Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 13:32 Comments ||
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#4
False piety. Fahd drank heavily, had sex with blondes flown in from the US and Europe, gambled heavily, blew millions on luxury goods.
This arab playboy is now recast as the pious muslim, buried simply in a plain grave.
Hope they dug it deep, the dogs may otherwise dig up the rotting carcass.
Posted by: john ||
08/02/2005 13:46 Comments ||
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#6
I see a photoshopped Far Side comic of dogs drinking from hose in front of house with wife dog commenting: "Your out of luck Barny, the graves unmarked."
RIYADH - Saudis and a host of foreign dignitaries were Tuesday to pay their respects to King Fahd in a funeral which is the final act in an era that saw the monarch steer his country through the most turbulent decades in its history. Several Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, were to attend the funeral in Riyadh of the man they have hailed as a great Arab leader. But emphasising the close ties Fahd forged with the Western world, French President Jacques Chirac and Britainâs heir to the throne Prince Charles were also due in Riyadh Tuesday to pay their respects to the late king.
John Bolton will represent the US...
Saudi government forces would be applying tight security measures during the funeral of King Fahd at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah mosque in the center of the capital, an interior ministry spokesman said. âSecurity forces will enforce tight measures along the routes which the convoys of dignitaries will take and at the location of the funeral ceremonyâ, General Mansur al-Turki told AFP.
"We wish the mourners to hold the automatic weapons fire until the dignitaries and all their teevee cameras are safely out of range..."
Regional governors were also instructed by the new King Abdullah to open centres to allow people to pay condolences without having to travel to the capital for the funeral.
So they won't have to go back home to the tribes and discuss that...odd smell.
State television interrupted programmes to air verses from the Koran and many members of the ruling family crowded the Riyadh hospital where the monarch passed away to pay their last respects and to inquire whether the checks would still be coming each month.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2005 00:11 ||
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#1
bye fahd! sleper well an doen let teh bedbugs byte. :)
#6
Another note regarding the directive to the regional tribal leaders...my guesstimate is that the princelings are busy playing the ultimate game of Liars' Poker, with the future of Arabia and the heart and gonads of Islam at stake. They are not done carving up the booty, and they do not want to tip their hands with public displays of fealty from the tribes just yet, especially with all the infidels and Arab potentates hanging about. The tribal leaders must be courted, carefully and in confidence. PD might call this wasta. The princes have been waiting their entire lives to play this hand.
#7
For the analogy-deficient among us (like me), could you explain what liar's poker is?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/02/2005 2:02 Comments ||
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#8
One more thought: The reason ol' Fahd had to "die" in August was to give the royals a plausible excuse to tell the tribals to stay home..."Yasss, it's much too hot for you to make the trip, please stay home and drink cool tea..."
#10
The Saudis all, and I mean everyone with a steady job, go on vacation for much or all of August. Those who used to read The Religious Policeman are aware of this custom. Those that can afford it leave the country. Lebanon and the Med used to soak up much of the outflow, but the West and, recently, the UAE skim off the big money, these days.
#11
I'm reminded of something my Soviet History professor said. (This was back in 1979, he says, showing his age, when we still had the USSR.) "The USSR has never solved the succession problem." There was no mechanism for an orderly transition of executive power. Thus, Lenin croaks, and you have a struggle between Stalin and Trotsky; Stalin kicks off, and you have the struggle between Beria and Krushchev and Brezhnev, and so on . . . .
This is hardly an original thought, but that pronouncement is true, not only of the old USSR, but of tyrranies in general.
Saudi Arabia has the same issue. There's no orderly mechanism of succession, which is why Fahd has been on the ventilator so long.
Might be popcorn time.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/02/2005 6:44 Comments ||
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#12
I suspect they kept Fahd "stable" until the question of succession had been decided. I wouldn't be surprised to hear news of a couple of car accidents on the way to the funeral, maybe even a few people suddenly being discovered to have died in the last month.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 7:27 Comments ||
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#13
Oh, RC! You're a suspicious guy! ;-)
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 12:11 Comments ||
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#14
This isn't nice, but I'm gonna post it anyway:
Don't you ever laugh as a hearse goes by,
For you may be the next to die.
They wrap you up in a big white sheet,
And cover you up from your head down to your feet.
They put you in a big black box,
And cover you up with dirt and rocks.
All goes well for about a week,
And then your coffin begins to leak.
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout.
They eat your eyes, they eat your nose,
They eat the jelly between your toes.
A big green worm with rolling eyes,
Crawls in your stomach and out your eyes.
Your stomach turns a slimy green,
And pus pours out like whipping cream.
You spread it out on a slice of bread,
And that's what you eat when you are dead.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/02/2005 12:59 Comments ||
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#15
Could be worse, could be a sealed coffin with little free O2. That's slower, but way grosser.
Slag them as you might, few papers do obits as well as the Guardian. Very long, which is why I didn't post the whole thing here.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2005 00:02 ||
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#1
pshaw, no matter how well written and no matter how many facts they get right, I don't like reading when they always throw in stuff that is petty or inaccurate with the facts. It's like eating yummy cake that has little patches of sand inside.
Now here was Fahd heaping yet more dazzling new hardware on his armed forces, in which, for internal political reasons, he must have had less confidence than ever. It was not so much fear of another Saddam that prompted him, it was the princes' greed for commissions and the desperate need of western arms manufacturers to sell their products.
Guardian then goes on to say that increase in military spending and wild spending by the princes fuels resentment...all fair enough...but then we finally get around to blaming what the Guardian staff religiously believes is responsible for all the world's ills..the true To get this in everything they ever write is almost like a freaking disclaimer on a pack of cigarettes...so here we go....
The way the west, especially the US, treated the world's largest oil exporter as a milch cow for its weapons, and other high-priced goods and services, was a source of growing resentment too. So was Fahd's acquiescence in it. That western-Saudi bargain he had struck in the 1970s seemed a thoroughly one-sided one now. But the greater the resentment, the more dependent, in the end, he became on the US as his ultimate protector against enemies within and without.
And thenthey didn't even get the date of the King's death right - as any rantburger would know.
Fahd bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, born 1921; died August 1 2005.
#4
I call BS. Even in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia", Lawrence is meeting with ol' King Faisal in the tent, where TE wants to talk politix and Faisal wants to know how many guns he will get and how big they will be.
POLICE are tracking the worldwide money trail behind the London bombers. They are also investigating the hundreds of telephone calls that the bombers made before the attacks. Intelligence agencies are studying a series of disturbing communications from Britain to well-known al-Qaeda terrorists sheltering in Saudi Arabia to see if it leads to another terror cell sheltering in Britain. The messages from Saudi Arabia include transfers of cash to Britain. At least one of the failed July 21 bombers spent time in Saudi Arabia.
Picking up funding
Scotland Yard made clear that their search for the support network and the âkey logistical figuresâ behind the bombings will stretch worldwide and could take months.
It was the flight of Osman Hussain, also known as Hamdi Isaac, the suspected failed bomber, to join his brother in Rome that has led to revelations in Italy about his familyâs alleged al-Qaeda links. Anti-terror detectives in Rome disclosed yesterday how his brother, Remzi Hussain, was already under scrutiny in relation to al-Qaedaâs secret financial network. Carlo De Stefano, the head of Italyâs counter-terror operations, said that Remzi Hussain, who lives in Rome, has been under surveillance since the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.
He said that Remzi Hussainâs souvenir shop selling African artefacts on the Via Volturno near the cityâs railway station is being investigated for its links to al-Barakaat, a finance company that has been banned by the US and most Western countries. Al-Barakaat is the so-called al-Qaeda banking network that wires money around the globe. Investigators believe that it was such a system that was used to fund previous terror operations, including the attack last year on four trains in Madrid.
Terror financiers can shift cash to terror cells in any part of the world by simple money transfers that are hard to trace.
Last night police said that Remzi Hussain is under arrest for âfalsifying documentsâ. It was to his flat in Rome that his brother fled after escaping Britainâs biggest manhunt on July 29. When police searched the flat on the Via Aurelia at Tor Pignatarra, a Rome suburb, they found records of air tickets used in ârecent timesâ by Remzi Hussain to Dubai, Geneva, Zurich, Munich and Amsterdam.
In public, senior Italian officials said that Osman Hussain, who is thought to have tried to kill himself and others by blowing up a Tube train at Shepherdâs Bush, was part of âa rag tagâ group and not linked to a major terror network.
That's looking a little weak now
Behind the scenes, however, Italian security forces have stepped up their investigations, fearing that their country may be the next to suffer a terrorist strike.
At the weekend Giuseppe Pisanu, the Interior Minister, said that Hussain, his brothers and friends formed part of a âtightly knit networkâ that posed a threat to Italy. Alfredo Mantovano, Signor Pisanuâs deputy, said on Sunday that âthe support network that Hamdi Isaac found in Italy confirms the presence in our country of autonomous Islamic cells that may represent a concrete threatâ. Police have dismissed claims that other members of the July 21 bombing attempts recently visited Rome, though they have asked for Scotland Yardâs help in trying to trace phone calls made from England.
Signor De Stefano told yesterday how intelligence services tracked Hussain across Europe by surveillance technology to eavesdrop on his mobile phone conversations. Police and intelligence agencies listened as he desperately tried to find a way out of the net that was closing around him. They picked up Hussain speaking in an obscure Ethiopian dialect used on the border of Somalia and Eritrea, which encouraged them to believe they had the right man. Hussain was tracked as he travelled by train through France to Italy but dumped his British SIM card and replaced it with an Italian one that was picked up by investigators in Rome.
He has allegedly told Rome police that his name is Hamdi Isaac, that he was born in Ethiopia and came to Italy with five brothers. Two remain in Italy, and both are under arrest; one emigrated to Canada while he and one other went to Britain in 1992 claiming that they were refugees from Somalia.
Cue the "Family Affair" theme music
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 15:14 ||
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He has allegedly told Rome police that his name is Hamdi Isaac, that he was born in Ethiopia and came to Italy with five brothers. Two remain in Italy, and both are under arrest; one emigrated to Canada while he and one other went to Britain in 1992 claiming that they were refugees from Somalia.
This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy has roast beef pork
This little piggy had none
And
This little piggy ran all the way to the nearest subway terminal...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 15:50 Comments ||
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#3
All this phone chatter is pretty unprofessional I think. One would think the bad guys would have learned something by now about communications security.
During all the road trips I have taken through El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, it never occurred to me that lurking in the dunes along the highway just 50 kilometers south of the U.S.-Mexico border city area lie heaps of uncontained radioactive waste.
The secret in the desert sands recently was revealed by Mexican nuclear physicist Bernardo Salas Mar, a former employee of the federal atomic power plant in Veracruz state who was fired after publicly disclosing its radioactive contamination of the Gulf of Mexico.
...snip...
The location is on top of the burial grounds of the waste from what Chihuahua journalist Ignacio Alvarado Ãlvarez calls the worst nuclear disaster of this hemisphere, "Our Chernobyl." That is the fiasco that began 21 years ago in 1984 when guards at Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories near Santa Fe, New Mexico, detected a truckload of rebar from Old Mexico contaminated by radioactive Cobalt-60.
In one of the twisted tales typifying the bi-national boundary line's environmental predicament, the contamination originated from a U.S. source sent to Mexico illegally; the resulting product then was shipped for sale in the United States, where it was discovered to be dangerous and returned to Mexico for confinement.
The now inactive state-run Aceros de Chihuahua foundry had made the rebar by recycling scrap obtained at the Ciudad Juárez Yonke Fenix. The junkyard is now famous because among the metals it received for resale was a gamma radiation chamber with pellets of Cobalt-60 that the most expensive private hospital in the city had acquired as contraband from a U.S. supplier.
U.S. importers of the resulting rebar were located. The rebar in the United States was returned to Mexico for confinement. But many shipments of metal that different foundries made with the contaminated scrap from the Fenix junkyard were delivered in at least half the states in Mexico and never recovered for burial.
Perhaps the waste mounds that Salas verified are a miniscule part of what somehow was recovered in Mexico.
I'd be concerned about what this could be used for...
#4
Co 60 has a half-life of 5.27 years, so after 21 years, its radioactivity would only be 1/16 of the original. The burial is actually a pretty good remedy since it is isolated and the radiation (electrons and gamma rays) contained.
#8
On a trip to El Paso/Juarez, we saw the soft glow of the mounds of this radioctive dump. When inquiring what it was, we were told by some nuns that there was a lot of illegal dumping there but no one would listen. They were upset because this is a squalid camp they visited daily, to take formula and food to mostly women and children sheltered in cardboard shantys and without clean water. Geraldo Rivera even did an investigative story on it clear back in the 80's, but we dismissed most of it as liberal hype as it was his pre-Fox days.
August 2, 2005: China has agreed to provide Indonesia with the propulsion and guidance technology needed to build guided missiles with a range of up to 150 kilometers. Indonesia wants to build its own weapons, partly for national pride, partly to provide protection from arms embargos. Indonesia is currently under an arms embargo by the United States (for supporting murderous militias in East Timor). As a result, most of the air forceâs American made aircraft are grounded because of a spare parts shortage. Indonesia tried to build its own missiles once before, in the 1960s, but corruption and managerial incompetence caused that effort to fail. This time around, the effort is likely to succeed. These anti-ship missiles would, it a certain degree, replace the grounded American F-16 aircraft, and give Indonesia, an island nation, better defense against seaborne aggressors. The missiles would be launched from land and ships. Norinco, the company that would provide the technical assistance, is owned by the Chinese government.
Norinco is also under investigation by the United States for illegally transferring solid fuel rocket motor technology to Iran. Recently, Iran openly boasted of having âperfectedâ the ability to manufacture solid fuel rocket motors for its long range ballistic missiles. Most of the time, Norinco is less exposed to prosecution and sanctions for illegal activity when it just sells weapons manufacturing technology. This can be done by emailing documents and illustrations, or hand delivering a data CD. Follow this up with discreet visits by some engineers, and youâve got another few million bucks in the bank.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 09:48 ||
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Norinco, the company that would provide the technical assistance, is owned by the Chinese government.
Figures. People need to realize that we are still in a full blown cold war with communisim (see China) and Iran and the other small MHM nations are still pawns in the game.
Oh, and freeze and seize all Norinco assets.
#4
The mass immigration of Muslims to Europe was an unintended consequence of post-World War II guest-worker programs. Backed by friendly politicians and sympathetic judges, foreign workers, who were supposed to stay temporarily, benefited from family reunification programs and became permanent. Successive waves of immigrants formed a sea of descendants.
#7
There's plenty of room for them--and their offspring--back in the hellholes they originally came from. The Jews have it right: no Muslims=no terror. Run 'em! Now! Muslims Out of Europe and the US!
Posted by: mac ||
08/02/2005 21:09 Comments ||
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France has expelled two radical Islamist leaders in the wake of the London bombings and plans to round up and send home up to two dozen more by the end of the month, the interior ministry said yesterday. Underlining the difference in approach between London and Paris, a ministry spokesman said France had "no problem" deporting speakers accused of inflaming anti-western feeling even if they were French citizens and recognised as preachers by France's 6 million-strong Muslim community.
Reda Ameuroud, a 35-year-old Algerian who was staying in France illegally, was deported on Friday, the spokesman said. Mr Ameuroud's "violent and hate-filled" speeches at a radical mosque in Paris's 11th arrondissement prompted the French intelligence services to classify him as an "ideological reference point". He is the brother of Abderahmane Ameuroud, 27, who was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from French territory in May after being convicted of giving "logistical support" to two Tunisians who assassinated the Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massood in 2001.
Runs in the family.
Another "part-time" imam, Abdelhamid Aissaoui, 41, was expelled from France earlier last week for urging youths to join the jihad or holy war, the spokesman said. He had already served a four-year jail term for his role in an attempted 1995 bomb attack on a high-speed TGV train near Lyon, mounted by an Algerian extremist group, the GIA.
And he was still in the country after he completed his four-year term because ...
The spokesman said about 1,100 imams have been identified in France and "the vast majority pose no problem at all". About 50% are regular speakers, 150 preach occasionally, and the remainder officiate only at bomb-making festivals Friday prayers. Some 30% are Moroccan, 20% Algerian and 15% Turkish. According to the ministry, the radical imams and ideologists targeted for expulsion are mainly North African and Turkish, and based in or around major cities with large Muslim populations such as Lyon, Marseille and Paris. French intelligence services consider that about 40 of the country's 1,500 mosques and prayer centres are under the influence of radical ideologies ranging from "classic fundamentalism to violent and hate-filled rhetoric".
Any plans to 'doze them? No? Guess you're not yet serious.
Police and ministry officials acknowledge that the greatest threat comes from occasional speakers who often have no formal training and little knowledge of the Qur'an but can exercise considerable influence over the youth of France's deprived big-city suburbs.
Now now, they can recite the Quran from memory; they learned at the Pakistani madrassa where they went on 'scholarship' as a yout.
The planned arrests and expulsions follow remarks by the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who said in the immediate aftermath of the London attacks that France "has to act against radical preachers capable of influencing the youngest and most weak-minded". French officials, who rarely allow such concerns as freedom of speech or human rights to get in the way of security interests, have often accused Britain of not being tough enough with Islamist "preachers of hate", coining the name "Londonistan" for London.
We don't appreciate this point about the French enough -- they really, truly have no trouble bashing skulls at home when motivated. We just need to motivate them.
A fair point, but then they ruin everything by sneering at Dubya when he tries anything similar.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2005 00:14 ||
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#1
Why does France have not fear of the dreaded EU Human Rights Court that the UK is incapable of acting for fear of?
#5
Does anyone remember the terrorist attacks in France in 1995-6?
The bombing of the St Michel Metro--The French Police cracked down on the Islamic extremists and haven't had a problem since--BUT the Brits allowed the Imams to continue their BS in London
France paid millions of dollars for the release of three journalists kidnapped in Iraq and its foreign intelligence service now knows the identity of the abductors, a reporter who was himself held hostage in Lebanon in 1987 said on Monday in a magazine interview. Roger Auque told the August-September issue of Afrique Magazine that - despite official denials - the French government had paid $6m to free Liberation newspaper correspondent Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter in June. Two other French journalists who had been released last December, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were handed over in exchange for $2m, Auque said, relying on what he described as "a reliable source" for his information.
Officers in DGSE foreign intelligence service "have identified the abductors and the place they had been held", said the journalist, who has written a book about his own captivity at the hands of Hezbollah. "In the basement of the DGSE in Paris the cellphone numbers of the abductors and their photos are stuck on a wall next to a map of Iraq," he said. "Kidnappers never say at the start that they want money. They prefer to depict themselves as a political or religious movement. Then they make it understood that all that costs a lot of money and that financial help would be welcome. A figure is then suggested," he told the magazine.
#1
Though I don't know well his work (he's written a book about this subject), in his media appearances Roger Auque has struck me as a non-idiotarian.
This is certainly credible, though some others sources have mentioned higher sums ($15 millions was asked for Florence Aubenas, according to Reporters without borders).
Check this
http://trans-int.blogspot.com/2005/06/ransom-and-terror-in-iraq.html
for the linkage between (supposed, none was acknowledged) ransom deliveries for french journalists and upsurges in Iraq terror : very revealing!
#3
In light of the new threats the frech terror alert system has upgraded the terror threat level from run to hide and all french citizens have been told to "leave your money and women on your front porch and get to your pre-arranged hiding spot quick."
France is looking at stepping up surveillance at its borders after a prime suspect in the failed London bombings on July 21 managed to traverse the country despite a Europe-wide alert for him, Transport Minister Dominique Perben said Monday. "That a man leaves Great Britain, goes across France and makes it to Italy by getting around all our system of checks requires us to think about our border surveillance system. This is what the French government is working on," Perben said. France's interior ministry is preparing a new anti-terror law that would allow French officials to inspect passengers' travel documents on all international trains entering and leaving the country, regardless of jurisdictional considerations. "We have to take into account the lessons from the attacks and underline the importance of the video surveillance in place in the airports" around Paris, said Perben during a visit to inspect security measures at Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris.
#12
The mind boggles at the incredible things this man says.
It is like he wants to be infamous, so he goes over the top.
He sounds more Islamist than bin Laden.
What a complete bastard.
Remember a few months ago in the British election when he was surrounded by 30 or 40 Islamist thugs, angry as he was luring Islamists into kuffr voting? He was only saved by his PA who rocked up in a car? What a shame the Islamonazis didn't give him the beating he so richly deserved.
#13
Jeeze! Even Mikey Moore has been quiet lately. Doesn't this clown know when to shut up?
When is his term up, and is somebody with a few more brain cells going to oppose him?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 12:33 Comments ||
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#14
Oh, I'm sure Micheal Moore is plenty active right now. Whatever he's up to is probably still in the planning stage. Now that he's tasted fame he's not going to let it slip away so easily.
Besides, it's his only chance of ever getting laid.
Posted by: Dar ||
08/02/2005 12:59 Comments ||
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#15
Remember he is married to Arafart's niece and a convert to Islam.
#18
I have to say it again. It is a wonder this subnormal cretin has not suffered a phyical assult yet. I don;t think his ability to speak publicly will save his hide from this much longer.
#20
Sung to
"You'll Never Walk Alone"
"Carousel"
Rogers & Hammerstein
When you walk through London-town,
Spouting off your mouth.
Insulting folks who disagree with you.
At the end of the day,
Thereâs a reckoning,
And karma comes on you Jihadi stooge!
You yap on and on,
More outrageous each day,
Though your friends tell you, âShut up!â
Talk on, talk on,
With nothing in your head,
And you never manage to cease.
Your time is coming soon!
#22
There's nothing wrong with Gorgeous Georgie that a .40 S&W Mozambique drill (two bullets to center of mass, with a third to the head)wouldn't cure. He's certainly earned it.
Posted by: mac ||
08/02/2005 20:46 Comments ||
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#23
Methinks it will be these anti-democratic, anti-reform, anti-benevolent Muslim fanatics whose hatred will induce them to end up destroying Jerusalem and Baghdad, iff not the world. The Radical Islamists and Commies are both fighting for the "status quo", a super-regulated, super-traditionalist/
conservative, regressed, stratified uniformist world where all wealth, modernity, and power is vested in Government and the Political/Ruling Elites, while the other classes are stuck with sod houses, permament poverty, super-inflation and camels = Geos-Yugos, etal.!? Despite massive levels of propaganda, the reality is both Islam and Leftism-Socialism have utterly failed to internally prove their merits such that their only resort is to TAKE BY FORCE, DECEPTION AND DESTRUCTIVE WARFARE, where the Victor (s), whom ever it is, gets all the marbles, how many is left. As of July 2005 Russia-China' s total economies are each roughly FIVE PERCENT OR LESS, IN TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, IN COMPARISON TO THE USA's, according to certain anlysts, YET THE DEMOLEFT'S ANSWER IS THAT SUCCESSFUL AMERICA MUST BECOME SUPER-REGULATED AND SOCIALIST, NOT FOR RUSSIA-CHINA TO BECOME DE-REGULATED IN THE US/WESTERN SENSE, DEMOCAPITALIST OR FEDERALIST, ETC. SUCCESSFUL AMERICA, AND ONLY AMERICA, IS THE ONE THAT HAS TO GIVE UP ITS HYPERPOWER-PLUS WEALTH AND ENDOWMENTS, in exchange for Support-Your-Local- Camel/Donkey
-Dealership and neighborhood ANTI-NAZI NAZIS-FOR-STALINISM, the Amerikaner Sozilizei Waffen SS StalinPanzers of the Clinton USSA SiegKorps!?
#24
Methinks it will be these anti-democratic, anti-reform, anti-benevolent Muslim fanatics whose hatred will induce them to end up destroying Jerusalem and Baghdad, iff not the world. The Radical Islamists and Commies are both fighting for the "status quo", a super-regulated, super-traditionalist/
conservative, regressed, stratified uniformist world where all wealth, modernity, and power is vested in Government and the Political/Ruling Elites, while the other classes are stuck with sod houses, permament poverty, super-inflation and camels = Geos-Yugos, etal.!? Despite massive levels of propaganda, the reality is both Islam and Leftism-Socialism have utterly failed to internally prove their merits such that their only resort is to TAKE BY FORCE, DECEPTION AND DESTRUCTIVE WARFARE, where the Victor (s), whom ever it is, gets all the marbles, how many is left. As of July 2005 Russia-China' s total economies are each roughly FIVE PERCENT OR LESS, IN TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, IN COMPARISON TO THE USA's, according to certain anlysts, YET THE DEMOLEFT'S ANSWER IS THAT SUCCESSFUL AMERICA MUST BECOME SUPER-REGULATED AND SOCIALIST, NOT FOR RUSSIA-CHINA TO BECOME DE-REGULATED IN THE US/WESTERN SENSE, DEMOCAPITALIST OR FEDERALIST, ETC. SUCCESSFUL AMERICA, AND ONLY AMERICA, IS THE ONE THAT HAS TO GIVE UP ITS HYPERPOWER-PLUS WEALTH AND ENDOWMENTS, in exchange for Support-Your-Local- Camel/Donkey
-Dealership and neighborhood ANTI-NAZI NAZIS-FOR-STALINISM, the Amerikaner Sozilizei Waffen SS StalinPanzers of the Clinton USSA SiegKorps!?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 13:36 Comments ||
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#2
Jeese... I went looking to see the similarities but found it was all one vast conspiracy! Which means it must be run by the most powerful, almost eradicated cabal on the planet! The Joooos!
Actually, I didn't get far enough into the drivel to see if they had a candidate scapegoat. Prolly Bu$hitler...
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 16:38 Comments ||
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#3
Yikes. Governement cover-up is not an indicator of involvement in the act inself. There are things in wartime that governments are dishonest about. Some of the items in this article are just nonsensical accusations -- notice how the London bombers pictures were published so quickly! It's like this person never heard of the ubiqutous CCTV cameras.
LONDON -- Police dispatched more officers to guard the capital's Underground train system yesterday as investigators focused on a key question: Were the two sets of London bombers part of the same network, or did they operate independently?
Yes to both.
Meanwhile, Italian police said a man arrested for his role in the July 21 attempted subway bombings has a brother living in Canada. The groups struck exactly two weeks apart and both hit three subway cars and a red double-decker bus. The July 7 attacks killed 52 victims and all four suicide bombers, while the July 21 attackers' explosives failed to detonate and took no lives. It's likely the two cells - the first made up mostly of Pakistani Britons and the second of immigrants from East Africa - didn't know of one another but reported to the same organizer, said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest.
Or they each had a seperate handler who reported to a single "mastermind". Classic cell structure.
"That has to be the assumption (investigators) are working on at the moment," he said. "Only by uncovering the structure can they hope to discover whether there are further cells operating in the U.K."
I'd guess yes, but you'll have to locate the mastermind and work back down from him. People in each cell should not know members of another, unless someone slipped up.
In Italy, where one of the suspected July 21 attackers is being interrogated, Carlo De Stefano, head of the country's anti-terror police, said the investigation so far indicated that the suspect, Hamdi Issac, was "part of a loosely knit group rather than a well-structured group." Issac was charged in Italy with association with the aim of international terrorism and possessing false documents, said Antonietta Sonnessa, his lawyer. Abdulahai Issac, one of Hamdi Issac's four brothers, left Italy for Canada in 1996, Italian anti-terrorism police said. The Canadian government granted him the status of political refugee and gave him economic aid, but officials did not clarify whether he had assumed a false identity to obtain such a status, as his brother Hamdi had upon his arrival in London.
I'd be surprised if the Canadians even know who or where he is.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 11:05 ||
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NEW YORK (AP) - Arabs should be targeted for searches on city subways, two elected officials said, contending that the police department has been wasting time with random checks in its effort to prevent terrorism in the transit system.
The city began examining passengers' bags on subways and buses after the second bomb attack in London two weeks ago. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said several times that officers will not racially profile.
But over the weekend, state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police should be focusing on those who fit the "terrorist profile."
"They all look a certain way," said Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. "It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism."
And on Tuesday, City Councilman James Oddo, a Republican from Staten Island, said that his emotions relating to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack by Middle Eastern men in hijacked airplanes caused him to publicly declare his support for Hikind's statements.
"The reality is that there is a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life," he said. "Young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror, and we should keep those facts prominently in our minds and eyes as we attempt to secure our populace."
Oddo commended Hikind for "rushing headlong against the strong undertow of political correctness."
Hikind said he planned to introduce legislation allowing police to racially profile, and Oddo said he intended to introduce a resolution in the City Council supporting the measure.
But the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant because "terror comes in all shapes and sizes, and certainly there's no legislation or system that's going to identify terrorists on the spot."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/02/2005 21:04 ||
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. . . the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant because "terror comes in all shapes and sizes . . .
He's right. There are fat muslims, and skinny ones, and darker ones, and lighter ones and saudi ones, and yemeni ones, and ethiopian ones and . . .
Via Fark:
An Arizona National Guardsman serving in Iraq has been demoted for posting classified information on his Internet Web log, an Army official said Monday. Leonard Clark, 40, was demoted from specialist to private first class and fined $1,640, said Col. Bill Buckner, a spokesman for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
Soldiers in Iraq are allowed to maintain blogs or Web sites but cannot post information about Army operations or movements. They also are barred from posting information about the death of a soldier whose family hasn't yet been notified. "The intent of the policy is not to violate soldiers' rights, but to safeguard soldiers," Buckner said. Blogs are "a growing phenomenon, I guess. It's something a lot of people do and has some uses." Buckner said he didn't know what kind of classified information Clark had posted.
Clark's blog contained two posts Monday, one with links to articles on him and one stating Clark would comply with a gag order. Calls to his home Monday by The Associated Press went unanswered and contact information for him in Iraq wasn't immediately available. Clark is a Glendale, Ariz., kindergarten teacher who has run for the state Legislature four times. He could have appealed the ruling but declined to, Buckner said. Clark's company was called to active duty in November and has been in Iraq since around January, said Capt. Paul Aguirre, a spokesman for the Arizona National Guard. The company is expected to be brought home next January.
His blog now only has information about his legal problems, but the sidebar looks like it was put together by MoveOn.org, with a running tally of the cost of the war and links to "conscientous objectors" like Pablo Paredes.
#3
Stationed just outside Baghdad, Iraq / This blog is ABOUT him, not BY him.
I don't think this is the blog in question. Looks like it was setup by lefty yahoos looking to cash in on their newest poster boy.
But, at least for us up in Boston, it's good to see Bill Buckner's alive and well.
Come on home, Billy. They won. All is forgiven.
#5
You donât understand, rules donât apply to liberals. All that stuff about not posting classified information or disseminating controlled information, that is for the common folk and not liberals. Yes his site looks like itâs a LLL montage for COs. If there were something wrong with his conviction he would challenge it. Sounds like he got off easy and maybe should keep his yap shut and just serve his time.
#8
The Press release from CENTCOM (obtained from this website - posted in full (it is a MS-Word .doc)
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Private First Class Leonard Clark Press Release
On July 19, 2005, Lieutenant Colonel James F. Switzer, Commander, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, notified Specialist Leonard A. Clark, 860th Military Police Company, of his intent to dispose of alleged misconduct under Article 15, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
After consulting with a Trial Defense Counsel, a military defense lawyer, Specialist Clark elected to accept disposition of the alleged offense using Article 15 proceedings. Specifically, Specialist Clark was charged under Article 15 with the following violations of the UCMJ:
Article 92 (Failure to obey order), 11 specifications; by releasing classified information regarding unit soldiers and convoys being attacked or hit by an improvised explosive devices on various dates, discussing troop movements on various dates, releasing Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures and Rules of Engagement used by the unit on various dates, in violation of a lawful general order prohibiting the release of such information.
Article 134 (Reckless endangerment), 2 specifications; by releasing specific information, on various dates regarding Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures and Rules of Engagement used by his unit and encouraging its widespread publication, such that the enemy forces could foreseeably access the information, such that with that information it was likely that the enemy forces could cause death or serious bodily harm to U.S. forces engaged in the same or similar mission.
On July 19, 2005, at a hearing before Lieutenant Colonel Switzer, Specialist Clark was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of all Specifications. As a result, Specialist Clark received the following punishment:
Reduction to Private First Class (E-3), forfeiture of $820 per month for two months, 45 days restriction, and 45 days of extra duty. Both the restriction and extra duty were suspended for five months.
Private First Class Clark has appeal rights, but he has chosen not to exercise those rights.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/02/2005 15:00 Comments ||
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He could have refused the Art 15 and elected to face Courts Martial instead. If found guilty he'd have the right of appeal through the Military Courts of Appeal which is no where near any of the Command Chain and is indeed independent. However, conviction by both Special and General CM carries with it a record of federal felony conviction. The Summary CM does not. Not good on the job resume. Wondered if that was in his calculations?
#13
Accepting the Article 15 is not the same as a conviction that he most certainly would have got under a summary Courts Martial. Rule of thumb is if they offer an Article 15 it's best to take it. As far as being a SP4, the Guard is a wierd animal and rank doesn't come quickly, unless you get a lot of vacancies. I have seen some grey head jr enlisted types working weekends.
This is the talkradio host who is under suspension for criticizing Islam. CAIR is still carrying out defamation activities against him.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2005
THANK YOU....NOW PLEASE STOP!!!! On behalf of my friends who work hard at 630 WMAL every day, I'm asking all of you who've expressed your support for me to do me a HUGE personal favor: Please stop. The volume of calls and emails is hurting the ability of some very good people to do their jobs, and trust me--your message has been received.
Am I overwhelmed by the fact that websites and blogs have spontaneously risen up across the DC area and around the country to express their support? Yes, more than you know. I am flattered and amazed and humbled and generally astonished.
But if you really want to see a positive resolution to this story, I'm asking all you bloggers and callers and emailers and fellow First-Amendment freaks to please stop contacting 630 WMAL. Please. I'm begging you.
I don't know how many ways there are to say "Thank you," but I want to use them all. Thanks for what you've done, for the history you've made in Washington radio, and thanks now for sitting back for a few days and watching how things work out.
#1
Miss Everett Teen USA 2004 is putting away her sash to put on a U.S. Army uniform. "I'm capable, I'm healthy. This is the right thing to do," she said.
#2
But notice as the article ends giving more space to the anti-war grand mother than toi the girl just because, allegedly she helps the girll lacing her boots (reporter obviously thinks that ifyou are pretty you are stupid or perhaps is that if you are a patriot you are stupoid).
Posted by: Mike ||
08/02/2005 8:36 Comments ||
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JFM, it sounds to me like its an antiwar Grandfather, and my guess is he gets the news from the Seattle press and comes from the generation that trusts the media still so he has no idea that he's only getting one side.
I give the old guy the benefit of the doubt and blame the reporter who honed in on it hoping to provide 'balance' where none was needed.
parts models can get a lot of lucrative work. I had a friend years ago whose hands and feet were in some TV ads ... she got residual income for years from it. her face was just so-so, but she had lovely hands, long fingers and nails, and elegant feet.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A shake-up of dozens of Air National Guard units has emerged as the most contentious part of the Pentagon's proposal to close or restructure hundreds of military bases across the country. States are suing over the issue. Lawmakers in both parties are griping. And the independent commission reviewing the sweeping proposal has serious concerns about the impact of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's Air Guard plan.
A major question about that plan also remains unresolved just weeks before the commission's September deadline to send its recommendations to President Bush, himself a stateside Vietnam-era pilot in the Texas Air National Guard: Does the law even allow the Pentagon to move Air Guard units without the consent of state governors, who through their adjutants general share authority over the units with the president?
In May, Rumsfeld proposed shutting or consolidating 62 major U.S. military bases and hundreds of smaller facilities, prompting lawmakers and communities to feverishly lobby the commission to spare their hometown facilities. Only a fraction of the $49 billion Rumsfeld says his plan will save over 20 years would come from the Air Guard reorganization. But the impact on the Air Guard would be dramatic.
With roughly 106,000 members, the Air Guard currently has units stationed at about 95 Air Force bases and separate Air Guard installations and on leased land at about 78 civilian spots, including local airports. Rumsfeld's proposal would shift people, equipment and aircraft around at least 54 sites where Air Guard units are stationed. Roughly two dozen sites would grow. About 30 are slated for closure or downsizing. In many of those cases, units would continue to exist but no planes would be assigned to them.
The Pentagon says the Air Guard changes are part of an overall effort to reshape the Air Force ``into more effective fighting units'' by consolidating a force that is now ``fragmented into small, inefficient units.''
Lawmakers, states and commissioners worry about the potential impact of the Pentagon proposal on recruitment, retention and training, and question whether the Air Guard will be able to fulfill its homeland security mission.
Anthony Principi, the commission's chairman, has appealed to all involved groups ``to work to a solution that best serves the interests of our national security and our country.''
``The commission believes a solution is needed,'' Principi told defense officials last month. However, he said, throwing out all of Rumsfeld's Air Guard recommendations would be ``irresponsible.'' Principi has since scheduled an Aug. 11 hearing to address the Air Guard plan.
Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, the Army general in charge of the National Guard Bureau, told lawmakers he's committed to ensuring each state has at least one Air Guard flying unit. ``If I don't have a flying unit in a state or territory, very shortly thereafter I will have no Air National Guard in that state or territory,'' he said.
Comments like those don't ease the fears of states - and lawmakers - facing pork barrel losses. ``This doesn't work,'' Rep. Joe Schwarz, R-Mich., told Air Force officers at a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing. ``This thing is amazing in its incompleteness and in the disruption that it's caused, the insecurity that it has caused. And, I'm just, frankly appalled,'' added Rep. John Kline, R-Minn.
Pennsylvania was the first state to sue to try to stop the Pentagon. It's concerned about the fate of the Pennsylvania National Guard's 111th Fighter Wing, which is stationed at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station that the Pentagon wants to close. Illinois quickly followed with a lawsuit arguing that the federal government is out of bounds because it failed to consult the states. Other states may join those suits.
The commission's legal counsel has said relocating, disbanding or moving Air Guard units from one state to another could be outside the commission's authority. The Pentagon wants the commission to wait for a Justice Department opinion before changing Rumsfeld's plan.
Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke, president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States, said the Air Guard plan is ``beyond the scope'' of the law authorizing the first round of base closings in a decade. He said the law ``pertains to installations, not to units, unit equipment, people or positions.'' Lt. Gen. Stephen G. Wood, an Air Force deputy chief of staff, said, ``We believe that we are within the full extent of the law.''
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2005 00:06 ||
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States are suing over the issue
Article I, Section 8, U.S. Constitution.
The Congress shall have the power to... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
Seems clear cut to me. However, what do I know, its old colonial English, and the Courts have long held, only they know the secret language of the Constitution. It was never intended for us mere mortals to comprehend.
Even bus drivers -- a pack, not a herd.
About 200 of the state's safety instructors will be trained so they can teach drivers at the regional and local level. The training will include who and what to look for and how to perform routine inspections of buses before picking up students. The program is based on a national effort by the American Trucking Association in response to potential terrorist threats.
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
[Attorney] Abdolfattah Soltani was arrested in Tehran on 30 July and taken to an unknown place, apparently for divulging the contents of a nuclear espionage case, Radio Farda and ISNA reported on 31 July. Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad said on 31 July that Soltani discussed the case with the families of defendants. .... The Information Ministry, he added, has a full dossier on Soltani. But lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah told Radio Farda that Soltani should first have been summoned to court to hear charges. Dadkhah added that the judiciary spokesman has spoken about the charges as if Soltani were already convicted.
Radio Farda reported on 31 July that men presenting themselves as judiciary agents searched Soltani's house "five days before" his arrest, and took away unspecified papers and documents. Soltani told Radio Farda on 23 July that he believed the Tehran chief prosecutor Said Mortazavi was taking measures that would lead to his "arrest and torture." Iranian officials reported the arrest of a dozen "nuclear spies" in December 2004.
Intelligence and Security Minister Hojatoleslam Ali Yunesi said in Tehran on 22 December that over the last few years Iran has arrested more than ten "nuclear spies" in Tehran and Hormozgan who were working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad, state television reported. Yunesi said, "Three of those spies were employees of the Atomic Energy Organization. Some of them were military officers and some of the others were self-employed."
Yunesi added that any information the U.S. got through these agents was "worthless." The Mujahedin Khalq Organization, an exile opposition group that is on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, has been the source of several reports on covert Iranian nuclear activities. Yunesi claimed that the U.S. let the MKO make these announcements in order to divert attention from its principle agents.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/02/2005 07:39 ||
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What did you expect? It's freakin Iran. Have you guys forgotten all those yellow ribbons on the trees for what seemed like forever?
I'm not smart enough to decipher this. OldSpook, please jump in.
A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."
The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran's military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program. What is clear is that Iran, mostly through its energy program, is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be diverted to bombmaking.
#4
Sock Puppet, I think you're right, though perhaps it's not just the Iraq NIE that is relevant background. Many -- most? -- intelligence estimates are wrong, which is why they're called estimates. Of course they have to write something down and hand it in at some point, but I would think after the UNSCOM episode (discovering Iraq was far ahead of estimate timetables and pursuing a much broader program than assessed) and then the AQ Khan episode (which potentially placed all proliferators far ahead of conventional timetables) the hedging on this particular item would be high as a t-wall in the Green Zone.
One great failure of the administration in connection with the Iraq war and associated intelligence -- and directly in connection with the pre-emption tactic -- has been not to educate. Intelligence is unavoidably flawed and limited. Down-side surprises are harmless, but in matters of WMD and terrorism, up-side surprises are potentially catastrophic and therefore unacceptable.
Thus, one must make judgements based on unavoidably flawed intel to cover the up-side surprises. Pre-emption is the chief tactic to achieve this prudent coverage. Simple common sense -- though each judgement call can go either way, and be horribly difficult.
Tenet and others were urged to educate the public and shape the debate into an intelligent discussion, but clearly opted not to do so. Too bad.
#5
For me, Iran being a major supp of revolutionary Islam and Internat Terror is, by itself, a reason for mil action, regardless of whether it actually has a nuke bomb. Internat Terror is a diversified coalition, a congregate of collusory cells, persons, networks/orgs, and State govts - Dubya is absolutely correct in going after Govts that supp terror.
#8
Tenet and others were urged to educate the public and shape the debate into an intelligent discussion, but clearly opted not to do so. Too bad.
It would have gotten in the way of their anonymous leaks to the press.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 7:25 Comments ||
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#9
The thing we've discovered is that the only way to discover the truth (and thus more closely correlate intel estimates to reality) is to invade the country and let the troops examine the evidence.
#14
Perhaps the only organization in the Federal government more dysfunctional than NASA is the CIA. These guys should look at what the military did after Vietnam to reconstitute itself as the world's premier military organization. It wasn't easy or quick, think Desert One and the fiasco at Grenada. But they stuck with it and it paid off. Go Goss, Go!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/02/2005 9:44 Comments ||
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#15
A Journalist who may or may not have her own agenda has not read the report. I assume it's highly classified. She interviews a few people willing to leak talk who may or may not have their own agendas. An Editor who may or may not have an agenda puts a headline on the article. But the writer is able to state with certainty that the Bush Administration who have access to this an all previous reports have their own Agenda. Sigh. The truth is out there somewhere.
Posted by: john ||
08/02/2005 10:29 Comments ||
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#16
Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof
As contrasted with your three leaking sources who brought us the flawed estimates highlighted above. Do your sources have proof, sweetheart? Wodda dope!
Hey! Isn't this Valerie's secret section? Maybe she's leaking classified information to get back at Bush? Or Wilson is making up stuff as he goes along? Sheesh!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 11:05 Comments ||
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#17
Now wait a moment, this finding has instant credibility because it was based upon a "consensus" of idiots (I mean intelligence experts).
The wacky WaPo always goes for the consensus, meaning that all those with foresight are automatically ruled out.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 12:56 Comments ||
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from the August 02, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0802/p04s01-wogi.html
Special briefing: How radical Islamists see the world
By Dan Murphy and Howard LaFranchi | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor This article is a good, sociological look at the history and methodology used by radical Islamists. It's meant for the completely uninformed, but I did find some interesting things in the article. Anyway, its a good, unbiased, detailed history in brief that explains the formation of current extremist Islamic thinking and organization.
Persistent suicide bombings in Iraq. Attacks on London subways. Explosions at an Egyptian resort.
Whether related or not, these recent incidents have heightened global concern about the spread of radical Islamist militancy. And they raise questions about the current reach of Al Qaeda and groups with similar ideology. Today and tomorrow, the Monitor examines the origins of Islamic terrorism and how it is evolving now.
What is Al Qaeda today compared to five years ago?
In some ways it is less like the Al Qaeda of 2001 than like the Al Qaeda of the mid-1990s, before it was able to build up organizationally with a base of operations in Afghanistan. It is best understood as a radical ideology loosely inspiring a disparate and very decentralized set of localized Islamist extremist organizations.
For some terrorism experts, Al Qaeda as an organization simply no longer exists. Its Afghan training and indoctrination sites are gone. Key leaders have been killed or captured, or are on the run. Yet Al Qaeda as an ideology of global confrontation and jihad, "struggle" or "holy war," still exists. And has proliferated
"That is why I speak of 'Al Qaedaism' as more of a factor today than Al Qaeda," says Magnus Ranstorp of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Who are Al Qaeda's leaders?
Osama bin Laden, still at large, founded the organization in 1988, along with Mohammed Atef (aka Abu Hafs al-Masri), an Egyptian who was killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan. The group has a shura, or consultative council, the composition of which is unknown. But some of the people "most wanted" for organizing operations under Al Qaeda's name or ideology, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are not believed to be part of any centralized leadership.
Are they still organizing operations?
The Al Qaeda leadership may maintain some command-and-control capability from suspected locations in or near Pakistan - despite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's recent declaration about a smashed Al Qaeda. One possible example: In a tape released June 17 by the Arab television network Al Jazeera, Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri called for revenge against Britain for allying with the US. Some experts believe such tapes are directives to proceed with an operation. In any case, the London bombings soon followed.
What do the militants want?
For Islamist militants, the long-term objective is an Islamic superstate, or caliphate. Narrower objectives include the end of the state of Israel and toppling secular Middle Eastern regimes like Egypt's. It is an article of faith that the US and all secular Western states stand in their way, and weakening those states is seen as positive for all their objectives. These Al Q asses want a caliphate, we want democratic friends in the area. Strangely enough, our goal of democratization of these secular regimes means we share similar goals with Al Q, but only in that we want these regimes gone. Strange to think that these goals met somewhere in Afghanistan in the 80's. What's the saying "many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, so true.
Who is their main enemy?
The global jihad has long named two types of targets: the "near enemy" (Israel or secular Arab regimes) and the "far enemy" - America and its allies. Zawahiri was always more interested in the "near enemy" that stood in the way of an Islamic state in his homeland, Egypt. Bin Laden was more interested in the "far enemy," because he felt success could not be achieved closer to home until US financial and military backing for these regimes was eroded. When Zawahiri merged his Egyptian Islamic Jihad with Al Qaeda in 1998, the two trends were brought together.
What Is their ideal society?
They want a society that applies the Koran literally and adheres to the social practices that prevailed at the time of the prophet Muhammad. It would not be democratic in any modern sense, though there are provisions for shura, or consultation - generally interpreted to mean the leader should take advice from trusted community members. In their interpretation of Islam, women and men have defined roles, and women generally have fewer rights.
Their views stem from the Salafi movement within Islam's Sunni sect, the religion's largest I'm not sure if Iraq's Sunnis are Salafis or not, but one can see here how Zarq and the gang can find some safehaven amongst Iraq's Sunnis.. For a Salafi adherent, interpretation of the Koran stops 1,300 years ago, with Muhammad, his companions, and the three generations that followed them.
What about Wahhabi thinking - is that behind Al Qaeda?
While many in the West use the term Wahhabi, practitioners of this Sunni school reject the notion that they belong to any particular sect. To their thinking, they are simply following the true path of Islam. They are Salafi followers of Mohammed ibn abd al-Wahhab, an 18th century Arabian preacher. Although the vast majority of Salafis are not involved in violence, almost all attacks linked to Al Qaeda have been carried out by people under the Salafi umbrella. The House of Saud helped this school become Saudi Arabia's dominant interpretation of Islam. Many Saudis refuse to view Osama bin Laden as a Wahhabi, rejecting his thirst for overthrowing the Saudi regime. Wahhabis are supremely intolerant of Shiites, seeing practices such as the veneration of historic Imams Hussein and Ali as a breach of monotheism. While a few of RB's most outspoken posters make comments that suggest there are no "good Muslims", the point made here should be taken to heart, Bin Laden, and the whole school of Wahhabi, think of all other schools of Islam as heretic. So, making no differentiation between the radical Bin Laden Wahabbis and Shiites or Sufis is like making no differentiation between Catholics, Protestants, Costics and Mormons. And having been to most of these sect's religious ceremonies as well as some Islamic ceremonies I can tell you they ain't the same.
What are the roots of violent jihad? This is good stuff
Ibn Taymiyah, a 13th century scholar, is an intellectual forerunner of the modern Salafis. He rejected Sufi and Shiite Muslims, describing the latter as apostates who deserved death.Many wars were fought amongst the sects over the centuries. Appearing in an era when crusaders remained in the Middle East, he advocated a muscular approach to Islam that called on believers to fight infidel invaders.Binny often quotes this dude's writings in his taped threats. The modern Salafi revival is generally traced to late 19th and early 20th century opposition to colonial rule, and was particularly taken up by Egyptian thinkers, who saw in it a way to oppose Western colonialism and modernize without giving up Islamic values. The foundation of Israel was seen by most Muslims, of all strains, as a hostile act that undermined Islam.
Here's where things get hairy for the rest of Islam, and this is perhaps why so many people think all Muslims are Bin Ladin sympathizers. Most Muslims hate the thought of an Jewish state controlling the holy city of Jerusalem, and I make no excuses for their bigotry or that of many of the Israelis. The question that rests here for me is this, are we, the West, so dedicated to an Israeli state that we would go to war with all Islam? If so, why? Is it strategic or philosphical reasoning? I have no philosophical preference toward a Israeli state as I support no religious establishment. I support Israel for strategic reasons, but have questioned the logic of supporting a religious state that is going to be part of an endless religious struggle that can end only in the destruction of one or both religious establishments if things continue as they have. However, the question remains is this the reason Muslims seem complacent about Bin Laden or is it really a longer hatred of the West and its principles. No easy answer here, just more questions. For Salafis it was a call to jihad, to regain the land and holy places they felt had been usurped. Frustration mounted with the 1967 Arab defeat by Israel, which many Muslims interpreted as a sign of God's displeasure. The Israeli's roundly whipped their asses, so naturally God was mad at them for not making their women stay at home behind curtains, give me a break!I personally saw their absolute defeat as a sign the Arab countries fighting the War were all a bunch of whiney, excuse making wusses who couldn't hack a real 20th century war.
But the Salafi group around bin Laden really took hold after the 1991 Gulf War. Bin Laden was a wealthy Saudi who had helped support Afghans and Arab volunteers in the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, with financial support from Pakistani intelligence and the CIA. He wanted to lead an Arab and Muslim effort to end Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait. He and his followers were enraged and humiliated that a US-led coalition repelled Hussein and that US troops were then stationed in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest places. I think we should all take special notice of this fact, Bin Laden is not, and never has been a lover of Saddam, a commie infidel in Binny's mind. Does that preclude Al Qaeda cooperation with a failing and desperate Baathists regime? No, but it is very noteworthy that Binny was more than happy to work with us, the "Great Satan" in overthrowing a country full of his Muslim brothers, Sunnis even. Citing this issue, bin Laden and Zawahiri announced the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Crusaders and Jews" in 1998.
What does the Koran say about violence against civilians?
As with most religions, it is a question of where emphasis is placed. The Koran has fairly clear injunctions against murder, including "Whoever slays a human being, unless it be for murder or for spreading corruption on earth, it shall be as though he had slain all mankind" (5:32). Suicide is warned against even more strongly: "Do not kill yourselves ... whoever does so, in transgression and wrongfully, we shall roast in a fire" (4:29). Warfare in certain circumstances is condoned, even urged, just as in the Old Testament, but there are limits. "Fight in the cause of God against those who fight against you, but do not transgress limits. God loves not transgressors" (2:190) and "let there be no hostility, except to those who practice oppression" (2:193).
In the most widespread interpretations, such verses bar both attacks on civilians and suicide attacks, while allowing Muslims to fight against those who directly attack them. But how does one define the meaning of "those who practice oppression" or "spreading corruption on earth" or even "those who fight against you?" It is here that the minority of Islamist radicals who attack civilians find their wiggle room. Wiggle room my ass, Binny and his boyz just rewrite history and religious doctrine as they see fit.
An Al Qaeda timeline
1988:
Osama Bin Laden establishes Al Qaeda ("the base") to channel arms and funds to the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance.
1989-1991:
Bin Laden becomes involved in movements opposing the Saudi monarchy, fueled by the kingdom's acceptance of US troops after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
1996:
Bin Laden joins the Taliban in Afghanistan as they seize Kabul. He now has a base for his training operations.
AUG. 7, 1998:
East African attacks: Nearly simultaneous car bombings hit US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 on the anniversary of the Saudi King's 1991 invitation to US troops to defend his country from Iraq.
OCT. 12, 2000:
Suicide bombers ram the USS Cole off Yemen, killing 17.
SEPT. 11, 2001:
Al Qaeda hijackers fly jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while a fourth hijacked jet crashes in a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 are killed.
OCT. 12, 2002:
In an attack blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda, 202 are killed bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali.
2003 through present:
Iraq becomes a locus for radical Islamists, as insurgents battle the fledgling Iraqi government and the US-led forces that ousted Saddam Hussein. A key mastermind, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, aligns himself with Al Qaeda.
MARCH 11, 2004:
Bombs hit four commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and injuring more than 1,600. Attacks are blamed on Islamic militants with suspected ties to Al Qaeda.
JULY 7, 2005:
A group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe claims responsibility for bus and subway bombings in London that killed 56 people. Two weeks later another coordinated London subway bombing is attempted.
This is a two part series so I'll post the second part tommorrow, and I promise fewer comments.
#1
Islams biggest problem -Islam does not acknowledge any other religion or viewpoint as being legitimate. No other philosophy or outlook is to be tolerated and anybody who disagrees is an apostate that is to be killed by any means available. This is not how the world works, the 21st century world, not the 9th century world. In the 9th century maybe you could get away with shit like that, but now it doesnt fly. Islam has lost all legitimacy with me over the last couple of years because of this quality it has clung to. Even moderate muslims seem to deny the right of existance to Israel, and see western influence as evil. They see Iraq in 12th century terms as crusaders and occupiers, they need to wake up and get with the times before they get what the radicals want-isolation from the rest of the world. I don't think they would like that any more than they would like the current situation.
Jim I assume you grew up in a christian household and are a Southerner like myself. Maybe I assume too much, but regardless I totally agree with many elements of your statement.
However, I'll tell you this. Most people don't follow their religion's or denomination's teachings that far beyond reason as do Binny and the Wahabbis. Many of my Catholic buddies will laugh at yonder Pope's contraception ban when they throw religion to the wind and strap on those jimmies when going undercover!
Also for instance, the church I was brought up in does not tolerate any other religious views, it points to other views as sinful, even other christian views, and believes and propogates the same ideas about Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, hell all other religions as tools of the devil. It ain't a small denomination either, and it is pretty mainstream in its teachings.
Their way of dealing with non believers is to try to convert those people, not kill them, and believe it or not this is how many Muslims operate too. I remind you here that Christianity does have a history of forced conversion as does Islam.
Actually most sects of Islam are sometimes even a little more tolerant of other faiths than is my former denomination of Christianity. They at least see Christ as a prophet, while the Chrisitans I know see Muhammad as some dumb ass anti-christ. I have no preference either way and could care less about people's religious compunctions as they are a waste of my time outside of metaphysical and philosophical discussion.
I see your point about Islam though, as the loudest statements we hear from Islam are from the haters and killers, but most people are just people trying to get along Jim like me and you.
Most people, Muslims included, think about family and kids and putting food on the table rather than establishing a caliphate to rule the world. Binny may actually believe all the bullshit he's spittin, but mostly I think it is just convenient that he has history and his religion to point to as a reason for his want to rule over people and kill those who get in his way. If he didn't have Islam or Wahabbiism I should say, he would find some other excuse, just like Hitler did.
I think it is very ironic that the word Jihad and the German word Kampf mean basically the same thing, struggle. Binny's little Mein Kampf will hopefully end like Hitler's did, by him eating a bullet or some cyanide, but sadly I doubt Binny will go that easy.
I agree that we should crush, exterminate and destroy radical islamists bent on murder and the destruction of the west. But let's not group millions of people together with a few asshat extremists.
I know a few Christian extremists who sympathize with Eric Rudolph's crazy ass secretly. But we shouldn't paint all Christians as bad because of a few people's actions. That would be the greatest loss in the war on Terror. That's what Bin Laden seeks, a reason to inflame Muslims the world over. We in the civilized world don't need or want that.
I'm with you though. And I appreciate your point of view, I think we all just need to step back every now and then and examine why we think what we think and how it relates to the WoT and our future as a free and democratic nation.
I personally don't want anyone's religious views ruling over my life, and like you said I bet most other folks share that same fear of radical religion ruling the world, no matter what the religion would be. Unless of course that religion involves some hot naked young women, a couple of..., well I wont go there, but I think you get my point.
#3
Point of information: Israel is a secular Jewish state, in the same way that the U.S. is a secular Christian state. About 80% of the citizens are at least nominally Jewish, the rest being Moslem, Christian and "other". All have equal rights under the law, except that only the non-ultra-Orthodox Jews are required to serve in the IDF, although the others are welcome (lots of Druze and Beduins do so).
#4
2003 through present:
Iraq becomes a locus for radical Islamists, as insurgents battle the fledgling Iraqi government and the US-led forces that ousted Saddam Hussein. A key mastermind, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, aligns himself with Al Qaeda.
What a crock of shit! Zarq was in northern Iraq at the behest of Saddam since he fled Afganistan and Iran (circa, 2002)-- before the Iraq invasion.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 23:03 Comments ||
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Saddam Hussein's lawyers are refusing to take part in any further legal proceedings until the Iraqi tribunal acknowledges an attack against the former dictator and guarantees the safety of all defendants and attorneys, one his lawyers has said. Members of Saddam's defence team claimed the former Iraqi president was attacked during a court appearance last week. The government denied the claim.
But lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who attended the court appearance, insisted the allegation was true and demanded the government acknowledge it.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 14:45 ||
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#1
Well they have that alternative of letting him hang without representation. They will however look even more like the total fools they are.
They just can't get it through their heads, Saddam isn't calling any shots anymore.
#3
Anybody remember ol' Nicky "Nosferatu" Ceausescu's harpy of a wife screaming "You can't do this! Don't you know WHO I AM?" just before the firing squad opened up on 'em?
PADUCAH, Ky. - A soldier pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that he smuggled machine guns out of Iraq and tried to sell them in the U.S. Sgt. Beau Uran, 24, based at Fort Campbell, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully import the weapons. He is the third person to plead guilty in the case. Sgt. Nigel Brown, 31, and his uncle, Guy Brown, 46, of Hopkinsville, pleaded guilty in July to the same charges. They face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fines when they are sentenced Oct. 25. Uran could get a lighter sentence because of his cooperation with authorities, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Theilhorn said in court Monday.
Beau being the smart one of this trio.
While in Iraq, Nigel Brown and Uran allegedly acquired 17 Russian-made AK-47s and an assault rifle.
Sigh, where do they find these reporters?
Prosecutors say they sawed the bottoms off oxygen tanks,
The thought of which scares the hell out of me...
placed the guns inside and welded the bottoms back on so the tanks could be shipped back to Fort Campbell.
Not bad, gets "A" for effort
After returning home, Brown and Uran allegedly retrieved the tanks and asked Guy Brown to help sell them. According to prosecutors, the uncle ended up offering the guns to an undercover ATF agent for $18,000.
Uncle Guy gets a "D-"
Both soldiers continue to serve at Fort Campbell, a fort spokeswoman said.
Soon to PCS to sunny Kansas
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 13:46 ||
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#3
Actually the weather is beastly sticky humid, soon to change to tornado season. Depending on their classification by prison officials, they may have the opportunity to do the ground work around the installation in those great outdoors. Most of that had been contracted out at other installations, but there is a lot of extra labor available at Leavenworth.
...
(Speculation alert) It hints at the strategic decisions America has taken, not always with success. Direct attacks on Syria may have been vetoed in favor of efforts to detach the insurgency from its Syrian rear, such as Operation Matador. The US apparently continues to build a workable Iraqi unitary state despite the temptation to unleash the Shi'ites on the Sunnis. ('Although civil war would be a tragedy, with immense costs, it would at least force a definitive outcome to the ongoing struggle in Iraq.' -- Keane) America tries not to tar Islam, or even certain sects of Islam, with the brush of terrorism, despite open incitements in mosques. ('anti-sedition laws should be passed so that those who incite violence in mosques and schools can be held accountable.' -- West). Yet the Iraqi operation is adjudged winnable despite these limitations. ('Indeed, if the United States withdraws from Iraq before the ISF is capable of sustaining itself, it would lose there as well. That, however, is not likely to happen.' -- Keane. 'Despite the many obstacles, victory is achievable.' -- West. 'Once people are in the voting booths, the insurgents will not be able to prevent them from voting their conscience.' -- White).
But what sort of victory would it be? Perhaps a shadow victory like that achieved in Korea 60 years ago. A Syria belligerent but not really; Islam still the 'religion of peace' -- whenever it is not inciting attacks against America; Bin Laden in Pakistan but only when he is actually spotted; an Iran with nuclear weapons which they will be bribed not to use. A West partially mobilized against enemies it cannot bring itself to name or destroy, a display of aggression from the civilized herd to prevent further attack from the circling pack of predators serving in lieu. Iraq dozing in an uneasy peace. An act of faith really; faith that things will work out if only we can keep the world spinning on its axis.
#1
Of course, he's right. We are doing another politically correct war (or, is it not "war" anymore). This shit is going to get us killed.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 14:01 Comments ||
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#2
The 150,000 number isn't as bad as it sounds. It includes large numbers of criminal gangmembers. They are responsible for approx. half of the murders in Iraq.
The real issue is the foreign support. Why we don't make controling the Iraqi borders our top priority is beyond me.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/02/2005 14:45 Comments ||
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#3
Why we don't make controling the Iraqi borders our top priority is beyond me.
I don't have any secret knowledge, but how about, we don't have the manpower?
War is a political act. So it should be politically correct. That you and I don't happen to like the prevalent politics at the moment is unfortunate for us, but that's what Bush has to work with.
I am becoming fairly sure that the way we make war is a lot like the way we do business and make laws and sausages. It's pretty messy to watch, the waste and mistakes are more apparent than the succeses, it's hard to see where there's any organization or direction, but through the power of the invisible hand, everything turns out OK. Bismark is reputed to have said God watches out for children, drunks and the United States of America. I think this may have been what he meant.
Korea is mentioned. That was a fairly hot battle in what was usually called the cold war. Remind me how that one turned out?
We can keep this up longer than they can. Much longer.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/02/2005 15:51 Comments ||
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âThe fanaticism of a few ignorant mullahs is ruining the Muslims and the whole community remains a mute spectator,â the resolution said.
Terrorism had practically closed all doors of higher education and business for Muslims, who were being looked at with suspicion all over the world, it said.
Referring to the July 5 terrorist attack on Ayodhya, the Board said, âhad the bombs thrown by the militants fallen a few metres ahead the country would have witnessed unprecedented turmoilâ.
The Board appealed to the Muslims especially Shias to rise against the terrorism.
Posted by: john ||
08/02/2005 12:58 ||
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Terrorism had practically closed all doors of higher education and business for Muslims, who were being looked at with suspicion all over the world, it said.
Fred - Where is the "Master of the Obvious" graphic?
NEW DELHI, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- The United States seems uninterested in helping India to extradite mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim from Pakistan because it does not want to upset relations with its front-line ally in the war on terrorism, Indian intelligence analysts said Tuesday. "Getting Dawood is not important for the United States as his arrest goes against the interest of Pakistan with whom Washington does not want upset its relations," said senior intelligence analyst Rajeev Sharma. He said as Pakistan cannot afford to violate any U.S. directive, Washington should ask Islamabad to arrest Ibrahim, who has been living in the Pakistani port of Karachi, and extradite him to India.
Ibrahim, who was born Dawood Sheikh Ibrahim Kaskar, was Bombay's top underworld don before he fled the country for the safety of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. After he was implicated in the serial bomb blasts that rocked Bombay in 1993 he fled to Karachi and the Indian government has been pursuing him since then. After lying low for nearly a decade, Ibrahim surfaced in the news recently when his daughter Maharuk married the son of former Pakistani cricket captain Javed Miandad, Junaid, in a Dubai hotel July 24. It is not known if he attended the ceremony or not. Contradictory reports appeared in the Indian media about his presence. Some newspapers said it was a failure on the part of Indian intelligence agencies in identifying him as one of the burka-clad women present at the ceremony. "The marriage of Dawood's daughter irrespective of ... whether it was solemnized in Dubai or not, proves he is firmly entrenched in Pakistan and is a free bird despite the fact the U.S. designated him as global terrorist," said Sharma.
The Bush administration in October 2003 designated Ibrahim a global terrorist, saying he "has found common cause with al-Qaida, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilizing the Indian government."
Indian intelligence officials say upon his first entry into Pakistan, Ibrahim was granted a welcome by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
"On his arrival in Pakistan from Dubai, Dawood was given a backdated passport in Rawalpindi and a 6,000-sq meter plot in the posh Clifton area of Karachi," a senior unidentified Intelligence Bureau official said. "His two trusted lieutenants, Abdul Razzak Memon alias Tiger Memon, and Shakeel Ahmed alias Chhota Shakeel, too were settled in Karachi by the ISI." He said Dawood was advised to take up the real-estate business, leading him to grab prime properties, often illegally, and to build shopping malls and apartments sometimes violating construction laws. "The day is not far when Dawood will emerge as a threat to the West not just India," said Sharma.
India has lodged complaints with Pakistan demanding the extradition of Dawood and his associates. It has also said Dawood has established links with terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba, which operates in Kashmir, and al-Qaida. Dawood's activities and his links to Pakistan's ISI were pointed out by former Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani during a visit to India by Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2001. Pakistan denied any such person lived on its soil, however. Indian analysts complain Washington, despite designating Ibrahim a terrorist, has not done enough to ask Pakistan to extradite him. Others say, however, it in unclear what Washington can actually do.
"It is hard to know how much leverage the U.S. will actually be able to use in the case of Dawood Ibrahim to pave the way for his extradition to India," an unidentified senior Indian security official said.
He said the Jaish-e-Mohammad organization, which is on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, had been hostile to U.S. interests for years, but Washington was unable or unwilling to push Pakistan to take any meaningful action against the group's chief Mohammad Masood Azhar. He said Pakistan had an interest in protecting Ibrahim because he knows too much. "I don't think he will be panicking just yet," the official said.
There is not much evidence, however, available in the public domain about Ibrahim's role in acting as a bridge between the ISI and various religious and terror groups. An Interpol report in 1996 said Anees Trading Co., a shell company run by him, was luring young, unemployed men from the subcontinent with the promise of jobs and sent them to terrorist training camps.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 11:39 ||
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All Praise is to Allah who has blessed us with an outpouring of daily news on the ongoing battles in Afghanistan, South Waziristan and Kashmir.
"Of course, if you read the infidel press, you might think things are going badly for our side. But, be assured, those are all lies!"
JUS now requires additional committed and steadfast Urdu translators to join our news desk to translate short news items from Urdu to English.
"The last person manning this desk was overcome by djinns and carried out of the office gibbering."
This position requires an individual who has the skills to produce this work quickly, in a quality and consistent manner, and who is sincerely seeking the blessings of Allah.
"Previous heavy drug usage considered a plus"
If you are that person and want to join a dynamic news department, please contact our Urdu Translation team leader, Ahmad Al-Marid at almarid@jihadunspun.com.
"Or dial our toll-free number; 1-800-LUV-JIHD"
Peace and Blessings to those who follow His straight path.
"Bees Pee Upon You!"
JUS News Team
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 10:01 ||
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#1
Come work for us at Jihad UnSpun...
Marvelous working environment!
Management encourages the best from all Employees...
Tip The Corner (am I'm really Sherry, still can't get this thing to change my name. Some worrying pieces in this report
In 20 years' time, a new study predicts, almost the only thing British about Britain's Armed Forces will be the men and women serving in them, and the Union Flags sewn on their Chinese-made uniforms to distinguish them from their EU colleagues.
A wealth of evidence has come to light to show how, over the next two decades, the British Army will have been almost wholly reorganised and re-equipped as part of the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), directed from Brussels, using equipment supplied almost entirely by other countries in the EU. No longer will it be technically or politically possible for Britain's Armed Forces to fight independently, or in alliance with those of the US.
Yet the scale and the speed of this astonishing transformation has been deliberately concealed by the Ministry of Defence - to the point where British firms are being instructed to buy foreign-made defence equipment which can be relabelled to look as though it is British-made. This startling picture emerges from an exhaustive study of current British and EU defence planning carried out by Dr Richard North, for a paper to be published this autumn on "The Secret Realignment of UK Defence Policy".
Britain's abandonment of its military co-operation with the US in favour of integration with our European "partners" has been prompted by the forthcoming revolution in warfare centred on satellites, electronics, and a new generation of vehicles, unmanned aircraft and weapons systems. Almost across the board, the MoD is turning its back on joint defence projects with the US, even where these involve British firms, in favour of equipment supplied or developed by firms in France, Germany, Italy and Sweden.
In the plan for integrating British forces into the 60,000 strong ERRF, with its command centre in Brussels, the key to co-ordinating future operations will be satellite systems that are largely French-built, led by Galileo, the EU's planned rival to the US GPS system. British troops will no longer be transported by US-built C130 and C17 aircraft, but by the A400M "Eurolifter". Under the £14 billion project known as Fres (Future Rapid Effects System), their armoured fighting vehicles will be supplied by Sweden and fitted with French guns and ammunition.
Joint US-British bids to supply £1.6-billion-worth of trucks were rejected in favour of Austrian-built models, with the name of the former British firm ERF added to imply a British contribution. US and other non-EU reconnaissance vehicles were rejected in favour of obsolescent and far more expensive ones from the Italian firm Iveco, although their origin is again disguised behind the name of the British firm BAE Land Systems.
A joint project with the US to develop a 155mm howitzer has been dropped in favour of a French gun firing German-designed shells. Battlefield radar systems are being built in Germany and Sweden. The development of unmanned aircraft - a vital element in future tactics - is led by France, while the RAF's main strike aircraft will be the Eurofighter, firing French-made missiles.
So the list continues, for projects large and small - not forgetting the three giant carriers to be shared between the Royal Navy and the French, with the French firm Thales playing a major part in the design and building. The consistent pattern in all this procurement policy is that, wherever possible, US firms are excluded, even where this means excluding British firms associated with them.
Such a gulf is now opening up between the US and EU defence forces that, on the battlefields of the future, co-ordinated by electronics and satellites, it will be impossible for them to fight alongside each other. And yet - while the evidence for what is going on can be found by anyone who knows how to use the internet - our politicians have so far remained astonishingly silent. In this respect our Opposition is almost as culpable as our ministers.
#7
I wonder how the Joint Strike Fighter fits in? The Brits have been part of the development all along. This will likely be the main fighter for any aircraft carriers they have since the JSF has VSTOL ability.
Where already more than half of all babies born muslim. Jolly good show. Be sure to pray facing Mecca, and carry on.
Posted by: ed ||
08/02/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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#9
so if this is how the people our grandfathers fought and died for are treating us now, what can we expect from the Iraqi (Middle-Eastern) peoples in the future that we're dying for today?
#10
so if this is how the people our grandfathers fought and died for are treating us now, what can we expect from the Iraqi (Middle-Eastern) peoples in the future that we're dying for today?
#11
Gratitude is a short-lived thing among most people, Shellback.
The bigger issue is how successful the French/Belgian/German axis has been in working to isolate Britain from the US for the long term. Sooner or later the UK is going to have to decide who they belong with.
It looks as if they've decided already. This has the same look/feel as the way in which British leaders quietly signed up to obey some EU laws without the British citizenry having known about it or voted on it. Wasn't there a stink about that last year, when the EUcrats argued that it was too late, the treaty forbade them from backing out of compliance?
We'd better get used to being basically on our own.
ANKARA - The second Turkey-U.S.-Iraq tripartite security meeting will start in Washington on Wednesday. First meeting was held in Ankara in January for elimination of terrorist organization PKK from the north of Iraq. Sources said that the meeting which will last for two days will be held on technical level and participants will discuss legal process of extradition of terrorist organization members to Turkey. Turkish Foreign Ministry Security Affairs Director General Hayati Guven will represent Turkey in the meeting.
In the first meeting, Turkey gave a list including its demands for elimination of PKK elements from the region. Among the demands, there was the extradition of terrorist organization members who were wanted with red and blue bulletin. U.S. Department of State spokesman Tom Casey said on Tuesday that talks with Turkey and Iraq continue regarding PKK and this joint study will be pursued until PKK terrorism is eliminated. On the other hand, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Matt Bryza who held talks in Ankara yesterday stated that they would continue to work in cooperation with Turkey to eliminate PKK terrorism.
Bryza stressed that cooperation between Turkey, the United States and Iraq should be increased and noted that the problem should be solved piece by piece. He added that those who support terrorist organization financially in Europe should be prevented.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 09:56 ||
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August 2, 2005: For the first time, a JDAM (GPS guided bomb) was dropped from a warplane (an F-22) traveling a supersonic speed. The F-22 frequently travels at supersonic (over 1,100 kilometers an hour) speed because itâs engines were designed and built to provide this kind of performance (called âsupercruiseâ) . The bomb dropped was a 1,000 pound JDAM. Further tests will check out performance of 500 and 250 pound JDAMs. The latter weapon, called the SDB (Small Diameter Bomb) is particularly important, as it enables the F-22 to carry the maximum number of bombs (eight) in its internal bomb bay. The U.S. Air Force wants to capitalize on the supercruise capability of the F-22, and is also testing the use of electronic reconnaissance sensors at supercruise speeds. This would enable an F-22 to quickly check out an area for enemy electronic equipment, and just as quickly drop a JDAM on any enemy transmitters found below. Speed and surprise have always been valuable capabilities in warfare, and a supersonic F-22 overhead, able to pinpoint hostile radars or radio transmitters, and promptly bomb them, would be pretty decisive.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 09:54 ||
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#1
Better bombing targets over thar in Iranian nuke land. A target rich environment.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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#2
Target rich, yes. But we'll have to break out the bunker busters to get to their nuclear infrastructure. The Iranians learned a valuable lesson from Osirak, and have spread their nuke production out very well and planted it very deep in the ground as well.
No reason not to bomb the shit out of them anyway, but that will begin soon enough.
August 2, 2005: Libya has become more active in the war on terror. This may seem strange, since Libya has hosted Arab terrorists for decades. Libya is also a dictatorship run by a very religious Arab nationalist; Moammar Khadaffi. Whatâs going on here? Several things. First of all, Khadaffi is also a monumental flake and incompetent when it comes to running a national economy. Despite vast oil wealth, Libya is poor, and itâs people are pretty pissed off about that. However, Khadaffi is good at one thing; running a police state. Itâs believed that over ten percent of the population are on the state payroll (for small amounts of cash, and favors) as informers. Khadaffi is such an oddball, that even his fellow Arab dictators consider him an oddball, and often make no secret of this opinion. Khadaffi, and Libyans, ignore this, for Khadaffi appears pretty off-the-wall most of the time.
But Khadaffi isnât stupid. After Iraq was invaded in 2003, he suddenly renounced terrorism and abandoned his attempts to create chemical and nuclear weapons. This new policy inflamed Islamic radicals in Libya, but did not produce an outbreak of Islamic terrorism in Libya. Thatâs because Islamic radicals have been fighting Khadaffi for over a decade already. Libya, like all other Arab nations, had thousands of its young men go off to fighting in Afghanistan during the 1980s. When they came home to Libya, they decided that their government wasnât Islamic enough, and tried to overthrow Khadaffi. They failed, and most of them were killed, imprisoned or driven into exile by the late 1990s. The few who survived in Libya kept quiet, until now.
Several Islamic terrorist groups have shown up in Libya over the past year. The most prominent of these (if only because of their ability to publicize themselves) has been The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Jama'at al-Islamiya al-Muqatila), or LIFG. So far this year, there have been several violent incidents between LIFG members and the security forces. The terrorists have not proved themselves very terrible so far. In one incident, an LIFG killer, armed with a sword, went after some policemen. The cops pulled out their pistols, and, well, you may have seen that one play out in the movies.
The Islamic terrorists know who their real enemy is, and during the 1990s made several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Khadaffi. Groups like LIFG understand that most Libyans are fed up with Khadaffi and all his posturing and inefficiency. Before Osama bin Laden got distracted with killing infidels (non-Moslems), guys like Khadaffi were at the top of the al Qaeda hit list. But al Qaeda gave up trying to take Khadaffi down, because thugs like Khadaffi know how to deal with Islamic terrorists. For example, after the Iraq invasion of 2003, many Libyan Islamic radicals wanted to go to Iraq and fight the Americans. Khadaffi let them, and gave orders that any who survived and tried to return home, were to be shot on sight.
The traditional (in the Arab world) way of dealing with violent dissent (like Islamic terrorism) is to come down hard on the malcontents, and err on the side of too much violence. But Khadaffi also has to deal with some truly new, and very dangerous ideas circulating throughout the Arab world. No, not Islamic conservatism, but democracy. The last thing Khadaffi wants is democracy. He knows most Libyans are unhappy, and would vote him out of office if given a chance. Khadaffi is trying to improve the economy, and is bringing in lots of foreign experts to help him do it. Thatâs why he dumped support for terrorism and nukes, in order to get out from under UN embargos. But itâs going to take a while to undo decades of misadministration. In the meantime, all those foreigners just inflame the Islamic radicals. To cope with this, Khadaffi plans to hire at least another 100,000 people for the security forces. Life is not going to be easy for anyone in Libya over the next few years.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 09:42 ||
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In one incident, an LIFG killer, armed with a sword, went after some policemen. The cops pulled out their pistols, and, well, you may have seen that one play out in the movies.
#2
For example, after the Iraq invasion of 2003, many Libyan Islamic radicals wanted to go to Iraq and fight the Americans. Khadaffi let them, and gave orders that any who survived and tried to return home, were to be shot on sight
If this has any relationship with reality, well good. A pity he couldn't skip the middle steps and just shoot the Jihadis. That would actualy save him some trouble in the long run.
I guess he needed the fig leaf of being able to say "Sorry, I guess the Americans must have killed your young idiot son."
I wonder if we can exploit his need for a domestic fig leaf to the US's advantage?
Posted by: N guard ||
08/02/2005 11:35 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
08/02/2005 11:52 Comments ||
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Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says his country will expand its intelligence-sharing with Britain following two London bombing attacks in July. However, Aziz told the Financial Times, "it would be simplistic" to assume the July 7 suicide bombers used their ties in Pakistan to plan the attacks. "There is no linkage of the visits to Pakistan and these terrible events," he said.
The "no linkage" meme is getting a bit tired.
At least one of the three ethnic Pakistani bombers is believed to have visited an Islamic madrassa in Pakistan to prepare for the attacks. Senior Pakistani intelligence officials told the newspaper they had nearly finished questioning various people who received phone calls from two of the July 7 bombers who visited their parents' country of origin in the past year.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/02/2005 08:52 ||
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#1
Yeah, obvious to any idiot that there's no connection here.
DIRTY, hungry, tired and humiliated, Osman Hussain was already a broken man when Italian security officers took him in for questioning. The suspected bomber had been seized in Rome the previous day as part of an astonishing intelligence operation that snared all of the fugitives being hunted for bringing Islamic terrorism to the UK.
In London four other suspects, Muktar Said-Ibrahim, Yasin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Wahbi Mohammed, were being grilled by specialist interrogators at the high-security anti-terrorist unit at Paddington Green.
Unable to sleep on the uncomfortable concrete slabs and under the round-the-clock glare of the strip lighting in their cells, the prospect of hours of endless questioning will have been daunting.
It seems Osman was the first to break.
Yesterday morning, Italian officials alleged that the 27-year-old Briton, who has Ethiopian citizenship, had begun to give up information, giving the first insight into how the July 21 gang, which tried and failed to blow up London's public transport, operated.
In what was said to be a signed confession he admitted carrying the rucksack containing explosives but insisted he never intended to kill anyone. Instead he wanted to sow the "seeds of terror".
He accused fellow suspect Said-Ibrahim of being the "head" of their group and said they had watched videos of women and children dying in Iraq together. He also denied his group had any connections to the July 7 attacks which killed 56 people and said that those bombings had "come as a surprise".
This frank insight into the inner workings of the terror gang came at the end of an extraordinary week that ended in the dramatic arrests of the suspected bombers.
For Mohammed and Esha Ibrahim, the face staring out of the front page of the national newspapers a week ago was all too familiar. It was their son Muktar Said-Ibrahim. It was a nightmare discovery. The 27-year-old Somali had been captured in CCTV footage on the top deck of the No 26 bus in Hackney just moments before a failed attempt to blow it up on July 21.
At their home in Stanmore, north London, the couple faced an agonising dilemma. Could their son, a shy child when he came to Britain aged 14, really have grown up to plot mass murder?
As a teenager, Muktar had been an unemployed trouble-maker, sent to prison when his gang robbed another teenager at knifepoint. At Canons High School in Edgware, north London, he was known as a drug-smoking bully.
But he was also a keen footballer who admired his idols Manchester United and who enjoyed a kickabout with friends.
"We were shocked when we saw Muktar's picture in the national news," a statement from his relatives said. "We are a peaceful family. We immediately attended the police station and made statements to the police."
Their brave actions provided police with the breakthrough they desperately needed, giving them the first firm information about the identity of bomb suspects. It marked the start of breakneck developments in the investigation into the bomb attempts of July 21 and the deadly attacks on July 7.
Using the information from Said-Ibrahim's family, corroborated by a tip-off from a member of the public, anti-terror officers tracked down the flat on a rundown north London housing estate where he lived.
Said-Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed-Said, shared the scruffy £75-a-week flat, in a building known as Curtis House, with his friend Yasin Hassan Omar. There the pair are accused of planning and preparing the weapons for the bombings. Omar, 24, is suspected of trying to blow himself and other passengers to pieces on a Tube train at Warren Street station.
But when armed police stormed the flat on Monday morning they found it empty. Instead they discovered a large quantity of chemicals in a nearby lock-up garage as well as traces of the chemicals at the one-bedroom flat. Documents recovered also gave more evidence as to the identities of the bombing suspects.
During the raids a man was arrested near the building while another was arrested in the block itself. Neither were the bombers, but are believed to have been associated with them.
Stunned neighbours later revealed the police had missed the two bomb suspects by only a couple of days. They said the pair returned to the flat on the Friday after the failed attacks.
"I came out of the lift and saw three guys in the flat," said 32-year-old Tanya Wright. "They were nervous. They jumped back inside and slammed the door. When the police made the raid I realised one of them looked like the photograph."
Residents in the block of flats knew Said-Ibrahim and Omar as jobless layabouts who regularly played football with friends in the area. "They always spoke to my children," said Zandile Mthethwa, 39, who lives nearby. "They looked so normal, I was never intimidated by them.
"They were always very smart as well, especially Muktar, who always had on a clean shirt, although you often saw them in football gear as well. I have two boys aged five and three. My five-year-old son loves football and they said they would teach him how to play properly. I'm so glad I never let him go."
Their interest in Islam and their backgrounds are believed to have drawn the two men together. Both fled as children with their families to the safe refuge of Britain from bloody conflicts in their home countries.
While Said-Ibrahim came with his parents and brother Amir in 1991 from Eritrea, Omar came with his elder sister and her husband from Somalia the following year.
A tip-off from a member of the public eventually helped the police catch up with Said-Ibrahim. He had been spotted at a flat in North Kensington. Surveillance teams using hi-tech listening equipment quickly established that he was inside the two-bedroom flat in Delgarno Gardens together with another man, later identified as Ramzi Mohammed, the suspect in the attempted Oval bombing.
Police and SAS specialists dressed in gas masks and body armour surrounded the building and ordered the men to give themselves up. The cornered suspects could be heard pleading not to be shot and refusing to emerge.
A barrage of gas canisters were then sent hurtling into the third-floor flat, setting off a smoke alarm. With a flash as the door was blown open and stun grenades hurled inside, officers then stormed the flat. Residents reported hearing shouts ordering those inside to remove their clothes.
Minutes later, as trails of gas continued to pour out of the open door, Muktar and Ramzi appeared outside.
The two men were left humiliated on a cold, grubby balcony as their arrest was broadcast on international television. Stripped to their underwear, arms held aloft and choking on the effects of CS gas, it was a far cry from death as an Islamic "martyr".
Desperately trying to wipe the stinging smoke from his face, the stunned look on Said-Ibrahim's face revealed how quickly the onslaught from the security services had come. As he knelt before his captors, their guns trained on him at all times, it may never have occurred to him that his downfall had started at the hands of his own family. A third man, Mohammed's brother, Wahbi, was arrested in another dramatic siege a mile away in the Notting Hill area of London. He is alleged to be the "fifth bomber" who dumped a explosive-filled rucksack on Little Wormwood Scrubs, West London, after failing to blow up a Tube train on the Central line.
Two women carrying rucksacks and large boxes were also bundled to the ground and arrested at Liverpool Street station.
Earlier in the week, the police's first stroke of luck had arrived with a breathless phone call from a woman in Birmingham. The trail of the suspected bombers had gone cold after police failed to find them at the flat in Curtis House.
Now, the woman described how four suspicious looking men had been carrying cardboard boxes and bulging bin bags into a dilapidated ground-floor flat a couple of doors away from her home in the Hay Mills area of the city.
One of the men, she claimed, looked similar to one of those in the photographs issued by Scotland Yard. Her detailed account brought plain clothes officers to the tree-lined street to watch the activity at the flat. Their surveillance established Omar was inside.
Rather than risk him escaping, security officials decided to seize him and at 4.30am the raid began. Armed MI5 agents and more than 50 police poured into the flat as stun grenades were fired through windows.
They found Omar, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, lying on a sofa. It is claimed that he made a desperate grab for a rucksack lying a few feet away as the officers burst in. Fearing it may contain explosives one officer shot him in the chest with a Taser gun, sending 50,000 volts of electric current through his body. It left him temporarily paralysed as he was overpowered.
Investigators believe the alleged terror cell had been using the flat as a safe house with support from a group of other East Africans. A second address in Birmingham was also raided, the entire door wrenched from its frame as police arrested three men inside.
Omar was later taken away to the high-security anti-terrorist unit at Paddington Green Police Station in London, where he was subjected to intense interrogation by specialist officers. A series of further raids followed as detectives pieced together the identities of the other bombing suspects. A flat in the Stockwell Gardens area of South London, where Osman had lived was raided and three women arrested on suspicion of harbouring offenders.
A further nine men were arrested in another major operation at two properties in the Tooting area of south London.
As his fellow suspects were gradually rounded up, Osman was fleeing across Europe, unaware his movements were being tracked by British, French and Italian secret services.
In the days after the failed bombings he took a train from Waterloo Station to Paris through the Channel Tunnel. From Paris he moved to Milan and then finally to Rome where his brother-in-law lived.
He was traced through intercepted calls to a relative's mobile phone. Italian police swooped on his brother-in-law's flat on Friday and Osman surrendered. He is now expected to be extradited to the UK.
Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, described the hunt for the bombers as "the greatest operational challenge that the Metropolitan Police Service has faced since the Second World War". Costing more than £500,000 a day, the investigation was fuelled by more than 5,000 calls to the anti-terrorist hotline.
Using information they have managed to extract, police will hope to start tracing back through the terrorists' network to the shadowy organisers of the bomb plots.
While many in Britain will today be breathing a little easier in the knowledge the suspects have been captured, security sources claim they are just foot soldiers. The more dangerous financiers, recruiters and planners are still at large.
"The people behind the plots were expecting the bombers to die," explained Aberdeen University terrorism expert David Capitanchik. "Consequently they may have given them more information than they would have liked."
Even if the police cannot identify the masterminds directly, they may be able to obtain crucial information that will lead them further back to the head of the network that has so effectively infiltrated the country.
Forensics officers searching the flats the men had been using as hide-outs may also uncover vital lines of inquiry.
Police will also be hoping to confirm links between the July 7 atrocities on the London transport network and the failed attacks of July 21.
Investigators are also expected to start examining foreign links to the plots. At least four of the suspected bombers came to Britain with their families seeking sanctuary from the war-torn Horn of Africa. The majority of the other arrests surrounding the bombings have also been of people of East African origin.
Another suspect being hunted in connection with the bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, a British man of Indian origin alleged to have helped mastermind the London July 7 bombings, was also arrested in Zambia last week.
"East Africa has been a major recruiting ground for Islamic extremists," explained counter-terrorism expert Rebecca Cox, from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.
Since the collapse of the previous Somali government in 1991 and the civil war that followed, the country has been eyed with suspicion by Western intelligence forces. The US has long suspected money and guns for al-Qaeda flow through Somalia from its long, unpoliced coastline.
Bombers who attacked US embassies in Nairobi, Nigeria, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998 and a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya, popular with Israeli tourists in 2002 are thought to have come though Somalia.
Neighbouring Eritrea has also become a focal point for training camps set up by several radical groups. Among them is the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement. Growing numbers of moderate Muslims have also become radicalised in the country after the government there imprisoned Muslim leaders without trial for over two years.
With Osman and his accomplices now in custody, the police investigation will expand. Nothing, however, suggests that with one cell down Britain is close to being safe from Islamist terror.
#1
he had been watching videos of women and children dying in Irak
Here is where the treason of the MSM comes to haunt us. He should have been subject to a steady dose of women and children starving or dying without medcal care in Afghanistan due to Islamicists (aka Taliban), women and children killed in Irak by Islamicists, of atrocities perpetrated in Soudan by Islamicists, of continual agression against people of other confessions by . And not through a sanitized sentence ("militants") at the end of the news space but to long and graphic reportings. This until guys like him start attacking on sight people with islamic attire.
In a terrorist war the key factor is winning the propaganda battle and the MSM are doing their utmost for having people like this guy hate us.
#2
We were shocked when we saw Muktar's picture in the national news," a statement from his relatives said. "We are a peaceful family. We immediately attended the police station and made statements to the police."
Their brave actions provided police with the breakthrough they desperately needed, giving them the first firm information about the identity of bomb suspects. It marked the start of breakneck developments in the investigation into the bomb attempts of July 21 and the deadly attacks on July 7.
Using the information from Said-Ibrahim's family, corroborated by a tip-off from a member of the public, anti-terror officers tracked down the flat on a rundown north London housing estate where he lived.
This family turned in their kid at the start of the investigation.
Worth keeping in mind when someone says there are NO moderate muslims and none who put the country and society ahead of their religious identity.
I'm not saying it happens often, but this family did an agonizing thing and deserves credit for it.
Now, why did the biggest mosque on America's east coast pick a terrorist apologist for an imam?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 8:44 Comments ||
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#4
So they watched a video and then decides to scare people (not a chance they were just incompetent killers is there!) with bombs. The notable thing is they meant to kill their fellow countrymen over events in a place miles from the UK. The MSM's portrayal of things doesn't help but I can't help but feel that nothing is going to disabuse an ignorant sociopathic murderer of what they can easily be convinced is reality. For a number of reasons they are primed and want to believe it. It allows the lazy street thug and dole tapeworm to feel and be important for the first time in their lives. They may not vote or engage in politics but they do know how to go about killing. The jihadi PR machine, apologists, "moderate" muslim slipspeakers, Galloways, MMoors, Fiskies, Pilgphers and Chumpskies do have a more concrete connection. They create and/or support the "reality" that provides a general justification and rationale for murdering. They bemoan the evil of killing quickly before the "but" and the torrent of apologist BS and twisted justifications for such behavior. They reinforce opinions and help the terrorists and their potential and real supporters feel that is not simply a matter of vicious and cruel violence in the name of religious/political repression when a loser thug goes out and kills as many innocent civilians as possible. They go a long way in helping provide the stamp of legitimacy to an unthinkable sickness of the mind.
#6
Hell, look at how many American parents excuse their kids' drugs, bad grades etc. rather than hold them accountable for their choices. Ask any teacher how much they have to deal with parents who want their kids to get off of punishment or getting a bad grade they earned.
Then look at this family that turned their kid when the cops didn't have a lead yet. Family has guts and deserves praise.
#7
RC, it's exactly that trend that makes it especially important to honor those who buck it.
We should be pressuring those who follow the trend, not praising those who merely do what's expected.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 9:06 Comments ||
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#8
Was the family 'moderate' or acting out of self preservation. If they knew the trail could lead back to them, what stops the football hooligan types from visiting the family?
There has got to be a bit of intelligence in the Muslim community that given the right series of acts, the authorities won't be able to protect them all. When you're in a sea of infidels, that is not a healthy situation. The lesser of the two evils, in their eyes, is to cop the perp now.
#9
Maybe. But I still think this family deserves praise and support. They're just as vulnerable to the idiots within the Muslim community there as to the white idiots nearby.
#10
We should be pressuring those who follow the trend, not praising those who merely do what's expected.
I don't know if I understand you correctly RC, but turning in one's child to what may well be a death sentence is not "merely" doing what is expected, it is an extraordinarily unselfish and painful task.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/02/2005 9:53 Comments ||
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#11
I don't know if I understand you correctly RC, but turning in one's child to what may well be a death sentence is not "merely" doing what is expected, it is an extraordinarily unselfish and painful task.
When that child is committing murder, it is what is expected of you.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 10:00 Comments ||
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#12
They found Omar, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, lying on a sofa. It is claimed that he made a desperate grab for a rucksack lying a few feet away as the officers burst in. Fearing it may contain explosives one officer shot him in the chest with a Taser gun, sending 50,000 volts of electric current through his body. It left him temporarily paralysed as he was overpowered.
All the hoopla over using the taser and possibly setting of a bomb was BS. A bomb can't be hidden under a tee-shirt and shorts.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/02/2005 10:02 Comments ||
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#13
it is what is expected of you
Remind me again, RC - you have kids? How many and what ages?
Ever struggled to help a kid of yours with serious problems?
If not, you don't have any idea how agonizing this is.
#14
It may be what's expected, RC, but that doesn't mean it's easy. That's why so many parents go into denial when confronted with the thought that their child might be a monster.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 10:31 Comments ||
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#15
From the number of arrests it seems that there were plenty of people willing to provide this cell with support after the abortive bombings. RC's point is fair - that at a time where everyone in this city is under threat, there exists more pressure to be a good citizen. The Ibrahims have acted within these expecations to their credit - I think the gravity of the situation should overcome any familial loyalties.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/02/2005 11:02 Comments ||
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#16
Remind me again, RC - you have kids?
No I don't.
Don't know what difference that makes in recognizing what's right and expected.
It may be what's expected, RC, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
Didn't say it was easy. I said it's what's expected of them.
And, hell, if you want to throw a party for them, go for it. Just don't expect me to applaud.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 11:04 Comments ||
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#17
No parties. No applause. Just hope.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 11:06 Comments ||
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#18
I usually agree with you, RC, but I'd suggest you take a second look on this one.
Didn't say it was easy. I said it's what's expected of them.
You said "merely" expected.
This is one where the chickenhawk argument actually has a lot of weight for me. Things are different when it is your child in a way one can't really understand until one has a child and that's why it can't really be explained with merely words.
You're missing a great part of life. I hope you've made the right decision for yourself or you get the opportunity to have total responsibility for the growth and development of another human being. There's nothing quite like it, and that's not all good or bad.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/02/2005 11:19 Comments ||
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#19
I am reminded by what Aussie PM Howard said about "never being able to get into the mind of a successful suicide bomber". So all of a sudden, Al Qaida produces these incompetent clowns who appear to rationalize their action, using the same sad LLL story line parroted by the MSM because they know it will be re-amplified by the same MSM until the perperators become the victims. And just to make sure the plan works, the parents come trotting out. The bomb failures were intentional.
Posted by: john ||
08/02/2005 11:24 Comments ||
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#20
RC - I never understood why children should be a part of "women and children first" until I had one. The horror of innocent children being killed took on a whole new meaning.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2005 12:07 Comments ||
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#21
Bobby -- Muktar was not a child. Do you think he would have hesitated if the bus he got on had been packed with school children?
Mrs. Davis -- The "chickenhawk" argument is as applicable here as it is anywhere. The Ibrahim's "baby" was plotting to murder other people's "babies", so that aspect balances out. No matter how hard it was for his parents, had he succeeded, dozens of families would have had it much, much worse.
They had it easy, no matter how hard you think it was for them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 12:29 Comments ||
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#22
They had it easy, no matter how hard you think it was for them
Like I said, RC, that's where your lack of personal experience leads you astray here.
They did what they should have done. But the idea that it was EASY ... nope, it was damned hard and would be for pretty much any parent.
Lots of what we give medals and awards for are what people 'should' have done: firemen going into burning buildings, soldiers rescuing buddies in firefights. The reality is that what we 'should' do is sometimes damned hard, painful and requires real courage and conviction of principles. And when people manage to do things despite that pain and danger, we rightfully recognize the courage it took to act.
This family was courageous. Not only did they turn in their young member, they did so in the context of an extremist community that might well be expected to turn on them.
AND they did it in the face of people like you who don't even recognize what it took to do what they did.
#23
Parents first usually give their child unconditional love, but for those who overcome denial in the face of overwhelming evidence that their child is truly evil, many times though no fault of theirs, it must be almost as though that child died...
And, when like me you watch a child grow, you pray that he turns out to be someone you are truly proud of... (Son is 4-1/2)
#24
They did what they should have done. But the idea that it was EASY ... nope, it was damned hard and would be for pretty much any parent.
As I said:
No matter how hard it was for his parents, had he succeeded, dozens of families would have had it much, much worse.
That's my last word on the subject.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/02/2005 13:26 Comments ||
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#25
Don't humanize these Islamofuckers. Just flush them down the stool with the other turds.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/02/2005 13:50 Comments ||
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#26
Anon, that last line was cheap. JC acknowledged the obvious as anybody would. The difference arises elsewhere. JC's not the only one who has a slightly different perspective regarding the nature of one's responsiblities to family and society. And yes, I do have a child and love him dearly. The family did it and for that I have a certain measure of respect for them regardless of motives. Oh, and by the way anon, they did have it very fucking easy inasmuch as their son was not killed for nothing that son did or said by some murderous thug. There's a special difference in that is there not? It is easier when your child is still alive (there is always hope if you're alive, right?) and not dead, and burned and mutilated by the hands of a sick sociopath.
I know it would be easier to hate them, dehumanize them. But these parents are human and acted that way. And you would lessen your own humanity if you denied that.
#30
I think we need to recognize that the terrorist-loving Muslim "spokesmen" from CAIR get the ink for suggesting that Muslims should protect the terrorists in their midst, but ordinary Muslims, even as they continue to disagree with US foreign policy, are turning in some of the people who are organizing these attacks. We can continue to disagree with these loyal Muslims about our foreign policy, but be thankful that they are turning in the mass murderers in their community. I believe, for example, that there is no way that the Buffalo plotters could have been arrested without someone in their mosque sticking it to them.
#1
Sensor could detect concealed weapons without x-rays
Huuum...that means the sensor could see other concealed objects through clothes.
i better start saving.
Posted by: Mr. Peepers ||
08/02/2005 3:38 Comments ||
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#2
This isn't new at all, several companies worked on this in the late 90's but the ultra-libs (they call themselves privacy advocates) make a stink. They acted like it was a clever way for perverts to look at womens tits, not screen for weapons, so it never got off the ground. I think sony even had a quick brush with this kind of trouble, but gave up on the tech right away as soon as someone complained. I'm sure the libs will try to axe it this time too, under the pretence of "invasion of privacy" or the ever popular "infringement of constitutional rights", which can be almost anything a lib doesnt like.
Bangladeshi troops, during the ongoing Army-Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) joint 'anti-crime' campaign, which began on May 21, 2005, are reported to have neutralised several camps of Myanmarese rebel groups in a series of raids in the border district of Bandarban in July...It is easy to set a pattern to these ongoing activities and the 'results' that they produce in terms of the neutralisation of the terrorist and criminal elements in the country. In fact, Bangladesh is in a desperate search for a refurbished image amidst growing global concerns of the state's tolerance and promotion of Islamist fundamentalist and extremist values. The reality, unfortunately, is that these events are feeble attempts to please the Myanmarese military junta, whose goodwill is becoming an increasingly necessary commodity, as the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India gas pipeline negotiations hit roadblocks and both Myanmar and India start thinking in terms of circumventing Bangladesh altogether...Indeed, the recent arrests of Myanmar rebels are essentially aimed at diverting attention from more radical Rohingya outfits such as the RSO. Set up in the early 1980s when extremist elements among the Rohingyas broke away from the more moderate main grouping, the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF), the RSO has a history of association with jihadi elements in Bangladesh. In association with radical Islamist groups, the RSO is known to have set up several madrassas (seminaries), allegedly with foreign assistance, in the Bandarban area. Most of these 'centres of excellence' allegedly provide training to militants in the name of religious studies.
By contrast, the military operations against Myanmarese fugitives have focused only on the weakest and least problematic of the rebel groups based in the country, while the most radical continue to be given a free run, along with their home-grown Islamist extremist associates. For instance, NUPA, a coalition of the Rakhaings or Buddhists formed in 1994 in the Arakan region consisting of several Arakanese rebel groups under the leadership of Bo Khaing Raza, has undergone at least four splits (in 1995, 1996, 2001 and most recently in May-June 2005), each time reducing the number of its cadres and also the number of guns and other arms in their possession. Similarly, ARNO, set up in 1999, describes itself as "an organisation advocating democracy, peace, justice, equality and human rights in Myanmar". A pale shadow of an outfit that once had 5,000 armed cadres brandishing AK-47 rifles, LMGs and rocket launchers, ARNO constitutes no significant threat, either to Bangladesh or to Myanmar. Both NUPA and ARNO have, however, been involved in the small arms trade and a nexus with bigger players in the game, but their potential is severely limited. Overt attempts at establishing active linkages with Islamist extremists do continue, but have had limited success.
The southern districts of Chittagong, Bandarban and Cox's Bazaar, spread over 11,734 square kilometres, have, over the years, turned into meeting points for the Islamist jihadis in Bangladesh and the Rohingya groups from Myanmar. The willingness of the regime to tolerate such growth has not only led to the establishment of an effective and well-oiled machinery for producing jihadis within the constituency of the 100,000 Rohingyas living outside the UNHCR camps, as well as the larger native Bangladeshi population, but has provided a safe haven for jihadis seeking passage or temporary refuge from various theatres of conflict around the globe.
Bangladesh's efforts at capping the growth of Islamist extremism have been, at best, nominal. Since February 24, 2005, when the Government announced a ban on two outfits, the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), after years of denying their existence, a handful of their cadres and leaders were arrested. Most of them have since been released. The more extreme of the Rohingya groups are essentially part of this protected network, though elements within the marginal groups may be symbolically 'sacrificed'. Such symbolism underlies Bangladesh's ostensible 'return to sanity' on the Myanmarese rebels. Unfortunately, none of this contains within it the policies, the actions or the necessary transformations that could reverse the country's steady slide into disorder.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/02/2005 01:30 ||
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#1
I suspect that whoever wrote this has real sour grapes with the Bangladeshis. Long ago, I think the Bs decided that they were going to crush the Islamists the old fashioned way (read "crossfire"), and have been pretty effective, if rather discreet, in doing so.
#2
There are factions within the BD governmnet and security services that are rabid islamists.
Any crackdown is to be taken with liberal amounts of salt.
They have learned well from their Pak brethern.
Posted by: john ||
08/02/2005 14:18 Comments ||
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#3
they were going to crush the Islamists the old fashioned way (read "crossfire")
Except most of the radicals killed in 'crossfire' incidents are Maoists, against whom the Islamists and the Police are in an alliance to eradicate.
Remember, Banlgadesh is governed by a coalition that includes rabid Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, and they have been cracking down hard on Hindus, Ahmadis and anyone who claims the country is drifting towards extremism.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/02/2005 21:32 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 1 - As Iraqi leaders reaffirmed their decision to finish writing the country's constitution by the middle of the month, the new American ambassador here spoke in specific terms about the pending withdrawal of American troops from the country.
In his first press conference, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said that American forces would hand over control of specific areas to Iraqi forces and "withdraw its own units from these areas." He declined to say which Iraqis cities American soldiers would leave first, but said he had formed a committee with Iraqi leaders to draw up a detailed withdrawal plan. "After this transfer occurs in more and more areas, there will be a smaller need for coalition forces, and elements of the multinational forces will leave Iraq," the ambassador said.
Mr. Khalizad's remarks, a public reminder to the Iraqis that the Bush administration is moving ahead with its plans to reduce the number of foreign troops here, followed the decision by Iraqi officials Sunday to stick to the timetable for completing the country's constitution.
His remarks were the latest demonstration of the highly visible role that Mr. Khalizad has played in the weeks since his arrival here. The former ambassador to Afghanistan, where he was deeply engaged in the affairs of the country, Mr. Khalilzad has departed from the previous American practice of standing back while the Iraqis work out their problems themselves.
Before Sunday's decision, Ambassador Khalizad urged Iraqi leaders to stick to the Aug. 15 deadline and set aside for later any issues that could not be resolved before then. The Americans are eager to keep the democratic process here on track, as a means to drain away anger from the insurgency and also to help set the conditions for the American troop drawdown.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2005 00:49 ||
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#1
Khalilzad is beating on the Iraqis just as he beat on the Afghans. I think this guy is wasted in the diplomatic service. He ought to run for office. He's certainly shown formidable executive skills, keeping Afghanistan on an even keel. Just look at how much difficulty the Soviets had, administering that territory.
#2
Khalilzad is also a lightening rod for the Mike Moore conspiracy nuts because he was on the team that did an analysis for a pipeline thru that region (during the Clinton administration).
Of course the sponsors of the pipeline (mainly Unocol) had withdrawn all their proposals by early 2001. This didn't stop Mike Moore from implying in his anti Bush film that the Afghan operation was to help the companies.
Giant floating platforms use scanners and X-ray machines to probe rows of cargo containers while still miles away from port. Crane-topped ships perform surgical extractions of suspect containers on the pitching sea. A ring of computer-filled buoys beeps approval to ports around the country.
This isn't the plot of an upcoming science fiction movie. This is the big-budget idea from a group of local [Florida] entrepreneurs who want to prevent a terrorist from getting biological agents, explosives or a suitcase-sized "tactical nuke" into our ports. The system would cost a total of $2.1 billion or more to install at ports nationwide.
Officials at Titusville-based SeaAway Habitat Technologies have been shopping their idea to bigwigs in homeland security, as well as executives at big container ports like Jacksonville and Miami.
Not everyone, however, agrees with SeaAway's approach. Some competitors in the port-security business say it would be cheaper and just as safe to train special inspectors to find problems, have them staff foreign ports and sign off on American-bound goods before a ship ever sets sail. Still, security gurus agree something needs to be done. Analyses since the 9-11 terrorist attacks have shown only 4 percent of cargo containers ever get fully checked...
Actually, it's closer to 7 percent - still low. Not included in this is a profiling process to find possible problem containers.
Whoever is right, the government likely will "jump on anything that will be an improvement" over current port-security measures, said Canaveral Port Authority Chairman Ray Sharkey. "Security is always on my mind. The biggest problem is there are so many areas you are vulnerable to. You can't guarantee there won't be a problem unless you build a magic dome."
#1
I think this is further evidence that a lot of terrorist prevention efforts have to be taken up at more than just the federal level (statre & local) - the greater the threat from X, Y or Z for a given state / locality, just react and adapt to it. Worry about financial repercussions later.
#2
An old idea but still a goodie - the real prob is that US GMD/TMD still needs internal "layered defense" to protect from short-range missles whether enemy nation or terrorist, which for me is why Dubya, Rummy and even FOXNEWS, etal. are focusing on these "missing blondes/babes" stories.
*INVADE ARUBA-CUBA NOW, D *** YOU - DEM DAR BEACHES, COCONUT BEERS, AND BEACH BABES, ETC. MUST BE SAVED BY THE USMC, SSSHHHHHHHHHHH, FOR GMD! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA... - SO MANY MARRIOTS, SO MANY TERRORISTS!?
#3
What they should do is have certain trusted companies inspect and seal and guarantee certain ships are safe before they leave port. Those ships get priority in the destination port, all others can wait. Then have the feds randomly check the ships, if anything is out of order the trusted company may lose the trusted status.
All other shipping can be checked more thoroughly. I think you'd find every major shipper doing whatever they could to play ball and avoid the inspections by keeping their ships clean so the number that had to be checked thoroughly would be rather small.
Of course Ralph Nader will probably complain that the smaller companies cannot afford this and that but they can alway ship to Canada if they don't like the system and Ralph, those smaller boats are dumping diesel into the harbor, the poluting rotters, get 'em!
Pakistan's ex-Prime Minister and Chairperson of Pakistan People's Party Ms Benazir Bhutto has said that the Hisba bill was a bid to copy the polices of the Taliban regime. She said that the bill did not bode well for the strength and stability of the nation, adding that it would empower the intrusion into the private lives of the country's citizens. The bill, Ms Bhutto said was also un-Islamic as Islam prohibited its followers to spy on each other. The bill, on the other hand is aimed at setting up a moral brigade to deny citizens, a freedom of choice and allow the clergy to judge at what they regarded as virtue, Ms Benazir Bhutto said.
Qazi was "for" this bill yesterday, hence all thinking folk should be "against" it. This being Pakistan, all bets are off.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/02/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
France paid millions of dollars for the release of three journalists kidnapped in Iraq and its foreign intelligence service now knows the identity of the abductors, a reporter who was himself held hostage in Lebanon in 1987 said on Monday in a magazine interview. Roger Auque told the August-September issue of Afrique Magazine that - despite official denials - the French government had paid $6m to free Liberation newspaper correspondent Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi interpreter in June. Two other French journalists who had been released last December, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were handed over in exchange for $2m, Auque said, relying on what he described as "a reliable source" for his information. 
France is looking at stepping up surveillance at its borders after a prime suspect in the failed London bombings on July 21 managed to traverse the country despite a Europe-wide alert for him, Transport Minister Dominique Perben said Monday. "That a man leaves Great Britain, goes across France and makes it to Italy by getting around all our system of checks requires us to think about our border surveillance system. This is what the French government is working on," Perben said. France's interior ministry is preparing a new anti-terror law that would allow French officials to inspect passengers' travel documents on all international trains entering and leaving the country, regardless of jurisdictional considerations. "We have to take into account the lessons from the attacks and underline the importance of the video surveillance in place in the airports" around Paris, said Perben during a visit to inspect security measures at Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris.
I think this might server as a better tool.
LONDON -- Police dispatched more officers to guard the capital's Underground train system yesterday as investigators focused on a key question: Were the two sets of London bombers part of the same network, or did they operate independently? 
NEW DELHI, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- The United States seems uninterested in helping India to extradite mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim from Pakistan because it does not want to upset relations with its front-line ally in the war on terrorism, Indian intelligence analysts said Tuesday. "Getting Dawood is not important for the United States as his arrest goes against the interest of Pakistan with whom Washington does not want upset its relations," said senior intelligence analyst Rajeev Sharma. He said as Pakistan cannot afford to violate any U.S. directive, Washington should ask Islamabad to arrest Ibrahim, who has been living in the Pakistani port of Karachi, and extradite him to India. 
August 2, 2005: Libya has become more active in the war on terror. This may seem strange, since Libya has hosted Arab terrorists for decades. Libya is also a dictatorship run by a very religious Arab nationalist; Moammar Khadaffi. Whatâs going on here? Several things. First of all, Khadaffi is also a monumental flake and incompetent when it comes to running a national economy. Despite vast oil wealth, Libya is poor, and itâs people are pretty pissed off about that. However, Khadaffi is good at one thing; running a police state. Itâs believed that over ten percent of the population are on the state payroll (for small amounts of cash, and favors) as informers. Khadaffi is such an oddball, that even his fellow Arab dictators consider him an oddball, and often make no secret of this opinion. Khadaffi, and Libyans, ignore this, for Khadaffi appears pretty off-the-wall most of the time. 
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says his country will expand its intelligence-sharing with Britain following two London bombing attacks in July. However, Aziz told the Financial Times, "it would be simplistic" to assume the July 7 suicide bombers used their ties in Pakistan to plan the attacks. "There is no linkage of the visits to Pakistan and these terrible events," he said. 
Pakistan's ex-Prime Minister and Chairperson of Pakistan People's Party Ms Benazir Bhutto has said that the Hisba bill was a bid to copy the polices of the Taliban regime. She said that the bill did not bode well for the strength and stability of the nation, adding that it would empower the intrusion into the private lives of the country's citizens. The bill, Ms Bhutto said was also un-Islamic as Islam prohibited its followers to spy on each other. The bill, on the other hand is aimed at setting up a moral brigade to deny citizens, a freedom of choice and allow the clergy to judge at what they regarded as virtue, Ms Benazir Bhutto said.
