The Short Attention Span Theater category is quite appropriate here. Nice Antizionist(Tm) avalanche in the talkbacks, btw.
Israeli forum set to demand International Court of Justice in The Hague launch legal proceedings against Iranian president for conspiring to commit crimes against humanity, genocide
Ronen Bergman
A group of Israeli diplomats plans to turn to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and demand that it launch legal proceedings against Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for conspiring to commit crimes against humanity.
Following the scathing remarks made by Ahmadinejad in the past few months against Israel's right to exist and his Holocaust denial, while the Iranians are exerting increasing efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, Israeli diplomats decided to form a group aimed at looking into the possibility of launching a legal procedure.
On Sunday, the group members announced that a legal examination of the issue, in which international legal experts took part, ended with the conclusion that the Iranian president could be sued. The legal file against Ahmadinejad is almost ready for submission.
Among the forum members are former Israeli Ambassador to the United States and France Dr. Meir Rosen, former Foreign Ministry Director-General Eytan Bentsur, and former Minister Dan Naveh. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), headed by former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold, is providing the forum with logistic assistance in preparing the lawsuit.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
was accepted by the UN General Assembly on December 1948, as the international community's response to the revelations on the Holocaust. The forum's document quotes a speech by Ahmadinejad from October 28, 2005, in which he called to "wipe Israel off the map."
In an interview to the al-Alam Iranian television network during the Islamic Convention in Saudi Arabia, Ahmadinejad declared that Israel's existence was "the main obstacle faced by the Islamic nation." Recently, in April 2006, the Iranian president defined Israel as "a rotten and dried-up tree which will be destroyed by one storm."
'Direct and public incitement to commit genocide'
The Convention on genocide defined genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The acts for which countries can be punished as part of the Convention include physical genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, as well as a "direct and public incitement to commit genocide."
Rosen and Gold write in their document that "Ahmadinejad's remarks constitute without a doubt a 'direct and public incitement' to commit genocide. The Iranian regime supports terror organizations, such as the Islamic Jihad, which continuously carries out murderous terror attacks against innocent Israeli citizens. However, the gravity of Ahmadinejad's remarks is particularly outstanding in light of Iran's attempts to develop mass destruction weapons."
The document also stated that "the State of Israel must act against Iran through clause 9 of the Convention. According to this clause, disagreements between states that signed the Convention regarding its implementation must be solved by turning to the International Court of Justice in The Hague."
Both Israel and Iran signed and approved the discussed treaty in the 1950's.
At this stage, the forum is formulating the last wordings of the petition to the ICJ, while continuing to collect evidence, most of it from the media. The forum plans to take additional steps against Ahmadinejad in other European countries with legislation against Holocaust denial.
#1
We'll see how the International Court moves on this. That will tell us just how deeply ingrained current European anti-Semitism is. My personal suspicion is that there will be a lot of talk and no action - typical "international" and EUroweenie behavior.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/22/2006 12:14 Comments ||
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#2
Of course there was no Holocaust. At least, nothing like the nuclear catastrophe that Ahmadinejad has planned. This Iranian maggot needs swift onset lead poisoning in a big bad way.
#3
Actually, I think this sets a very interesting precedent, and it may be taken up by the court for that very reason. Never, to my knowledge, proactively, has a case for genocide ever been made.
That is, nobody has ever been taken to court for proposing aggressive war or genocide before the fact. Ironically enough, the defense in this case might be the equivalent of an international right of "free speech".
#4
The Court finds for the defendant, and orders the plaintiff to be incarcerated for malicious persecution (and the crime of breathing while being Jewish).
Earlimart, California (KP) - She slung an M 16 rifle on her shoulders for the first time when she was 17. Now at 20, she is patrolling the streets of Kabul. Ranbir Kaur of the U.S National Guards first hit headlines in 2003 after becoming the first Sikh girl to join the U.S. armed forces that consists of over 200,000 women soldiers.
Presently on active duty in Afghanistan, Specialist Kaur is on a one-and-a-half-year mission in the war-torn country. She was initially recruited to be a supply clerk during the Iraq war, as rules didnt permit women to fight frontline. However, she says in a situation like Afghanistan, everything is frontline.
Born in Nijjran, village of Jalandhar district, the young warrior reached the U.S as a seven year old after her father Mahan Singh secured a green card in 1990. Brought up in the isolated town of Earlimart California, her brush with the uniform dates back to 2001 when she was a freshman in high school at Delano, which was the closest city. I would see [officers of the] army, marines, air force and the navy standing outside the career center of the school distributing fliers to students. I thought the uniform was awesome.
During the 2005 Katrina hurricane in New Orleans, the devout Sikh was instrumental in the recovery of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib after the New Orleans Gurdwara was submerged. United Sikhs, an organization, had sought her assistance and Ranbir had helped get things moving after she was told that that saroops of Guru Granth Sahib Ji ned to be retrieved from the submerged Gurdwara Sahib.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 11:40 ||
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#1
I would see [officers of the] army, marines, air force and the navy standing outside the career center of the school distributing fliers to students. I thought the uniform was awesome. Too bad some schools would ban such activity at job fairs. BTW THANK YOU Sp4 Ranbir Kaur for you service. Any sightings of Arabs joining the military? (crickets chirping).
#2
Thanks for your service, SP4 Kaur. You'll go far.
I remember seeing a (male) Sikh in the U.S. Army in Germany back in the early 1970's. (Don't know if he volunteered or was drafted - the draft hadn't ended yet.) Due to his religious beliefs, he was allowed to keep his beard and moustache, and wore a (khaki) turban instead of a cap. Dunno what he did about a helmet - I suspect he wasn't in a combat unit.
He looked very cool.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2006 13:50 Comments ||
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#3
Good for her.
Umm... that whole New Orleans thing, way over my head.
#4
that whole New Orleans thing, way over my head.
The Sri Guru Granth Sahib is the holy book of the Sikh religion. She was informed that they were in a flooded Sikh temple there and helped recover them.
The Guru Granth Sahib (also known as the Adi Granth) is truely unique among the world's great scriptures. It is considered the Supreme Spiritual Authority and Head of the Sikh religion, rather than any living person. It is also the only scripture of it's kind which not only contains the works of it's own religious founders but also writings of people from other faiths. The living Guru of the Sikhs, the book is held in great reverence by Sikhs and treated with the utmost respect. Sikhism rejects idol worship, so the Guru Granth Sahib is not worshipped as an idol, but rather emphasis is placed on respect of the book for the writings which appear within. Guru Granth Sahib is a collection of devotional hymns and poetry which proclaims God, lays stress on meditation on the True Guru (God), and lays down moral and ethical rules for development of the soul, spiritual salvation and unity with God.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 15:42 Comments ||
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#5
Dunno what he did about a helmet - I suspect he wasn't in a combat unit.
Indian Army Sikhs use a "Patka" which accomodates the turban. It has a steel band.
Little things like helmets don't stop Sikh soldiers.
This photo is from WW2 - Indian Sikh soldiers storming a German trench after throwing hand grenades.
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 16:34 Comments ||
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#6
Yay-- a fellow citizen/soldier. Show 'em how its done.
U.S National Guards
Good grief! this makes us sound like we are some kind of a soviet guards-type unit... hmm, actualy, that's not all that bad a thought when you think about it. Considering the typical percentges of veterans in both my and other guard units, you could say that we are a cut above average. Not flashy or high profile, but we seem to get it done, and make it look easy.
At least my unit was very well spoken of by everyone. Except the enemy. The enemy hated us.
I expect that by the end of her tour, the Taliban will hate SP4 Ranbir Kaur's unit as well.
Posted by: N guard ||
05/22/2006 17:08 Comments ||
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#7
Earlimart is not an isolated town. In 1955, it had about 800 pop., today it has better than 2400. Reading Saroyan brings me back to 1955. My best years as a child.
Specialist Kaur, I am proud of you. Another veteran of Earlimart.
#8
Earlimart is not an isolated town. In 1955, it had about 800 pop., today it has better than 2400. Reading Saroyan brings me back to 1955. My best years as a child.
Specialist Kaur, I am proud of you. Another veteran from Earlimart.
#9
"Sikhism has a concept of the Just War. It's called 'Dharam Yudh', meaning war in the defence of righteousness.
In such a war:
the war must be the last resort - all other ways of resolving the conflict must be tried first
the motive must not be revenge or enmity
the army must not include mercenaries
the army must be disciplined
only the minimum force needed for success should be used
civilians must not be harmed
there must be no looting, territory must not be annexed, property taken must be returned."
The Sikh religion is as valid as christianity. Just dont ask about the underware.
Councillors face deaths threats and resistance from their male counterparts
When Raazia Baloch, a mother of four with a thousand-watt smile, was elected to Helmand's provincial assembly last October, local authorities congratulated her with a Kalashnikov.
"They said it was for my protection," she said wryly. "But when I tried to fire it the bullet was stuck inside. Even that was broken."
Politics is a rough game in Afghanistan, where last year's landmark elections produced a crop of budding democrats, retired warlords, drug-smugglers and former Taliban fighters. For women, it is potentially fatal.
Two weeks ago inside the new national assembly in Kabul, turbaned parliamentarians hurled water bottles and bloody threats at Malalai Joya, a firebrand female deputy who dared criticised the country's mujahideen fighters. Now Ms Joya changes safe house every night and travels with three bodyguards.
The dangers are equally potent in Helmand province, 350 miles to the south. As 3,300 British troops deploy amid the worst Taliban violence in years, a small number of courageous women are leading their own campaign, armed with nothing but their voices.
Salima Sharifi was an 18-year-old pupil when she started campaigning for the provincial elections last summer. Months later she won 2,114 votes - and a place in history as Afghanistan's youngest female politician.
"I just wanted to make a difference," said the bookish young woman, sipping tea in a carpeted room adorned with Persian poetry. Her proud father, Muhammad Zahir, sat nearby. "I warned her it would be risky but she just smiled," he said.
That risk is very real in Helmand, where clashes with the Taliban are becoming an almost daily event. One French soldier and 16 Afghan soldiers died and 40 other troops were injured in two firefights on Saturday.
This is an explosive province where zealots torch schools and assassinate girls' teachers. Ms Sharifi has received several death threats, and the most recent caused her family to move house. Yet she remains undeterred. "Of course I am scared. But I am willing to make any sacrifice, even to die," she said.
Like Ms Sharifi, Ms Baloch, 33, returned from exile in Iran after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She was married at 12; her police officer husband died in a bombing. She prizes education above all else. "The prophet says women should be educated. This is freedom," she said.
But her liberal notions are tempered by local culture and gritty necessities - she sought her four brothers' permission before standing for election, and her first daughter got married at 11.
"I was on my own and I couldn't afford to support her any more," she explained. Every morning the two friends don their burkas and pad through the streets of Lashkar Gah to take their seats at the provincial council, the shura.
Resistance
But democracy has proved a bitter disappointment. The four women councillors meet some resistance from the 11 male councillors - mostly bearded, conservative men who declare certain subjects "not women's business".
But the greater frustration is the shura's impotence. "We haven't done much to help the people," said Ms Sharifi gloomily. The council has only fig-leaf authority that gets little respect from underpaid and often corrupt officials. For example, Ms Baloch said, the council once ordered that a village near Goreshk be electrified, "but when we took a letter of authorisation to the power ministry, the desk clerk tore it in two".
Extending the reach of the Kabul government is a central plank of the British mission, which includes officials from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. But for the province's women campaigners, like all citizens, security is the first priority.
Two weeks ago an unknown gunman emptied his AK-47 into a van leaving the province's women's ministry, which is a stone's throw from the British base. The driver died instantly but miraculously the two female passengers survived. Fauzia Ulomi, the ministry head, believes she was the real target.
"It wasn't necessarily the Taliban. It could be anyone opposed to the government," she said, standing by the bloodstained steering wheel.
The ministry behind her, which runs internet, embroidery and beautician classes for 170 women, was closed. "Nobody dares come here anymore," she said, raising her voice as a British Chinook helicopter lifted off next door.
Ms Ulomi is as stubborn as she is fearless. Her husband left Afghanistan 21 years ago for school in Russia, never to return. She herself fled during the Taliban after threats for teaching girls.
An admiring western aid worker in Lashkar Gah describes her as "inspirational, presidential material - if only that were possible".
Now she continues her work thanks to foreign support. But without security the help rings hollow; both the deserted women's ministry and the bullet-pocked vehicle were bought with US money.
If the British mission to Helmand is to succeed, she warned, its soldiers must overcome Afghans' aversion to foreigners. "Even my father or grandfather would not accept the British. How will this generation be different?" she said. The British must also counter a powerful Taliban whispering campaign. "Most people believe the British are the enemy, that they are coming to take revenge for past defeats," said Ms Ulomi's bodyguard, Khan Almas, referring to British colonial disasters of the 1880s.
Ms Ulomi's family is pressuring her to quit her job. As ever, she refuses, but warns of a worsening situation. "I tell you, our enemies are winning," she said.
#1
Your enemy is islamism and they're winning because muslims continue to submit to their lunacy. You are slaves to an insane cult of death and violence.
Yemen continues to present itself as a major ally of the United States in its war against terrorism and Al Qaeda, with the government stating it intends to face extremism through security measures and dialogue with militants.
Al Qaedas presence in Yemen was cemented after two major operations in the countrys waters. In October 2000, militants attacked the USS Cole destroyer, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39. Two years later, in October 2002, the French oil tanker, the Limburg, was targeted, off the Yemeni coast. The authorities have also foiled a number of planned attacks by Al Qaeda supporters and other militant Islamist groups loyal to Al Qaedas ideology.
Many religious leaders across Yemen support Osama Bin Ladens ideas and rejoice every time his organization strikes. Dozens of Islamist militants are currently being tried for belonging to Al Qaeda. The authorities have recently announced that 170 members of Osama Bin Ladens group are being investigated by the state prosecutor for terrorism, including the second in command in Al Qaeda (according to the Yemeni government) and the groups financier, the Yemeni Hamdi Al Ahdal. The authorities remain on the look out for the 23 Islamist militants who escaped from a high-security Yemeni prison in Sanaa in February by digging a 44m tunnel from their cell to a nearby mosque. They include militants wanted for their role in the maritime attacks.
Asharq Al Awsat examines Al Qaedas presence and activities in Yemen and speaks to a recently-released member, Rashad Mohammed Said, also known as Abu Al Fida, about the organizations structure in Yemen and the reasons for its success in mobilizing thousands of young men. Asharq Al Awsat also spoke to a number of experts and lawyers and discussed the future of Islamic militancy in Yemen and its current activities. When the authorities freed a number of militants earlier this year, it was expected that this would mark the beginning of a re-integration stage whereby the former prisoners would be assisted to assimilate in society. Yet, reality points otherwise.
Abu Al Fida revealed that he, along with others who were released from the jails of the Yemeni intelligence services are suffering under the weight of security measurements that restrict their movements and it is as if they are living under house arrest. They were released as part of the intellectual dialogue established between the government and militants who had returned from Afghanistan and who has publicly renounced extremist ideology and violence, according to the government, especially against foreigners and foreign interests in Yemen. These dialogues were organized by a committee of Ulema from the Zaydi and Al Shafey sects, under the presidency of Judge Mahmoud Al Hitar, member of the supreme Yemeni court.
He indicated, for the first time, that the movement of the youths, as he called it, between Yemeni governorates is severely restricted and can only occur after permission is granted by the intelligence services. Their passports and identity cards have also been confiscated and many of them are obliged to make themselves known to the authorities once every month. In certain governorates, they have to fill in a form detailing their whereabouts for the last month.
Addressing the Yemeni police, Abu Al Fida said, If the United States has requested that you carry out these measurements, it is pushing matters toward crisis point. If it hasnt, then I advise that they are stopped and you stop frightening people.
He believed that these security measurements transformed former militants into heroes and lions. He criticized former detainees for not knowing the Quran and for their basic military skills. Theyve never met Osama Bin Laden but they leave prison as heroes because of the actions of the security and intelligence services. But, he admitted that Al Qaeda inmates enjoyed better treatment at the hands of the security services compared to other Arab countries because the group has not targeted members of the government since we are all Muslims and it is not acceptable to target Muslims.
A former member of Al Qaeda who underwent military training in Afghanistan, Abu Al Fida indicated, all the young men do not see or think about carrying out an attack in Yemen. Therefore, he believed that the security services should have the ability to deal with former Al Qaeda members without needing to imprison them and nurture their feelings of hatred and anger, to the extent that some might begin to wish they had indeed carried out an attack to justify their situation. He blamed the policies adopted by the Yemeni security services for the growth of Al Qaeda inside the countrys jails and for indirectly promoting its message.
No members of the Yemeni police or intelligence services were available to comment on these statements but a senior source told Asharq Al Awsat, on condition of anonymity, that Abu Al Fidas account was exaggerated.
Another issue currently preoccupying Yemeni society is the departure of militants to join the insurgency in Iraq. But Abu Al Fida denied the presence of an organized movement to send young men to Iraq. Instead, Al Qaeda members and sympathizers who chose to travel did so based on an individual choice, adding that some of the men who had joined the insurgency did not even know how to pray. No official request from Abu Musab Al Zarqawi or other insurgents in Iraq to encourage fighters to join them has been issued but they ask for help through funds or dawaa (preaching).
According to Abu Al Fida', Al Qaeda in Yemen lacks an organized and hierarchical structure and does not maintain a clear chain of command with an Amir (leader), a deputy and autonomous cells around the country. Instead, Osama Bin Ladens supporters consist of individuals who traveled to Afghanistan and were linked to Bin Laden through a common destiny, as comrades during jihad. The thousands of young Mujahideen in Yemen, lack organization and are linked by ideology, he added.
Abu Ali Al Haritthy, the famous Al Qaeda member who was killed in a US drone attack in November 2002, was the groups most senior leader in Yemen, because of the protection he received from his tribe in Maarib, eastern Yemen and his jihad credentials, as he had participated in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
As for Mohammed Al Ahdal, nicknamed Abu Assem Al Makki, believed to be Al Qaedas number two in Yemen, he was sentenced to 37 months behind bars earlier this month for his role in gathering funds for the organization and bankrolling terrorist attacks. Abu Al Fida admitted that Al Ahdal was a fundraiser for the Mujahideen in Chechnya and Bosnia but it has yet to be proven that he collected money to fund attacks inside Yemen.
For his part, Mohammed Naji Alou, a prominent Islamist lawyer in Yemen and official in the human rights organization HOOD, said it was obvious that Al Qaeda would have a presence in Yemen, since most of the young men who traveled to join the Mujahideen in Afghanistan came from Yemen, Egypt and Persian Gulf countries.
Asked about the groups current active members and activities inside Yemen, the former Member of Parliament said, It is impossible for any political analyst to give exact and detailed figures on Al Qaedas presence and the support it enjoys. I believe that the security services, which should have such information, are unable to do so.
The continuing detention and trial of dozens of Yemenis suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda is one of the reasons for the ongoing violence, the lawyer said. He also criticized the stringent measures on newly released militants, echoing Abu Al Fidas earlier statements.
A dialogue was established with many of these young men. They swore to remain on the side of the law after their release. But not many were released. Those who were freed were harassed and remain unable to move from one city to another without prior permission from the security services. They cannot attend a funeral or visit a doctor unless their request is accepted. They also have problems finding jobs and no one wants to employ them. Many prefer to stay in jail than to be freed under these conditions.
Suspected members of Al Qaeda in Yemen, according to the former MP, are sentenced in sham trials that are contrary to the constitution and are not allowed a defense team. I believe all this represses people and encourages them to develop alternative means to attack us.
While not denying the presence of Al Qaeda on Yemeni territories, Dr. Ahmad Al Daghsi, a professor at Sanaa University, questioned its actual size. He said Al Qaeda was in fact divided into two organizations: the first is based on an idea that many believe in, without any knowledge of Al Qaeda, or its structure or leaders. They believe in its principles and justify its actions because of the oppression seen across the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Al Qaeda, as an idea, is present in the hearts of many. But as an organization on the ground that follows pre-set plans and answers to its leaders, it is very limited. The members of such a group are a lot less than what is portrayed in the media, whether in Yemen our elsewhere.
Asked about the future of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Al Dagshi said, In my opinion, the war against terrorism has foiled Al Qaeda as a base to a large degree. But, in the meantime, it has created many new bases that do not belong to this organization but follow the same ideas. Al Qaeda in Yemen is finished. The only way it can carry on is if it is [nurtured] by the actions of the United States here and there.
Abdul Aziz Al Samawi, who has represented Al Qaeda suspects in Yemeni courts, said it was impossible to judge how many belong to the organization. I am concerned with finding out if those [accused] have committed a crime or not are they being tried solely because they belong to Al Qaeda? He revealed that many of the defendants are tried for planning to go to Iraq to join the insurgency. I cant understand how someone is jailed because he wanted to travel to Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2006 00:48 ||
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Three young Asian men were today jailed for life for the murder of a black IT worker during race riots in Birmingham last October.
Waqar Ahmed, 26, 23-year-old Azhil Khan and Afzal Khan, 22, all from Handsworth, Birmingham, should each serve a minimum of 25 years in prison for killing Isaiah Young-Sam, Mr Justice Mackay said.
The 23-year-old victim - who was stabbed through the heart - his brother and two friends were attacked on the evening of October 22 purely because of their race, the judge said.
"They had done nothing to these defendants, and done nothing to incur or justify hostility," he added. "What led to the death of Isaiah Young-Sam was the colour of his skin."
The judge said the guilty men had been "fuelled by the mob violence which they could have resisted, could have turned away from, which they failed to do".
The trio had denied murder. However, the jury at Birmingham crown court, which began considering its verdict on Thursday, was told they had fled to Huddersfield, Yorkshire, hours after the attack.
The men returned to Birmingham the next day, booking one-way flights to Pakistan. They were held during a stopover in Dubai and returned to Britain.
Mr Young-Sam had been walking through the Lozells area of Birmingham with his brother, Zepheniah, and two friends when he was chased and stabbed by a gang of men wearing hooded tops and bandanas, the court was told.
The victim and his group had taken a quiet back route in order to avoid violence between the city's black and Asian communities that had broken out over a rumour - widely circulated but unsubstantiated - that a West Indian girl had been raped by a group of Asian men in a shop.
The court heard how the four men appeared to have gone past the danger area when a gang of Asian men got out of a Toyota Corolla and chased them.
Mr Young-Sam was caught by the gang, who surrounded him and, shouting racist abuse, produced weapons from under their clothing, the court heard.
He was fatally stabbed, while one of his friends, Locksley Byfield, was wounded in the buttocks.
The three defendants were also convicted of wounding Mr Byfield with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, for which they were jailed for 10 years to run concurrently.
After the verdict, Mr Young-Sam's 22-year-old sister Kavina, flanked by her parents, read a statement describing him as a "kind, fun loving, humble, respectful and dignified young man" who lived at home and studied the Bible.
"My parents, my brother and myself will never come to terms with the vicious attack and murder of Isaiah, and cannot understand how people could take the life of such an innocent young man," she said, describing the killers as "animals".
During the trial, prosecutor Adrian Redgrave QC described Mr Young-Sam's murder as "a wicked killing of someone who was a total stranger to those involved in the attack".
Although it was not known which of the three defendants made the fatal wound, this was irrelevant, Mr Redgrave argued. "Not only the killer himself but anyone who helped or encouraged him may be convicted of murder," he said.
The rumours about the rape prompted protests outside the shop were it allegedly took place.
Tension later erupted into violence during which businesses were attacked, cars set on fire and police pelted with bricks and bottles. Around 35 people needed hospital treatment.
During the trial, the prosecution stressed that the case was not linked in any way to the rape allegation, but had been "one specific attack during the course of the rioting that ensued".
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 17:03 ||
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#1
What is the state of play with the US Senate investigation into your alleged dealings with Saddam?
Gone quiet. Hardly surprising since after all that urine and wind there still isn't a scintilla of evidence.
Wasn't there some discussion of the possibility of using his testimony against him in some legal forum? Or has that idea been dropped?
Quantifying what many here already know.
The government is trying to encourage Russian women to have more children, in order to reverse a population decline. Bad habits (too much booze, poor diet, not enough exercise) has caused life expectancy for men to continually decline over the last two decades (this began before the Cold War ended). At the same time, women, discouraged by bad economic conditions, had fewer children. The new cash bonus, and other benefits, offered to women to have more children is not, apparently, working.
If present trends continue, the population of Russia will decline from 143 million to 100 million by 2050. Not only that, but by 2050, most of the population may be Moslem. More likely Russia will further break up along muslim/non-muslim lines. Currently, about 15 percent of Russians are Moslem, and the average Moslem family has three or more children, while the average non-Moslem family has one or two. While Christian (largely Slavic) Russians have seen their numbers tumble, the Moslem population of Russia has grown over 40 percent since 1989 (from births, migration and conversions). There has also been a religious revival, with the number of mosques growing from under a thousand when the Soviet Union collapsed, to over 8,000 today. That means Moslem men drink a lot less, and live healthier, and longer, lives. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2006 06:53 ||
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#1
Russia will probably have a larger Moslem minority by 2050, but not a majority, because even Moslem women have fewer children as they become educated and more affluent.
Dunnigan just couldn't make up his mind.
By 2050, I would suspect Russia's population will be much larger than this. And much more Chinese. The only question is whether you are considering the portion west of the Urals or east. Either way, the Russians will be history unless they can luck into better leadership than pooty. But history and demographics seem to be running against them.
It just goes to prove that if you're going to have a war with America, it's best to let them occupy your country when it's over.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 10:29 Comments ||
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#5
Maybe not so chinese. China is experiencing its own demographic drop, spurred by the one child policy and exacerbated by a militant preference for male children.
XINING, China (Reuters) - Ishmael is a big fan of Osama bin Laden.
"He is a hero," he said, stroking his beard. "He is a good Muslim."
Maybe not such a strange comment to hear from a Muslim in Iraq or Saudi Arabia, but Ishmael is a Chinese citizen who lives in the remote, northwestern province of Qinghai, in a country which is officially atheist and strictly controls religion.
With just over 20 million adherents, according to the government, there are as many Muslims in China as live in Syria, or Yemen, two predominantly Islamic countries.
And Islam is alive and well in western China.
Ishmael -- who, like many other Muslims in Qinghai, prefers using his Arabic name to the Chinese one stamped on his identity card -- is a student at an Islamic school attached to a mosque in Xining, the provincial capital.
There he learns Arabic and Persian, as well as studying the Koran and other Islamic teachings.
But politics is technically banned by law from being mentioned either in Ishmael's school or mosque.
A large blackboard near the entrance to the mosque, on the dusty outskirts of Xining, reminds worshippers of their duty to love the motherland and love the Communist Party as part of being a good Muslim, an admonition that riles some.
"The communists -- who are the Chinese -- are a godless people," said Ahmed, from eastern Qinghai, who like Ishmael belongs to the Hui minority, Chinese Muslims who trace their heritage back to the Middle East and central Asia.
That's a sentiment shared by Ishmael's hero, bin Laden, who in April slammed the Chinese as "pagan Buddhists" in an audiotape accusing the United Nations of being an "infidel" body.
MORE RELAXED
Yet despite the official controls on religion and politics, the government allows the Hui a great deal of autonomy and freedom in sparsely populated Qinghai and neighboring Gansu.
Although there may be occasional tensions, there is little parallel with the far-western region of Xinjiang, where there have been riots and bomb attacks by pro-independence groups.
"In places like Qinghai and Gansu, where Islam is less politicized, the government is more open and more relaxed," said Dru Gladney, professor of Asian Studies and Anthropology at the University of Hawaii.
"Particularly in very poor areas, there is a lot more flexibility," he said.
In many parts of China the Hui have blended in almost seamlessly into the predominant Han culture, all but abandoning Islam except for some traditions such as circumcising male children and avoiding pork.
In Qinghai, where around a fifth of the 5 million population follow Islam, Muslim women cover their heads, many restaurants refuse to let alcohol be consumed, and the men wear white skull caps and greet each other in Arabic.
A government ban on children under 18 attending Islamic schools in mosques is, in reality, usually ignored, local Muslims say.
PLUGGED IN
And they are well aware of what's going on in the wider Muslim world, even if they dare not risk the wrath of the Chinese security forces by protesting in the streets, and limit their political discussions to the home.
"We all listen to Voice of America and watch Al Jazeera here," said Noureddin, 23, recently returned from religious school in Saudi Arabia.
During the storm over the publishing of cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammad, originally published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten last September, China's Muslims made barely a peep of protest.
"We knew about the cartoons and felt furious," said Mohammad, 26. "But how could we go and demonstrate?"
Other times, though, tensions do bubble over.
At least seven people were killed and 42 injured in the central province of Henan in 2004 after a car accident involving an ethnic Han Chinese and a Hui sparked rioting.
In 1993, a cartoon ridiculing Muslims led to paramilitary police storming a mosque taken over by Hui in northwest China.
Some Han in Qinghai say they resent the province's Muslims for their wealth, but in the same breath will accuse them of petty theft. The Muslims say they resent the Han for their ethnic chauvinism and political domination.
Even within the Muslim community, there is unease between different sects and different ethnic groups who also follow the same religion, such as Qinghai's Salar minority and the Uighurs of restive Xinjiang.
"The Uighurs dance too much," said Ali, who belongs to the more conservative Ihwani sect which often looks to Saudi Arabia for guidance. "We are different from them."
On balance, once I might have wished for them both to lose but today I am actually rooting for the Chinese, organ-thieves of political prisoners that they are.
It warms the cockles of my heart to see a nation telling them exactly how their religious worship will be limited and enforcing it!
This is the correct way to treat Muslim minorities.
BERLIN - The number of Islamist extremists based in Germany increased slightly last year but the country faces far lower threat of terrorist attacks than states which took part in the Iraq war, an official report said Monday.
There were 32,100 Islamists living in Germany last year - an increase of about 300 from 2004, said the report by Germany's domestic security agency, the Verfassungsschutz. Germany has a Muslim minority of about 3 million out of a total population of 82 million, said the report.
The biggest Islamist group is Milli Gorus, a Turkish movement with 26,500 members. Other groups are Hamas with about 300 members, Hezbollah with 900 and the Muslim Brotherhood with 1,300. The Verfassungsschutz has no figures for the number of al-Qaeda members based in Germany, the report said.
Some will be strictly al-Qaeda only, others may be members of above groups as well. Nothing sez you can't carry two or more membership cards
"Even though the degree to which Germany is threatened is clearly lower than for those states which took part in the Iraq war, it must be noted that Germany is still seen ... as a helper of the US and Israel," said the report which underlined the presence of German troops in Afghanistan as boosting this image.
Stand up against Islam anywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, etc, and you're the enemy.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declined to send troops for the 2003 Iraq war and his refusal to deploy German soldiers in Iraq has been kept in place by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The police and military in Germany are gearing up for major security operation during the football World Cup which opens June 9 in Munich and ends July 9 in Berlin.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 13:07 ||
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#1
Could it be that the reason the threat level is lower is because the Islamists see Germany as already-conquered territory? Or, more likely, because Germany is a safe base from which to attack elsewhere? I loved living there a decade-plus ago, but I'm glad to live Stateside now.
#1
This is about the US pressuring Euro Banks to stop doing biz with the Mullahs.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 12:26 Comments ||
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#2
What do you do with a friend so utterly spineless that he not only cannot watch your back, but you know that he will pass out like a fainting goat if someone raises their voice at him?
Europe is like the good guy's girlfriend in old westerns. She cannot run 10 feet without tripping, apparently enjoys villain bondage, and will never, ever, go to town and tell the Sheriff to round up a posse when ordered to.
#4
Why can't we just send over those Congressmen and professors who went to Iraq as 'human shields' four years ago? Wouldn't that deter those Iranian missiles?
A rift between Turkeys Islamic-rooted government and the influential military widened at the weekend as the prime minister criticised a top generals call for more demonstrations in support of secularism.
Rising political tension stoked by the murder of a judge last week is likely to intensify speculation about an early election, commentators and diplomats said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, is reeling from a public outcry over the attack, inside the Council of State, by a gunman who claimed to be incensed by the highest administrative courts decision to uphold restrictions on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf.
Although Mr Erdogan, a former Islamist, has strongly condemned the murder, ministers at last weeks funeral were heckled by mourners who accused the government of creating an atmosphere in which such a killing could occur.
Tens of thousands of people later marched in support of the secular order, which the government is accused of undermining in spite of its promises to uphold strict controls on religion in public life. On Friday, General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of general staff, who rarely makes public pronouncements, urged Turks to continue such demonstrations.
Mr Erdogan responded at the weekend by condemning Gen Ozkoks comments as irresponsible, with the potential to affect financial markets and internal stability. The armed forces still see themselves as the ultimate guardians of a secular system established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the officer who founded the Turkish republic.
The exchange cast a further shadow over Turkey after a rare three-year period of political and economic stability. The demonstrations, mainly in Ankara, were among the biggest against the government since it was elected in 2002. Sensing an opportunity, Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican Peoples party, has stepped up calls for the government to quit.
A general election does not have to be held before late next year. But there has been speculation that Mr Erdogan may go to the country early to renew the governments mandate while it is ahead in opinion polls. In addition, parliament has to elect a new president next spring.
A diplomat who follows the political climate closely said: His choice becomes tougher with each passing day.
Mr Erdogan has consistently ruled out an early election. But his dilemma is complicated by signs that an economic recovery his main achievement in office is running out of steam.
#1
I find the tone of this article interesting. because the media is generally supportive of anyone who is an ally to the Islamists. Yet they write this article from the perspective that the military supporters of the secular government are the good guys and Erdogan is on the outs.
Maybe this is a clue:
Although Mr Erdogan, a former Islamist
A former Islamist? Come on - Erdogan has been sleeping with the Islamists, Chirac and all the other popular boys in town. He was a former Islamist in the sense that he played with the Islamists in the double AA leagues but when he got to the big show he was suddenly a modern secularist.
I don't get it. Why would the media turn on Erdogan in support of the generals.
#2
It would be sweet to see Erdoban, Chiraq and Villepine all bite the dust next year. Hoping for Zappy and Pooty to get it too would be asking for too much.
#6
The Turkish media will turn on Erdogan because it knows who the real power is--the pashas.
The claims are that the shooter was connected to Nizam-i Alem, an extreme religious/nationalist organization affiliated with the MHP (Gray Wolves) and the BBP. They are denying, of course, but given where the shooter comes from, I don't doubt the claims at all.
It was Nizam-i Alem and the MHP that was sending fighters to Chechnya a few years back. Mehmet Ali Agca is a hero to these people too.
Posted by: Azad ||
05/22/2006 13:35 Comments ||
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#7
Thanks, Azad! More, please, if you're inclined. The internal workings, especially how and why the military seems to have abdicated its vaunted constitutional protection role and the rise of Erdogan and his party - which I though was supposed to be unconstitutional... or so the pundits said. Speaking for myself, reliable and clear information on the inner mechanics of Turkey aren't easy to come by.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 13:43 Comments ||
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#8
You may want to do a search on "Turkish Islamic synthesis" because that is where ultranationalism and Islam meet.
As you say, the generals (pashas) only seem to have stepped back. This is for Western, particularly EU, consumption. Everyone knows that Turkey remains a military state and that the only power resides in the MGK (national security council), which is run by the Turkish general staff.
AK's rise to power is reflective of the population's mood and is, therefore, meaningless. Turkey is not a democracy and its secular nature is also questionable (read the Turkish constitution for more on that).
There will be a power change in August, when Yasar Buyukanit becomes the new chief of general staff. He will replace Ozkok. Buyukanit is a hard-core kemalist who was recently indicted by the Wan prosecutor for involvement in black operations throughout "The Southeast" in the 1990s, and more recently, for the Semdinli bombing.
I suspect Buyukanit will intensify the renewal of the dirty war in "The Southeast." How much any US-Turkish deal over Iran will influence that, I haven't a speculation yet.
By the way, the Wan prosecutor has since been fired.
Posted by: Azad ||
05/22/2006 15:11 Comments ||
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#9
Thanks! I lose this great cable connection tomorrow when my better half and I flit back to Korat, Thailand (and the lousy dialup there) and I will spend some of that time chasing around based on your info. Again, thanks!
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 15:48 Comments ||
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#10
Turkey nees more Kimalist Thought Club Grads for sure.
It seems to me that part of the reason why anti-Semitism is so widespread in Europe while Islam is often treated with kid gloves is that the European elite has a reflexive contempt for a group that blends in and a reflexive respect for a group that holds itself proudly apart and resists assimilation. Thats a formula for disaster.
I loved it, the guy is spot on a number of points.
1) Why the Euros hate the US but turn a blind eye to Islamofascism
2) Why the Euros tolerate anti-semetism but turn a blind eye to Islamofascism
3) Why Euros allow enclaves of Islamofascists instead of integration
4) Why Euros prefer appeasement to war even when war is the only just option to defend freedom
He just nailed it point by point.
I recommend Everyone read it!
The Cuculidae or cuckoos are a family of near passerine birds. Many of the Old World species and some New World species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds. The best-known example is the European Common Cuckoo. The chick which hatches from the egg laid in another species' nest methodically evicts all other occupants.
In one fell segment, Chris Matthews pulled back the curtain and revealed his view of America's foreign policy intentions as fundamentally pernicious. For him, the United States in Iraq is no better than a 'colonial master.'
Matthews' guest on this evening's 'Hardball' was John Batiste, one of the former generals calling for Donald Rumsfeld's removal as Secretary of Defense. The topic at hand was the failure to anticipate the insurgency with which we have been been faced in Iraq.
Describing the miscalculation, Matthews said: "It's like the British coming in to New York at the beginning of the Revolution and saying they weren't going to face any resistance."
A bit later, he added:
"Every Third World country, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, has thrown off its colonial masters, because they don't want outsiders telling them what to do. And we didn't think we would face that reality in Iraq? Why didn't they think there wasn't going to be a resistance?"
Batiste was happy to second Matthews' notion: "I don't think they studied the past."
Apparently Matthews doesn't believe that America's goal is to help establish a democracy in Iraq. He does not distinguish between the aim of the United States in Iraq and the goal of the the British attempting to crush a democratic a revolution in America. We are nothing but 'colonial masters.' This is the profoundly negative view of America harbored by Matthews. One suspects it is a view shared by many in the MSM and the Democratic party.
#5
And what did the colonialists ever do for the colonials? Except for laws, sewers, good roads, an end to slavery, the end of suttee, and the introduction of real medicine?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/22/2006 21:48 Comments ||
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#6
Colonialism (at least the European variety) expired in the 60's with communist-backed Freedom Fighters sweeping the Europeans from Africa and Asia. So, forty years later, most of the colonial infrastructure has finally rundown and most of the countries have degenerated into third-world pigsties enlivened by endless internecine warfare with no one, certainly not impotent prigs like Mathews, to take up the "white man's burden."
#7
I wrote this jackass off as a treasonous scumbag - even by MSM standards - during the 1st battle of Fallujah. During his show ("Chris Matthews Show", not "Hardball"), he took a call from an NBC correspondent in Iraq, who reported that the Marines were finding the Fallujah assault to be difficult, and were taking heavy casualties.
As long as I live, I will never forget (or forgive) the expression on that bastard's face when he heard this...it was barely restrained glee. He was visibly quivering with joy at the thought that American servicemen were dying in droves.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
05/22/2006 22:51 Comments ||
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NEW YORK -- The Dixie Twits Chicks' Natalie Maines apologized for disrespecting President Bush during a London concert in 2003. But now, she's taking it back. "I don't feel that way anymore," she told Time magazine for its issue hitting newsstands Monday. "I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever." The feeling's probably mutual, though I doubt dubya has the time or inclination to care about your feelings you mypopic pig.
As war in Iraq loomed, Maines told the London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." Cheaply pandering to a foreign crowd - how brave and patriotic. She didn't get that lesson about politics and the waters edge.
The remarks led to death threats and a backlash from other country stars, including a high-profile spat with Toby Keith. It also stalled what until then had been the group's smashingly successful career.
Bandmate Emily Robinson said she knew right away the remark wouldn't be taken lightly and got "hot from my head to my toes." "It wasn't that I didn't agree with her 100 percent; it was just, 'Oh, this is going to stir something up,'" she told Time. More like, oh sh*t, that little blonde bimbo is going to kill our career with this nonsense.
For band member Martie Maguire, the controversy was a blessing in disguise.
"I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith," Maguire said. "We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."
Congratulations, your wish is granted. Well, the "small following" part at least
Yeah, for instance they call us on our bullshit when we talk out of turn, and won't buy our records even when we know better then they do about world politics and other neat stuff that them hicks just ain't educated on. We're from north Texas now ya see, made millions off of blue collar country fans but now we don't like them hicks no more 'cuz they just don't understand that nuance thingy. We want the really "cool fans" now since we got the benjis, you know them ones who vibe to Dylan and the boss and buy records from Barnes and Nobles.
The Chicks' hits include "Landslide," "Goodbye Earl" and "Wide Open Spaces." Their new album, "Taking the Long Way," is due out May 23. The first single is "Not Ready to Make Nice." -yeah, neither are most of your *former* fans, that's why we all got them Reba, Toby Keith, Montgomery/Gentry, and Haggard cd's in our collection and your shit's in the bargain bin at sam goody. Also, most of your *former* fans are not normally the kind to have a 5 cd changer in their cars. I used to like their music but I can't get over how they've done so well to cop the victimcrat attitude. I will never buy their cd's again.
#6
I don't buy ANY music, so I don't know what they sound like. My daughter won't buy them because she says they sound like a group of whiny crybabies on their CDs. I hope they have lots of success selling their latest CD - in the Arab world, the last place they get any "respect".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/22/2006 13:12 Comments ||
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#7
I didn't know that fatso was a "blonde!"
I'm glad she can afford the finest bleach money can buy. Maybe she can afford liposuction to suck out all that fat .. and anger, too.
#8
"I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith,"
That little fat one better learn to watch her mouth. Tell-you-whut, If she hadn't hired them 2 talented purty sisters, she'd be selling clothes at a Lane Bryant in Nashville somplace. Get'er Done!
As far as things go, I think its funny that they are doing this stuff right as their new CD is coming out. They're going to run right into their own torpedo. Hatred does that to you - a public case of BDS at its finest.
#6
Remember the "Windsors" are NOT British. Their actual family name is "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" (German/Hanover). They changed it during WW1. Prince Phillip (Charles' father) is Danish/Greek.
See http://german.about.com/library/bltrivia_windsor.htm
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/22/2006 10:50 Comments ||
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#7
Yeah my great-great-great-great-great grandmother shoulda been queen! The Stewarts shoulda ruled! we wuz robbed!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/22/2006 11:05 Comments ||
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#8
I'll break out me Bonny Prince Charlie songbook, Deacon.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2006 11:13 Comments ||
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#9
The Hieland clans, wi sword in hand,
Frae John o' Groats' to Airlie,
Hae to a man declared to stand
Or fa' wi' Royal Charlie.
Come thro' the heather, around him gather,
Ye're a' the welcomer early;
Around him cling wi' a' your kin;
For wha'll be king but Charlie?
Porter J. Goss, who was forced aside as CIA director, owns a home in Florida's wealthy, waterfront community of Sanibel and is fond of sailing metaphors. In meetings with visitors at the CIA, he sometimes described himself as a ship's captain coasting in calm seas.
Two weeks ago, when he was summoned to the Oval Office and told that he would be resigning after what others viewed as a rather choppy 18-month tenure, Goss once again referred to still waters. "I believe the agency is on a very even keel; it's sailing well," he told President Bush.
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, an Air Force man, not a sailor, borrowed the nautical metaphor nonetheless when senators asked him Thursday to name his first priority if he becomes Goss's successor. His answer turned Goss's assessment on its head.
"I think most important is to just get the agency on an even keel, just settle things down," Hayden said.
In more than six hours of questioning during his confirmation hearing last week, the four-star general and veteran intelligence officer spent much of his time framing himself as the anti-Goss. The strategy seemed designed to restore confidence at the CIA, where veteran officers revolted against what they saw as Goss's distant leadership and partisan staff.
Plagued by infighting and low morale, more than three dozen intelligence experts, many with expertise in al-Qaeda, the Middle East and Arabic, chose to leave the CIA rather than continue their work for Goss. Some openly complained to Congress that under Goss the agency seemed adrift at wartime.
In his opening statement, Hayden paid tribute to Goss, noting his years of public service as a CIA case officer and then a Republican congressman. Calling Goss a "friend," Hayden said he was "not going out, you know, there repudiating him or what he was trying to do."
But as he went on, Hayden seemed to highlight the ways in which his style and priorities would differ from Goss's. He talked about spending time walking the halls at Langley, "just getting around and seeing and being seen."
That kind of schmoozing was a hallmark of George J. Tenet, the longest-serving CIA director until his resignation in 2004. Tenet was beloved by agency employees for popping into offices, bouncing a basketball down the halls and having an uncanny knack for remembering people's names.
Goss, by contrast, preferred to spend his hours behind a desk, ate lunch in his office and attended fewer meetings. Staff said they experienced little interaction with him and began to consider him distant and unavailable.
Hayden's sharpest break with Goss came in his choice of deputy. The first senior official to depart during Goss's tenure was Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of the clandestine service, who clashed with Goss's chief of staff. Kappes's departure marked the beginning of an exodus of top officials. But Goss allies told reporters and Congress members the agency was better off without them, asserting that the CIA needed change and could not achieve it with the old guard in place.
With Goss gone, Kappes appears set to return as Hayden's deputy.
"When I did the Rolodex check around the community about Steve, when I first became aware that I may be coming to this job . . . they were almost universally positive that this is a guy who knows the business," Hayden said Thursday.
Goss had surrounded himself with mid-level managers and GOP aides he brought with him from the Hill. His first choice for executive director had to step aside after it became known that he had a shoplifting record. His second choice is under federal investigation as part of a widening government corruption and bribery scandal.
Hayden, who is known for diplomacy, was unusually blunt about the need to bring professionalism back to the agency's leadership.
"You get a lot more authority when the workforce doesn't think it's amateur hour on the top floor. You get a lot more authority when you've got somebody welded to your hip whom everybody unarguably respects as someone who knows the business. My sense is, with someone like Steve at my side, the ability to make hard turns is increased, not decreased."
One of the last things Goss did in his job was fire a veteran intelligence officer 10 days before she had completed a retirement course. Mary McCarthy, who worked in the CIA Inspector General's Office, was dismissed after acknowledging unauthorized contacts with reporters, including from The Washington Post. Goss had made leak investigations a priority and told Congress he wanted to see reporters hauled before grand juries and forced to reveal the names of their confidential sources.
The aggressive stance was unpopular within the agency. Officers felt the atmosphere had turned to one of intimidation and fear, and many were repeatedly forced to take polygraphs to prove their innocence. But the move was championed by some congressional Republicans, including Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), who have suggested that the CIA is home to too many anti-Bush officers.
When asked how he would handle news media leaks, Hayden said he admired Goss "for the action he took with regard to this last round of unauthorized disclosures."
But, he added: "That is not to say that all circumstances in the future would demand the same kind of response."
Hayden was pushed to explain why Goss was abruptly forced to resign earlier this month. Hayden gave Goss credit for coming into the agency during a great transformation, when the intelligence community was undergoing reform after the failings of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Iraq war. But he struggled to explain why the agency needed better leadership after Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) described Goss as having been a good choice for the job.
"I'm not Porter," Hayden said finally. "I'm different from him. I'll probably end up doing some things differently."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2006 01:10 ||
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#1
What was Goss' small family business that provided him with such a good income he lived in Sanibel?
#2
Perhaps he was frugal, and invested his savings cleverly in the stock market, Danielle. Mr. Wife has a great uncle who turned a steel worker's salary into several millions in the stock market. All of which the dear man will donate to charities when he dies. ;-)
If, as seems likely, General Michael Hayden is confirmed as director of central intelligence, his arrival could signal a separation of the CIA's intelligence gathering and analytical functions.
The CIA traditionally has been divided into the Directorate of Operations - now known as the National Clandestine Service - which collects human intelligence, and the Directorate of Intelligence, which oversees analysis for the entire community... Rest by paid subscription only.
#1
Works for me. First, put everybody at CIA on the polygraph, all at once. Fire anybody who fails. Then, give the remaining analysts to Negroponte's group. Then, fire everybody in the clandestine service above a certain arbitrary GS level. Then, remove all but a few from diplomatic cover and put them under commercial and NGO cover. Then, give NRO to the Air Force and bring in the Corps of Engineers to demolish Langley and build a park there or something. And that's just for starters.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/22/2006 22:25 Comments ||
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#2
Been telling you guys they needed to chunk Analysis into its own department and Ops into its own - how long I been hammering this nail?
Glad the press is finally catching a clue.
And if some folks here on the web who think like that go quiet for a while, you'll know they called in some grey hairs to help out. ;-)
WASHINGTON -- Although the Bush administration is moving to normalize diplomatic relations with Libya, U.S. families who lost loved ones in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland have not been fully compensated by the Libyan government for the terrorist attack planned and executed by Libyan agents.
The families, due a payment of $2 million, are supposed to receive $10 million each as part of a $2.7 billion settlement.
They have been urging members of Congress to consider stalling President Bush's attempt to re-establish formal diplomatic ties with Libyan dictator Muammar al Qadhafi until the last remaining installment arrives.
"I'm writing a letter (to Bush) that asks that the final details of the recognition of Libya not be implemented until the full settlement is paid out," said U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-1st Dist., who explained that he has been working with Pan Am 103 families in Cherry Hill and Haddonfield.
"I don't believe that the diplomatic relations should be fully established until Libya has fully met its obligations to the Pan Am 103 families," Andrews stated.
Some family members don't care about the financial settlement, says James Kreindler of New York City, a lawyer who conducted the settlement talks with Libyan officials.
They would prefer to see Libya isolated both economically and financially so long as Qadhafi remains in power, Kreindler said.
But virtually all of the families of the Pan Am 103 victims want to ensure that Libya fulfills its agreement to pay the full $2.7 billion that it agreed to provide, Kreindler said.
Kara M. Weipz of Mount Laurel Township, president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, lost her brother Rick Monetti, 20, in the disaster. Weipz in a telephone interview said the State Department should be pushing the Libyans to provide the final installment.
Libya has not yet provided the final installment of roughly $536 million. Qadhafi's government allowed an escrow account to lapse and actually withdrew the $536 million from a Swiss bank, the Bank for International Settlements, in February 2005, according to Kreindler and attorneys working at Quinn, Gillespie and Associates, a Washington lobbying firm.
"It would be a travesty of justice to begin a new relationship with Libya if Libya failed to honor its commitment at the expense of the Pan Am 103 families," Kreindler said.
U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said, "The government of Libya must honor its commitments to these families."
The State Department last week said President Bush was proposing to remove Libya from a list of terrorist states, rescinding a designation the U.S. government first awarded to Qadhafi's dictatorship in 1979. The Bush administration plans to open an American embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and to let Qadhafi open an embassy in Washington.
"For a number of years now, Libya has ceased its direct support for acts of terrorism and has taken concrete steps to distance itself from terrorist organizations with which it maintained active ties," C. David Welch, assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, said at a State Department news briefing. Libya also gave up its long-range missile program in 2003.
Qadhafi's government came to be seen by Bush administration officials as a rogue regime that had ceased its support for terrorism and shuttered its program aimed at developing weapons of mass destruction.
Lawmakers have up to 45 days to review the State Department's report on Libya and its former links to terrorism. Members of Congress could pass a resolution to halt or delay the normalization of American diplomatic ties to the oil-rich North African nation.
However, the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have scheduled no action on any legislation that would address U.S. ties to Libya.
Pan Am 103 exploded in mid-air on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
The disaster -- caused by a bomb planted in a Toshiba radio and tape deck that was concealed in a suitcase and loaded on the U.S.-bound plane in Frankfurt, Germany -- killed 270 people, including 11 people on the ground. Fully 189 of the victims were Americans, and 29 hailed from New Jersey, according to a passenger manifest posted on a Web site for the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted by a Scottish court in January 2001 of conducting the Pan Am 103 attack. Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison but afforded an opportunity to request parole after 27 years.
Another alleged Libyan agent, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted by the judges, who heard the case in the Netherlands.
Qadhafi, making overtures to settle old grievances with the United States, in May 2002 offered a $2.7 billion settlement to the Pan Am 103 victims' families. The U.S. government was not a party to the talks. The State Department so far is making no effort to ensure that the families receive the outstanding $2 million they are due.
"It's true that they're legally not a part of it," Andrews said. "But morally, they are very much a part of it. And I think for our State Department to give any kind of sanction or aid without Libya meeting its obligations to these American citizens is indefensible."
NEW DELHI, MAY 9:Departing from its policy of allowing only joint exercises, India is preparing to open its terrain to Singapore by allowing it to station and train its army here.
In return, not only does it get Singapores help to upgrade its defence training facilities but also takes the relationship with this key ASEAN member and economic powerhouse to a new, strategic level.
After conducting two joint exercises with the Indian Army here, Singapore has requested New Delhi to allow its armed forces to shift personnel and equipment for two training stints of three months each on a long-term basis.
Other than overcoming the limitations of land and airspace in Singapore, the spacious and rough Indian terrain will allow the island-nation to train Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in unfamiliar and challenging environment, says its request.
In exchange for use of the facilities at Deolali and Babina during February-April and October-December, Singapore is willing to reimburse the costs as well as fund their upgradation.
The request has found favour with the Defence Ministry and will be soon put up before the Cabinet Committee on Security for permission under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), said ministry sources.
Other than helping the Indian Army to upgrade its facility, the special dispensation to SAF would promote growing defence cooperation and strategic ties between the two nations, said ministry officials.
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 19:25 ||
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#1
Singapore already trains it's armed forces in Australia, Thailand and Taiwan.
NEW YORK, MAY 22 :In an explosive expression of her views, celebrated Indian writer Arundhati Roy told an audience here that India is not a democratic country. The biggest PR myth of all times is that India is a democracy. In reality, it is not, Roy, the author of The God of Small Things told the 1,000-strong audience at a book reading function she attended along with Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin Americas most distinguished writers.
With her aggressive speech, Roy, the 1997 Booker winner, dominated the event with Galeano playing second fiddle.
She surprised the jampacked Town Hall as she stopped reading The God of Small Things midway and said she wanted to speak on an issue, which had been bothering her for quite some time.
She said she was confused, as India was passing through a terrible time.
Amidst frequent clapping, she blasted the Indian government and the Bush administration. She did not spare even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There is no real democracy in India. Several states in India are on the verge of civil war, she said.
Challenging the much-acclaimed views of columnist Thomson Friedman praising India, a democracy of a billion population, for conducting peaceful elections year after year, she said, He probably needs a new tour of India... Does Thomas know that in Kashmir Valley alone, some 80,000 people have been killed? In Iraq, there are 1,50,000 military personnel, whereas in Kashmir Valley there are some 7,00,000.
Referring to the visit of President George Bush to New Delhi in March, she said, without elaborating: Bush visit was the most humiliating experience of my life. As the venue for Bushs address changed from Parliament to Vigyan Bhawan to Metro Park, he finally ended up addressing India from a Zoo. I am not joking. This is reality and the giraffes were disappointed, she said amidst laughter from the audience.
She did not agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs views in his lecture at the Oxford University praising Britain for all the good things that India has, like its democracy, judiciary and bureaucracy. India, she said, was a free market meant to steal from the poor and subsidise the rich.
Later, during her dialogue with Galeano, she urged the Americans to oppose the occupation of Iraq by the US and allied forces. She said Iraq and Afghanistan were not the only nations occupied by the US. The others were controlled by checks and public diplomacy, she said. The audience gave her a standing ovation.
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 19:19 ||
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A subcommittee of the US Congress will hold a hearing on Dr A.Q. Khan this week to examine the question of his so-called nuclear black market network.
Diplomatic sources said the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations would hold an open hearing of its subcommittee on international terrorism and non-proliferation on Thursday.
The 15-member subcommittee is headed by Edward R. Royce. The two witnesses at the hearing will be David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, and Dr Leonard Weiss, an independent consultant on nuclear issues.
The subject of the hearing is: The A.Q. Khan network: case closed?
On May 2, Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam at the weekly news briefing declared: As far as we are concerned this chapter is closed.
Dr Khan was pardoned by President Gen Pervez Musharraf in February 2004 after he confessed involvement in illicit trafficking of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
However, he remains under house arrest in Islamabad under military surveillance.
Last week, military Spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said security around Dr Khan had been beefed up due to concerns about his safety.
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 18:40 ||
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#1
As it should do. In a secular democracy religious courts must be voluntary, not required for members of that religion, and ever subordinate to civic law.
ISLAMABAD Free and fair elections are far from possible under General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has said. Speaking to a group of journalists here, he said: I dont live in fools paradise. An insecure general cannot ensure free and fair elections. This is writing on the wall.
Enumerating his priorities, the former cricket star said: The number one political objective is to save the federation from internal and external threats with (either) the resignation or removal from power of General Musharraf and the formation of an interim neutral caretaker set up with the consensus of the opposition parties that would be responsible for holding free and fair elections under an independent election commission.
On April 30, Imran re-launched his party to mark its 10th anniversary, which attracted educated middle class as well as the leading columnist of the national press.
The PTI chief said his party is going to launch a decisive movement for removal of the Musharraf regime in September. In this regard, he invited all democratic forces to join hands in making a final push for the removal of General Musharraf. Agreeing to a democratic charter is a positive development but the real test is to mobilise the people to eliminate dictatorship and the complete elimination of the armys role in politics and its immediate return to barracks, he told a questioner.
Imran Khan said any political party that enters into a deal with Musharraf would be doomed politically. The PTI chief said Musharrafs latest remarks that he would use the present assemblies for re-election shows the complete contempt in which he holds the democratic institutions and his desperation to cling on to power using means never employed before in the countrys history.
We do not accept the present fake political system under a uniformed Musharraf and consider his continuance in office as illegal and unconstitutional and therefore, all his actions are devoid of any legal, moral or ethical basis, Imran Khan said.
Imran Khan accused the government of failing on all fronts as unemployment is unprecedented and the prices of utilities and essential items are touching the roof. Lentils are being sold at Rs70 per kg and sugar continues to be sold over Rs40 per kg while sugar barons enjoy cabinet positions.
The PTI condemned the government for complete apathy in providing basic necessities such as drinking water. He said people were dying thanks to consumption of poisonous water while the rulers continued to spend millions of dollars on foreign junkets.
Meanwhile, reacting to Imran's tirade against Musharraf's 'dictatorial' regime Pakistan Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said that the present-day government welcomed observers from all over the world to monitor the performance of the Election Commission (EC) at the 2007 general elections.
PESHAWAR: President Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Qazi Hussain Ahmad on Sunday termed agitation against the incumbent government as greatest Jihad adding the sitting government spearheading agenda to cease the Islamic system under the aegis of western countries.
Talking to Tarangzai Mujahad Azeem Conference at Tarangzai, he said that all efforts had been completed for September sit-in in the federal capital in order to overthrow the military regime.
Provincial Minister for Food Fazl Rubbani Advocate, Kashif Azam and many other religious scholars were present on the occasion.
He pointed out that Bush mission to finish Islam from the world would not be materialized.
Emphasizing implementation of Islamic system, he maintained that his party was ready to render any sacrifice for the sake of Islam and ambition of Israel and Indian domination would prove malfunction.
He claimed that President General Pervez Musharraf was frontline ally to impose western blueprint of hegemony and western were allegedly involved to malign jihad and Islam. " Colonization of western powers and elimination of Islam system will not be succeeded," he added.
He stressed Ummah to stand against the non western powers to save the sanctity of Holy Prophets and Islam.
He argued that the evil shackle could not broken until the general would leave offices of government and his party committed to sit-in in Rawalpindi and Islamabad in order to change the un-Islamic system from Pakistan.
He proclaimed that any efforts to exclude Islamic curricula would not be tolerated.
Over the tribulations, miseries and poverty due to price hike, he charged that some people were impose on treasury of the country to inflict poverty and vulnerable ness of the masses.
He lauded the services of Haji Tarangzai who rendered his services for the sake of Islam and Jihad.
There should be unity among Muslim clerics and a true democratic system should be implemented to counter challenges of the new American world order, and foil European countries negative propaganda against Islamic states, said Federal Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan, Jamaatud Dawa Ameer Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Vice President Begum Tehmina Daultana, Palestinian leader Samama Hamdan, Hamas leader Dr Khalid Mehmood, Punjab Special Education Minister Qudsia Lodhi, Pakistan Peoples Party leader Qayyum Nizami, Senator Dr Khalid Ranjha and former Nazim Karachi Naymatullah Khan, at a roundtable press conference on Sunday. The Pakistan Institute of National Affairs (PINA) arranged the conference on the topic Muslim World and American Attitude.
Participants stressed the need to strengthen the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) to develop a mechanism for exchanging technology in science and education. They said that European countries were strengthening their economy and introducing changes to lives of their citizens, because of research in science and technology.
Ejazul Haq said apprehensions among Islamic countries were increasing because of American policies against the Muslim world. He said that America should reconsider its policies to have good relations with Islamic countries, and restore peace in the world. He said the Pakistani government could not survive if it broke relations with the developed democracies, especially America. The minister said that Pakistan could not compete even with its neighbours without improving education, science and technology, health and engineering.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#4
If you read between the bluster, this article is showing that they are starting to get a clue on what it takes to enter the 21st century -
He said the Pakistani government could not survive if it broke relations with the developed democracies, especially America. The minister said that Pakistan could not compete even with its neighbours without improving education, science and technology, health and engineering.
#5
They said that European countries were strengthening their economy and introducing changes to lives of their citizens, because of research in science and technology.
Which we can pursue because of freedom, democarcy and equal rights in our secular law.
Good luck with your islamic science and education experiment. We've seen your "science" and your "education". ROFLMAO
KARACHI: About 200 Shias protested on Sunday to condemn the disappearance of 11 Shia political activists, who have not been heard from for weeks amid allegations they have been detained by the government. Chanting "Free the detained young men," the protesters, among them relatives of the alleged detainees, gathered in a downtown Karachi street, across from the heavily guarded residence and office of the governor of Sindh.
About 100 policemen in riot gear looked on as the Shias protested for about one hour but there was no violence and traffic from the street had been diverted. Protest leaders demanded that authorities provide information on the whereabouts of the 11 men, who have not been heard from since their disappearance from their homes between April 24 and May 15, and their families be allowed to meet with them. Police in Karachi have denied having information about the missing men. "Our young men have been picked up on directions from foreigners," Jawad Haider, leader of the Islamia Student Organisation that organised the protest, said in an indirect reference to the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman has reportedly submitted his resignation to the president, a move government officials said they had been expecting for a while. Sahibzada Imtiaz, advisor to the prime minister on Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) affairs, is expected to replace Rehman. An official of the FATA Media Directorate told Daily Times that the move had been expected for the last few months. The official said he expected Ali Jan Orakzai, former Peshawar corps commander, or Umer Afridi to replace Rehman.
Rehman denied having submitted his resignation, but one of his aides confirmed to The Associated Press that he had handed in his resignation at a meeting in Islamabad last week on the security situation in the tribal areas. Online cited sources in President House confirming that a resignation letter had been received. However, he has been directed to continue at the post until his replacement in appointed, possibly later this week.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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Explosively Formed Penetrators (EEPs), more commonly known as "shaped charges," have been around since World War II, when they were famously used in the bazooka and Panzerfaust (the model for the later RPG) portable anti-tank weapons. Although most of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used in attacks against government and Coalition forces in Iraq have used conventional explosives (demolition charges, artillery shells, mines, etc.), a very small number have been fabricated using EEPs.
Although EEPs are used in RPGs and similar missile weapons, they are not well suited for use in IEDs. This is fortunate, as they are much more dangerous. Reportedly EEPs cause about three times as many casualties per explosion as "ordinary" IEDs.
The problem with using EEPs as IEDs is that they have to be aimed. Most IEDs are designed to be detonated by trip-wire or similar mechanism or by remote command. Even a remotely detonated IED can cause serious damage, since it's the explosion is going to affect an area of some size. In contrast, an EEP has to hit something pretty much directly in order to have an effect. There is also a range problem, as EEP explosives have a very short effective range (a few feet at most.) Moreover, since EEPs are intended for use against armor, they have limited effectiveness against softer targets.
Reports of EEP IEDs from Iraq are distorted. While these media reports correctly describe the greater damage, they fail to point the difficulty of using EEP IEDs, and the very low number of successful EEP IED attacks.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2006 06:59 ||
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#1
Okay,
Can anyone tell me me if Explosively Formed Penetrators are or are not the same thing as a HEAT round? Or is it like a Self-forging anti armour device? I can't see how molten metal could work for more than 2 feets. Self-forger?
#3
Same thing 6. While the armour penetrating ability of the EFP is most effective for only several diameters of the warhead size (then dispersion takes over), the high speed molten metal is dangerous for up to several hundred meters to unarmoured targets i.e. civilians.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2006 18:27 Comments ||
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As chaos swept Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, the Pentagon began its effort to rebuild the Iraqi police with a mere dozen advisers. Overmatched from the start, one was sent to train a 4,000-officer unit to guard power plants and other utilities. A second to advise 500 commanders in Baghdad. Another to organize a border patrol for the entire country.
Three years later, the police are a battered and dysfunctional force that has helped bring Iraq to the brink of civil war. Police units stand accused of operating death squads for powerful political groups or simple profit. Citizens, deeply distrustful of the force, are setting up their own neighborhood security squads. Killings of police officers are rampant, with at least 547 slain this year, roughly as many as Iraqi and American soldiers combined, records show.
The police, initially envisioned by the Bush administration as a cornerstone in a new democracy, have instead become part of Iraq's grim constellation of shadowy commandos, ruthless political militias and other armed groups. Iraq's new prime minister and senior American officials now say the country's future and the ability of America to withdraw its troops rests in large measure on whether the police can be reformed and rogue groups reined in.
Like so much that has defined the course of the war, the realities on the ground in Iraq did not match the planning in Washington. An examination of the American effort to train a police force in Iraq, drawn from interviews with several dozen American and Iraqi officials, internal police reports and visits to Iraqi police stations and training camps, shows a cascading series of misjudgments by White House and Pentagon officials, who repeatedly underestimated the role the United States would need to play in rebuilding the police and generally maintaining order.
Before the war, the Bush administration dismissed as unnecessary a plan backed by the Justice Department to rebuild the police force by deploying thousands of American civilian trainers. Current and former administration officials said they were relying on a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that said the Iraqi police were well trained. The C.I.A. said its assessment conveyed nothing of the sort.
After Baghdad fell, when a majority of Iraqi police officers abandoned their posts, a second proposal by a Justice Department team calling for 6,600 police trainers was reduced to 1,500, and then never carried out. During the first eight months of the occupation as crime soared and the insurgency took hold the United States deployed 50 police advisers in Iraq.
Against the objections of Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, the long-range plan was eventually reduced to 500 trainers. One result was a police captain from North Carolina having 40 Americans to train 20,000 Iraqi police across four provinces in southern Iraq.
Throughout Iraq, Americans were faced with the realization that in trying to rebuild the Iraqi force they were up against the legacy of Saddam Hussein. Not only was the force inept and rife with petty corruption, but in the wake of the invasion the fractious tribal, sectarian and criminal groups were competing to control the police. Yet for much of last year, American trainers were able to regularly monitor fewer than half of the 1,000 police stations in Iraq, where even officers free of corrupting influences lacked basic policing skills like how to fire a weapon or investigate a crime.
While even a viable police force alone could not have stopped the insurgency and lawlessness that eventually engulfed Iraq, officials involved acknowledge that the early, halting effort to rebuild the force was a missed opportunity.
#3
Arrogance exposed, on the part of our military. They really didn't care about order in the street.
But then, Congress doesn't care about the borders either.
Let's plan better in the future.
#4
More CIA CYA - they some info internally, but didnt get it out out externally - and now try to claim their report (which caused the initial mess by feeding bad intel to the commanders) wasnt the one they delivered.
This was compounded by the diplomatic mess with Turkey, which left the military commanders scrambling for the primary military victory objectives, and left open the "triangle" area, specifically Ramadi and Tikirt and the Syrian border areas.
There's plenty of blame to go around, although State and CIA will never step up and admit thier key roles in the mishandling of the initial occupation.
Iraq's new national unity government is packed with elected leaders from almost every sectarian, ethnic and political group, but two elements that are notably missing may offer the best clues to its priorities.
One thing it still lacks is ministers for the key security posts, interior and defence; the other is a middle name.
For the first time since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iraq has an administration that is not "provisional", "interim", "transitional" nor any other epithet to undermine its powers or offer excuses for inaction on issues most pressing for its 26 million people -- restoring security and the economy.
That could radically change the focus of government, as well as its relationship with the U.S. occupying forces. The choice of security ministers this week will give more indications of whether the cabinet itself can overcome its internal divisions.
Since the United States returned Iraq's formal sovereignty, politics has been marked by the sometimes abstract institutional business of organising elections and drafting a constitution.
New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in his 34-point policy programme presented to parliament on Saturday, has made clear his priorities are the urgent reversal of a slide to sectarian civil war that accelerated in the power vacuum which followed December's election and, over time, improving public services.
"These two issues take precedence now over the construction of full political institutions," said politics professor Hazim al-Naimi at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "Security and services are not detached from that process but urgent need means they now need to be addressed more seriously."
"There are no excuses any more," one Western official in Baghdad said, noting there were nearly four years until the next election. "They have to get on with it and deliver for people."
Some officials say Maliki may try to put off parliamentary reviews of constitutional issues, including the fraught question of regional autonomy, to avoid distractions. However, parliament is obliged to address the issues this year.
His completion of a multiconfessional, multi-ethnic cabinet two days ahead of a constitutional deadline has raised hopes for Maliki's ability to steer a consensual, common line. But many believe it will be the filling of the still vacant security ministry jobs that will provide the best guide to his success.
"Only when we see who is interior minister and defence minister will we really know if this national unity government can work," one senior Iraqi politician said on Sunday.
That filling those jobs is taking so long is a further indication of their critical importance to the entire programme.
The interior ministry is pledged to Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Islamists, defence to the disaffected Sunni minority that dominated under Saddam but has for the most part now tentatively engaged in the U.S.-sponsored political process.
The main groups, including the Kurds, have a veto on both posts and much will be read into whether the ministers appointed in the coming days match the job requirements of competence and a credible claim to hold national above sectarian interests.
The United States effectively demanded the removal of the previous, interim, interior minister, who was accused by Sunnis of condoning Shi'ite militia death squads working with police.
That minister is now at finance and the battle goes on over replacing him. If his team is not to be hamstrung by disputes around the cabinet table, Maliki must choose very carefully.
His own role, engaging the credibility he brings as a former underground Shi'ite militant, will be vital in persuading fellow Shi'ites to give up militias and build a credible police.
His programme also features economic priorities, notably on improving electricity supplies. Diplomats suggest Maliki may act to divert power to sabotage-blighted Baghdad to cool passions in the capital, where a U.S. policy to reverse Saddam's practice and spread supply across the country has not been popular.
Along with a predictable promise of "maximum force" against hardline militants -- notably the Sunni Islamists of al Qaeda and Saddam's diehard Baathist followers -- Maliki also talked on Sunday of reaching out to those who renounce violence.
One rapid way to foster popularity among Sunnis may be to free some of the 15,000 inmates of U.S. military jails.
Maliki's programme promises the "immediate release of those detained without a court order". Many Iraqi officials see large numbers of the U.S. "security detainees" as little threat.
Any request for their release would be a test of the new relationship between Iraq and Washington.
U.S. and British officials say they are keen to negotiate treaties to regulate their troops' presence in Iraq before the U.N. resolution governing that expires at the end of the year.
Maliki's programme calls for an "objective timetable" for Iraqi forces to be trained and take over from foreign troops -- in line with U.S. and British hopes of withdrawing from Iraq.
For many Iraqis, the U.S. presence is a distortion that has reinforced sectarian divisions. For others, the Americans are a bulwark against disintegration into a regional war that would drag in their Arab, Iranian and other neighbours.
Britain's envoy warned against expecting too much too soon. "There'll be some teething problems," William Patey said. "They must put the interests of the people above those of parties."
But a U.S. official in Baghdad said this year would determine Iraq's future for years to come. He said: "The next six to eight months will set the stage for this country to succeed. Or not."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2006 01:01 ||
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Iraq's Prime Minister Jawad Maliki vowed to use "maximum force against terrorism" on Sunday, as bombs killed at least 19 people in Baghdad during the first meeting of his national unity Cabinet. In a reminder of the task Maliki faces in stemming bloodshed and drawing angry, fearful Iraqis back from the brink of civil war, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 18 in a crowded restaurant popular with police. Six people died in two other bombings in Baghdad, though recent violence is less than that which greeted the Shiite-led interim government a year ago testament, officials say, to progress by US and Iraqi forces against Al Qaeda car bombers.
A day after parliament approved the Cabinet of Shiites, minority Sunnis and Kurds, and its programme to combat violence and consolidate the US-sponsored transition to democracy, US President George W. Bush said the new government marked a "new day for the millions of Iraqis who want to live in freedom."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was too early to commit to sending home some of the 130,000 US troops and said top US military commanders will meet the Iraqi government over the coming weeks to discuss the roles of Iraqi and US forces. "It is premature before we've even had this discussion with the Iraqi government to start giving firm commitments on what the drawdown will look like," Rice told Fox television.
Maliki said in the programme he read to parliament he will work to complete rebuilding Iraq's US-trained armed forces so that foreign troops could leave within an "objective timetable." Bush, who is eager to show signs of progress in a war he launched three years ago to remove Saddam Hussein and is costing almost daily casualties to American troops, also said the new government marked a "new chapter" in Iraqi-US relations. He called Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to congratulate them.
Briefing reporters after the cabinet met in Baghdad, Maliki, a tough-talking Shiite Islamist, said his government would hold out the offer of dialogue to Sunni rebels who lay down weapons and finish off militias a tall order given the attachment his Shiite and Kurdish allies maintain to their own armed groups. "We will use maximum force against terrorism, but we also need a national initiative" for reconciliation, he said.
"Militias, death squads, terrorism, killings and assassinations are not normal and we should put an end to the militias." Bush's envoy to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Maliki's performance this year would be vital: "The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq, to deal with reconciliation and uniting Iraqis. Problems there will be, because this process of state and nation building and fighting terror take time." Another senior Western official in Baghdad cautioned that sectarian and ethnic divisions remained explosive: "A lot of things can still go wrong ... It's not a few months' job. If you expect a functioning Western democracy in Iraq three years after a dictator like Saddam, you're being unrealistic."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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Israel and the United States are battling over the sale of the next generation of warplanes, the F-35, with Israel considering canceling plans to purchase some 100 aircraft, IDF officials said Monday.
Israel is insisting it be allowed to upgrade the planes with its own technological warfare systems, as it has done with the F-15, the F-16 and the F-16-I, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the sides are trying to resolve the issue.
The United States has rejected Israel's request, at least partly because the Israeli systems are considered the best in the world and provide stiff competition to US companies, the officials said.
Israel was reinstated as a partner in the development of the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), after Israeli participation was put on hold following the Chinese arms deal crisis.
Israeli participation in JSF development was suspended as part of US sanctions against Israel following the Israeli agreement to upgrade Chinese 'Harpy' UAV's, which was done without prior consultation with the US.
Israeli defense industries expect to sign contracts worth tens of millions of dollars as part of the project. The JSF, also known as the F-35 fighter, is supposed to serve as the major aviation platform for all branches of US military and for many military forces around the world, replacing the F-15 and F-16 fighters.
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Iran is preparing consignment of 300 vehicles and two civilian aircraft for Gaza Strip - along with 50 Iranian experts. The plan is described by DEBKAfiles Tehran and counter-terror sources as an Iranian move to seize control of the Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas transport minister Ziad Zaza, just returned from Tehran, formally asked Israel Sunday, May 21, to allow dozens of Iranian maritime and air transport engineers and technicians and heavy equipment to enter Gaza from Egyptian Sinai through the Rafah crossing. Hamas presents the proposed Iranian input as assistance for re-activating the Dahaniya airport and the construction of a deep-sea port in Gaza. The 300 vehicles made in Iran consist of police cars, ambulances, fire engines and 100 buses for the use of the forces of law and order.
DEBKAfiles sources report that both Hamas and Tehran know in advance that Israel will turn the application down. But they hope to make propaganda hay in Europe and the Muslim world by demonstrating that the Jewish state is in violation of commitments to help restore the Gaza Strips economy signed prior to its pull-back.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 08:18 ||
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#1
Do the 300 vehicles come pre-loaded with IED's ? Or is there "some assembly required".
#2
This is the formalizing of the Iran/Hamas relationship. Now that they are an elected body of government Iran can step in with military advisors, military aid, and give them all the guns and support they want, and all above the board.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/22/2006 9:43 Comments ||
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Officials said on Sunday that Israel had approved plans to expand four Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Three of the settlements slated for expansion lie within areas that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hopes to incorporate within Israels final borders. The United States has not endorsed Olmerts plan.
Olmerts plan to withdraw from dozens of isolated settlements in the West Bank while beefing up large settlement blocs is expected to be on the agenda at Tuesdays meeting with President Bush at the White House.
Othniel Schneller, a lawmaker with the ruling Kadima Party, said Israels Defence Ministry signed orders months ago to expand the boundaries of Beitar Illit and Givat Zeev, near Jerusalem, and of Oranit and Maskiot.
Israels Defence Ministry said former Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz signed the expansion orders.
Israels new defence minister, Amir Peretz, who took office this month, cannot rescind the orders, defence officials said. But they said Peretz, the dovish leader of the Labour Party who has criticised such construction, would consider changing settlement policy.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged Peretz to halt the construction. This Israeli government should stop this, not approve this, he said. This act of expanding settlements is a choice for more obstacles and more problems and more violence.
The new expansion includes converting Maskiot, an army outpost in the Jordan River Valley, into a residential community, said Dubi Tal, a settler leader in the area.
The UK attorney general is visiting Israel to seek evidence as he considers bringing charges against two Israeli soldiers who killed two Britons. James Miller, 34, a Devon film-maker and Tom Hurndall, 22, a London peace activist, were shot dead in separate incidents by soldiers in Gaza in 2003.
Relatives of the men have asked Lord Goldsmith QC to prosecute for war crimes under the Geneva Convention. During his trip he will meet Israeli ministers and military officials.
Israeli military prosecutors have insisted that further prosecutions will only take place if fresh evidence emerges. But Lord Goldsmith said he believed the Israeli authorities would give him their full cooperation. He said while in Israel he would be considering "whether there ought to be prosecutions here in either of these cases". "I will carefully consider this without any preconceptions," he said.
"This is not about raising expectations about whether anything is going to happen one way or another."
Lord Goldsmith is hoping to meet Israeli Attorney General Meni Mazuz, Minister of Defence Amir Peretz and Minister of Justice Haim Ramon. He is also seeking an appointment with the country's military advocate general, Brigadier Avichai Mendelblitt.
Mr Hurndall was moving children away from the army in the Palestinian town of Rafah when he was shot in April 2003. Mr Miller was gunned down only a mile away three weeks later as he was making a film about Palestinian children.
Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldier Sergeant Taysir Hayb is serving an eight-year sentence for the manslaughter of Mr Hurndall but so far no one has been convicted of shooting Mr Miller.
Last month an inquest jury in London decided Mr Miller's shooting was unlawful and that the father-of-two had been murdered.
And they of course would know best.
During the inquest Mr Miller's widow Sophy named the soldier who shot her husband as First Lieutenant Heib, from the Bedouin Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. It was said he had been due to face a disciplinary hearing, but was acquitted by the head of the army's Southern Command. Mrs Miller has requested for all the evidence from the military police investigation to be released.
#1
It would be impolite of me to suggest that the "Lord" sod off. I would assert that these folks were in Gaza supporting the intifada and were actively hostile to Israel. TRANZI fools of Saint Pancake's calibre.
Apparently, the headline was not meant to be a Rantburg-style pun!
While much of the Gaza Strip sits idle waiting for Western aid and government salaries to return, Maher Rabbah is sweating through the final phases of building his beach cafe.
"Summer is coming and I'm building," says Rabbah, 31. "The more miserable life is for everyone in Gaza, the more they need the beach. Our people would sooner go without food, than not come to the beach."
Up and down the beaches of southern Gaza, which until last September were for Israeli settlers only, a construction boom is underway.
But as Gaza's entrepreneurs seize on the fresh expanses of coastal real estate, the newly elected Hamas government is looking to assert itself.
Hamas has vowed to reclaim the old settlements for public use. These entrepreneurs, the government said, must get permits and pay rent or face expulsion.
And the armed factions that have set up training camps and makeshift fortresses atop many of the old settlements likewise must clear out.
"We are ready to go in and start enforcing the law," Abu Bilal, an assistant to interior minister Said Siam, told AFP. "This is the land we liberated from occupation and it belongs to all the people."
The former settlements are a rare patch of economic bustle in Gaza, which is reeling under sanctions slapped on the Palestinian Authority by Western countries after the Islamist Hamas movement, committed to Israel's destruction, came to power after winning January elections.
On the beaches of Rafah and Khan Yunis, newly built bamboo huts selling a spot of shade, water pipes, and falafel sandwiches stretch as far as the eye can see on the once barren sands.
Further inland, Gazans have found unlikely uses for the rubble heaps of the destroyed settlements. Scavengers harvest rebar from the settlers' demolished homes. Five kilograms of the rusted iron fetches one shekel (20 US cents).
On an abandoned Israeli military base, children dig for unspent ammunition. A single Kalashnikov or M-16 round sells for 13 shekels on Gaza's expansive underground weapons market.
For those likely to lose out once the government moves in, the new regulations are unwelcome.
"Our government should worry about paying its employees so that they can come spend money in my store," said Atef Anwar, owner of a ramshackle drinks stand on the beach near Khan Yunis. "But instead they're going to destroy the only source of income many of us have."
"What public use is there for this land when the government has no money?" asked Nazef Mohammed, who earns a living selling scrap metal collected from the settlements. "The people have already found a way to use this land."
Hamas says they will use the spreads of open land for public interest projects such as schools, playing fields, hospitals and farmland. More importantly, Hamas officials say, these new regulations will bring a bit of order to lawless Gaza.
"If we didn't do this there would be no more free land in all of Gaza for any government projects," the interior ministry's Bilal said.
And for those who have managed to secure permits, the new government regulations are a welcome change.
After the Israeli withdrawal, Ayman Inshassi, a business savvy 23-year-old, was quick to stake out a plot of prime beach real estate.
He built a restaurant and a dozen palm frond umbrellas for sunbathers. But a nearby Gaza landlord demanded he pay 500 shekels a month for access. With no legal recourse, Inshassi coughed up the monthly rent.
"It was extortion but what could I do," said Inshassi. "He had no more right to the land than I did."
Now Inshassi has a permit and official sanction for his business. "That corrupt landowner can no longer steal my money," he says. "This is a good thing. We need some law in Gaza."
Further inland, another fixture of Palestinian society has set up shop amidst the old settlements. Various militant factions have built training camps and makeshift fortresses atop the sandy hilltops.
On one dune yellow flags signal a Fatah territorial claim. On the next one Hamas flies its green flags.
Mohammed Abu Jazar, a Fatah activist, fears the Hamas government's new rules are simply a ploy to uproot Fatah's presence here. Fatah, the movement of the moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, and Hamas are locked in a fierce power struggle.
"We will abandon ours when they abandon theirs," said Abu Jazar. "If we abandon these bases so people can have hospitals and schools then we have no problem with it. But we are afraid that Hamas just wants all the bases for themselves."
#1
Further inland, another fixture of Palestinian society has set up shop amidst the old settlements. Various militant factions have built training camps and makeshift fortresses atop the sandy hilltops.
On one dune yellow flags signal a Fatah territorial claim. On the next one Hamas flies its green flags.
Think they're "booming now"?
Well just you wait...
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met top Israeli officials on Sunday in the highest-level contact between the two sides since the shock election win of the Islamist movement Hamas. The encounter, on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, came amid deadly Israeli raids on the Palestinian territories and a surge in violence between rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip. Israel officials at the talks vowed they would act to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories, in the grip of massive financial problems after Israel and the West cut aid to the Hamas-led government.
"It is the Israeli government policy not to punish the Palestinian people for their vote and to help the Palestinian people in any economic and humanitarian way that we could," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said after the talks. "Israel is not against the Palestinian people and will do all it can to prevent a humanitarian crisis," added Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was also at the meeting. "We want to ensure that there is aid to the people and not to the terrorists."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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Israel authorised the release of $11 million in frozen Palestinian taxes on Sunday in a bid to ease a humanitarian crisis ahead of Ehud Olmert's first trip to Washington as prime minister. While both Israel and the United States are working to isolate the Hamas Islamists controlling the Palestinian government, the Jewish state has been under pressure to help avert the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Israeli political sources made clear that none of the tax funds to be released would reach the Palestinian Authority. Israel plans to use the money to buy medical supplies based on advice of a foreign auditor and transfer them to Gaza hospitals. The $11 million to be freed up is part of $220 million in Palestinian tax and customs levies frozen by Israel to push Hamas to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept past peace accords.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Israel authorised the release of $11 million in frozen Palestinian taxes on Sunday in a bid to ease a humanitarian crisis ahead of Ehud Olmert's first trip to Washington as prime minister
Idiot, when you've got them by the balls you do NOT let go.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/22/2006 11:08 Comments ||
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#2
Unholster weapon. Disengage safety. Aim at foot. Squeeze trigger.
Jordan and Kuwait on Sunday called for the resumption of the Middle East peace process and urged the international community to continue aiding the Palestinians. King Abdullah and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah said at a Dar Al Salwa meeting here dialogue and negotiations should lead to the implementation of the roadmap and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The King and the emir added that Palestinians need help to survive their difficult situation and urged them to unite and overcome their differences. They also discussed the situation in Iraq. King Abdullah said the formation of the new Iraqi government was a significant step in the right direction. Talks between the two leaders included means to enhance bilateral relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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Around half of the 200 schools in this troubled southern border province will close indefinitely because teachers are intimidated by mob attacks like the kidnapping and beating of two female teachers last Friday. The despicable "ethnic cleansing" of Buddhists from three Southern Thai provinces contines - using the tactic of making it impossible for Buddhist children to pursue education
Fearful teachers are demanding swift official action to arrest and punish the offenders and provide effective security on campuses and in their classrooms.
Acting Prime Minister Chidchai Wannasathit said today that last Friday's brutality had raised the stakes. Insurgents have raised the gravity of their self-styled rebellion, he said, and that makes necessary a more serious government response. The next step calls for the use of psychological operation in conjunction with more stringent law enforcement and more inclusive security measures, he said. However, he provided no actual details.
Army Commander in Chief Gen Sondhi Boonyaratglin, the first Muslim to command the military, assigned more security forces to work with teachers and students. He said the security forces needed better intelligence gathering. Note that the Thais have gone so far as to put a Muslim General in charge of their Armed Forces
That's not a problem as long as he's loyal to state and king. What's needed is good enough intel to round up the bad guyz and whack them ...
Last Friday's hostage drama which left one teacher in a coma wounded teachers' morale around the country, but especially in the deep South where an insurgency has claimed the lives of at least 55 teachers in two years. The "Lions of Islam" should be very proud - 55 ordinary schoolteachers gunned down - they were obviously a mortal threat to Islam
As mentioned yesterday, it's a reasonable long-term strategy for the Lions: whack the Buddhist teachers, promote the madrassahs, and over time convert the provinces.
Government security forces who promised better protection for teachers and schools now are under growing pressure to provide more effective protection for teachers in the troubled region, a senior teacher said.
Chairman Boonsom Tongsriplai of Pattani Teachers' Federation said that Friday's incident, in which two women elementary school teachers were taken hostage in Rangae district of Narathiwat, had hurt the morale of every teacher in the South, and across the country, because the villagers who took the teachers hostage also knew them very well. They were supposed to be their friends and neighbours, the mothers and fathers of their students, and vice-versa, the teachers on their children. This part reflects the civilized perspective - the Muslim perspective is simply that if you are not one of us, you are an oxygen thief who deserves either to be slaughtered, or enslaved
The hostage-taking, and subsequent brutal beating of the two young women, threatens the heart of teacher-community trust not only in Narathiwat, but around the country. Teachers are praying for the two victims to recover quickly, Mr. Boonsom said, and that attacks on teachers in the three troubled southern border provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala should stop.
Director Pairuj Saengthong of the Narathiwat Office of Education Zone 1 said Friday's hostage-taking incident had impacted the morale of schoolteachers in the three southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala and about 100 of the 199 schools under the Office's jurisdiction would be closed "for an indefinite period" effective immediately.
Mr Pairuj said the schools would reopen if officials could comply with three demands submitted by his office:
- apprehending and punishing those who had attacked the two teachers;
- answer why officials on the scene had let Friday's situation get out of hand;
- prevent violence against teachers in the future.
He visited Juling Pongkunmul, one of the two teachers rescued from angry mobs, and still in a coma. Ms Juling, according to the director of Songkhla Nakarin Hospital, remained unconscious Sunday morning. Doctors had connected her with a respirator life-support system and medications to control her blood pressure. It is unknown when, or if, she will regain consciousness.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang admitted that security measures provided for teachers in the South lax and needed an overhaul. He said there was a need to procure equipment to boost security for the teachers. Mr Chaturon said he would consult with related security officials on tightening security for the teachers. Extra budget for the schools in the area must be given for erecting fences, purchasing cars and increasing the number of guards at schools.
Praising teachers in the region for their patience despite risks, Mr Chaturon said he hoped the majority of teachers would continue teaching. At the same time he agreed to help "those who were in real trouble" and wanted to transfer elsewhere. For all of my adult life, I have generally started each day by reviewing the world news of the last 24 hours. I remember a decade of reading about IRA attacks in Belfast and Londenderry. Another decade plus of reading about the perpetual violence in Beirut. A lifetime of reading about Palestinian violence against Israel. Five years of reading about ethnic violence in the Balkans. These were always tragic sagas - but they were localized, inolving nothing that directly threatened the entire western world. Well, these days, I simply think of the daily morning ritual as being the cataloging of the last 24 hours worth of Muslim atrocities and outrages around the world - categorized into atrocities in my country of residence, then in my region of residence, then on each separate continent. I've written off Europe - it is utterly doomed by demographic Islamicization, and if the parents of European teenage girls being systematically gang-raped by Muslim cretins - in geometrically rising numbers - can't inpsire a meaningful backlash, then Eurabia is a foregone conclusion. I've seen Kudzu take over the Southeastern USA, zerbra mussels foul the waterways of America, and cane toads take over sections of Australia - and I'm now watching the Muslim pestilence infect the world in a way that is a direct and imminent threat to me and everyone like me. Nothing - NOTHING - in my 50 years has ever awakened my utter hostility toward human beings like this.
#1
Somehow, Islam is going to have to undergo an enlightenment at the end of which "submission to the will of God" no longer means "submission to the will of man," and a person's faith becomes entirely a private matter between him and God. No more jihad. No more dhimmi. No more dar al-harb. No more "kufr".
And Islam's going to have to do that quickly, or Muslims are someday soon going to do something so heinous that someone decides the only solution is no more ummah.
Good closing commentary, BTW; that pretty much sums up my own path as well.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 7:23 Comments ||
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#2
Agreed, Dave D.
Well said, yet again, LR.
Thank you both.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 7:29 Comments ||
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#3
The "Lions of Islam" should be very proud - 55 ordinary schoolteachers gunned down - they were obviously a mortal threat to Islam
Education is a dire mortal threat to the Islamic cult. Cockroaches (such as these..) hate it when you turn on the lights.
Educating the 'moderate' muslims about what Islam really is and what the other religious are (this is why its death to preach any other religion in muslim lands - Islam simply cannot stand the light being shown on it) and educating non-muslims about what Islam really means for the rest of us - and not that 'religion of peace' bullshit. If this isn't done (and it looks like the MSM is hell bent on covering up for Islam no matter what) at some point people will wake up and realize this and react accodingly - with total war. Then millions will die.
#5
Dave, I don't see ANY evidence that Islam will ever be capable of an "enlightenment". It would require the dismantling of the entire religion. They'd rather die than see that, and I for one, would like to help them along.
#6
I'm not there yet, but things sure seem to be headed in that direction: far from doing any desperately needed soul-searching, Islam appears to be more and more convinced each day that its takeover of the entire world is imminent.
I think we've been far too gentle with them so far; they don't understand our restraint.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 10:11 Comments ||
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#7
Mcsegeek, I don't see any evidence of it either. None. :-(
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 10:12 Comments ||
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#8
Nothing - NOTHING - in my 50 years has ever awakened my utter hostility toward human beings like this.
#9
The longer the war goes the more savage it going to get. My grandfather who fought the Japanese said at the beginning WWII soldiers tried to be moral,but by the end of WWII Americans turn very nasty and savage about destruction because he said "we just wanted it to end." He said also that "There is no more savage a fighting man than a pissed off American."
#10
The bottom line is that Islam in all it's forms is a cancerous growth which will continue to survive by killing those that oppose and convertinh those of a weaker conviction. There was a time when Moderate Islam (Turkey and Pakistan) could thrive. The appeasement and Detente methodology has led to aggressive advances f the islamists. As a result only overwhelming force can deter future attacks. Collateral damage needs to become secondary as referenced by the 80 some odd dead Taliban in the latest bombings. Sorry to say but keep up the good work.
#12
Or "Ummah gon' down Hank's Tav'n fer some beer..."
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 19:52 Comments ||
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#13
5 muslim clerics killed, 5 mosques destroyed, 5 madrassahs leveled and salted for every teacher killed - that's called: "a start"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2006 21:14 Comments ||
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#14
Tale a look where Adminijacket did his big publicity thingy in Indonesia---yep. In Bali. Land of gentle people, dancing, etc. He and the Indos were sending a message.
The same thing will happen in Europe and the US. The Saudis will build a big a$$ed mosque. Then the loudspeakers will blast the faithful to prayers 5x a day, then the faithful will start hassling the infidels and the bonny lassies. Then they take over a city block, then another, and you have an enclave. That's the future folks, if we don't get our collective heads out of our collective a$$es.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2006 22:58 Comments ||
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COLOMBO: The chief negotiator for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels warned Sunday that an imminent European ban on the group could scuttle future peace negotiations, as artillery duels continued in front-line regions. London-based Anton Balasingham said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam would retreat from talks with the government if they are listed by the 25-member European Union (EU) as a terrorist group. Balasingham said the EU plan was to isolate the Tigers, and force them back to stalled ceasefire talks and negotiations on a formal peace process on hold since April 2003. But he warned the strategy would backfire. "I gravely doubt that the LTTE leadership will bow down to pressure and humiliation," Balasingham said in remarks published in the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website. "As such this move will be counter-productive. Faced with global isolation and humiliation, the LTTE may be compelled to stay away from further talks."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"an imminent European ban on the group could scuttle future peace negotiations"
Hamas and other Palestinian groups are being used by Iran and Syria to threaten the stability of moderate Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said in an interview. "The Iranians are trying to use some part of Hamas and other Palestinian groups to threaten the Lebanese independence at same time (as threatening) Jordan and Egypt. The Iranians, with their expansionist souls, are trying to use all kinds of groups, including Hamas, to destabilize the area," said Jumblatt.
Jumblatt is the head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party and is largely considered the most prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese politician. He said Iran has been working with Syria to thwart efforts to bring independence to his country.
"We want to have an independent Lebanon away from Syrian interference," Jumblatt said. "They don't acknowledge the simple fact of Lebanese independence, so they are using all means at their disposal to intimidate us. We won't be intimidated."
Last week, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1680, which calls on Syria to recognize Lebanese independence, establish formal diplomatic relations with Beirut and demarcate the common border. Within hours of the resolution's passage, Palestinian groups allied with Syria attacked a Lebanese army patrol unit, sparking violent clashes in eastern Lebanon.
"It's a war to destabilize Lebanon," said Jumblatt of the clashes. "Resolution 1680 makes (the Syrians) furious and angry. They did their best to thwart it and they failed. ... They are using some of the Palestinian groups to attack our sovereignty and our army and it will continue. But we will answer back."
He said Iran has been using Hamas to threaten Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
Earlier this month, Jordanian officials announced security officers caught a large arms cache smuggled from Syria into the country by Hamas members. Jordanian television broadcast confessions by three Hamas militants who said they smuggled the arms into the country for possible attacks against Jordanian officials and interests. Hamas has a history of anti-Jordan activity. Officials there say they caught several other arms caches in the past belonging to the terror group. Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, a Jordanian citizen, was expelled in 1999 along with other leaders after a crackdown on the group following accusations of illegal activities.
Egypt has a mixed relationship with Hamas, many analysts say. In its role as a Middle East powerbroker, Egypt often hosts Hamas delegations for regional talks. But there are rampant reports of tensions in the Hamas-Egypt relationship. Last month, Egypt's foreign minister reportedly refused to meet Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar while he was visiting the country.
Egyptian officials told WND last week Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak berated Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, accusing Hamas of smuggling weapons from the Sinai desert in the Gaza Strip. Egypt occasionally has accused Hamas of involvement in attacks on its soil. Egyptian security reports hinted at possible Hamas involvement in the suicide bombings of tourist centers in Taba in October 2004, killing 34 people, including 11 Israelis.
Last month, two suicide bombs exploded near a multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai adjacent to Gaza attacks blamed on Sinai cells affiliated with global jihad groups. The two attacks took place at the same time members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian terror organization closely affiliated with Hamas, was set to carry out a large-scale car bombing at the Karni Crossing, the main cargo passageway between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The attack was foiled at the last minute.
Palestinian security officials said the Karni attack was coordinated with anti-Egyptian militants responsible for the Sinai bombings. Israel's Shin Bet Security Services announced the Karni attack was directed by Hamas senior member Ahmed Randor. It said Hamas and the Committees work together regularly. The overall Committees leader, Jamal Abu Samhadana, was recently appointed by Hamas to the post of interior minister and general supervisor of the Palestinian police.
Also, Egypt is said to be very closely monitoring the Hamas relationship with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to create an Islamic theocracy in place of the current Mubarak regime, considered a regional ally to the U.S. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, which won an unprecedented 20 percent of the Parliament in the latest Egyptian elections. Palestinian security sources close to Hamas told WND Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akif has been serving as a replacement Hamas spiritual leader ever since Israel assassinated former spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin in March 2004.
Multiple Brotherhood leaders in Egypt have stated many times their group is strengthened by the Hamas ascension to power. They have said they wish to stage a similar takeover of Egypt.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 11:55 ||
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"Iran using Palestinians to foment instability?"
Does a bear sh*t in the woods?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2006 13:39 Comments ||
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"Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman stressed that the US is not in a position to guarantee security of other states, adding, "rather this is the US, which should ask other states to guarantee its security.""
Posted by: Patrick ||
05/22/2006 14:03 Comments ||
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#3
Yes, the Paleos have ever only been used...as the scimitar held to Israel's throat. The sharper their suffering, the keener the blade.
#6
"Relief aid" > HHHHHHHHMMMMMMM, IED's, RPG's, and STRELA missles, etal!? Not exactly $$$ support for [Muslim/Iraqi/Pals]Women with Infants and Children [WIC] program, now is it???
A group of Iranian students announced Sunday at an event attended by a high-ranking member of the elite Revolutionary Guard that they were setting up a fund to destroy Israel.
Although the initiative's name - "The Student Fund for Demolishing Israel" - brings to mind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call last year to destroy the Jewish state, an organizer said its goal was to support the cash-strapped Palestinian government.
Some 300 students attended the event hosted by a group calling itself the Movement of Justice-seeking Students at the University of Tehran.
"This is a symbolic move to attract public attention to the Palestinian cause at a time when Western countries have halted financial support to the Hamas-led government," Javad Miri, the group's spokesman, told The Associated Press.
"When an elected government is in power in Palestine and Israel is pressuring it, everybody should help the Palestinians," Miri added.
The United States and the European Union halted most of their aid to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas' victory in Palestinian legislative elections in January, requiring that the group renounce violence and recognize Israel. Popular campaigns to collect money for the Palestinians have been launched in several Arab countries.
A general in the elite Revolutionary Guards, Saeed Ghassemi, struck a militaristic note in his address to the crowd. "Resistance is the only solution for Palestinians," he said.
"If you abandon the sword, that will be the beginning of your end," he advised Hamas.
But the response to the call for donations was hardly overwhelming. About 10 students dropped money into a box labeled with the fund's name. They also put stones in the box in a symbolic gesture of solidarity that alluded to the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, when youths pelted Israeli soldiers with rocks.
"I hope it's the start of popular financial support for the Hamas government," Einollah Zarrinjoo, 21, a male philosophy student said.
Mahin Rezai, 20, a female Persian literature student said, "We are ready to support Palestinians by any means. Silence could make the situation worse."
In April, Iran said it would give the Palestinian Authority $50 million in aid.
Last year, Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a myth and that Israel should be wiped out.
Apparently taking a cue from the president, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced plans to hold a conference to examine evidence of the Holocaust. The hard-line Association of Muslim Journalists has also proposed a similar event. Dates have not been set for either.
Iran is currently home to about 25,000 Jews who are represented by a Jewish lawmaker in parliament. About 75,000 left the country after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
#2
If these assholes were half as interested in their own country as they were with Israel and Palestine, they would be living in the envy of the middle east.
As it is, they live in a toilet, seething and lashing out at anyone that has done better for themselves.
#3
Good luck with that Muzzies. Jews have been persecuted for over two millenia and they're still here. They'll still be here when the entire muslim world lies on the dung heap of history.
Beirut- Iran on Sunday insisted that the four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in 1982 in Lebanon by members of the Lebanese Forces are alive and held by Israel.
"We consider them all to be alive, until the time we are presented with proof that they have been martyred," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"They are alive and are held by the Zionist regime, and we are holding the Zionist regime accountable," he added.
Tehran and Hezbollah have repeatedly claimed that the four missing Iranians are still alive and in Israeli custody, after being handed over by the Lebanese Forces militia to then ally Israel.
But last Thursday Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces said that the four Iranian diplomats were killed. Geagea revealed that Elie Hobeika who was then the Lebanese Forces' military chief of Beirut was the one who issued the order to kill the diplomats.
The Iranian diplomats were Mohsen Moussawi, charge d'affaires; Ahmed Matousselian, military attaché; Kazem Akhavan, embassy press correspondent; and driver Taki Rustukar Mokaddam
Geagea said Lebanese and Iranian authorities "have probable information" on where the four Iranians were buried, as "there was a military investigation by the Lebanese defense ministry in the early 1990s."
The question of the missing Iranians has played prominently in back door negotiations with Israel which is seeking information on Israeli air force navigator Ron Arad, shot down over south Lebanon in 1986.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of handing Arad over to Iran. Hezbollah denies it ever hold or handing over Arad and Tehran has long denied ever holding Arad.
Iran said yesterday it would not suspend uranium enrichment despite European Union plans to offer incentives to the Islamic republic if it halts the sensitive nuclear work. "We cannot retreat. The proposal should provide ways to secure our rights," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "We will not stop enrichment. "The basis of our work is that the Islamic republic of Iran's rights must be recognized in any plan," Asefi added. In their latest bid to defuse escalating international tensions over Iran's disputed nuclear drive, Britain, France and Germany are preparing a package of trade, technology and security benefits if Tehran stops enriching uranium.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Hell, why doesn't Britain or France just give Iran a few nukes, and cut the fiddle-farting around.
This approach must be from the "Jimmy Carter" school of roll over on your back diplomacy.
When has giving in to Islmofacist intimidation EVER done one iota of good? For crying out loud, a dozen Islamic assassination teams hve been dispatched to hunt down 12 cartoonists half way around the world.
Did the Europeans learn ANYTHING from the route into WWII?
It brings me to tears. The Western World of 2006 is run by professional POLITICIANS - not statesmen. They have forgotton (or never known in the first place) that their first duty is to secure the sovereignty and national preservation of their people. In today's world, it appears that they see their first duty as being to get reelected - at any cost.
It is beginning to dawn on me that it is going to take a new entity - an alliance of like-minded suprapatriots, established and strengthened outside the framework of existing national identities, to take on the Islamic menace.
Taking matters into our own hands will generate tons of BS, such as the Morally Superior Troll who came to call yesterday, but what's a little wind compared to survival and, then, methodically sweeping up the losers and cleaning out the shitholes? I've had to muck out the horse stalls, before, it's nuttin worth losing sleep over.
:)
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 11:08 Comments ||
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a miracle, according to a new book about the hardline leader set to hit the Islamic republics bookstores in the coming days.
Oboy! It's a cult of personality! Soon they'll have 20-foot banners with his picture on them, like they have in NKor...
The conservative Fardanews website said the book was written as a tribute to Irans sixth president who scored a shock election win 11 months ago. The author of Ahmadinejad: the Third Millennium Miracle is Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham. She is also a contributor to the Ya Lessarat weekly, the newspaper of Irans ultra-hardline Ansar Hezbollah militia. In her book, Rajabi will express her belief and the reasons to prove Ahmadinejad is a third millennium miracle on earth, the report added, without giving any further details.
Well, every Great Leader needs a good PR agent.
He's the Mahdi, y'know.
Contacted by AFP, a source in Ahmadinejads office said only that the book was about his election victory last June. Ahmadinejad was swept into office partly thanks to his championing of religious and revolutionary values as well as his promise to use the countrys huge oil revenues to help the poor. Since taking the presidency, he has displayed unbinding commitment to Irans disputed nuclear drive and has launched a series of verbal assaults against arch-enemies Israel and the United States.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 22:27 ||
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#1
I'm pretty certain that any new cult of personality that appears in Iran isn't going to center around Ahmadinejad. The apocalyptic Hojjatieh cult that he and most the senior members of his government belong to is run by Ayatollah Mohammed Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who is probably the power behind the throne (to the extent that the office of the Iranian presidency qualifies as such), who is opposed to Khamenei and Rafsanjani, who more or less "traditional" tyrants.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/22/2006 0:47 Comments ||
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#2
Let's play "connect the dots" - concerning murderous Messianic doomsday cults.
Ready? Lets start -
Dot #1 - Jim Jones - People's Temple - Poisoned Cool-Aid, Georgetown Guyana - 1978
Dot #2 - David Koresh - Branch Dividians - Fire and bullets - Waco, Texas - 1993
Dot #3 - Aum Shinrikyo Cult - Sarin Gas Attack on Tokyo Subway system - 1995 - 12 dead and over 1,000 injured
Dot #4 - Marshall Applewhite - Heaven's Gate - Phenolbarbitol and Vodka, plus Plastic Bogs Over Head, Rancho Santa Fe, California (and aboard the Hale Bopp Comet - ..... yeah, right) - 1997
OK, do any players have any thoughts about how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Hojjatieh cult might fit into this pattern - with their nuclear weapons??
Enough already. It beggars belief that the whole world is standing around spitting into the hurricane that is fast approaching. 'Time to terminate this Messianic program with EXTREME prejudice.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
There should be unity among Muslim clerics and a true democratic system should be implemented to counter challenges of the new American world order, and foil European countries negative propaganda against Islamic states, said Federal Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan, Jamaatud Dawa Ameer Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Vice President Begum Tehmina Daultana, Palestinian leader Samama Hamdan, Hamas leader Dr Khalid Mehmood, Punjab Special Education Minister Qudsia Lodhi, Pakistan Peoples Party leader Qayyum Nizami, Senator Dr Khalid Ranjha and former Nazim Karachi Naymatullah Khan, at a roundtable press conference on Sunday. The Pakistan Institute of National Affairs (PINA) arranged the conference on the topic Muslim World and American Attitude. 
KARACHI: About 200 Shias protested on Sunday to condemn the disappearance of 11 Shia political activists, who have not been heard from for weeks amid allegations they have been detained by the government. Chanting "Free the detained young men," the protesters, among them relatives of the alleged detainees, gathered in a downtown Karachi street, across from the heavily guarded residence and office of the governor of Sindh.
NWFP Governor 
Iraq's Prime Minister 
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met top Israeli officials on Sunday in the highest-level contact between the two sides since the shock election win of the Islamist movement Hamas. The encounter, on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, came amid deadly Israeli raids on the Palestinian territories and a surge in violence between rival Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip. Israel officials at the talks vowed they would act to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories, in the grip of massive financial problems after Israel and the West cut aid to the Hamas-led government.
Israel authorised the release of $11 million in frozen Palestinian taxes on Sunday in a bid to ease a humanitarian crisis ahead of Ehud Olmert's first trip to Washington as prime minister. While both Israel and the United States are working to isolate the Hamas Islamists controlling the Palestinian government, the Jewish state has been under pressure to help avert the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Israeli political sources made clear that none of the tax funds to be released would reach the Palestinian Authority. Israel plans to use the money to buy medical supplies based on advice of a foreign auditor and transfer them to Gaza hospitals. The $11 million to be freed up is part of $220 million in Palestinian tax and customs levies frozen by Israel to push Hamas to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept past peace accords.
Jordan and Kuwait on Sunday called for the resumption of the Middle East peace process and urged the international community to continue aiding the Palestinians. King Abdullah and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah said at a Dar Al Salwa meeting here dialogue and negotiations should lead to the implementation of the roadmap and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The King and the emir added that Palestinians need help to survive their difficult situation and urged them to unite and overcome their differences. They also discussed the situation in Iraq. King Abdullah said the formation of the new Iraqi government was a significant step in the right direction. Talks between the two leaders included means to enhance bilateral relations.
COLOMBO: The chief negotiator for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels warned Sunday that an imminent European ban on the group could scuttle future peace negotiations, as artillery duels continued in front-line regions. London-based Anton Balasingham said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam would retreat from talks with the government if they are listed by the 25-member European Union (EU) as a terrorist group. Balasingham said the EU plan was to isolate the Tigers, and force them back to stalled ceasefire talks and negotiations on a formal peace process on hold since April 2003. But he warned the strategy would backfire. "I gravely doubt that the LTTE leadership will bow down to pressure and humiliation," Balasingham said in remarks published in the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website. "As such this move will be counter-productive. Faced with global isolation and humiliation, the LTTE may be compelled to stay away from further talks."
Iran said yesterday it would not suspend uranium enrichment despite European Union plans to offer incentives to the Islamic republic if it halts the sensitive nuclear work. "We cannot retreat. The proposal should provide ways to secure our rights," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "We will not stop enrichment. "The basis of our work is that the Islamic republic of Iran's rights must be recognized in any plan," Asefi added. In their latest bid to defuse escalating international tensions over Iran's disputed nuclear drive, Britain, France and Germany are preparing a package of trade, technology and security benefits if Tehran stops enriching uranium.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a miracle, according to a new book about the hardline leader set to hit the Islamic republics bookstores in the coming days. 
