the war."

For the British, the idea of this operation tonight is to show that they, not the Sadr rebels, own this road and to ram home the message that anyone thinking of carrying out more ambushes here had better think again. The British have seized from the Sadr rebels in the last few days everything from heavy machine guns to mortars - antiquated perhaps but still dangerous, as we found out. Sirens wailed as the British base where we were staying came under attack. We took cover inside. This is a regular occurrence in and around Amara. Sometimes the British have felt under siege here. Indeed, it’s only recently they have dared patrol these streets on foot. Before, Sadr rebels ruled the roost in downtown Amara. Then a few days ago the British drove them out in a battle they call "Waterloo". Even so, the troops steer clear of a mosque that is still a Sadr stronghold. With frequent ambushes on the road out of Amara, the safest way for us to leave was by helicopter. This province has always been unruly, full of criminal gangs and warring tribes. Even Saddam Hussein struggled to control it - now the British are struggling too.

Thanks Aunty - ruin it in the last line. I hope some of the 3000 reinforcements will be posted here - didn’t look too different to the Bogside. No surrender.
Shep - sneer marks duly noted in title!
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 5:09:33 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Typical moral relativization on part of Beeb. Nothing about the professionalism of the POWRR. No, they not "dare" patrol. Of course. The brown masses are seething. I watch the world news fairly regularly and have yet to hear a peep on the Palaces-for-Oil program. The current canard is "Cut and Run". I heard plenty of it last night on how Tony was getting ready to do so. How did the Beeb determine this, you ask? By his answering a question on if he'd cut and run from places like Amara. He said three times he wouldn't. The Beeber said that his repeating vigourously only could mean he was going to cut and run. Logique, non? Next time Tony, tell them the exit strategy is victory.

Having just read a great book "The Boer War" by Thomas Pakenham, the Beeb seems to be still in a self-flagellating mode over its non-coverage of the Boer War and Milner's quest to gobble up all the gold in the Rand for the Empire! This is an opportunity to make up for lost time so the dead horses to beat are Oil-for-Haliburton and Prisoners, not how oil and electricity production now surpass Saddam-era levels. Quoi?, you say. You didn't see Moore's news conference at Cannes? The knives are out from the lefty media. Simple as that. It's all about the Cowboy. Let's stand up.
Posted by: Michael || 05/18/2004 12:47 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
While `rumors kill Rafah’
04:00-04:15 - Lengthy bursts of machine gun fire wake up the neighborhood. There are explosions from the border area. Y. explains that it’s routine, almost every night. IDF patrols shoot at the abandoned houses on the border. The Israelis must be doing for the sheer hell of it.
I bet every night each soldier gets an allocation of ammunition and is told "Have some fun guys! Go shoot up some paleo houses."

07:20-08:00 - Phone calls come in reporting tanks, APCs and bulldozers are gathering east of Rafah, east of Salah a Din Road, the main route through the Gaza Strip. A helicopter is overhead. UNRWA tells its staffers the army plans to block Salah a Din Road between Khan Yunis and Rafah, before a major operation. UNRWA suggests that its employees from out of Rafah go home and that its staffers who live in Rafah leave the area. The IDF announces it’s closing the Rafah border crossing. Travelers waiting to cross into Egypt are sent home. Everyone is quoting the Israeli press headlines about the army preparing a major operation.

08:15 - Reports come in that some APCs and bulldozers left the south Gush Katif area and destroyed some 20 dunam of tomatoes and cucumbers on Palestinian farmland near Morag.
Under international law destroying more than 15 dunam of any salad vegetable is a war crime. Kofi told me! BTW how much is a dunam is real money?

09:40 - Reports of large concentrations of army northwest of Rafah, between Tel al Sultan and the Rafah Yam settlement.

10:10 - There are sounds of helicopter fire. Outside, family belongings wait to be loaded onto a pickup truck. They’re leaving. They rented an apartment in Jinya.

10:15 - Reports that the APCs and bulldozers leave the Morag area and head into the Atara farmlands, destroying more farmland.
Sloppy reporting! Inquiring minds want to know how many dunams.

10:25 - Heading east, toward Salah a Din Road, we pass the Yusuf a Najar Hospital. Ambulances are waiting outside, ready.
Presumably the normally wait inside. Although it must be a bit crowded with the patients and all.

10:50 - Two tanks watch a bulldozer digging in Nasser neighborhood. Youths watch from a nearby hill. A burst of gunfire is aimed at them. They duck and get off the hill. Someone says that earlier, a nearby wheat field was set on fire by a rocket fired by a helicopter.
You gotta tell us how many dunams!

10:55 - Cars are hurrying toward Rafah, fewer cars are heading toward Khan Yunis. There’s gunfire Someone says it’s from the tanks guarding the bulldozers. Another burst of fire. Then another.

11:01 - Gunshots from Atara, where the bulldozers are digging. More shooting. And more traffic from the Khan Yunis area.

11:20 - Back to the center of town. People are consulting with each other by phone: To go back to Rafah? L., who teaches English, is in a hurry to get out of Khan Yunis. Y. buys double the normal number of pitot.
I have no idea what a pitot is, but I am sure there is an international law about them.
People are filling cans with water. Y. says it’s more crowded than usual in the shuk.
You lost the dramatic tension there by saying lots of people are doing their marketing (shopping to the Brits).
Noon - Girls on their way home from the UNRWA school say they were told that starting tomorrow they’ll be going to another school, where classes will be held in shifts. Their school is going to be housing families who left their homes for fear the army will demolish their homes during the night.
Much better, we can’t have refugees shown in the homes they own. It poses credibility problems.

12:15 - Salah a Din Road is closed. Rafah’s been cut off. A woman in the refugee camp is weeping, "what more do they want to do to us?" Someone points out that the European Hospital is also now cut off from Rafah. That’s where the wounded are taken from Rafah because a Najar Hospital can’t handle all the casualties in case of a military operation.

12:35 - Reports the army is preventing passage on the dirt roads that go from Salah a Din Road to the farming plots west of it.

13:15 - In Yibneh refugee camp, a donkey pulls a wagon with antennae, a fan, a satellite dish, a TV and some planks of wood.
You have to show the relevance of the donkey. Is it a refugee?

14:00 - Reports begin to flow in about troop concentrations in the Rafah Yam area.

17:15 - H. who lives in J Block in the camp says that the six buildings around him are empty. He remained, with his family. He says on the phone, "the rumors are killing the city. It’s said the army intends to demolish houses in southwest Rafah. That could be 200 houses."

17:45 - Back in Nasser neighborhood, about 400 meters away from where Salah a Din Road is closed. People are afraid to approach to see how it was closed - with sand, cement blocs, a tank? People are afraid to approach, because tanks are firing. Tanks and helicopters fired at people who tried to take dirt roads, someone says. Someone asks Y. what to expect? He shrugs and answers, "we haven’t recuperated from last week’s destruction and killing."

17:45 - Bursts of machine gun fire from the tanks on Salah a Din Road. Another burst. Another. In the east, a white balloon hangs between heaven and earth. Someone says it is the camera balloon, watching for the army.

18:00 - A boy is carrying a large pot in a wheelbarrow between Brazil and a-Salam neighborhoods, right on the border. He is helping to empty a house while the owners are away. People continue emptying their homes and loading everything onto donkey carts or tractors, horse carts or taxis. The Red Cross is allowed to move equipment by truck - but only on the dirt roads, not the main road. The truck gets stuck.
Paleos plead for a Security Council resolution to get it unstuck. UNSC passes said resolution after USA abstains. UN levies member states $100 million to get a tow truck. When uestioned about the cost Kofi Annan vigorously defends the 723 UN staffers required to run the program against allegations of corruption. He was quoted as saying "Everything is transparent and above board at the UN and I am shocked by these allegations. Latest reports indicate the Red Cross declined an offer by some Israeli troops to push the truck because it might compromize their traditionality nuetrality.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 2:59:33 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  just nuke that bastard state of israel and remember the Liberty
Posted by: Anonymous4909 || 05/18/2004 3:06 Comments || Top||

#2  To Anonymous 4909

Pitot is the plural form for pita (pocket bread) - mainstay of Israeli and Palestinian cuisine.
Posted by: ltcedk || 05/18/2004 3:12 Comments || Top||

#3  A Pitot Tube is used to measure airflow inside duct work. Maybe he was working on a ventilation project and needed extra.

It's odd how all these psychos, transis, idiotatians and Arian youth like 4909 remember the Liberty and walk right on by the Beirut bombing.

Note: a wore the uniform of the USN for 11 years and I would like to see some payback for the Pueblo.
Posted by: Super Hose || 05/18/2004 3:30 Comments || Top||

#4  My father push bastard retaired scum like the abitue of this trashy racist post in a 1200 grades krupps and I garantied you that Israel will be nuked and is bastard scum will be hunted again and I this time will be pushing to the G E hot hole the scum of the heart
Posted by: Anonymous4910 || 05/18/2004 3:42 Comments || Top||

#5  abitue of this trashy racist post

I guess thats me! Anonymous4909 we find Arabs hilarious! Their childish comic-book antics are an endless source of amusement for us. I presume you are an Arab and I'd like to personally thank for the endless hours of fun you have provided.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 3:56 Comments || Top||

#6  #4 is right of course - Israel will be nuked, probably soon. And that event will be immediately followed by the disappearance of the vast majority of the world's Arabs into glowing radioactive fireballs. Ugly ugly events are going to transpire over there soon.
Posted by: AzCat || 05/18/2004 4:01 Comments || Top||

#7  Unlike the Muslims who like to talk about "turning the earth beneath their enemies into a sea of fire and blood" and such, Israel and the USA actually have the ability to make that image a reality. So here's a quote for those nearly-illiterate jihadis out there to consider: in the immortal words of Captain John Paul Jones, "We have not yet begun to fight!"
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 05/18/2004 4:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Sorry to be controversial but don't it seem time for both sides to sit on their hands? The Paleos should go down the Ghandi route and dump the lunatic fringe and the Israelis should only fire when fired upon and provide an appropriate response - worked for the Brits in Northern Ireland and currently in Basra. An idiotically simple premise which fails to take into account recent events, I know - but how else do we get out of this intractible problem other than nuking each other to kingdom come. Fire at will ladies and gents...
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 4:41 Comments || Top||

#9  the Israelis should only fire when fired upon and provide an appropriate response Until very recently thats what the Israelis did. Firing misiles at groups armed men assembling only started a few days ago. I must assume the Israelis concluded their previous policy resulted in too many casualties.
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 4:48 Comments || Top||

#10  Well, Howard, if the Paleos dump their "lunatic fringe," that's pretty much all of them--that's why they can't give up terror and hence, the failure of the "roadmap."
And the Paleos aren't supposed to have nukes or any other kind of weapon...wasn't that part of the whole Camp David deal?
Peace for land.
Voila, the suicide bombers instead of soldiers.
When the Israelis disengage from Gaza and pull back behind the wall, then it will become clear that if there's trouble, it will be the Paleos making it and the reason won't be that Israel is occupying their land anymore either.
Posted by: Jen || 05/18/2004 5:25 Comments || Top||

#11  True - you absolutely have to go after the lunatic fringe. Seems to me whilst they've temporarily stemmed the flow of suicide bombings and bumped off key Hamas figures they'd be wanting to keep a low profile and consolidate rather than 'up the anti'in Gaza.
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 5:27 Comments || Top||

#12  Sorry Jen - missed your post - yup the Israelis should get that wall finished asap and sit behind it. Any further territorial threats should then be dealt with savagely.
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 5:34 Comments || Top||

#13  Report from albawaba:

In an earlier attack, three Palestinians were killed and eight people were wounded when an Israeli helicopter fired three missiles at an unoccupied part of the Rafah refugee camp.

It was quite crowded for an unoccupied part.
Posted by: marek || 05/18/2004 5:35 Comments || Top||

#14  Well, marek, the Israelis say they have their reasons, in that they hold that Rafah is a hotbed of terrorism.
Once they clean it out, I'm sure they'll pull out.
Posted by: Jen || 05/18/2004 5:53 Comments || Top||

#15  1 dunam = 1 km2
Posted by: rsd || 05/18/2004 7:30 Comments || Top||

#16  We've got a live one in A4909! Release the hounds boys!
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 05/18/2004 8:11 Comments || Top||

#17  I have no idea what A4909 said. I know english probably isn't it's first language, but that's bad. Why bother posting on an english site when you can't even put together a semi-coherent statement?

As for Howard's suggestion, wasn't there a Clancy book where the Paleo's took a non-violent stance and changed the balance? Can't remember. Arabs and non-violence, ha! Definitely fiction.
Posted by: AllahHateMe || 05/18/2004 8:29 Comments || Top||

#18  Yup AHM - it's very hard not to think likewise. The IRA to their credit have in some ways managed it - post Enlightenment society though.
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 8:39 Comments || Top||

#19  BTW Sorry to sound dim but what is A4909 referring to? The Liberty?? Please help a bewildered Englishman if you can!?
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 8:43 Comments || Top||

#20  Got it - USS Liberty shot to shit in 6 day war - ho hum. Remember the Boston Tea Party anyone? For f*ck's sake...
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 8:47 Comments || Top||

#21  This is a good link on the Liberty. Fog of war fuck up!
Posted by: Phil B || 05/18/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#22  Many thanks, Phil. Cleared that up in no uncertain terms.
Posted by: Howard UK || 05/18/2004 9:14 Comments || Top||

#23  re Jen #14

Do I really have to indicate sarcascm when I quote albawaba?
Posted by: marek || 05/18/2004 9:45 Comments || Top||

#24  re rsd #15

Not to be picky, but:

1 dunam = 1,000 square meters (sqm)

1 sqkm = 1,000,000 sqm
Posted by: marek || 05/18/2004 9:49 Comments || Top||

#25  Rafah is the hotspot for the Molemen™ branch of the Paleopithicae, with its many tunnels for the smuggling of drugs, prostitutes and weapons to kill Jooooos. Wipe the town off the map, flood the tunnels (hopefully inhabited) and pull out of Gaza....and respond viciously when attacked. They understand nothing less. Can't wait for the Paleo Civil War...pass the hummus please
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 10:50 Comments || Top||

#26  Anyone who believes that the USS Liberty was anything other than a complete screw-up on the part of the Israelis needs to stop smoking crack. At the time of the six-day war it was the U.S. that provided most of the arms to Israel and ALL of its aircraft (on the cheap). To think that the Israelis would endanger this relationship is complete moonbat science. Every investigation to date (both U.S. and Israeli) point to errors on the part of the Israeli Navy and Air Force for firing on the USS Liberty and the Israeli government admitted fault and paid restitution for that action. In the end the Israelis had NOTHING to gain by attacking a U.S. vessel and much to lose. SH, the fact that North Korea lives in EXTREME poverty is all the payback we need for the Pueblo incident. Next time you get mad at North Korea go to any mall, eat at the food court, and think of them starving right this very minute.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 05/18/2004 11:04 Comments || Top||

#27  Remember the Boston Tea Party anyone?
HowardUK - See even our friends remember a grudge from 229 years ago!

A4909 is an antisemitic toady best ignored.

This says it best :Unlike the Muslims who like to talk about "turning the earth beneath their enemies into a sea of fire and blood" and such, Israel and the USA actually have the ability to make that image a reality...Thx Scooter Mc.

Green glows the Arafat.

Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||

#28  Regarding the Ghandi approace. I've often thought about how Pres. Lincoln got the hot heads to fire the first shots in the War Between the States. Had the South just gone in peace would the population of the North been keen on sending armies. Different times though and that Southron honor society (sound familiar). Lincoln was a fox.
Posted by: Lucky || 05/18/2004 12:19 Comments || Top||

#29  re Cyber Sarge #26
You are correct that the attack on Liberty was an Israeli goof up.
You are wrong about arms supply to Israel before and during 6 day war. France provided all the planes and England provided significant number of Centurion tanks.
Posted by: marek || 05/18/2004 12:55 Comments || Top||

#30  Marek, I stand corrected.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 05/18/2004 13:23 Comments || Top||

#31  #13 marek: they just left out the word "newly" before "unoccupied" in the story

#25 Frank G: Seems as though "Morlock™ branch" would be a more appropriate term
Posted by: snellenr || 05/18/2004 13:23 Comments || Top||

#32  AllahHateMe: The Tom Clancy book was "The Sum of All Fears" and the Palestinians staged a non-violent sit in in front of the Dome of the Rock. At least in the book they figured out that the best method was non-violence as taught by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I believe he definately had the right idea. Unfortunately, muslims don't get all those virgins by being non-violent. This is why this approach will never be attempted.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/18/2004 19:05 Comments || Top||

#33  Snellenr - while Morlock is a LGF Lizardoid fav, I think this particular species which has specialized to dig tunnels for weapons is a separate species, perhaps even less evolved. I'm thinking of a MS thesis on it....
Posted by: Frank G || 05/18/2004 19:17 Comments || Top||


Israeli tanks, troops surround Gaza refugee camp
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 00:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cue "Jaws" music.
Posted by: BigEd || 05/18/2004 15:43 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Pakistani women being trained as suicide bombers
Pakistani women are being trained to become suicide bombers by the widow of a foreign terrorist, reliable sources told Daily Times. Intelligence agencies have submitted reports to the Interior Ministry revealing that a woman Aziza, a citizen of Uzbekistan and widow of Ubaidullah, an active member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, is reportedly training female suicide bombers at a base in Pakistan’s mountains, sources said. Sources said this is the first time in Pakistan that females were being trained for suicide missions. It has also been stated in the reports that Ubaidullah was killed in January 2004 during an operation in South Waziristan conducted by the armed forces of Pakistan. The reports reveal that in late March 2004, Aziza told her relatives that she intended to avenge her husband’s death by committing terrorist acts in Pakistan, sources further said. Terrorism might occur in the big cites of the country and important personalities associated with the government could be targeted by trained female terrorists, sources added.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 05/18/2004 12:32:13 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  These people are criminally insane and must be treated accordingly. Those in the West which still feel negotiations will function with individuals thoroughly brainwashed into committing suicide for a false cause, are dreaming.

Pakistan may be one of the most potentially alarming nations on Earth, and as a relativly new, regional nuclear power, the enemy has set goals in store for toppling the current government in Islamabad.

The only option we have is preventing the jihadists from getting their claws on Pakistan's WMD.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  As long as they limit themselves to Pakistan alone, is fine with me. But what about the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis already in the US and Canada?
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 05/18/2004 1:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Good point. If Muslim 'social clubs, non-profit organizations, schools, mosques or summer camps are indoctrinating those attending to become suicide bombers in America or Canada that alone is a threat to national security.

It's incredible that the federal government issues non-profit status (501C-3) to the majority of these anti-western front groups in the first place.

Anyone teaching others to become 'homicide' bombers and kill Americans or Canadian citizens must be arrested and the willing 'pupils' investigated and or locked up if deemed as a threat.

The enemy wants to bring their insanity to our doorsteps. The infiltrated enemy within is laughing at us. while organizing, plotting domestically to one day, bring about the same chaos & death Iraq finds itself jihad right under our noses and getting away with it TAX FREE!

It's bad enough radical Islamic OPEC oil barons have many nations over a barrel and promote various kinds of Muslim revolution on a grand scale in many of the countries they export to. Iran and the House of Saud are two of the most notorious. It's a whole other issue when Islamists abuse Canadian and America liberal non-profit laws & regulations to network hundreds of strategically positioned tax free 'groups' in pre-planed concentrations. They have been getting away with this for over 25 years to engage in harming the host nations at later date.

The enemy is not at the gates, he was allowed walk right through and lives among us.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 05/18/2004 2:21 Comments || Top||

#4  If Pakistani-Americans or Canadians start blowing themselves up, who will then remain to send money back to Pakiwakiland? The fund raising machine must stay alive! At all costs.
Posted by: Rafael || 05/18/2004 2:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Pakistan may be one of the most potentially alarming nations on Earth

Pakistan ("the land of the pure") was founded explicitly to be an Islamic nation. It has lived up to that goal, so, yes, it is the most alarming nation on Earth.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 05/18/2004 7:04 Comments || Top||

#6  Admittedly it's a very small sample, but the Pakistanis I know are too Americanized to help out the jihadis. And yes, they're Muslim, though I'd guess from the "reformed" branch.

But I'm sure we have plenty of jihadi enablers here.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/18/2004 18:50 Comments || Top||



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