Saudi Arabia may soon resolve a diplomatic row with Libya triggered by Riyadh's accusation that Libya plotted to kill King Abdullah. Foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal yesterday told Al-Hayat newspaper that Saudi and Libyan ambassadors could be back at their missions in Tripoli and Riyadh in the near future. "There is nothing strange in relations returning to normal," he told the paper.
I think I feel safer when Soddy and Muammar aren't talking to each other...
Saudi Arabia asked Libya's ambassador to leave in January over an alleged plot to assassinate Abdullah in 2003, after he clashed with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at an Arab summit. Libya has denied involvement in any such plot. Last month, Abdullah pardoned several Libyans held in relation to the alleged plot. Saudi security sources said they were about to be put on trial, a step which would have strained ties even further. "Relations between Saudi Arabia and Libya were not cut," Prince Saud told al-Hayat, adding that only the ambassadors were withdrawn. "Ties between the [Libyan and Saudi] people are normal."
BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britainâs Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath. The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a âpublic act of repentanceâ. The bishops admit that their suggestion is provocative and bound to attract publicity massive criticism, but insist it is not âa cheap gestureâ.
I think eventually, and possibly soon, the Church of England is going to reach its tipping point and just disappear for lack of anyone who gives a rat's patou. They've built up such a stock of lip-wristed warm milk pronouncements that no one possessing a testicle (or preferring the company of people with testicles) is going to be able to take them seriously.
Their renewed condemnation of Britainâs role in Iraq since the 2003 invasion will further widen the rift with Downing Street.
It's fashionable to "question authority." The Church of England, however, is kinda by definition a part of the Establishmentâ¢. Since they've ceased fulfilling their function as defined by Henry and Elizabeth, that's still more reason for them to disappear, to be replaced by a puppy which can then be given away.
The proposal for a public apology comes in a new report published today. In the report, the bishops plead for more âunderstandingâ of what motivates terrorists.
It's obvious Their Excellencies don't read Rantburg or any other publication that actually does examine the motivations of terrorists. If they do, the certainly don't apply their findings to the Christian concepts of good and evil.
They criticise Western democracies as âdeeply flawedâ and accuse the US of dangerous expansionism.
If Western democracies are "deeply flawed," what are Middle Eastern autocracies? What are the differences between the two? Is the flawed system that's subject to control preferable to the degenerate system that's beyond the control of those effected? Time limit is one hour. Turn in your blue books to Miss Fishbreath when completed.
The bishops, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, want Christian leaders to express their repentance in an âact of truth and reconciliationâ for the Westâs contribution to the problems in Iraq. The bishops cite as precedents the official statements by the Vatican expressing sorrow for the Christian persecution of the Jewish people throughout the ages, the repentance by the Anglican Church in Japan for its complicity in Japanese aggression during the Second World War and the regret expressed by leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa for their theological and political backing of apartheid.
Kind of a perfect wave of warm milk, isn't it? The propensity of Christian holy men to apologize for thing they're not responsible for can be breath-taking. I'm still waiting for the reciprocal mass apologies from the Learned Elders of Islam.
The bishops cite a âlong litanyâ of errors in the Westâs handling of Iraq, including its past support for Saddam Hussein, its willingness to sell him weapons and the suffering caused to the Iraqi people by sanctions.
"Past support" for Sammy was actually pretty far in the past, and it wasn't what you'd call a cozy level of support. While there was a certain amount of Western commerce with the Baathists, the great majority of the support his regime received came from the Soviet Union. That's especially true of that willingness to sell him weapons. Such trade as the U.S. engaged in was limited by law to non-military items, the exception being the limited support extended during the war with Iran. The sanctions resulted in suffering for the Iraqis â and not as great suffering as was presented in the course of the propaganda campaign â because of the way Sammy jobbed the Oil for Food program.
However, the bishops acknowledge that it would be âirresponsibleâ to withdraw British troops in the current chaos, adding that the forces should remain until there is a secure Iraqi regime in place.
Mighty daggone generous of them.
In the report, Countering Terrorism, Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, the bishops acknowledge the impact of the July London bombings.
That establishes them as reasonable men, y'see...
The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend Richard Harries, one of the authors, concedes that all governments have a âproper responsibilityâ to take the steps necessary to safeguard their citizens. But he says that the steps should not âinfringe hard-won civil libertiesâ.
In other words the gummint should safeguard their citizens unless safeguarding them might result in infringing their liberties, despite the fact that not safeguarding them in the interest of such protection will result in the eventual loss of said liberties. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Obviously the principle of "pay me now or pay me later" is not a part of post-Christian theology.
Bishop Harries, the Churchâs leading apologist for the Christian just-war theory, says: âThe Churches have a particular message here based on biblical insights about fear and how playing on the fears of enemies makes for unwise policies.â
I'm not too sure where he got that. Seems to me they spent a lot of time in the Old Testament either striking fear in the hearts of Jebusites and Amalekites and suchlike or having similar fears struck in their own hearts. We might also add that in a war on terrorism â the point of which is to strike fear in the hearts of the inoffensive â a bit of counterstriking might actually be in order as a tactic.
He goes on to argue that to many people, it is not terrorism but American foreign policy and expansionism that constitute âthe major threat to peaceâ.
That's a very fashionable position to take, but fashion doesn't dictate truth. We didn't fly any aircraft into somebody else's buildings. We didn't invade Kuwait. We don't run terror networks. We don't cut people's heads off on the teevee.
He says: âWe suggest that the United States, like all major powers in history, does indeed seek to expand its economic, political and military influence and power. What distinguishes it from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness. In this there is both sincere conviction and dangerous illusion.â
He's not doing a very convincing job of dispelling the illusion, though. And he doesn't pause for a second to consider the possibility that we're right. The expansion of our economic power is pretty peaceful, his bitch being that McDonalds and KFC and Gap and Madonna are displacing the local couscous or goatmeat shack, and kids wear tee shirts instead of colorful traditional native garb, and they listen to music that's either Western or Western-inspired. That displacement isn't the result of force of arms but of the competition of ideas, and the guardians of the ideas that are being displaced are bitching about it even while their kids kick up the volume on the iPods to drown out the noise. It's that displacement of ideas that's the "root cause" of terrorism, a reaction against new and competing concepts that includes Evangelical Christianity. The Church of England is decidedly not Evangelical, they're incapable of competing with much of anyone in the field of ideas, and as a result they find themselves on the side of the displaced, among the dictators and beturbanned holy men, warlords, oligarchs, and similar riff-raff, trying to enforce their obsolete droits du seigneur.
He is also critical of the power of the so-called Christian Right on Washingtonâs policies. The bishops question the US sense of âmoral righteousnessâ and criticise the use of biblical texts by some in the US to support a political agenda in the Middle East. The bishops say: âThere is no uniquely righteous nation.â
Obviously there's not a uniquely righteous body of holy men, either. But that doesn't mean that it's a useless excercise to attempt to pursue righteousness in the antique Christian sense, nor does it mean that some societies don't come closer to righteousness than others. That could have something to do with why their Lordships the Bishops aren't competetive in the field of ideas anymore, too, since they've obviously stopped looking for the paths of righteousness even as they've retired to the theological bathroom to explore their sexuality.
Drawing up a 13-point schedule of âChristian principlesâ in response to the terror crisis, they call for states to âunderstandâ the perspective of their terrorist antagonists. âWinning hearts and minds is absolutely fundamental in countering terrorism,â they say.
What if you truly understand the enemy and discover that you hate his principles? What if you discover that the world will be a better place after the enemy's been crushed, his major power centers destroyed, his intellectual guides killed? What if you discover that they're so evil you don't care about their hearts and minds and want to concentrate on killing them? Would Their Excellencies the Bishops recognize Evil if it came up to them and kissed them? Would they recognize it if it tried to kill them? The Lord suggested turning the other cheek, but he had a good idea of how many cheeks he possessed.
States must address the âlong-standing grievancesâ of the terrorists and even, perhaps, offer them economic support.
Why? The "long-standing grievances" of the terrorists are based in the fact that they lost Andalusia, they lost at Lepanto, they lost at the gates of Vienna. Now they're losing the war of ideas. The nations they have controlled have been cultural and economic backwaters, their only international significance having been their irritation factor. If my house is infested with cockroaches, I'm not going to address their grievances and I'm certainly not going to offer them economic support. I'm going to call an exterminator.
They go on to condemn the Western style of democracy, saying that it cannot be imposed on any other country by force. âDemocracy as we have it in the West at the moment is deeply flawed and its serious shortcomings need to be addressed,â state the bishops, members of the only unelected house in the Churchâs own governing democratic body, the General Synod. Even using the term âwar on terrorismâ is, like the war on drugs of the 1980s, a piece of âdangerous rhetoricâ.
"Dangerous rhetoric" to me is the imam down at the local mosque calling for jihad against his infidels neighbors. I've no doubt that Their Lordships the Bishops would condemn the Western style of democracy, since it doesn't include automatic deferrence to one's betters. Instead, it contains those principles they'd find antithetical: individual liberty, the freedom to choose one's religion or lack thereof, the ability to think for oneself, to change social classes, the possibility of excelling along with the risk of failure. These are ideas that have been banging against the intellectual gates of the Church of England ever since Calvin and Knox and Wesley, to which the church often grudgingly adapted. But once they got the "social justice" pablum served up by Marxists they thought they found a counterargument, which would be guaranteed outcomes of all that nasty striving and thinking and action. Since they still have to compete, and since they've never been really good at defining the concepts of right and wrong even at their peak, they're on the side of the losers, which is where they'll remain.
The 100-page report states: âReligion is now a major player on the public stage of the world in a way that few foresaw two decades ago. We believe that the Churches have an important role to play, not simply in urging the importance and applicability of Christian principles, but in a proper awareness of the role of religion, for good as well as ill, and initiatives it might take towards reconciliation between adversaries.â
My previous point is made: notice they don't suggest competing against their adversaries, notice in fact that they don't even regard the adversaries as their adversaries. They prefer to maintain neutrality, rather like they do with the concept of sin.
The bishops plead for understanding of Iranâs nuclear ambitions. âThe public and political rhetoric that Iran is a rogue regime, an outpost of tyranny, is as fallacious as the Iranian description of the US as the Great Satan. Iranâs relationship with Islamic terrorist organisations should not be seen as proof of any al-Qaeda link.â
But it should certainly be seen as a relationship with terrorist organizations, shouldn't it? Or should the fact that Iran is and has been for 30 years a major player in the Wonderful World of Terror be ignored because they are only allied with al-Qaeda tactically?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:06 ||
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#1
He is also critical of the power of the so-called Christian Right on Washingtonâs policies. The bishops question the US sense of âmoral righteousnessâ and criticise the use of biblical texts by some in the US to support a political agenda in the Middle East. The bishops say: âThere is no uniquely righteous nation.â
I would suggest that these churchmen are reversing cause and effect. I do not think we in the US simply believe, as they are accusing, that we have the right to do what we want because we're righteous, but rather that we're doing what we think is right.
Which brings me to this:
The bishops plead for understanding of Iranâs nuclear ambitions. âThe public and political rhetoric that Iran is a rogue regime, an outpost of tyranny, is as fallacious as the Iranian description of the US as the Great Satan. Iranâs relationship with Islamic terrorist organisations should not be seen as proof of any al-Qaeda link.â
Oh, so now they're saying we're supposed to be understanding of Salafist and other terrorist organizations as long as they're not the ones directly responsible for 9/11?
And they want to blind themselves to the nature of the Iranian government in order to be able to pretend their position is in some way moral?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/19/2005 0:21 Comments ||
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#2
The bishops question the US sense of "moral righteousness"...
#3
Deport them, too. Where, you might reasonably ask? I propose Atlantis. That's most likely where they originated, where they spend most of their waking time - in the metaphorical and metaphysical sense, and really want to be, anyway. With complimentary concrete ankle weights, of course.
#4
Some people are too stupid to live. Too bad these bishops will take a lot of Britons to hell, sorry Anglicans bishops don't seem to believe much religious doctrine at all over the cliff with them.
Posted by: ed ||
09/19/2005 1:06 Comments ||
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#5
Well that pretty much seals the deal on my turning my back on âChristianityâ You left wing and right wing religious fools ofd the Christian sects can get your asses killed. I will have none of it.
Whatever spiritual needs I have will be met in an entirely different fashion. I don't care if they burn down every last Church and Temple upon the planet. Your on your own with that if it's a problem for you. Judging by this it's not. Enjoy your Dhimmi lives.
#6
So the Anglican response to the question "What would Jesus do?" is "Embrace moral relativism!" it seems. Another milestone in the evolution of Christian theology. Soon to be announced - replacing the communion with the sympathetic head tilt.
#7
They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a âpublic act of repentanceâ.
So these supposed-Christians... do they plan on paying jizya then, or just delaying the inevitable?
Drawing up a 13-point schedule of âChristian principlesâ in response to the terror crisis, they call for states to âunderstandâ the perspective of their terrorist antagonists.
So these supposed holy men are lecturing us on when and why it's justified to kill thousands of innocents in the name of God? They're no longer Christians, as far as I can tell; they've become mullahs! At the least, they're just leftist politicians in funny robes.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/19/2005 7:28 Comments ||
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#8
right rc. Saying that these people are "Christians" is like saying that Jessie Jackson is a "civil rights activist".
Civil rights and Christianity are about appealing to man's better nature. Scam artists like Jessie and these wack birds are about scamming people out of their money.
#11
Jim Lehrer has Democrats on every night. You should tune it in for good laughs.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 8:45 Comments ||
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#12
A preacher once told me that the role of the Church (I write this in an ecumenical sense. I hope that I don't offend anyone.) is to promote Peace, not peace. It is a spiritual mission, not a worldly mission.
Once the Church sent out martyrs and converted the heathen tribes of Eastern and Northern Europe. Now some within it issue reports entitled Countering Terrorism, Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11. Countering Democracy? Why not Christianity or morality? After all, who are we to tell anyone else to live their lives.
#13
The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should.
Go stand by Saddam's mass graves and talk to me about remorse.
#16
Depends on who you ask and how truthful they are Mojo. Heretics or not they tend to be silly and prone to these tourete-like utterances every now and then.
#18
This whole article reads to me as .
"Iwanna be in Power(Whine, Whine) "Why isn't anybody listening" (Whine, Whine) I'm supposed to be respected" (Whine, Whine) "You Gotta pay attention" (Whine Whine) "You gotta show respect due to my High Office" (Whine, Whine) "I'm the Real Boss of the world" (Whine, Whine) "What I say Is THE LAW," (really and true, Whine, Whine)
Repeat, Repeat.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2005 11:58 Comments ||
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#19
These idiots are all a bunch of marxists. They, like college professors, operate in a theoretical world, not in the real world. That is why they hate capitalism and democracy. They love the theoretical construct of marxism and really, really think it can work. They refuse to acknowledge the more than 100 million dead that it produced over the past 100 years. What fools, what utter and complete fools. Great comments Dan D.
#23
But we SHOULD put down all our weapons and welcome our Islamic brethren. War is bad and is killing us. If we only fostered understanding, they wouldn't feel like they had to fight us so much. Democracy is failing. We need to follow these brave leaders--
"They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a âpublic act of repentanceâ.
Well, I know I'm going to be there. Hope you will too.
#25
The only way these ridiculous witch-doctors can get any attention, and maybe some petro-dollars in the collection plate, is to shake their feathers and rattle their gourds at Uncle Sam.
#29
1. Let them go to Najaf, and "apologize" to Ayatollah Sistani for the invasion of Iraq. Let them walk down the streets of Najaf, with signs saying "Sorry for getting rid of Saddam" Whatever happens to them, let them turn the other cheek.
2. IF they make it out of Najaf alive, let them come to Tel Aviv, and discuss with holocaust survivors there, whether their stated apology for the holocaust is consistent with their disregard for the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of a state pledged to the destruction of Israel, and whether that states funding and support to terrorists who kill Israeli civilians should be considered grounds for considering it a rogue state.
KATMANDU: Fifteen journalists were detained in western Nepal after being threatened by government troops who were unhappy about their coverage of military operations against communist guerrillas, a reporter said on Sunday. The journalists were preparing to flee on Sunday from the town of Dailekh, 500 kilometres northwest of Katmandu, after receiving threats from the military when police took them into custody, said Harihar Singh Rathor, a reporter for the Kantipur newspaper. âBecause we refused to censor news about the armyâs activities, we were being harassed and even threatened,â Rathor said. âSo all of us decided to flee to safe areas.â He said journalists in the area had been repeatedly summoned by the army and questioned about their sources. The journalists were detained by police after authorities discovered that they were planning to flee, Rathor said.
FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham believed the US alliance should be ditched and called it "the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality".
The Latham Diaries reveal his in-principle support for the alliance during last year's election was completely insincere and driven by electoral politics.
Translation: he was lying.
Mr Latham mocks public support for the alliance and dismisses with contempt anybody who thinks it serves a purpose. The Diaries verify the judgment President George W. Bush made of Mr Latham - that his election would have put the alliance in serious jeopardy. "It's just another form of neo-colonialism," Mr Latham says of the alliance.
Writing after the election, Mr Latham says that he should go public and question the long-term need for the alliance, but laments that this "would turn the party upside down" and that "the Big Mac faction would go ballistic".
The Diaries reveal an extreme view of foreign policy and of Australia's role in the world. Mr Latham opposes every war Australia has fought, except World War II. He blames the US alliance for dragging Australia into unnecessary conflicts. His preferred foreign policy model is based on New Zealand's. He writes that if Australia prefers being "an American colony under (John) Howard, that's a nation not worth leading".
He accuses the Prime Minister and Mr Bush of being cowards, saying "they wouldn't fight themselves, of course, but they readily send other people's children to fight in their name".
In his diary entry of December 1, 2004, six weeks before he resigned, he says: "The Americans have made us a bigger target in the war against terror -- Australian lives are certain to be sacrificed on the altar of the US alliance.
"Look at New Zealand. They have their foreign policy right, and it's the safest country on earth.
It's the most out-of-the-way country developed country on earth. al-Qaeda will come after them last. That's security?
"Labor should be the anti-war party of Australian politics. Other than World War II, every war this country has fought was disconnected from our national interests. All those young Australian lives lost in faraway lands, the folly of imperialism and conservative jingoism.
"I detest war and the meatheads who volunteer to kill other human beings. The US alliance is a funnel that draws us into unnecessary wars; first Vietnam and then Iraq."
The Diaries reveal a far more visceral anti-Americanism and a deeper streak of pacificism than was apparent from his public comments as Labor leader. Mr Latham sees the US alliance and an independent Australia as completely incompatible. "A timid, insular nation at the bottom of the world, too frightened to embrace an independent foreign policy," he says.
"Politically, why does the alliance survive? Because a significant number of Australians still think we need an insurance policy against invasion by Indonesia, that's why. Poor old Indonesia. They can barely govern themselves these days, let alone invade us. The alliance is the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality."
He's right about Indonesia and wrong about everything else. Australians and Americans are essentially the same people: the rejects, the cast-outs, the petty criminals discarded by the British Empire. We got the Irish who preferred emigration to starving, the Welsh who found life in a Welsh mining pit to be too desparate, and the Scots-Irish who wouldn't submit to Anglican rule. America added many more immigrants from other countries, something Australia now is doing. But we have a lot of common ideas and virtues. That's why we have an alliance.
Mr Latham is convinced that "the Americans need us more than we need them". He says Pine Gap is "vital to their international security network". He claims that the Americans "restrict our capacity to trade and integrate with Asia" and that "one day their trouble with China will be our trouble".
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2005 00:03 ||
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#2
Look at New Zealand. They can't protect themselves. They rely on Australia who relies on America.
So by proxy they rely on America to protect them.
Way to go Loser Latham.
But I take comfort: the Australian electorate LOVES the US-Australian alliance so much that Latham at least knew he HAD to lie.
Snake.
Meanwhile how racist is he to call it the last vestige of White Australia. As if all Americans are white.
Besides which, it has NOTHING to do with race and EVERYTHING to do with culture.
Oh dear, does he not notice how people all around the world fracture along lines of culture and language? And we should be some global people without allies culture and language? We should pretend the rest of the world thinks just like Latham and rest our security on alliances with cultures with whom we share nothing in common and do not share a language?
Imagine us basing our security on an alliance with Indonesia... most expansionist racist supremecist colonists in the region. We are marked as 'south irian' on maps captured in the East Timor peacekeeping operation.
We are SOOO lucky Aussies were smart enough to throw red Latham out so convincingly at the last election!
#3
If he thinks Australia is safe from Indonesia or China by it's self he crazy. New Zeland has nothing anyone wants, this is not true of Australia. A Australia emptied of "white people" would be an attractive thing to certain peoples.
I understand many al-Q find sheep very attractive.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 8:34 Comments ||
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#7
Definitely follow Phil_b's advice and check out Tim Blair.
Even other ALP folks are saying that they're glad Howard beat Latham. They finally realize that Latham was lying through his teeth and that Oz dodged a major bullet.
#10
Is the world getting crazier? WTF is going on with these people. There's some kind of sinister propoganda machine working in the background. All these so called pacifist are really sending out messages of hate and division, not healing and team work. I just call them hypocrits, but something else is at work, just like the Soviet moles in India and the UN Oil-4-Food scandel, people are being bought or brainwashed, but we won't know for years.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
09/19/2005 14:30 Comments ||
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#14
Okay my history is rusty in this point, but who exactly pulled who into the East Timor operation? Somehow I thought the Australians pulled the US into that one.
And it was East Timor that Al Queda has sited as their rational for attacking Australia wasn't it? I mean hate America all you want, who cares, but at least keep your facts straight.
#16
Bit of geography/history: West Irian was the Indonesian name for Dutch New Guinea, which Indonesia took over by force in 1961. Dutch New Guinea is the western end of the island of New Guinea. The eastern end is the nation of Papua New Guinea. The Indonesians have been trying to convert the Papuans to Islam by force since 1961, with poor success. The entire western end of New Guinea is a human right abuse.
Indonesia wants to grab all of south Asia, including Australia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. They are the major supporter of Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim bandits in the Philippines. Their massacre of Timorese Christians is what they want to do to the entire region.
IIRC, the East Timor rescue operation was primarily an Australian action, with limited US back-up. I don't think we hand any troops on the ground in the region. If anyone has any further comments, I'd welcome them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2005 18:06 Comments ||
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#17
That face... he looks like Admiral Ackbar.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/19/2005 18:30 Comments ||
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#18
Ok, I'm confused. (Stop that snickering!) Did the Latham Diaries escape, or were they deliberately released?
#1
Since I don't know where else to ask, TGA, if you're reading this...
On the other thread earlier "today" (it being tomorrow in Maryland, where the server is, and probably in Germany as well, if I remember the rotation of the earth correctly) you mentioned the possibility that there could be another election in a very short time period.
How are the chances of that looking right now? Is it looking like a good idea if it is possible?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/19/2005 0:12 Comments ||
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#2
If this goes on for a while, maybe they'll stop banging on us for Florida.
#3
if I remember the rotation of the earth correctly) you mentioned the possibility that there could be another election in a very short time period.
Phil, hemispherically speaking, OZ is either cyclonic or anti-cyclonic. I hope that helps. btw, some of my best friends are anti-cyclonic.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/19/2005 12:34 Comments ||
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#4
Phil, Germany is six hours ahead of eastern North America, one hour ahead of Britian. It is 2:30 pm (14:30) Eastern Time, which makes it 7:30 pm (19:30) in London, and 8:30 pm (20:30) in Germany. I hope that helps.
#6
They will have all sorts of coalition talks now. In 4 weeks the new Bundestag will have to meet. Then they will try to elect a chancellor by absolute majority. Should, after several attempts, no candidate be able to get the absolute majority, a chancellor can be elected with a relative majority. The German President can then decide to either appoint this chancellor or to dissolve the Bundestag for new elections. Until then Schroeder will remain caretaking chancellor.
Don't ask me how the coalition will look like. I rather think that Merkel will not be chancellor. She has no real base and gave her party a dismal result.
She lost in her own East Germany and in Bavaria. Bavarians simply didn't like her. She led the most stupid election campaign I've ever seen.
A prominent Muslim cleric on Monday was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on racketeering and other charges, the latest in a string of convictions stemming from the FBI's sweeping probe of municipal corruption. Prosecutors said that Shamsud-din Ali, 67, used his political connections to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts. In addition to his 87-month sentence, Ali was ordered to pay restitution. He was released pending an appeal.
The investigation of the so-called "pay to play" culture in Philadelphia's city government has led to the convictions and guilty pleas for more than a dozen people, including a former city treasurer, two bank executives and several business owners seeking city contracts. The probe became public when police discovered an FBI bug in Mayor John F. Street's office. The mayor has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.
Ali, the leader of a west Philadelphia mosque, was charged with 34 counts. After six days of deliberations, jurors convicted him in June of 22 counts, including racketeering. According to prosecutors, he and his wife, Faridah, used the Muslim school they ran as a private piggy bank, soliciting donations and public education funds for adult education classes that were never held. The Alis had at least five family members on the payroll, including two adult children who lived out of state. Faridah Ali was convicted and sentenced to a year of house arrest on related charges.
#1
Do we have a picture of the "mosque"? Might it be located in the the old "Golden Pagoda" location right next store to ""Vinny's Check Cashing" perhaps?
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, last night brought her campaign to end the war to New York, where she accused Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of not doing enough to challenge the Bush administration's Iraq policies.
Speaking in front of more than 500 supporters in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Ms. Sheehan, speaking of Senator Clinton, said, "She knows that the war is a lie but she is waiting for the right time to say it." Then, as the crowd cheered, she issued a challenge to Senator Clinton, saying, "You say it or you are losing your job."
A spokesman for Senator Clinton, while not commenting about Ms. Sheehan's remarks, said that the senator, while voting to give President Bush the authority to go to war, has been very critical of the way he has chosen to use that authority.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/19/2005 00:36 ||
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#12
Hillary will ignore it. She's much too interested in garnering a "moderate" base, than to waste her time and social capital on Sheehan, who can easily be marginalized. In fact, Hillary can USE Sheehan to make herself look more "moderate," while at the same time furthering her own leftist objectives. Example: " . . . said that the senator (Hillary), while voting to give President Bush the authority to go to war, has been very critical of the way he has chosen to use that authority."
#15
If Hillary disses Sheehan she loses a lot of the activists. These activists are good at getting votes out of cemetaries, illegal aliens, mulitiple voters and convicts. About 1% of its base vote is made of these demographics. Also, the activists are good at getting themselves to the polls which makes another 1-3% of the base democratic vote.
#16
the activists are good at raising money, and going around getting people to the polls. As are GOP activists. The Clintons have always been good at raising money however, and Hilary can count on the moonbats to go apeshit if shes nominated, which tends to get the Dem base to the polls without her having to give ANYTHING, policy wise, to the nutbags (nutbags being lefty, while moonbats are righty - dont ask me why)
Update: Sorry. None dead yet...
The military and lawyers for detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, disagree on the number of participants in a camp protest because each side defines a hunger striker differently. For the second time since July, some of the 505 detainees at the prison camp are refusing to eat or drink to protest their indefinite imprisonments, the U.S. military said. Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a Guantanamo Bay public affairs officer, said Sunday that 91 detainees are participating in the protest. Of the hunger strikers, 21 are at the infirmary and are receiving nutrition through feeding tubes in their noses or mouths. The military defines a hunger striker as a detainee who has missed nine consecutive meals. No chicken l'orange for you!
Kristine Huskey, a Washington lawyer who represents 11 Kuwaiti detainees, visited the prison last week and says that "90% of the camp is on strike in varying degrees." She says hunger strikers include detainees who miss a meal or two a day or refuse to take liquids. That's not a hunger strike, that's dieting.
Weir, however, says the numbers are steadily decreasing as detainees resume eating and drinking. "No one is anywhere near death," he says, despite some of the detainees' desire to commit what he calls "a slow form of suicide." Surrrrrprise, surrrprise, surprise!
The camp's detainees are suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Many detainees have been held for more than 3œ years and most were captured on remote battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq in attacks on U.S. troops. Four have been charged with war crimes. The Bush administration position is that it can hold the detainees classified as "enemy combatants" as long as the war on terrorism lasts, a stand that has been backed by federal courts. Since January 2002, detainees have held several hunger strikes to protest the length of their detentions and treatment. London attorney Clive Stafford Smith, who represents about 40 detainees, says 210 prisoners were on hunger strikes Aug. 15, when he last visited the camp. Stafford Smith says the detainees want to be charged or released. He says they also are protesting the quality of food and water, alleged beatings and the military's alleged mishandling of the Quran. Oh, yeah. The Koran. How could we forget the Koran?
"The military wants to downplay this," he says. "The truth is, these guys are going to die." Well, hurry it up, you're boring us.
Weir says the military will not allow detainees to starve themselves to death. "We are charged to take care of them and keep them in good shape, and that's what we're doing," he says. He also said no detainees are being mistreated and that the Quran, Islam's holy book, is not being mishandled. Phew. I was worried there for a second...
#1
But if Allah wills it that they starve and die that should be ok. The US government should not impose its will on these people. Besides, it must be Allah's will because they're still in detention. If Allah willed for them to be free they would be free. They cannot possibly be making the argument that the US government is more powerfull than Allah. I know the detainees are not Blaspheming are they?
#4
I understand that part of what is at issue is that the detainees are uncertain about the duration of their detention. This can be handled very easily, although not necessarily to the satisfaction of the agrieved parties.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
09/19/2005 16:34 Comments ||
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#5
Since they are in Cuba, maybe they should give the refused meals to the Cubans? I'll bet that most of them don't eat nearly as good as the prisoners in Club Gitmo. Might improve relations.
A group called Gente Unita confronted volunteer border watchers in San Diego yesterday with obscenities, shoving and U.S. flag desecration, causing Friends of the Border to abandon a planned deployment and an apology by the group's leader for not having police protection for senior citizen and other members of the group.
Andy Ramirez, chairman of Friends of the Border, said he was concerned about the safety of his volunteers. "Safety comes first, even before our primary mission to help the Border Patrol secure our border with Mexico," he said.
One eyewitness told WND he saw members of Gente Unita assault four members of the border-watch group, including organizer Capt. Drew Johnson, a retired Navy officer. "Gente Unita stole an American flag, ripped from its staff and trampled it, as captured on film by cameraman Larry Morgan," said Roger Canfield, a former Republican congressional candidate.
The confrontation began when border volunteers were checking in at a card table for a training session, Canfield said. Shouting obscenities and slogans, Gente Unita shoved, jostled, and twice pushed their way into the center in 32 minutes of disorderly conduct as also witnessed by center staff and others at the center to take a state notary exam," Canfield said.
One man allegedly shouted, "We''re going to shut you the f--- down," in the face of several volunteers. Others, he said, broke off from the group to attack the check-in table located, under a flag pole. While the larger group was charging the entryway of the Scottish Rite Center, two others grabbed a U.S. flag on a wooden staff, a confidential list of names, knocked over the table, knocked a hat off Johnson and roughed up volunteer Beverly Crawford.
The border watchers called 9-1-1 when the confrontation began, but San Diego police did not respond for about 20 minutes, according to Canfield. No surprise there. That's why you have the right to be armed. Oh, wait. This is California.
Two members of Gente Unita were taken into custody, but were released shortly thereafter. Huh? Why weren't they sent to Gitmo?
The Gente Unita activists arrived on the scene dressed in red and black, according to witnesses. "We did not cross over the border, their border crossed over us," they chanted. One of the protesters threatened Ramirez with a future "firefight" along the border.
Ramirez said his training session emphasized no conflict, no arms and no provocation. The border watchers, like their allies in the Minuteman organization, seek to monitor the border and report illegal activity directly to U.S. Border Patrol officials. He apologized to his volunteers yesterday for not notifying law enforcement officials in advance of the training session. "For this, I apologize to each of our volunteers who were personally assaulted, especially the captain, who is a man that everyone in my organization respects immensely, and cares about," Ramirez said. "No veteran of the U.S. armed services should ever have to be confronted by what several cowards did to our fellow citizen and friend. I also apologize to the San Diego Police Department."
He described the Gente Unita group as an "angry mob." "An American flag was immediately desecrated by being torn away from our volunteers, off its pole, and onto the ground where it was stomped on and kicked," he said. "This vile act was committed by an individual who had concealed his face from cameras. We do have video footage, which was released by the volunteer to the media and shown in San Diego on their television newscasts. Individuals on tape were also assaulting and battering a number of senior citizens."
He added: "The protesters stalked our volunteers around the site, screamed in their ears, were cursed at, physically assaulted and battered, trespassed on private property, and participated in crimes of hate and acts of terrorism."
#2
It's an "hispanic group" from the sound of it. The Cops are useless. The Cops are worse than useless. 20 min to respond to a 911 call for an obvious assault? Someone should have shot the worthless cops when they showed up. Maybe they will try a little harder next time to keep the peace if they start turning up dead when they let the public they swear to protect down. Just like the Border Patrol. But I forgot the police are not your friends. They are the police union and (democratic) politicians friends. Someone knows who these fascists are and these fascists should be in jail.
This is why we are losing our country. You can't play by the rules we grew up with an win anymore.
They are stealing elections. Now trying to steal our country and our territory.
#3
Why didn't someone from Friends of the Border have a CCW and a piece and use it to blow these GU bastards away? These MFs on the left seem to think they have a monopoly on violence. They need to learn that they don't and that their violence will be met with more and greater violence. I personally have no problem with shooting illegal aliens who come across out borders without permission and immediately deporting to country of ethnic origin those who violently protest against maintaining the integrity of those borders. It sounds like our pols, bastards that most of them are, are finally beginning to hear the country's real anger on this issue. Faster, please.
Posted by: mac ||
09/19/2005 5:44 Comments ||
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#4
mac becauase if you defend yourself you will be hauled to jail, You are the bad guy. This is also California where you have no right to a CCW. I bet you can't get one in that area unless you are a connected. The Cops are part of the problem not part of the Solution. You are a suspect just because you are not "one of them." Sorry but that is how it is.
#5
"We did not cross over the border, their border crossed over us," they chanted.
So these people must be, what, 150+ years old?
On the serious side, the video of this should be up on the web ASAP, along with the phone numbers of all the relevant prosecutors offices. Let the prosecutors explain -- one caller at a time -- why they won't charge people for assault, battery, and destruction of property.
PLUS, it's time we start holding people responsible for political violence. This GU group should be investigated to within an inch of its life, and if anyone is convicted for the crimes they committed, the entire organization should be RICO'd.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/19/2005 7:24 Comments ||
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BRITAIN, France and Germany were drafting a resolution last night that would refer Iran to the United Nations for possible punitive sanctions because of Tehranâs controversial nuclear programme.
The move, which could have serious consequences in relations with one of the most powerful nations in the Islamic world, signalled the end of two years of intense diplomacy aimed at persuading Tehran voluntarily to curb its nuclear ambitions.
The endgame will be played out today and tomorrow at a meeting of the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where the states of the European Union look likely to support Americaâs longstanding demand that Iran be referred to the UN Security Council. Tehran raised the stakes still further yesterday by threatening to resume uranium enrichment if that happened.
Any hope of a compromise was shattered over the weekend when President Ahmadinejad, the newly elected Iranian leader, used his maiden speech before the UN General Assembly to attack the West and declare his intention to build a civilian nuclear industry, which many suspect is a cover for acquiring an atomic bomb.
âIf some try to impose their will on the Iranian people through resort to a language of force and threat with Iran, we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue,â said Mr Ahmadinejad, who accused the West of trying to enforce ânuclear apartheidâ.
As the Euro minions quiver
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who listened to the speech in New York, described it as disappointing and unhelpful. He was holding discussions with counterparts from other key countries yesterday on what concerted action should now be taken.
âWe need to get a feel of whether now is the right time to push for a referral or not,â a British diplomat close to the negotiations said. âWe might be able to get a majority at the IAEA. Jack Straw is sounding out his counterparts on where they stand.â
Officials in Vienna believe that 20 members of the IAEA would support action against Iran. Those in favour include the United States, the EU, Japan and Australia, Singapore and Peru.
However, the move would split the organisation in half with opposition from Non-Aligned Movement states including India, Brazil and South Africa. China, which relies heavily on imports of Iranian oil, is also opposed as is Russia, which has the contract to build Iranâs multibillion-pound nuclear reactor at Bushehr.
One possible outcome is that the 14 non-aligned states would abstain in a vote. As of last night, only Russia and Venezuela had decided to vote against.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, is still hoping for a deal. He wants Iran to be given one more chance to comply with its commitments to the IAEA.
In return there were reports yesterday that Tehran may allow UN experts to question senior Iranian military officials and visit closed military sites.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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Motorcycle-riding soldiers with M-16s pass school girls in colorful head scarves and flowing batik-pattern dresses. Sandbagged outposts guard bridges and key highway intersections, and helicopters patrol what was once an idyllic, languid countryside.
Now, southern Thailand is the bloodiest killing ground for Muslims after Iraq. The death toll from bombings, beheadings and drive-by shootings tops 1,000 people in an insurgency with some links to Islamic militant groups in next-door Malaysia and Indonesia, including an al-Qaeda ally.
More than 20,000 soldiers and police across the region are hunting for an estimated 2,000 insurgents as officials point to a looming threat -- an injection of foreign terrorists that could spread the 20-month-old battle to Thailand's big cities and across the border.
Brutality by Thailand's security forces, the disappearance of anti-government figures, lack of respect for Islam and the arrogance of civil servants toward the local Muslim population is helping to fuel the unrest, Muslim leaders and villagers contend.
"If the government continues to commit acts of violence, there's danger the Muslim brotherhood will come in," said Worawit Baru, a Muslim professor with ties to the community.
Although bombs used by the Muslim insurgents are getting more powerful and sophisticated and the attacks better coordinated, senior Thai intelligence officials don't yet see a direct hand by outsiders in the almost daily violence which began in January 2004.
Today's killings are set against strivings for a separate Islamic homeland which began a century ago when an independent sultanate was annexed by the Buddhist kingdom of Thailand rather than merged into Muslim Malaya, the British colony that later became Malaysia.
"It's domestic. It's a family affair," says Abdulrahman Abdulsamad, chairman of Narathiwat province's Islamic council.
Despite such assertions, the insurgency -- rooted in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala -- is hardly self-contained.
Involved in the violence are Thai Muslims trained in Libya and Syria, who fought beside Indonesian, Filipino and other Asian militants against Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The veterans maintain ties with their comrades-in-arms and may be getting updates on terrorist technology, said Police General Jumpol Manmai, who heads the National Intelligence Agency. Those Indonesian and Filippino "militants" are JI, MILF, and Abu Sayyaf these days, not that the AP is going to point that out. The Libyan and Syrian alumni are PULO, though I think they're mostly defunct and their remnants have thrown in with the jihadis.
Malaysia has repeatedly denied rebel training camps exist on its soil. However, it has long served as a sanctuary for Thai Muslim dissidents and a source of funds provided by sympathetic Muslims. Most recently, 131 villagers fled into Malaysia reportedly out of fear of the military, but the Thai government said the exodus was instigated by insurgents to make Thailand look bad.
Perhaps most important are connections to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda. Captured in Thailand in 2003 and now in US custody, the group's operational chief, Riduan Isamuddin -- an Indonesian better known as Hambali -- met with Thai militants who gave him and other JI operatives shelter and logistics support. In the end, Jemaah Islamiyah didn't go along with local militant plans to bomb Western embassies in Bangkok and tourist sites frequented by foreigners, according to Thai intelligence officials.
The possibility of the insurgency bursting its southern seams, especially if Jemaah Islamiyah or other foreign groups become more directly re-involved, sends chills down the spines of Thai leaders. And given the government's record, it's likely to be caught unprepared.
After 20 months of attacks, Thai authorities haven't pounced on a single major safe house, weapons cache or bomb laboratory and haven't captured more than a handful of possible suspects.
"Why? Because the insurgents operate inside the Muslim community which won't point a finger at them, and the military is out there in the cold on its own," said Worawit, who teaches Malay studies at Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani. Muslims comprise only about 5 percent, or 3.1 million, of Thailand's population of 62 million -- nearly all of them in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.
The insurgents are believed to be members of an alphabet soup of linked groups like GMIP, BRN and New PULO who have announced neither their manifesto nor leadership, communicating only through word-of-mouth and leaflets. Separatism appears to remain at the core of the insurgency although it's burnished with the language and ideology of international Islamic radicals.
Zachary Abuza, an expert on terrorism in Southeast Asia who recently visited the region, said he believes the militants have a broad agenda: "This is much more than an insurgency. This is much more of an attempt to transform society," he said. He noted that the rebels have targeted moderate Muslims and through their leaflets have warned clergy not to perform funeral rites for those they kill and threatened people who do business on Friday, the Muslim holy day.
While other experts disagree, Abuza links the violence to the growth of Salafism, which preaches a puritanical interpretation of Islam in a society where moderation and tolerance of Buddhist neighbors prevailed in the past.
"It's only a matter of time before the broader Islamic militant community focuses on Thailand's treatment of its Muslim minority. The systematic persecution of Muslims is the light that attracts the jihadist moths," said Abuza, who teaches at Simmons College in Boston.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government has veered from military crackdowns and martial law to a national reconciliation council, an air drop of paper birds symbolizing peace, a plan to distribute free TV sets to keep restive youths focused on soccer and a troupe of pop stars dispatched to entertain the southerners.
"If the Thai government continues to use violence, more innocent, neutral people will turn toward the way of violence," says Muhammad Nasir, a senior administrator at Yala Islamic College.
While Muslims killed by security forces are among the 1,000 dead, militants have killed Buddhist monks, teachers, policemen, villagers, moderate Muslims and government sympathizers.
"The big question is why aren't more Muslims in the world not paying attention to this because normally the radicals will take up the cause. The only answer I can really come up with is that they're still preoccupied with Iraq," says Abuza. "But I could imagine it would take one more Tak Bai-type incident."
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Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:09 ||
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#1
The worst Bangkok can be accused of in regard to southern Muslims is benign neglect. They've whined for years about lack of government development funds ("we want fancy air-conditioned schools, lots of big buildings, and giant shopping malls like Bangkok! Gimme, gimme, gimme!") but anyone who ever visited could tell you the south is a virtual tropical paradise. Unfortunately it's now becoming more like a tropical hell, thanks to militant Islam. Effin' sub-human savages.
#4
"If the Thai government continues to use violence, more innocent, neutral people will turn toward the way of violence," says Muhammad Nasir, a senior administrator at Yala Islamic College.
Odd. The government didn't start it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/19/2005 7:31 Comments ||
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#5
lack of respect for Islam and the arrogance of civil servants toward the local Muslim population is helping to fuel the unrest, Muslim leaders and villagers contend.
Translation: You didn't submit to the Religion of Peace so you must be ptu to death.
#6
Motorcycle-riding soldiers with M-16s pass school girls in colorful head scarves and flowing batik-pattern dresses
I have a suspicion that this "dark and stormy night" reporting that we are forced to daily endure from BBC, NPR and all third world countries - all comes from the same reporter.
#8
Malaysia has repeatedly denied rebel training camps exist on its soil. However, it has long served as a sanctuary for Thai Muslim dissidents and a source of funds provided by sympathetic Muslims.
Welcome to Southern Thailand Greater Malaysia! Look at the map folks. You just gotta bet Malaysian generals are!
Five weeks ago, Iran's new president bought his country some time. Facing mounting criticism after walking away from negotiations with Europe and restarting part of Iran's nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked the world to withhold diplomatic pressure while he put together new proposals.
On Saturday, dozens of international diplomats, including the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, gathered at the United Nations to hear how Ahmadinejad planned to stave off a crisis.
Instead his speech, followed by a confused hour-long news conference, was able to do what weeks of high-level U.S. diplomacy had not: convince skeptical allies that Iran may, in fact, use its nuclear energy program to build atomic bombs.
Ahmadinejad appeared to threaten as much when he warned from the General Assembly podium that in the face of U.S. provocation, "we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue."
Senior European diplomats said immediately afterward that the speech had been "unhelpful." In fact, the opposite may be true.
"The effect of that speech will likely be a toughening of the international response to Iran because it was seen by so many countries as overly harsh, negative and uncompromising," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in an interview Sunday. "The strategic aim of a great many countries is to see Iran suspend its nuclear program and return to peaceful negotiations with the Europeans."
A European diplomat, who could discuss strategy only on the condition of anonymity, echoed Burns's remarks.
"There's no question this will make our case stronger and our task easier," when board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency meet Monday in Vienna to discuss Iran's case.
During his 25 minutes Saturday, Ahmadinejad delivered what began as a sermon praising the prophets of Islam, Christianity and Judaism and then descended into anti-American vitriol, conspiracy theories and threats.
He expressed doubt that the deadly attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were really carried out by terrorists. He said Americans had brought the devastation of Hurricane Katrina upon themselves and that the U.S. military was purposely poisoning its own troops in Iraq.
There were quotes from the Koran, angry finger pointing and attacks on Israel interlaced with talk of justice and tranquility. There was a staunch defense of Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and to enrich uranium to fuel that program. There were no new proposals and little detail about old ones that were reoffered.
For much of last week, Iran had been the subject of endless backroom negotiations and public diplomacy, and at times, Tehran appeared to have the upper hand. But by the time the Iranian leader was headed for John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday night, U.S. and European officials were regaining confidence and putting together a new strategy designed to isolate Iran.
Burns met with British, German and French officials on Sunday in New York to discuss ways to bring around enough members of the IAEA board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions.
The United States has long advocated such a strategy but still does not have the support of India, Russia or China, or a "next steps" policy if the matter does end up in the Security Council.
Diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the most likely outcome of the week-long meeting in Vienna would be a deadline resolution giving Iran several weeks to reverse course and demonstrate transparency with U.N. nuclear inspectors, or face the consequences of Security Council action.
Iran has consistently maintained that its program is designed to produce nuclear energy, not weapons. IAEA nuclear inspectors have not found any evidence of a weapons program but several serious questions about the scale, scope and history of the program remain unanswered and have fueled suspicion that Iran is concealing information.
Ahmadinejad's speech, his first major international address as a world leader, highlights a dramatic and conservative shift in foreign affairs for Iran under the new president's leadership. Several diplomats noted that his defiant comments were strikingly different in tone and substance from those delivered from the same podium three months ago by Kamal Kharrazi, who was Iran's foreign minister until Ahmadinejad was elected this summer.
Kharrazi, who addressed a conference on the future of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, spoke in English in an effort to reach an international audience, rather than in Persian, which is spoken almost exclusively in Iran. Although Kharrazi also defended Iran's program, which was built in secret over 18 years and exposed in 2002, he did so without threats.
That text, written by Iranian diplomats eager to see reform of political and religious life, won over countries unsure about Iran's intentions. Tehran declared victory shortly afterward when the IAEA board decided against reporting the country's nuclear program to the Security Council.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:08 ||
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"...Iran may, in fact, use its nuclear energy program to build atomic bombs..."
MAY in fact? Dear God...these people will go down in the history books as textbook examples of cognitive dissonance. Assuming there ARE any history books afterwards.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/19/2005 7:36 Comments ||
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#2
The EUros have received a spine implant? I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, strongly worded memos are being prepared...
Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora will appeal to the international community today for economic aid and political protection for his country as he presents the Lebanese government's reform plans.
I wouldn't expect too much, but pray, tell on...
At a conference convened at the initiative of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which will be attended by foreign ministers of France, Britain, Russia, Egypt, Italy and Saudi Arabia as well as representatives from the EU and UN chief Kofi Annan, Siniora is to ask for economic and political aid for Lebanon. Siniora's appeal coincides with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's speech before the UN's 60th General Assembly today where he is expected to focus on Siniora's reform plan, according to Daily Star sources.
I thought he already gave his speech? (The story's dated today...)
Upon his arrival to New York, Siniora phoned Lahoud and discussed the outcome of Lahoud's talks with world leaders and particularly his meeting with Annan on Friday. They also discussed ongoing preparations for the aid conference. Lahoud had described Siniora before a delegation from the American Task Force for Lebanon, as "a real statesman," adding "I have an excellent relationship with him."
"I, on the other hand, am toast..."
The sources added Lahoud will also concentrate on the ongoing UN investigation into Hariri's murder, and reaffirm Lebanon's commitment to punish the perpetrators. It will also focus on the peace keeping troops UNIFIL based on the UN demarcated Blue Line, which draws the borders with Israel.
Another great moment in UN peacekeeping...
It is believed that Lahoud will clarify Lebanon's stance regarding the recent developments in the country including the arrest of four security generals accused of involvement in Hariri's assassination. The generals ran Lebanon's pro-Syrian security forces when Hariri was killed.
... and seemingly are involved in it up to their eyeballs. What's to clarify?
Lahoud had told the delegation from the American Task Force for Lebanon: "I told Annan that we strongly support the ongoing investigation into Hariri's murder and will severely punish all perpetrators."
"Severely" involves bullets or rope, right?
On Resolution 1559, which partly calls for Hizbullah's disarmament, Lahoud said: "Lebanon respects all UN resolutions. As for this one, I told the international community there were some critical articles that require a general consensus."
That's a fairly subtle way of saying they're better armed, financed, and probably led than is the Leb military whose functions they usurp...
Siniora also met with UN special envoy to the Middle East Terje Roed-Larsen, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Egyptian Foreign Minster Ahmad Abu al-Gheith, in preparation for the aid conference. Abu al-Gheith denied claims Syria had requested his country be involved in the UN team investigating Premier Rafik Hariri's murder, which Syria was accused of masterminding.
Hot potato!
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said Hizbullah should be proud to become part of the Lebanese Armed forces, as he officially launched his political party. Speaking at Le Royal Hotel in a ceremony to present his movement as a new political party, Aoun said: "We should work on training and enhancing the armed forces so that Hizbullah would be proud to join it."
Aoun, a former army general who has long said he is one of the main forces behind UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - partly calling on Hizbullah to disarm - said that the Lebanese Army needed enhancement on the "human and technical levels; and its arms need to be developed, all in all to transform it into a role model institution for defending the country which everyone would long to join." Hizbullah refused to comment on Aoun's statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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Even Hitler had the sense to keep the SA out of the Wehrmacht...
Facing US and Iraqi pressure to stop the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq, Syria offered on Sunday to participate in efforts to stop violence in Iraq and renewed its call on the United States for a dialogue to improve strained relations. The latest Syrian offer came two days after Washington reiterated its accusations that Syria was not doing enough to prevent anti-US militants from crossing its border into Iraq. âSyria is fully ready to contribute towards preventing the bloodshed of the Iraqi people and to enable them to reach their hoped-for goals,â Tishrin, a Syrian government newspaper, said in an editorial. âSyria has stressed this fact to the Americans and has called them for dialogue and cooperation,â it said. âItâs still sticking to this stand and to its call. The problem is now theirs (the Americansâ) and not Syriaâs.â
On Friday, the US State Departmentâs spokesman accused Syria of making trouble not only for Iraq, by allowing foreign fighters to infiltrate the country, but also for Lebanon and the Palestinians. âSyria, more and more, is being recognised as a destabilising element in the region,â Adam Ereli said. âItâs not just about Iraq; itâs about Iraq, itâs about Lebanon, itâs about the Palestinian Authority. Because thereâs a connection between Syria and terrorism and murder and mayhem in each of these three different areas.â
The United States has imposed economic sanctions on Syria, long on the State Department list of state sponsor of terrorism. Syrian President Bashar Assadâs government insists it is doing what it can to keep foreigners from crossing its border into Iraq and has said in the past it was trying to control militant anti-Israeli Palestinian groups based in Damascus.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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What? They plan to commit mass suicide?
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/19/2005 20:44 Comments ||
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Poll: Jordan top anti-Jew nation
The poll, which surveyed 17,000 people in 17 countries, said 100 percent of Jordanians viewed Jews unfavorably. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians...
India's relations with Iran -- accused by Washington of attempting to build nuclear weapons -- is possibly the first major hiccup in the New Delhi-Washington honeymoon.
'We are telling our Indian friends that they can't have it both ways,' a senior US administration official was quoted as saying by the International Herald Tribune.
He was obviously referring to India's recent nuclear pact with the US, which would give India access to nuclear material and technology earlier prohibited under US law, and Delhi's close relationship with Tehran.
Last month, soon after the June elections saw Tehran Mayor Mahmud Ahmadinejad elected president, Iran rejected economic and other incentives offered by France, Germany and the UK and restarted uranium conversion, sparking further fears about its nuclear weapons programme.
India commits support to Iran's N-programme
Yet when push comes to shove at the weeklong meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency which begins September 19, India, (along with Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council) is unlikely to endorse the call led by the US and Europe (France Germany and Britain) to refer Iran to the Security Council for violating the provisions of the NPT.
Why is the US worried?
Washington is certain that Iran -- labeled as one of the three axis of evil nations by President George W Bush way back in January 2002 -- has been secretly developing nuclear weapons, which could radically destabilize the already tense region.
Iran admits fudging N-claims
Bush has recently assured India -- subject to Congressional approval -- of nuclear co-operation in the civilian sector provided New Delhi agreed to international inspections and separated its civilian and military nuclear facilities.
India's rapidly growing relations with Iran, whose chief nuclear negotiator visited Delhi days before the Prime Minister left for the UN summit (PM at UN: complete coverage) in New York, has obviously raised eyebrows in Washington.
Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh visited Tehran and is reported to have pledged support for Iran's 'peaceful nuclear energy program.'
This led to questions being raised in the US about the possibility of American nuclear technology proposed to be shared with India finding its way to Tehran.
Despite Washington's reservations on the subject, Natwar Singh also declared that the 'concerned ministers' of India, Pakistan and Iran were close to an agreement on the Iran India gas pipeline over Pakistan, and could 'finalize a framework agreement by December 31.'
Bush expresses concern
The Bush administration has not-so-subtly warned India that unless it supported a US-sponsored demand to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for breaching its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Pact, the India US nuclear agreement would become that much harder to push through Congress.
What are the ties that bind Iran with India?
It was Afghanistan which brought India and Iran together in the early 1990s.
Prior to that, the two nations had viewed each other with suspicion and mistrust left over from the Cold War, in which Tehran sided with Washington and Islamabad against New Delhi's ally Moscow.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 brought about a radical revision in Iran's ties with the US and Pakistan. But that did not really lead to a rapprochement with India, either, until the Sunni Taliban overran Afghanistan, which borders Shia Iran.
Both India and Iran found themselves supporting Ahmed Shah Masood's Northern Alliance against the Taliban.
Iran's hand in the Afghan mess
The relationship blossomed, and in January 2003, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was invited as the chief guest for India's Republic Day celebrations, during which he signed not huge energy deals, but also put in place a strategic partnership which involved joint military exercises and the training of Iran's military forces.
Reports that the two nations had signed a pact giving India access to Iranian airfields in the event of a war with Pakistan rattled Islamabad and the West.
Since then, the relationship has grown in leaps in bounds, with Indian oil majors setting up shop in Iran. Iran is also seen as a gateway to the resource rich Central Asian republics, which energy-starved India is keen to gain access to.
Rashtrapati Bhavan cooks up a surprise for Khatami
And finally, as the peace process with Pakistan unfolded, India agreed to a proposal for a gas pipeline from Iran to India over Pakistani soil.
Soon afterwards, Washington, which had earlier stayed non-committal on the deal while privately encouraging it as a tool for peace, voiced objections to Iran being the source of the pipeline.
Privately, Washington also expressed fears that the nuclear technology it proposes to give India could find its way to Iran.
At the recent UN summit in New York, Iran insisted that its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes, and dared the US to refer it to the UN Security Council, (which could impose sanctions). Tehran also warned that if the situation so warranted, it could not only start processing weapons grade material but sell its nuclear technology to other states.
What are Iran's interests in India?
One, India is the largest market for the natural gas in its southern oilfields.
Two, by cosying up with India, it hopes to negate some of its international isolation.
Three, Iran hopes to benefit from India's expertise in information technology, science and medicine.
Four, Iran hopes a strategic agreement with India will help modernize its defence forces.
Uttam's Take: The Iran Web
What are the main areas of cooperation between India and Iran?
According to India's Ministry of External Affairs web site updated in July 2005, India-Iran commercial relations are dominated by Indian import of Iranian crude oil (US$ 1.67 billion (41%) in 2003-2004). The total volume of annual bilateral trade was US$2.8 billion in 2003-2004 registering 24% growth over the previous year.
Iran: Tough nut for US to crack
Other interesting remarks on the MEA web site:
Air links with India/convenient travel routes: There are no Indian national carriers flying to Iran. Mahan Air, a private airline in Iran, operates three flights per week to Delhi and Iran Air flies twice weekly to Mumbai.
Indian Banks: No Indian banks are currently operating. A representative of State Bank of India is stationed at Tehran.
Links to local organizations dealing with India: There is no such organization in Iran.
Estimated NRI/PIO population: About 500 families, mainly located at Tehran.
Important NRI/PIO Associations and their contact details : No such organization exists.
Major Indian ethnic papers/television channels with contact details: There are no Indian ethnic papers or television channels in Iran.
What is India's position on Iran at the moment?
After a meeting with US President George W Bush in New York, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clarified that India was against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, but that diplomacy, not force, was likely to yield results on this issue.
''We are not holding any brief for Iran. Another nuclear state in our neighbourhood is not desirable. But diplomacy must be given scope. The IAEA should be given a chance to work out a consensus,'' Prime Minister Singh told a press conference before winding up his visit.
Iran downplays PM's comments
India also urged Iran to honor its commitment to the NPT, of which it is a signatory -- unlike India, which is not an treaty signatory and hence did not violate any treaty obligations when it conducted nuclear tests in May 1974 and May 1998.
However, 'You have to allow a certain learning process to take place in Tehran rather than banging them on the head,' the Herald Tribune quoted an un-named Indian official as saying.
Iran threatens to use oil as weapon
In Delhi, analysts believe that India, which now has robust ties with Iran and its opponents Israel and the US, can use its influence and become a major power broker in the region.
Defending Delhi's ties with Iran, a senior Indian official noted that the US has an relationship with Pakistan which is independent of its ties with India, and hence there was no reason why India could not maintain independent relations with both the US and Iran.
#1
Article: Defending Delhi's ties with Iran, a senior Indian official noted that the US has an relationship with Pakistan which is independent of its ties with India, and hence there was no reason why India could not maintain independent relations with both the US and Iran.
Actually, there are a lot of reasons - primary among which are the sale of US military technology to India and the upcoming provision of nuclear technology to its power industry. The fact is that we are providing India with goodies traditionally reserved for good friends of Uncle Sam. If India will not reciprocate by standing with Uncle Sam against Iran, then maybe we should rethink our relations with India. There are good reasons as to why relations with India have been cool for close to 60 years - the Indians are backstabbers of the first order and have a boulder-sized chip on their shoulder about the West.
#6
Korea, Afghanistan (Soviet invasion), Iraq, Iraq. And this is just a sample of the anti-American Indian positions on international conflicts. India votes against Uncle Sam's position at the UN 81% of the time. Our romance with India today is reminiscent of Clinton's clinch with China even as he stomped on Indonesia - kissing up to our enemies while ditching long-time friends. A big part of our problem with Pakistan is that we've sided persistently with India, after all the support Pakistan offered us throughout the Cold War.
#7
I would hardly call the Indian positions "backstabbing". Its position was well known. It was neither an ally nor an enemy of the USA.
Because of its location and economy, it was rather irrelevant to the USA for decades and American policymakers could tolerate this position.
You should read some of US Ambassador Dennis Kux's articles (or his book on India-US relations). He points out (1) how the US grossly underestimated the ill effect that transfers of US weaponry (in the early 1960s) to Pakistan would have on relations with India.
(2) The tilt towards Pakistan by Nixon and the dispatch of the Enterprise battle group to the Bay of Bengal poisoned relations for thirty years.
(3) Ambassador Robin Raphael practically ran South Asia policy in the late 1980s. Her unauthorized statements on Kashmir caused much distrust.
The Fabian socialist idiots who ran India were quite distrustful of the USA. One could hardly expect them to support US policy.
Note that the current Indian cabinet still has a few of these morons - the senile Foreign minister Natwar Singh and the strongly anti-US petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyer.
They can be counted on to sabotage moves made by the Prime Minister or Defence Minister.
Posted by: john ||
09/19/2005 20:48 Comments ||
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#8
Backstabber or otherwise, any nation in India's position-- courted by all, friend to none-- would act as India is acting now. They hold all the cards, and will of course up the ante to the maximum possible with anyone: Iran, the US, China, Japan, Israel, France, Britain. The fact of the matter is that we are constrained in multiple ways in Asia and will have to cut all kinds of deals-- with India and Russia especially. We'd better get used to it.
#9
India's position in the contemporary near and far east is analogous to Russia's position prior to WWII: the ultimate power broker, a cynical as opposed to an honest broker. Kissinger called Molotov-Ribbentrop the outcome of "Stalin's bazaar", in which Soviet support was sold to the higher bidder. We can expect the Indians to act the same way. They are not our enemies, but they'll not likely be our friends for at least another generation.
#10
lex: The fact of the matter is that we are constrained in multiple ways in Asia and will have to cut all kinds of deals-- with India and Russia especially.
Actually, we're constrained only because we have these mutual defense treaties all over the place, which means that India can piggyback on the security that we provide. If we pull back on all fronts, India's the one that will come begging. Note that China continues to have claims on substantial chunks of Indian real estate - territory that used to be part of China's tributary state structure before the British East India Company came along. There is nothing I would love more than to see the Chinese put the screws to the Indians. It would be like the Soviets fighting the Nazis all over again.
#13
john: China will not sacrifice Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai for Arunachal Pradesh
And India will not sacrifice all of its cities for South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh). China has hundreds of short and medium range nukes that can annihilate big chunks of India's industry. In this respect (of stockpiling nukes), India is decades behind. Any war between China and India will be a strictly conventional affair.
China's cities are conurbations - low population density areas designed for surviving nuclear attacks - a legacy of tension with both Uncle Sam and the Soviet Union. Shanghai's population is 13m people. It rests on an area of 6,700 sq km. Bombay (incl suburbs) has a population of 9.5m people. It rests on an area of 438 sq km. Guess which city is more likely to be completely destroyed by a nuclear attack.
#14
But India does not need to annihiliate entire Chinese cities. Shanghai is now a modern skyscaper laden metropolis. Hong Kong is, well, Hong Kong.
The city centres would be destroyed in an attack.
The economic losses would be terrible. They would weaken China in a confrontation with other powers (Japan, USA).
And there is a question as to how many bombs China does have. It may have hundreds of missiles but how many warheads are available for an attack on India? China has to deter much bigger fish.
Posted by: john ||
09/19/2005 23:20 Comments ||
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#15
Fact is China refrained from further territorial expansion wars against India when the Indian military was much weaker (and non-nuclear) because it did wish to get involved in a protracted war with India over land. It was simply not worth it.
It is not likely to risk severe damage to its economy at this stage in its developmwent. The costs of a war with India now would be quite high.
A conventional war would probably escalate.
Posted by: john ||
09/19/2005 23:26 Comments ||
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#17
john: And there is a question as to how many bombs China does have. It may have hundreds of missiles but how many warheads are available for an attack on India? China has to deter much bigger fish.
FAS has an estimate of the Chinese nuclear missile inventory here. China doesn't need deter either the US or Japan, because neither country is interested in attacking China. In a war over South Tibet, all it needs to deter is a first strike from India. And its hundreds of missile-mounted and air-delivered nukes will do just that. If China isn't worried about bringing on about an American nuclear attack over an invasion of Taiwan, it certainly won't get worked up about India's dozen or so nukes. Fact is that India is a much smaller country with far more of its industry located in city centers. The PLA was built around fighting a nuclear war, first with the US, then with the Soviet Union. I think it can survive a nuclear war with India. Can the Indian military survive a nuclear war with China? What will the Pakistani military do when Indian cities are a pile of ashes? Payback time...
#19
john: Fact is China refrained from further territorial expansion wars against India when the Indian military was much weaker (and non-nuclear) because it did wish to get involved in a protracted war with India over land. It was simply not worth it.
Actually, that was probably due to the Soviet Union getting worked up about China beating up on one of its good buddies. The Soviets got all worked up again when China invaded Vietnam in the 1970's.
#20
If China isn't worried about bringing on about an American nuclear attack over an invasion of Taiwan, it certainly won't get worked up about India's dozen or so nukes.
First Indian test was in 1974.
It has been producing weapons grade plutonium since then (at one stage continuously refuelling some CANDU reactors, limiting power production but maximizing usable plutonium yield).
A dozen weapons in thirty years? Not very likely.
China clearly has numerical and technological nuclear superiority against India.
It does however worry about an American attack and would hardly be expected to weaken itself over a land dispute with India.
Someone driving an old, beaten-up Ford pickup can be reckless in traffic. The guy with the Mercedes is a little more careful. As China becomes richer, its tolerance for nuclear war fighting drops.
Posted by: john ||
09/20/2005 0:02 Comments ||
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Hat tip No Pasaran, though I first read it in the french language jewish blog Balagan. Note that according to some analysis Douste-Blazy has been placed at the top of the Quay d'Orsay (french State department, where he's supposed to be nicknamed "Mickey d'Orsay") mainly to be non-obstrusive and let De Villepin and Shirak do business as usual.
By Avirama Golan, Haaretz Correspondent
The French satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaine reported in its September 14th issue that during the visit of French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy to the new Holocaust museum in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem on September 8, he asked - while perusing maps of European sites where Jewish communities had been destroyed - whether British Jews were not also murdered. Needless to say, Douste-Blazy's question was met by his hosts with amazement. "But Monsieur le minister," Le Canard quoted the ensuing conversation, "England was never conquered by the Nazis during World War II."
The minister apparently was not content with this answer, which, according to the magazine, was given by the museum curator, and persisted, asking: "Yes, but were there no Jews who were deported from England?"
Douste-Blazy arrived in Israel earlier this month for a first visit, as the guest of his Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
According to an investigation by Haaretz on Sunday, the event actually occurred as described, although no official source was willing to confirm it. Douste-Blazy did visit Yad Vashem on September 8, at 11 A.M. He was in fact escorted by the curator of the museum, his entourage from the French foreign ministry and several French reporters.
One of the escorts confirmed on Sunday, on condition of anonymity, that the quotes in Le Canard were accurate, and that they caused great embarrassment. "It's a bit difficult to understand," the source said, "how an educated French person, who was serving in the French government during the huge celebrations of the Normandy landings, does not remember basic facts about the history of World War II, and especially Britain's role, especially in light of the fact, that France's great leader, General de Gaulle, led the operations of the Resistance from exile in London."
The French embassy in Israel learned of the embarrassing incident from Le Canard.
Yad Vashem spokeswoman Iris Rosenberg said in response that the French foreign minister had visited the Holocaust memorial site at the said date and time, and that she hoped his visit was "successful and enriching."
Philippe Douste-Blazy is considered a successful and prominent politician in France. A cardiologist by training, he served until a year ago as health minister. His visit to Israel was noted as an additional positive step in the warming of relations between Israel and France.
#2
Actually, our Dear Leader and his UMP party are supposed to be *conservative* (though el Chi's military files cited him as "communist" during his service, back in the olden days, and though he's embraced anti-globo worlview, cf. Galouzeau "de villepin"'s petition for an international tax on air travel)...
In the 80's Shirak was supposedly inspired by Reagan and Thatcher and brievely flirted with the nationalist FN (he's been since an avowed adversary, for unspeakable reasons IMHO), for example when he said that the "odors and the noises of large muslim families on the dole" drove french workers crazy... but to get elected to presidency in 1995, he's fully succombed to his deep socialist tendancies (plus he's a "gaullist", ergo a statist).
Douste-Blazy is supposed to be christian center-right, by the way.
They're not the left, they're the *right*, which should tell you how shifted to the left is the whole french political landscape. There is no credible right, period.
#3
The French seem to be doing very well at whitewashing their role in WWII.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/19/2005 13:12 Comments ||
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#4
Strangely enough, this fellow is not of the left but of the right.
The French right is and always was more than a little anti-Semitic. The Dreyfus case of a hundred years ago was in one sense a symptom of this. These days the French left has become anti-Semitic as well, so there really is no political home for French Jews.
#5
God, it must be hard for the French to remember that not everyone surrenders instantly. I mean, in their personal experience, since Napoleon everyone else is stronger than them, and is constantly kicking the crap out of them. I guess they just can't see any different possibility.
Also, if everyone deported Jews, then how could you fault the poor French from doing what everyone else did. A way to reduce their own blameworthyness.
Posted by: Mark E ||
09/19/2005 13:24 Comments ||
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#6
Channel Islands, IIRC was occupied and collaborated. Dont think there were any Jews there.
#9
Yes there were Jews in the Channel Islands and most were deported. The Islanders really had no choice although they protested it. Many of the non-resident English were also deported as were those with previous military experience.
See: "The Model Occupation" by Madeline Bunting
Posted by: DanNY ||
09/19/2005 14:37 Comments ||
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#10
"Many historians consider that an even worse crime was committed in Vichy-controlled southern France, where the Germans had no say. In August 1942, gendarmes were sent to hunt down foreign refugees. Families were seized in their houses or captured after manhunts across the countryside. About 11,000 Jews were transported to Drancy in the Paris suburbs, the main transit centre for Auschwitz. Children as young as three were separated from their mothers - gendarmes used batons and hoses - before being sent to Germany under French guard, after weeks of maltreatment.
During 1942, officials sent 41,951 Jews to Germany, although the deportations came to a temporary halt when some religious leaders warned Vichy against possible public reaction. Afterwards, arrests were carried out more discreetly. In 1943 and 1944, the regime deported 31,899 people - the last train left in August 1944, as Allied troops entered Paris. Out of the total of 75,721 deportees, contained in a register drawn up by a Jewish organisation, fewer than 2,000 survived."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/genocide/jewish_deportation_04.shtml
#11
Yes... If that'll make the French happier about their "experience" in "dealing" with Germany in WW2, they can take solice in the fact that those snooty British went through the same thing in those incredibly important places; the Channel Islands. I mean, we all saw those photos of Hitler walking through the streets of the quickly surrendered and pacified capitol of Great Britain, didn't we? Oh, that's right. He never did. He only did that through Paris.
Posted by: Mark E ||
09/19/2005 15:10 Comments ||
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#13
One of the things the French lobe is joke about how uncult are the Americans. But it is France who has a Foreign Minister (ie a person who, nearly by definition is supposed to be well educated in geographical and historical matters of foreign countries) who doesn't know that the UK didn't deport Jews because er, it was at war with Germany...
In case yopu didn't notice the Wehrmacht didn't have the Channel to cross in order to reach London. Paris didn't have that luck. Oh, and while we are at it, if we judge by the piss-poor pezrformance of the American Army at Kasserine (despite having had the benefit of over two years of studying the Blitzkrieg), America wouldn't have fared that good in 1940 without the Atlantic for stopping the Germans.
You should provide a bit of context: at the end of the war over 70% of French Jews had survived (and I am speaking of those in France proper, not about those of North Africa); In Belgium the survival rate was only 1 in three (ie two times less). In the Netherlands it was only 1 in 5 (nearly four times less). So perhaps the French put a little less enthousiasm in turning Jews that some other people who don't get half the bashing.
Posted by: Mark E ||
09/19/2005 16:19 Comments ||
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#17
JFM
My dad and his 10th Mountain Divison destroyed the SS in Italy short history here
My uncle landed 3 days after d-day then fought all the way to the end inculding the battle of the bulge where he was one of three in his company to walk out alive. (incidently he told me that his worst engagements were with the French girlfriends of the german troops. They fought to the death while their boyfriends withdrew. He didn't like the French.)
Many members of my family tree fought all over Europe and Asia. Some didn't make it.
One half of the men in my mom's high school class died.
Your Kasserine pass statement was really low and not meaningful.
The women of the US built the weapons that the US, China, USSR, and the rest of the allies used to win. The US taxpayers funded the war and the Manhatten project (to end it - yes I know you europeans think the Japanese were nothing... ask the US troops who fought in both theaters - the Japanese were a much tougher enemy to fight.)
I could go on and on but I will say that I think the Marshall Plan was a mistake. We should have used the money to help pull South Am. up to modern levels and secured our own hemisphere.
#18
Well, he is not entirely wrong. Jews from the Channel Islands, which were the only British territory under German occupation, were in fact persecuted and in some cases deported into German concentration camps. Also 1000 Jewish slave workers were (among others) in fact deported to Jersey and Guernsey to work on the fortifications.
If I remember well they are represented at Yad Vashem.
#19
I dont think the point of mentioning Kasserine was to diss the US army, so much as to point out that if the French army had had time, they might have improved their performance as well. That they did not have such time, was due to politics and geography, not to any lack of courage or skill on the part of French soldiers.
It was Winston Churchill, who, as France was falling, called De Gaulle "L'homme du destin"
#20
A recent RG (that police intelligence) report estimated that only 7% of the numerous and antisemite acts are done by the far-right, and 93% by "disgruntled muslim youths".
Believe me, french per se are not jew-haters. I do not say that there are not some anti-jew prejudice in the catholic right (for example my very nice and likeable grandmother is anti-Israel, her rationale being "they killed the Christ"..., but the father of her grand grand son and my brother in law is jewish, and she really likes him) and in the far right in general, but this is marginal, and is not significant. I repeat, there is some prejudice, just as in the USA I take, but there is no a "french" antisemite streak.
On the other hand, it is true that the official party line (gvt and MSM) is antizionist and anti-Israel, the demonization of Israel and the victimization of the paleo being very much a standard feature of news reporting (that's what the french public is forcefed), and that really gave a free pass and "justified" to the muslim's hatred and acts of violence... much to the dismay of the authorities; the so-called and very artificial "warming" between Israel and France is certainly partly due to that, the pro-arab and anti-israel line was having blowback effects in terms of civil peace back in France.
Mr. Taguieff, a french scholar, did an excellent work on the theme of the "judeophobia", the new antisemitism of the muslims and western far left and far right, based on victimization and anti-racism (jews being seen as the new nazis, and the paleos as the news jews).
By the way, my personnal uneducated theory is that anti-americanism (which is very much associated with antisemitism disguised as antizionsim in the left) has taken the place of traditionnal, catholic antisemitism (that is, not race-based), with the same stereotypes : americans are greedy, they start wars, they're physically unfit (ok, this one is true if I judge by the obesity numbers ;-)) and degenerated, they're cowards who can't fight, they rule the world through stolen money,... ad nauseam.
#21
JFM, it seems you are either french or francophone, no? I thought a few comments were in order to help you overcome your woeful ignorance about the American Military.
See, since we didn't DECLARE WAR on the nazis in 1939 and since we were NOT a neighbor, does it matter if the US was ready for battle in 1940?
In any case, did anything happen after Kasserine Pass, JFM?
Like, oh, say....kicking the nazis out of Africa causing over 200,000 casualties? Or kicking the nazis out of Sicily? And then Italy? And then France? And the low countries? And bombing them by day for several years?
And where were the vaunted french finghing forces during the war? I will tell you where: bring up the rear behind the Amis and Englisch. Well, until we let them parade into Paris, as if they had actually won it in battle.
This at the same time we were defeating Imperial Japan almost alone.
One final note. American units generally did rather poorly until they were 'blooded'. After that, they generally whipped everyone's ass they ever faced.
#22
We are drifting away from the subject here. The Foreign Minister of France did not know whether Jews had been deported from the UK to Nazi death camps during World War 2.
The limited exception of the Channel Islands is not relevant because he persisted even after being told that England had not been conquered, implying that he believed in the possibility that the British might have deported Jews to Nazi death camps on their own accord.
This is just pure, unadulterated abysmal ignorance and I think it is fair to hold a whole country responsble for it when it comes from a high official of the government.
#24
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
--Winston Churchill
Anybody ever translate this into French, or are they missing the word for "fight" in their language?
The Euros always argue from the lowest common denominator... Others deported Jews, so how can you find fault with our collaboration... This doesn't obviate the fact that their own gov't leaders don't know or intentionally ignore their own history. Weak.
Posted by: Mark E ||
09/19/2005 17:11 Comments ||
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#25
Isn't the "Canard" a lot like the "Onion"?... I'm with TGA... I don't think much of the average French politico, but I'd want a lot more proof that this Douste-Blazy is that much of an insular, uneducated f**king moron before I credit this story entirely.
So, is he that much of an insular, uneducated f**king moron?
#26
The Canard is a satirical magazine (fun to read actually) and they do love to report the "gaffes" (blunders) of politicians. Sometimes it's a bit hard to decide where the report stops and satire begins.
the British could withdrwa to the other side of bthe channel, lick their wounds and then try and try and try agin in the deserrt against a relatively small German force until they got it right.
Same thing for the Americans: they could afford to have their asses kicked, that would not lead to the Germans occupying the factories who were feeding the German Army, not even, given the limited size of the German expeditionary corps to the Americans being thrown tpo the sea.
For the Russians they spent 1941, withdrawing much faster and being captured in far greater numbers than the French in 1940. But Russia was so much bigger. De Gaulle said, after being treated in a condescending way by the Russians: "if we had had two thousand miles for falling back WE would be lecturing the Russians."
Now if you had studied the campaign of France you would know that even if the French soldiers had not the same enthousiasm than in 1914, it was the generals not the soldiers who lost the war. And that the French soldiers did not do that bad at that part about dying for the country: three thousand a day, 120,000 in the whole campaign ie over two Vietnams in only 40 days. The part where they did it bad was about having the Germans die for their country: some five French soldiers fell for every German killed.
#28
JFM is correct about Kasserine Pass. And both defeats were more defeats of leadership, not forces. The major difference is that after Kasserine we did not give up.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 17:52 Comments ||
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#29
Mark E told:
Anybody ever translate this into French, or are they missing the word for "fight" in their language?
I suggest you visit Verdun before you make that kind of stupid and racist remarks.
My point was that Kasserine showed how badly prapared were the Americans but it was a small scale fight with limited stakes.
While when France lost its own "Kasserine Pass", what was at stake was teh anihilation of the French Army and the falling of the French weapon and ammo factories in German hands.
#32
JFM is right on WWI. For the most part, the French soldier fought very well and bravely. The problem is their leadership sucked monkey butt and the average soldier finally refused to attack in suicidal waves anymore. Unfortunately for France, WWI not only drained their manpower, but the national will to fight. The German breakout of the Ardennes could have been blunted and stopped with an armored fist since the French tanks were better than the German tanks and the French had the will to fight. Report after report from that time talks about the French just giving up and not wanting to fight. After WWII, the French soldier fought well, but the leadership sucking monkey butt came back into play and the French army has never been the same. Sadly, the best French unit now isn't even made up of Frenchmen.
#34
JFM is one of Rantburg's loyal French correspondents, and a charming and knowledgeable one at that. Please don't attack him just because you don't like what he says.
#35
I think he's being attacked because of what his country says, whether he agrees with it or not. I like JFM, his comments and some of his country persons I have met. But I readily admit I detest the nation made up of the rest.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 20:05 Comments ||
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#36
hmmm - I for some reason thought JFM was female....dunno why
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2005 20:54 Comments ||
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#37
The past is history - good for reference, but lousy for making decisions on today's problems. If this idiot actually DID make the statements attributed to him, he should be out of the French government by sunup tomorrow. Unfortunately, that won't happen, as the French government isn't concerned about the stupidity of their members, but how much they can rob from the French people.
Kasserine Pass was the first time American troops actually saw battle. My father was there. It wasn't just leadership - the American troops didn't know what to expect or how to react. The same thing happened at Tarawa. Both were learning experiences. Normandy showed exactly how much they learned.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2005 20:58 Comments ||
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#38
JFM, what was the excuse in 1870? It took von Moltke from 4 August to 19 September to get to Paris. 1914? The only reason the Germans didn't reach Paris in six weeks in 1914 was that Nicholas II sacrificed Russia by attacking before his armies were fully mobilized and forced the Germans to divert forces to the East. 1940? Germany attacked 10 May and entered Paris 19 June. Six weeks seems to be about the time required for German armies to get to Paris. There is a reason why the national bird of France is the Coq Galois.
#39
It would be as grave a mistake to confuse the sentiments of the French political class with the views of the nation overall as it would be to take the view of the NYT editorial page board as symptomatic of Americans' views. Le Monde, the Enarques who run the country, the rest of the political-intellectual elite are extraordinarily cynical, corrupt and hostile to the US and Israel in ways that most ordinary (non-muslim) Frenchmen are not and never will be.
A leading Zimbabwean cabinet minister vowed at the weekend to rid the country of the "filth" of white farmers. Didymus Mutasa, the minister for state security and land reform, said all remaining white farmers must be "cleared out".
That has a rather ominous sound about it
About 400 slow to learn white families are still farming in Zimbabwe, following the seizure by President Robert Mugabe's government of more than 4,000 farms.
Mr Mutasa, one of Mr Mugabe's closest advisers, referred to Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean out the trash" in the Shona language) - the campaign in which the government destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of urban poor. "Operation Murambatsvina should also be applied to the land reform programme to clean the commercial farms that are still in the hands of white farmers. White farmers are dirty and should be cleared out. They are similar to the filth that was in the streets before Murambatsvina," said Mr Mutasa, according to the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper.
"Abyss dead ahead! Signal all engines full speed!"
The government also announced it had annulled more than 4,000 court challenges by farmers to the expropriation of their farms. Last week Mr Mugabe signed a constitutional amendment taking away the farmers' rights to legally challenge land seizures. "All the challenges are now useless - they are all being nullified," said the chief law officer in the attorney general's office, Nelson Mutsonziwa.
Must be one of those "Living Constitutions" I keep hearing about
Posted by: Steve ||
09/19/2005 12:06 ||
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#1
This is a wonderfull way to encourage foreign investment in Zimbabwe. The IMF and WTF must be foaming at the mouth by now.
#2
Yeah and they lazy too. Ain't not one of them come over here to do my plantin for me.
Posted by: Farmin B. Hard ||
09/19/2005 12:38 Comments ||
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#3
I was going to write some (well, to me) smart-arse comment about having a Kill-a-bob-a-thon, where we'd all tune-in and contribute to a fund to pay some professionals to take him out.
But, there's no point is there? It wouldn't be all that funny - after a while you know that mocking people isn't going to change others perceptions and attitudes.
This is all too real, those white farmers are *going to die* if they stay in the land of their birth. The land they helped to make the breadbasket of Africa.
I think Kim du Toit has got it right, let Africa sink (his server is not available at the moment, Google has a cache).
It's not a happy read, but remember he did time in an SA jail for being against apartheid and his mum and sister are still there (as of '04).
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/19/2005 13:06 Comments ||
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#4
Hmmm, I should have dug around a bit more before offering up that second URL. The site is pretty 'questionable' to my eye, so this URL is the google cache.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/19/2005 13:24 Comments ||
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#7
Where is all of the Race Baiters and Multicultaralist shouldnt they be defending the poor minorities in Zimbabwae suffering under brutal racism??????????
Oh never mind those are just those evil white devils. They deserve only death and persicution.
#8
I garantee if this was Whites openly slaughtering the blacks or any X minority the UN the LLL's everyone and thier brother would be stepping over themselves to save the day and denounce or stop the abuse.
Equal rights is equal not reverse racism two wrongs dont make a right.
People in polar bear suits will be among those gathering in Washington on Tuesday to protest the Bush administration's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Congress is about to vote on a bill that might open the Alaskan refuge to oil drilling, and the Tuesday's protest, organized by a coalition of environmental groups, is aimed at pressuring lawmakers to oppose the plan. Robert Kennedy, Jr., is one of the featured speakers at the event, which will take place outside the U.S. Capitol.
Bobbie's gonna talk. That's it, you guys have lost. Put a fork in 'em, they're done. RK Jr is a raving nut-wing, and every time he opens his mouth he convinces people to join the other side.
A press release said "busloads of rubesfoolssimple-minded rustics citizen lobbyists from across the U.S. and Canada" plan to join the protest, which will include a drum procession by Native Americans and "large crowds of citizens with signs." oh no - not the signs!!! better give in right away ....
Is this a protest march or a lashkar meeting?
After years of controversy, the U.S. government is as close as it's ever come to drilling for oil in a small section of the Arctic wilderness. In what opponents call a brilliant sneaky move, Senate Republicans included an ANWR drilling provision in the Senate's fiscal 2006 budget resolution, because budget bills cannot be filibustered.
The House version of the budget bill does not include ANWR drilling language, however, which means the ANWR drilling language will have to be included in the final budget reconciliation, which Congress must vote on in the next few weeks.
An article posted on the National Wildlife Federation's home page says the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "is not a flat, white nothingness."
Some parts of it are brown with rocks. The rest of it is pretty flat and white.
"Imagine a land so remote that few have ever visited it except the indigenous peoples," the article says, then goes on to describe ANWR as the "crown jewel" of the Arctic.
Critics of ANWR oil drilling say the pipelines and other oil drilling apparatus will have a negative impact on wildlife in the area, but supporters, including the Bush administration, insist that ANWR exploration is a key step toward greater U.S. energy independence, and they say new technology makes it possible to develop energy sources with minimal environmental impact.
Arguments rage about how much oil ANWR would produce and the amount of time it would take to bring the oil to market and whether conservation measures would better reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. But the recent spike in gasoline prices makes the argument more relevant to ordinary Americans.
Let the price hit $5 a gallon and they'll be talking about drilling off the coasts of California and North Carolina.
While the arguments against ANWR drilling will be laid out at Tuesday's protest in Washington, a grassroots business/citizens' group called Arctic Power is offering ten reasons why ANWR drilling is a good idea. Arctic Power notes that only a relatively small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be affected by oil exploration, while 92 percent of it will remain off-limits to any kind of development. The lobbying group also outlines various economic benefits, including new jobs, that would flow from the opening of ANWR. I wonder if the bear suit jokers realize how stupid they appear to people with common sense. probably not ....
Posted by: too true ||
09/19/2005 11:14 ||
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#1
Bear Costume? Haloween is coming up. I just had to order a Power-Rangers-Dinothunder costume for my 4-1/2 year old!
The person in the bear suit is probably justadvertising for some costume rental joint. {WINK WINK}
#2
Gonna be 86 in D.C. tomorrow. Enjoy those bear suits.
Also make sure Bobby Jr. gets asked about the windmill farm he'll be able to see from Uncle Ted's house. Ask him if it'll screw up the view of the "indigenous peoples" of Hyannisport.
#4
I've been to D.C. in the summer before, and shorts/t-shirt were plenty. What kind of dumbass would wear a polar bear suit in that kind of heat?
When the guy has a heat stroke and dies will it be Bush's fault? Der Speigel will probably report it that way.
#9
The bear-suiting sillies are just acting out a harmless sexual fetish (defining deviancy downward, anyone?). Just ignore them unless they start getting carried away in front of the children.
#10
mojo might be thinking of Giant Pandas, which indeed are not bears.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
09/19/2005 14:31 Comments ||
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#11
I want a concession to sell bear-hunting licenses on the Mall!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2005 18:11 Comments ||
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#12
The protesters are absolutely right. We must preserve this God forsaken wasteland fragile ecosystem from the depredations of oil exploration. The fate of a herd of caribou or the noble polar bear is certainly more important than national security corporate greed.
#13
I think that the folks in the bear suits should be taken into custody and dropped out on the pack ice beyond Churchill Bay with the real polar bears.
Ja, ve got der Sudetenland, but...
If anyone thought that Israelâs withdrawal from Gaza would revive prospects for peace, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas scotched that notion nearly two weeks ago. Full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines is insufficient, he declared: Israel must also concede additional territory inside these lines.
Specifically, Abbas demanded land north and east of the Gaza Strip. This land was indeed on the Arab side of the 1949 armistice lines, but Egypt, which controlled Gaza at the time, traded it to Israel in 1950 in exchange for a larger chunk of land that Israel held in eastern Gaza. This new border was subsequently acknowledged not only by UN Resolution 242, but also by the Oslo accords, which the Palestinians signed. The PA, therefore, has no conceivable claim to this land: not only did Israel âpurchaseâ it by ceding a larger bit of land to Gaza, but the new border was recognized by both the UN and the PA itself.
Thus when PA officials first raised this demand in talks with Israel several weeks ago, Israeli officials dismissed it as a negotiating ploy. But what Abbas did nearly two weeks ago is not so easily dismissed: in an interview published in a major Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, on Sept. 3, he told the Palestinian public that âthe evacuation of the settlers, the settlements and the army from the Strip are steps in the right direction, but it does not mean the end of the occupation. There are lands in eastern and northern Gaza still under occupation⊠We need to renegotiate the details and get back to the real border.â
This statement manages to undermine every major foundation of the peace process at once.
First, peace was always predicated on the idea that Palestinian demands are finite, and that once Israel meets them, the grounds for conflict will disappear. But in this case, Israel no sooner agreed to withdraw to Gazaâs recognized international border than the PA produced a new territorial demand â one it had never raised before â and began mobilizing Palestinian public opinion behind it.
Second, any treaty requires confidence that once an agreement is signed, the issue is closed. But in this case, the PA, which consented to the current Gaza-Israel border in the Oslo accords, is now blithely demanding that the issue be renegotiated.
Third, the peace process relied on the assumption that even if parts of Palestinian society were reluctant to end the conflict, their leaders would educate them toward reconciliation. Instead, the âmoderateâ Abbas has done the opposite: by raising his new territorial demand publicly, in the Palestinian media, he has encouraged the Palestinians to adopt a previously nonexistent grievance, thereby making it harder for any future leader to reach an agreement.
Fourth, the peace process was predicated on the belief that most Palestinians do want peace. But even Abbas, the most moderate leader the Palestinians have yet produced, is apparently so unwilling to give up any pretext for conflict that he has advanced a completely untenable territorial claim in order to avoid acknowledging the end of Israelâs âoccupationâ of Gaza. That indicates that his goal is not ending the conflict, but perpetuating it.
Finally, the peace process rested on the belief that ending âthe occupationâ would end Palestinian terror. Thus disengagement supporters predicted that Israelâs departure from Gaza would largely end terror from the Strip, because the terrorist organizations would be unable to justify continued attacks against Israel from âliberatedâ territory.
The only thing that would surprise me more would be to see the MSM report it like the Paleos are victims of Israeli occupation not report the bit about the paleos having no claim to the land.
#3
Sounds like it may be time for another "six days" war. If this story is real, the PA is going to have a hard time getting any help whatsoever. The roadmap took years to put together and now it looks like they were just screwing with us and Israel.
#4
Paleo demands are infinite. The number of Paleos is not...and a sharp decrease is in the near future as I see it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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abbas tossed this out in an interview with local press. Hasnt raised it anywhere else. I wouldnt worry too much about it - more like an attempt to add another small bargaining chip for the tough negotiations over the West bank and Jerusalem.
#6
Their is no point of negotiations and we not should ignore these claims even if they are throw away lines. The PLO/PLA never has given up it's goal of throwing Irrael into the sea and killing every Jew it can. They don't and can't bargain in good faith.
#7
Paleos to Jordan and Egypt, preferably with many dead. Israel from the sea to the river. Amman, Damascus, Riyadh, Cairo and the Aswan Dam put on notice that the first terror attack after that gets them blown to nuclear hell. Only then will there be any peace, and it will only hold as long as the Israelis can hold the nuclear gun to their heads with the finger tight on the trigger. The Israelis truly might be better off nuking them all first because sooner or later it's going to come to that.
Posted by: mac ||
09/19/2005 19:37 Comments ||
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#8
But, but, the "International Community" would condemn them and become anti-Israeli and, and...
#9
I think it's time for Israel to stop negotiating with these murderers, and kill them all. I personally won't lose a minute's sleep if Israel napalmed the entire Ramalah headquarters of the PA, and tossed in a few thousand canisters into Gaza. I also think it's time to tell the EU to F*** OFF about making demands, when they don't have any authority in the area, they're not the ones being killed and maimed, and they have no desire to accept any responsibility for the consequences of their behavior. Of course, I'm a rather bloodthirsty b*****d, and don't speak for my government - dammit!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2005 21:03 Comments ||
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#10
OP, sounds good but would be better to let the Egyptians and Jordanians do the killing. They are proficient at killing Palestinians and are much better at getting away with it.
The al Qaeda "war" against Iraqi Shia is now five days old. Some 250 Iraqis have been killed so far, most on the first day, and most of them civilians and Shia. But a growing number of the dead bodies found are Sunni Arabs, and it appears that some of the newly trained Shia police and soldiers are moonlighting as death squads. Sunni Arabs complain of raids, sometimes by men in uniform, that efficiently remove Sunni Arab men, who later turn up dead, and often showing signs of torture (indicating interrogation to obtain more information on who is attacking Shia civilians.) The government is not making a particularly strong effort to find out who the moonlighting police are, and stop them. The government keeps telling the Sunni Arab leadership that these al Qaeda attacks on Shia civilians can only end badly for the Sunni Arab population. While many Sunni Arab groups, still loyal to the Baath Party (or Saddam Hussein), and determined to have Sunni Arabs running the country again, continue to attack Shia Arabs, the victims are increasingly attacking right back. Terrorism, it appears, works both ways in Iraq. But instead of spectacular car bombs, the Shia Arab and Kurd "avengers" (as they see themselves) stalk individual Sunni Arabs (known to have been killers of Saddam, or terrorists today), and shoot them dead. Sunni Arab men known, or believed to be involved in terrorist operations, are rounded up at night, usually to be never seen alive again. All of this is in addition to legitimate counter-terrorist operations, where the people rounded up survive the process.
Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is getting desperate. More and more of his key subordinates are being rounded up or killed. His bases in Sunni Arab areas are being captured or bombed (after their location is given up by locals angry with the continued terrorism). The war, however, is being fought in a traditional fashion. That means bloody raids by one tribe's warriors against each others populations, as well as attacks on the tribal leaders (both religious and civil.) Dozens of Sunni and Shia religious leaders have been assassinated in the past year, and the surviving ones increasing travel with large security details. But the Sunni Arabs have lost most of their military edge. That was not so bad when most of the troops they faced were American. But the recent battles along the Syrian border saw the majority of the troops being Iraqi. While the Americans still did some of the most difficult fighting (because that was, in the end, easier and safer than letting the less capable Iraqis do it, and possibly get into big trouble), it was the Iraqis that went in and screened the civilian population, and battled any stray holdouts. To the Sunni Arab civilians, this meant that these Shia Arab or Kurdish troops were taking names, and noting who was really hostile, and who appeared resigned to the "new Iraq" (run by the majority Shia and Kurds). The Sunni Arabs knew that the Americans were not going to protect them from pre-dawn raids by off-duty Shia or Kurdish policemen, or a carload of Shia assassins looking to avenge a kinsman killed by a Sunni Arab working for Saddam in the past, or al Zarqawi today.
In this part of the world, such tribal conflicts are sometimes fought to the point where the weaker tribe is exterminated, with survivors scattered to distant refuges. Most Shia Arabs and Kurds are not unhappy with this outcome, for those Sunni Arab tribes that continue to support the terrorists. And some Sunni Arab tribes are determined to resist until the end. They do this believing that Sunni Arab majorities in neighboring countries like Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will ultimately come to their aid. This is largely a false hope. Only Saudi Arabia, and it's Gulf Arab allies, have the power, and they live in fear of an armed response from Shia Iran. Only America has the power to stop the Iranians, and America won't do that in order to put the Sunni Arabs back in charge in Iraq.
Al Zarqawi is correct in viewing the struggle as one between the Shia Arab majority, and the Sunni Arab minority. Where al Zarqawi is wrong is in his belief that the Sunni Arabs cannot fail to win if they kill enough Shia Arabs. For al Zarqawi, this is a religious battle. The Sunni fanatics that run al Qaeda see all Shia as heretics, who do not have the support of God. That's not only bad theology, it's inaccurate. God sides with the Big Battalions. And in Iraq, those belong to the Shia.
Posted by: ed ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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#6
. . . instead of spectacular car bombs, the Shia Arab and Kurd "avengers" (as they see themselves) stalk individual Sunni Arabs (known to have been killers of Saddam, or terrorists today), and shoot them dead. Sunni Arab men known, or believed to be involved in terrorist operations, are rounded up at night, usually to be never seen alive again. All of this is in addition to legitimate counter-terrorist operations, where the people rounded up survive the process. . . .
It may not be law, but it is justice.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/19/2005 12:10 Comments ||
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#7
This is the same "dirty war" pursued in Chile, and to some extent in Argentina, to defeat leftist guerrillas by imprisoning, torturing and killing their supporters. I'm honestly not sure there is any other way to win a struggle against a radicalized internal foe.
It's not a war Americans can fight or win, but it's something the Iraqi's can.
It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the only iprmoatnt tihng is taht the fist and the lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The mnid raed wrod as a wlohe :)
#10
But instead of spectacular car bombs, the Shia Arab and Kurd "avengers" (as they see themselves) stalk individual Sunni Arabs (known to have been killers of Saddam, or terrorists today), and shoot them dead.
They have been watching the success of Mossad and taking notes.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
09/19/2005 18:56 Comments ||
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#11
Son of a gun! You're right! I blazed right through all that without a moment's hesitation. I learn something every day.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/19/2005 18:58 Comments ||
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#12
Very enlightening - it's like a larger scale Hatfields and McCoys.
If we were *really* nasty, we'd be widening the fissures that are obviously there. Imagine Saudi Arabia 'coming to the rescue' (do their fighter-bombers really have a third seat for the Pakistani/Filipino that actually *does* the work?) of Sunni brethren in Iraq, with their stallwart allies the Syrians (this years main contender for total state breakup) and the Jordanians (that 100% Jew-hating nation) running slap-bang into an Iran that has been rejigging its armed forces to prevent coup d'etat and may even have some bottled sunshine to hurl around.
Sheesh! they'd better hope the elections and constitution work out in Iraq, 'cos if the US walks away shaking its head "nope, democracy don't work for folks like this", then they really are staring into the abyss.
Oh and instability of the region? that's a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/19/2005 19:11 Comments ||
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Iraqis, still stunned yesterday by sectarian violence that killed more than 200 people in four days, find themselves under a propaganda bombardment from all sides as the Americans and the Iraqi government duel insurgents for the hearts and minds of a battered people.
The most recent broadside showed up in al-Mutammar, a secular daily newspaper, as an anonymous paid advertisement denouncing al-Qaida in Iraq as "followers of the devil."
In language aimed at Arab sensitivities to family and tribe, the ad denounces al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his mentor, Osama bin Laden, as men who strayed from Islam and their Arab roots.
"There are two things in this world that warrant the direst of punishments: arrogance and cruelty against members of the same family," read the ad in yesterday's edition of al-Mutammar. "Arrogance leads them (al-Zarqawi and bin Laden) to believe they are above the law, that they can decide what Islam is ... as if they were princes and judges.
"But where is the humility ... which the prophet, peace be upon him, embodied."
The anti-al-Qaida diatribe was just the latest salvo, however, in a media battle in which insurgents have used the Internet to show brutal hostage beheadings and to declare war on Iraq's Shiite majority, U.S. forces and the American-backed government.
For its part, the government routinely televises interrogations in which alleged insurgents confess their brutal crimes while encouraging citizens to call anonymous tip lines to report insurgent activities.
And the Americans just as routinely say that the security situation steadily improves and will be better still as Iraqi political institutions take root.
Reporters have been flooded with good news of schools opened after U.S. military refurbishment, water systems repaired and al-Qaida leaders captured. Yet somehow, they never seem to make it into the AP dispatches ...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 03:08 ||
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The accounts are disturbing: beatings, forced sex and imprisonment with shackles and leg irons. Abuse accusations from hundreds of children sent to study at Islamic schools are prompting growing calls from parents and rights groups for a full-scale investigation.
But officials have moved slowly and cautiously in probing the charges of mistreatment in Quranic schools, or madrassas -- pointing to a paradox across much of the Muslim world. It's often easier to tackle Islamic militants than to confront the cultural taboo on publicly airing alleged sex crimes and challenging influential clerics.
Still, if Islamic institutions ever face a reckoning over sexual abuse -- such as the Roman Catholic upheavals in recent years -- it could begin in Pakistan where institutions already are under unprecedented scrutiny by anti-terrorism agents.
"We are forcing people to look this problem in the eye," said Zia Ahmed Awan, whose group Madadgaar, or Helper, compiles reports of sexual abuse of children in Pakistan. "It is not anti-Muslim. It is not anti-cleric. We are looking out for the most vulnerable in society."
Last year, a Pakistani official stunned his nation by officially disclosing more than 500 complaints of sexual assaults against young boys studying in madrassas. Children's rights advocates were elated, feeling their long-standing claims had been validated. They also hoped Pakistan's actions would open related inquiries in other Muslim nations -- similar to the domino effect through parishes after the Catholic abuse scandals broke in the 1980s.
But there's been little progress since.
There have been no significant arrests or prosecutions involving alleged sex abuse in madrassas. Also, the official who made the revelations -- Amir Liaquat Hussain, the deputy minister for religious affairs -- now refuses to discuss the issue after reported death threats and harsh criticism from Islamic leaders. He turned down repeated interview requests by The Associated Press.
Every discussion about Pakistan's madrassas leads eventually in an uncomfortable direction for authorities: the potential problems of leaning too hard on Islamic schools.
The madrassas have ties to influential religious and political groups. The core of madrassa funding is a tour of powerful networks: government aid, Saudi donations and zakat, the traditional Islamic practice of giving alms.
The schools also serve as a social safety net in a nation with a galloping birth rate and nearly one-third of the population under the poverty line -- meaning they cannot afford basic necessities.
Poor families often count on the nation's more than 10,000 madrassas to take one or more young sons to ease financial strains at home. The boys typically receive little more than Quranic studies for an education. But the big dividend for families is the housing, clothes and meals offered the boys. The schools, which have up to 1 million students, operate with almost no official oversight.
"The mullahs think they are above the law," said Asma Jehanghir, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernment agency. "We have to break this wall of silence."
An Interior Ministry official confirmed that police are investigating some cases of alleged sex abuse by madrassa instructors. He declined to give further details or to be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Hanif Jalandhri, the head of the Federation of Madrassas, the main overseeing agency in Pakistan, acknowledged that abuses could occur, but disagreed it is a widespread problem.
"I cannot rule out isolated incidents of sex abuse at madrassas, but I reject reports that hundreds of students are being subjected to sexual attacks at madrassas," he told AP. "It is wrong."
Pakistani rights groups are encouraging parents and children to speak out and document abuse. Dozens of allegations of abuse in madrassas are being compiled -- part of a wider campaign to draw attention to child abuse in a culture where domestic violence is common but rarely reaches the public's attention.
"The difference now is that no one can deny (abuse) is happening," said Manizeh Sano, executive director of Sahil, a group assisting child victims of sexual abuse. "The leaders of madrassas cannot turn their back on this problem anymore. That's a first step."
A madrassa teacher and two others are jailed awaiting trial in the port city of Karachi for an acid attack on a 14-year-old boy in 2002 after he allegedly refused to have sex with a cleric. The boy was blinded and badly disfigured. The suspects deny the charges.
In December, in another part of Karachi, Muhammad Askoroni's mother noticed a bite on the 10-year-old boy's neck. The child started crying and vomiting when asked what happened, said his mother, Dil Jauher. The boy's claim: a cleric at his madrassa sodomized him after evening Quran classes, according to a complaint filed with police and the rights group Madadgaar.
Jauher claims a madrassa official and village elders offered her a bribe to keep the incident quiet. "But I want justice for my son," she told AP.
There have been no arrests yet in the case.
The files of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan include the affidavit of Atif Rehman, who was 11 when he was admitted to the Lahore Children's Hospital in April 2004 with head injuries and extensive bruises. He told investigators he was routinely beaten with iron rods at a madrassa in the northern city of Faisalabad and was chained when he tried to escape.
"The boy was bleeding from the mouth and nostrils," said his father, Muhammad Aashiq, according to the commission report.
A madrassa teacher, Qari Mahboob Aalam, denied the torture allegations, but admitted "it is a practice to chain students," the report said.
The maximum penalty in Pakistan for sexually attacking a child is life imprisonment, according to Karma Cauchy, a senior Pakistani lawyer. But tribal justice and Islamic law dominate in some parts of the country and could bring calls for violent punishment.
"When you start talking about it, then you start to think that things can change," said Fazila Gulrez, spokeswoman for the Islamabad-based Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. "That is what's happening here in Pakistan. People are starting to talk about it."
The problem goes beyond Pakistan, according to scattered references to alleged sex abuse and other rights violations in madrassas noted in recent international reports.
A 2003 survey by the Thailand-based group ECPAT -- or End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes -- raised concerns about madrassa teachers in Mauritania forcing students to beg on the streets and hand over the money.
In Bangladesh, rights groups have increased calls for madrassa investigations after a teacher was arrested in March and charged with raping girl students, who are allowed to attend the schools that in many other countries are male-only.
In the Middle East, few activists have demanded investigations into conditions in Islamic schools, but that could change as groups increasingly challenge traditional centers of influence.
"Pakistan is now a center of the showdown between modernizing Islam and forces resisting change," said Irfan Khawaja, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who follows Islamic affairs. "The madrassa issue is part of this. It will spread around the Islamic world."
Amnesty International and the Human Rights Council of Pakistan have recounted cases in Pakistan of students shackled to prevent escape and noted growing allegations of sex abuse.
"Leaders of religious parties resent official probing into the functioning of the madrassas and threaten retaliation if they are more closely controlled," Amnesty wrote.
The London bombings in July, meanwhile, could hasten the end to the madrassas' traditions of secrecy and autonomy in Pakistan.
At least one of the attackers visited a Pakistani madrassa. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has vowed to stamp out "extremism and militancy" in madrassas and has threatened to close schools that refuse to register with authorities by the end of the year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 03:03 ||
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#1
Using sexual abuse scandles to close or regulate these madrassas would give Pervez a nice out, wouldn't it? "I'm doing it for the children"
Posted by: Steve ||
09/19/2005 8:23 Comments ||
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#2
In a society that institutionally disregards and diminishes the role if not the very existence of women (making them invisible through use of burqa's), you will find increased incidents of forced sodemy, particularly on young boys and adolescents. In some cases, this is a means of male on male dominance. In some cases, this is a rage fulled expression of sexual incapacity and frustration. Once the lid comes off on the social and sexual practices which accompany Islam's rejection of women, perversion will seem too small a word to describe it.
#3
here's a photo of the sick mullah bastards found it on a Palestinian watch site, but lost the address, found it again at another site--thought a few might like to take a look at the disgusting pervs the mullah's really are.
"In December, in another part of Karachi, Muhammad Askoroni's mother noticed a bite on the 10-year-old boy's neck. The child started crying and vomiting when asked what happened, said his mother, Dil Jauher. The boy's claim: a cleric at his madrassa sodomized him after evening Quran classes . . . "
This kind of trauma is, in most cases, a life-long problem for the victim.
#4
should also be a life-long problem for the cleric - say, about half an hour?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2005 21:28 Comments ||
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#5
That is a photo Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the supremo of SCIRI until the Sunnis blew him and a hundered others up at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. Gives you a warm feeling to know his brother and SCIRI are the main power in Iraq.
Posted by: ed ||
09/19/2005 22:20 Comments ||
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He knows that because it's his job to patch up the people caught in this country's violent insurgency.
In civilian life, the 46-year-old Army Reserve colonel is a trauma surgeon and critical-care doctor in Minneapolis. But for the past three months, Beilman has been a surgeon at the 228th Combat Support Hospital stationed near Tikrit.
The CSH â called a "cash" â is this war's version of a MASH unit. When soldiers get wounded in combat, the first doctor they'll see will be someone like Beilman. He'll perform the operations needed to keep them alive for the next 72 hours, until they can be sent to a hospital in Germany or the United States.
At about dinner time, as predicted, two men who are part of a private security-company convoy arrive at the emergency room. They were caught by an insurgent's bomb hanging from a highway overpass.
One man from Oregon took a piece of shrapnel near the shoulder blade. The other, a Jordanian, got his hand torn up in the blast.
The shoulder injury is superficial. But Beilman and the hospital's orthopedic surgeon, Maj. Matt Kelly, spend the next three hours operating on the Jordanian's hand.
It's often a lot worse.
"You usually get two, three, four patients from each of these IED [improvised explosive device] blasts, ranging from minor, like this guy, to half a leg hanging on," Beilman says.
The previous Sunday night, for example, Beilman fought to prevent an Iraqi soldier from bleeding to death from a leg wound. Beilman gave him fresh whole blood donated from a couple of U.S. soldiers, blood platelets flown in from another U.S. hospital and the latest blood-clotting drugs. He lived.
"We spent four hours after surgery pouring this stuff into this guy," Beilman says. "I ended up sleeping in here that night."
Beilman is here because his fellow soldiers are "children of America and they deserve good care when they put themselves in harm's way."
But the biggest chunk of Beilman's time is caring for other countries' kids.
Most of his trauma patients and the ones with the worst injuries are Iraqi soldiers and police, foreign contractors and private security employees working in the war zone, Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire and insurgents who sometimes are hauled to the hospital by the same soldiers who shot them up.
"They just get brought here, and we take care of them," Beilman says.
Monday morning, Beilman starts checking in on patients in the hospital's 20-bed intermediate-care ward.
It's about two-thirds full of Americans and Iraqis. Most of the Americans are recovering from surgeries for ailments such as appendicitis and hernias.
American body and vehicle armor is "one of the real successes of this war," Beilman says.
"The body armor is blocking those fatal shots to the chest and abdomen that used to kill these kids in Vietnam," he says.
Most of the Iraqis are recovering from war wounds.
"I'm good. Thank you," says an Iraqi patient, putting his hand over his heart as Beilman examines his leg wound.
The Iraqi was attending a wedding of a Ministry of Interior official. A suicide bomber blew himself up at the wedding, and another insurgent shot people as they fled. The gunman was wounded, and he ended up at the hospital, too.
"We had to keep the family of this guy from taking the other guy out," Beilman says.
"We did like 10 operations on him, and got him well," he says of the insurgent. "The last couple of weeks it was a fascinating experience. He was pleasant. He was worried about his wife and his family. He was asking me about my children. And this was an insurgent who was shooting down women and children at a wedding party where his partner has just blown himself up in a bomb. It was hard for me to comprehend."
Beilman says he knows other people have a hard time comprehending why he heals the enemy.
"My brother-in-law says, 'Why are you taking care of them?'
"As a doctor, my job and my purpose is to care for the patient, whoever they are, in a compassionate and caring way. That's the doctrine for the U.S. Army Medical Corps," Beilman says. "Ethically, I would have trouble with it any other way. Especially with the abuses we've heard about in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. I have to be able to look myself in the mirror every night."
Some of Beilman's problem's are mundane: a U.S. soldier complaining about hemorrhoids. Beilman says it's really an anal fissure, and he suggests an operation called a sphincterotomy.
Then a call comes in on the radio. A patient with a gunshot wound is being flown in.
As he waits for the helicopter, Beilman, who watched "M*A*S*H" reruns while going to college in Kansas, explains why he likes moments like this.
"The experience of doing surgery in a war environment will make me a better doctor," he says. "Some doctors love a controlled setting. Trauma surgery is the complete opposite of a controlled setting. You have to be good at thinking on your feet. That's one of the reasons I like it."
He hears the roar of a Black Hawk landing, and people start rushing into the emergency room.
"Here we go," he says.
A blood-soaked gurney comes in with a helmeted helicopter crewman pumping a ventilator bag. The patient is a 16-year-old Iraqi.
About a dozen people crowd around â doctors, nurses, medics and an interpreter. They start examining him, connecting tubes and wires, giving him blood and oxygen.
The operating-room suite is a prefab modular unit hooked up to a tent. Before he scrubs for the surgery, Beilman puts on knee-high black rubber boots.
"When you have a big, bloody case and you're going to make a mess, you put these on," he explains.
"Who shot him up?" someone asks. "One of us," Beilman replies. "He was driving too close to the convoy, and they shot him."
The patient is lucky. He lost a lot of blood initially, but he was given good care before he arrived at the hospital.
"Looks like the bullet went in and blasted through his lung and blasted through the hole in his back," Beilman says. But "the lung will heal itself."
It's only 12:30 p.m. when he finishes up and thanks everyone in the operating room. There's still that sphincterotomy in the afternoon. And in the days ahead, more gunshot wounds, hernias, spider-bite infections, bomb blasts, colon-cancer operations.
"I've got job security," he says.
He takes off his surgical gown. He asks a technician if he can bring her a sandwich. Then he puts on his pistol and helmet so he can walk across the base to get lunch.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 03:02 ||
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Using enemy body counts as a benchmark, the U.S. military claimed gains against Abu Musab Zarqawi's foreign-led fighters last week even as they mounted their deadliest attacks on Iraq's capital.
But by many standards, including increasingly high death tolls in insurgent strikes, Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, could claim to be the side that's gaining after 2 1/2 years of war. August was the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.
Zarqawi's guerrillas this spring and summer showed themselves to be capable of mounting waves of suicide bombings and car bombings that could kill scores at a time and paralyze the Iraqi capital. Insurgents have also launched dozens of attacks every day in other parts of Iraq and laid open claim this summer to cities and towns in the critical far west, despite hit-and-run offensives by U.S. forces.
Last week, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, declared "great successes" against insurgents. But Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, where Lynch briefed reporters, was under stepped-up security screening and U.S. guard for fear of suicide bombings. Insurgents for three days running last week managed to lob mortar rounds into the Green Zone, the heart of the U.S. and Iraqi administration.
Lynch spoke at the close of a two-day onslaught of bombings and shootings that killed nearly 190 people, the bloodiest days in Baghdad since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
Over 17 days this month, guerrillas across Iraq killed at least 116 Iraqi forces and 346 Iraqi civilians in drive-by shootings, bombings and other violence, according to Iraqi officials.
And in the west, Zarqawi's foreign and Iraqi fighters this month raised the black banners of al Qaeda in Iraq in the border city of Qaim, one of many areas in the region where Iraqi government forces have feared to take up positions or moved out. Al Qaeda fighters recently carried out public executions of men suspected of supporting U.S. forces or the Iraqi government.
"Whoever is protected by Americans is in our sight and in the range of our fire," Zarqawi's group declared in statements posted Thursday in Anbar province's capital of Ramadi, which along with nearby Fallujah is a major stronghold of the estimated 30,000 U.S. forces in the western province. The statement appeared hours after al Qaeda rocket and mortar strikes on U.S. military installations in Ramadi killed one Marine.
The same morning, scores of al Qaeda fighters streamed into the streets of Ramadi, taking up positions with new automatic weapons. Witnesses said one group of insurgents proudly displayed a new rocket launcher that put U.S. armored vehicles in the glowing red beam of its targeting laser.
The fact that American forces still attack entire cities and towns in the west is a sign of how much territory remains out of U.S. and Iraqi government control, said Abu Hatem Dulaimi, a member of the Zarqawi-allied Ansar al-Sunna Army.
"I can say that the legend of the undefeated U.S. Army is gone, owing to our rockets and mines, which are separating them from it day after day," Dulaimi said in a telephone interview. "If they bet that time will be the way to end the resistance, they are wrong, because we are stronger since a year ago or maybe more."
Twenty-five members of Ansar al-Sunna killed themselves and others in suicide attacks last month, he said, and 53 volunteers for suicide attacks have arrived since.
"The problem is, I have seen no meaningful" goal posts, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, "and a great many conflicting points" on U.S. claims to be winning against the insurgency.
While the U.S. military seems to have made some progress in parts of the west and parts of Baghdad, Cordesman said, "it isn't clear in doing so that it has really crippled any part of the insurgency."
Jeffrey White, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said insurgents have fought U.S.-led forces to a stalemate at least in Anbar province, northern Babil province and some other areas.
After generally rejecting body counts as standards of success in the Iraq war, the U.S. military last week embraced them -- just as it did during the Vietnam War. As the carnage grew in Baghdad, U.S. officials produced charts showing the number of suspects killed or detained in offensives in the west.
Lynch, the military spokesman, cited killings and detentions of 1,534 insurgents in the region. The fact that the number of insurgents killed or captured in the northern city of Tall Afar was roughly equal to advance estimates of their strength, he said, was proof that insurgents weren't simply escaping to fight another day -- and that U.S. forces were doing more than razing infrastructure. "Zarqawi is on the ropes," Lynch told reporters.
It was not clear, however, how many of those detained or killed in the offensives were insurgents. Since 2003, U.S. forces have detained 40,000 people, twice U.S. generals' highest public estimate of the number of fighters in the insurgency. On Saturday, the Iraqi government said it had released for lack of evidence more than 500 of the 757 suspects detained in ongoing operations in the northern city of Mosul.
Many of the men detained in Tall Afar last week were rounded up on the advice of local teenagers who had stepped forward as informants, at times for what American soldiers said they suspected amounted to no more than settling local scores.
"The question is, what does victory mean? It certainly isn't the number of people we kill or detain," Cordesman said. The U.S. death and detention counts have "zero credibility," since U.S. forces provide little detail on those being killed and detained, he said.
U.S. military officials have set broad goals for what constitutes victory in Iraq, including denying terrorists a haven and reducing the insurgency to a level that the fledgling Iraqi security forces can handle. The United States aims to leave behind an Iraq with a representative government that respects human rights and is at peace with its neighbors, the officials said.
The effort against the insurgency clearly has made some gains. Iraqi forces, disbanded in 2003, have been rebuilt to 190,000 trained and equipped members, according to U.S. figures. With Saddam Hussein-era veterans leading them, the Iraqi forces appear to be a credible army in some areas.
Iraq's disaffected Sunni Arab minority has been at least partly persuaded to join the political process to regain a measure of its power, a shift that might help defuse the homegrown part of the insurgency. And Iraqis as a whole show little support for Zarqawi and have resisted his efforts to goad Sunnis and Shiites into civil war.
From Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, down to his underlings, American officials have insisted this summer that, at the least, the insurgency is not growing. Pressed to explain the claim, U.S. military officials said recently that they meant only that they believe the insurgency remains concentrated in no more than four of Iraq's 18 provinces.
But Cordesman, the Washington-based analyst, said there was evidence that more foreign volunteers were arriving and more Iraqis were joining the insurgency. U.S. officials claim to have eliminated a number of insurgent leaders, he said, but the insurgency doesn't seem to have slowed.
"On a day-to-day basis, the overall level of security is obviously low. We can't secure the airport road, can't stop the incoming into the Green Zone, can't stop the killings and kidnappings," Cordesman said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces offer scant protection to any Iraqis who stand up to Zarqawi's fighters. Insurgents -- through intimidation rather than popularity -- still have the upper hand in cities and towns where the U.S. and Iraqi military presence is weak and transient. In Anbar, a tribe near Qaim that vowed to fight Zarqawi was left this month battered and holed up in its village, calling for U.S. help.
"Is there enough force here right now to secure this area permanently? No. Are there opportunities for the enemy in other areas within our region? Yes," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tall Afar.
For Zarqawi's purposes, U.S. claims of denying insurgents a lasting haven probably mean little, Cordesman said. "Being fluid, dynamic, scattered, broken out into cells seems to be the way any effective insurgency wins, or certainly endures," he said.
Since the start of the war, the U.S. military appears to have been limited by having too few troops to block either the emergence or the growth of the insurgency. Last week, Lynch advised what he called "combat patience" regarding plans to target the insurgents' Euphrates River strongholds in western Anbar. U.S. ground commanders there have said thousands more American forces are needed to secure towns and close the Syrian border.
Cordesman and other analysts said that ultimately, a bulked-up U.S. presence in any one area, with troops who speak no Arabic and have comparatively little expertise in counterinsurgency, risks spurring new fighters to join the insurgency at least as fast as old ones are eliminated.
The answer, military officials and analysts say, lies in something the U.S. and Iraqi governments haven't been able to achieve: the creation of a truly national army that includes Sunni Arabs for deployment into Anbar and other hot spots, and of a national government that gives the Sunni minority back a share of political power.
"You can't win in Anbar, Baghdad or anywhere else except politically," Cordesman said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 02:56 ||
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#1
I find it disturbing that there are still mortars being lobbed into the Green Zone. The GZ is a good distance away from the rest of the city, surrounded on two sides by river, and the buildings in it are dispersed. This means that there should be only a tight zone in which a mortar could be fired and land near anything.
A small number of snipers placed in buildings in this tight zone should easily be able to wipe out anyone attempting to use a mortar, even if it is fired from a vehicle.
#2
Have you ever been in the military, Anymoose? You can set up and fire a mortar in as little as three minutes, with training. Accuracy may be another thing, but with something as big as the Green Zone, it's hard to miss. Also, you can't watch everywhere at once.
A guerilla "insurgency" such as this one can pop off a few rounds, but look at how little damage they're doing. It's purely for propaganda purposes, and Cordsman knows it. Effective military action is impossible for Zarqawi, so all he has left is symbolic acts and killing the innocent.
As for "victory", each day we stay is a victory. Each day brings Iraq closer to being able to defend itself, to manage its own internal affairs. Each day brings greater economic stability, political stability, and freedom to the individual people. They're growing to enjoy that freedom, and are developing the will to fight to retain it. That is victory. Zarqawi can kill, but he can't win.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2005 20:35 Comments ||
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#3
Any moron can kill civilians. New York City loses about 600 people to untrained killers every year. There is nothing that the police can do to stop them. They can go after these people after the fact, but they can't prevent them from happening. If each of these murderers strapped a bomb belt to his waist, the total death tally would be in the thousands. Fact is that there is nothing particularly conceptually difficult about fighting the Iraqi insurgency - it's all about killing or capturing the murderers one by one until they're all out of commission.
At sundown, the most-wanted man in Ghazni province comes roaring down a country road astride his motorcycle. Mohammed Daud, 35, commands the biggest Taliban force in this area roughly 100 miles southwest of Kabul. But today he travels with just one bodyguard. The two bikes wheel into a melon patch, trailed by a billowing cloud of red dust. Climbing off his machine, Daud launches into a glowing account of where he spent the first few months of this year and what he's done since his return. "I'm explaining to my fighters every day the lessons I learned and my experience in Iraq," he tells a NEWSWEEK correspondent. "I want to copy in Afghanistan the tactics and spirit of the glorious Iraqi resistance."
A crueler setback would be hard to imagine for America and its Afghan allies. At the same time as more than 12 million registered Afghan voters were getting ready last week for their first real parliamentary elections since 1969, insurgents in Baghdad continued their homicidal campaign to make Iraq ungovernable. In the Iraqi capital's deadliest day of direct attacks since the U.S. invasion, terrorists slaughtered more than 160 peopleâmost of them civilians, including roughly 112 jobseekers at a hiring center for day laborers. After nearly three decades of unrelenting carnage in Afghanistan, even some Taliban veterans may not have the stomach for Iraq's levels of indiscriminate bloodshed.
Nevertheless, Daud and other Taliban leaders tell NEWSWEEK that the Afghan conflict is entering a new phase, with help from Iraq. According to them, Osama bin Laden has opened an underground railroad to and from jihadist training camps in the Sunni Triangle. Self-described graduates of the program say they've come home to Afghanistan with more-effective killing techniques and renewed enthusiasm for the war against the West. Daud says he's been communicating a "new momentum and spirit" to the 300 fighters under his command.
U.S. military officers in Afghanistan say they've seen no evidence of any direct collaboration between the Taliban and Iraq's insurgents. "That's not to say that it couldn't happen or be in the process of happening," says one senior U.S. military officer who can't be quoted by name because of the sensitive nature of his job. "If I started to see that," he adds, "then I would begin to worry." Afghanistan's top brass is worried now. Taliban forces are larger, more aggressive and better armed and organized than at any time since the end of 2001, says Defense Minister Abdur Rahim Wardak: "They have more men, equipment, money, better explosives and remote-controlled detonators." Worse yet, he says, there are "strong indications" that Al Qaeda has brought in a team of Arab instructors from Iraq to teach the latest insurgent techniques to the Taliban.
After last October's unexpectedly peaceful presidential vote, U.S. and Afghan officials were nearly playing "Taps" for the Taliban, calling it a spent force, no longer able to carry out serious military activity. Al Qaeda was skimping on the Afghan rebels in order to build up the insurgency in Iraq. Now, Wardak says, bin Laden evidently is helping the Taliban get more and better arms from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. "We have information that the Taliban have received new weapons and explosive devices," says a European diplomat who didn't want to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, "most probably because of increased financial support from abroad and some traffic between Iraq and Afghanistan through Iran."
One beneficiary of Al Qaeda's renewed interest in Afghanistan is Hamza Sangari, a Taliban commander from Khost province. Late last year, he says, he received an invitation from none other than bin Laden's chief envoy to the insurgents in Iraq, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi. Sangari, 36, says he jumped at the chance for advanced field training in the Sunni Triangle: "God heard and granted my request to see and learn from the Iraqi mujahedin." In December he traveled there with a select group of eight Afghan Taliban, two Central Asians and five Arab Qaeda fighters. They set out from Pakistan's Baluchistan province, south of Afghanistan, carrying a letter of introduction from al-Iraqi and traveling afoot, on motorbikes and in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the Iranian border. Late one moonless night, a heavily armed convoy of Baluchi drug smugglers took them across the border and deep into Iran. Sangari and his companions were relayed from one band of smugglers to another until early January, when they finally crossed the unmarked desert border into Iraq.
Sangari spent his time in Iraq being escorted to guerrilla bases in towns like Fallujah and Ramadi, and in remote desert regions. He says he was welcomed wherever he went. "I've never been so well received," he says. He was impressed with what he saw. "The Iraqi mujahedin are better armed, organized and trained than we are," he says. He stayed four weeks at a remote training camp called Ashaq al Hoor, he says, where he saw adolescent boys being trained as suicide bombers.
An Arab named Abu Nasser taught him to make armor-penetrating weapons by disassembling rockets and RPG rounds, removing the explosives and propellants and repacking them with powerful, high-velocity "shaped" charges. Another Arab trainer, Abu Aziz, trained him to make and use various kinds of remote-controlled devices and timers. A veteran Arab fighter named Abu Sara showed him how to spring ambushes and engage in urban fighting. Sangari said he often heard the sounds of battle nearby. He volunteered to fight, but his instructors told him his job was to study and get home alive to fight in Afghanistan. He did as he was told, only to be put out of action during a shoot-out with U.S. and Afghan forces in July. When he talked to NEWSWEEK he was in a mud-brick house on the Pakistan border, recuperating from a bullet wound in his shoulder.
Both Sangari and Daud say the demolitions training was particularly useful. (The two commanders tell of strikingly similar itineraries, although they claim they have never met.) Sangari says his men had been relying on obsolete land mines left over from the Soviet occupation, but thanks to Abu Nasser and Abu Aziz, now they are building Iraq-style IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and setting them off by remote control. Daud particularly likes a device he calls a "TV bomb": an IED in a black and silver plastic box, like a portable television. It's a shaped-charge mechanism that can be hidden under brush or debris on a roadside and set off by remote control from 300 yards or more. Triggered, it springs toward its target and explodes with armor-penetrating force. "That remote system is very effective in Iraq," Daud says. In the past two months, he says, his men have used 18 or so of these bombs against Afghan and U.S. patrols, inflicting more than 20 casualties.
Still, the Taliban is barely a shadow of the military juggernaut that seized Kabul in 1996. Afghanistan's cities are returning to vibrant life, and most of the countryside is peaceful. The main exceptions are the impoverished backwaters of the south and east, where Mullah Mohammed Omar's guerrilla movement began more than a decade ago. Even in those areas, America's troopsâroughly 20,000 in the country, all toldâare hunting down the jihadists. In the last four months alone, according to U.S. military statistics, at least 450 Taliban fighters have been killed, out of a total estimated fighting force of several thousand.
And yet the war continues. The guerrillas seem to have no trouble recruiting and arming new fighters. Daud says his forces have tripled from 100 to 300 since last year. This year at least 51 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan, compared with a total of 60 in the first three years of combat. One big reason for the jump in the U.S. fatality rate seems to be the guerrillas' shift to shaped-charge IEDs. Even crudely manufactured devices can be far more deadly than Soviet-era land mines.
The big worry is that studying Iraqi tactics will make the Afghan resistance significantly stronger and more lethal. During a recent sweep of pro-Taliban sites along the Afghan frontier in north Waziristan, Pakistani troops collected a mound of Arabic-language training manuals, apparently copies of the ones used by insurgents in Iraq. Sangari says he was impressed by way Iraqi insurgents created combat videos to help fund-raising and recruiting efforts; now similar videos of Taliban attacks are showing up in bazaars along the Pakistani border. An even scarier development was a suicide bombing at a mosque in Kandahar in early June that was eerily similar to atrocities against places of worship in Iraq. The blast killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 50 others at the funeral of Maulavi Abdul Fayaz, a prominent pro-government cleric. (The Taliban claimed responsibility for his death, but denied any role in the mosque bombing.)
The trouble is, people grow accustomed to atrocities. Commander Daud boasts of having assassinated at least 12 Afghans since Julyâ"American spies," he calls them. He says his men also killed a popular local parliamentary candidate back in Mayâa mistake, he says. The real target was not Akhtar Mohammed Khan, but his brother, a provincial official whose car he had borrowed that day. Late last week yet another candidate, Abdul Hadi, was shot dead at the door of his house in the southern province of Helmand, apparently by Taliban gunmen, bringing the number of candidates murdered during the campaign to seven. If people in Taliban country don't like such doings, few of them dare show it. Daud says he could never have ridden into villages in Ghazni two years ago as brazenly as he does now. "Everyone knows who I am," he says. "If we didn't have support from local people, we couldn't operate in this area for a single day." It could be that people are just plain scared of him, but still, he has a point.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:43 ||
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#1
NEWSWEAK. This article is a hoot.
Mohammed Daud, 35, commands the biggest Taliban force in this area roughly 100 miles southwest of Kabul. But today he travels with just one bodyguard.
Just the opening line makes you laugh out loud, not only for it's dark and stormy night verbage, but because you have to pity the poor Newsweak reporter attempting to create two guys on motorcycles in a mellon patch into a Commander of the largest Taliban force in roughly 100 milessince *snicker* 2001.
I could go on - but suffice to say it's a tough job making a historic election, that went off smoothly, into a quagmire.
#3
There should be a huge price put on this guy's head. Having a feature in Newsweak or any of the MSM should become the GWOT equivalent of being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Terrs and the MSM have an alliance that must be broken.
We should probably have a wet works that follows the MSM around and erases their sources.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/19/2005 8:38 Comments ||
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#4
If Newsweak had not squandered their reputation 50 years ago, then I might not wish them very worst I can imagine, FOAD.
THE MELON PATCH REPORT
2b right on the nail.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/19/2005 11:53 Comments ||
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#5
2b is right. This guy Dawood is the master of spin. I guess when he starts traveling with no bodyguards (because he's the last man standing), we'll really be in trouble.
#6
Come to think of it, I find it amusing that Newsweek, which always finds a way to spin news concerning Bush administration initiatives in a negative way, can only think of the good things (for the jihadi cause) that come to mind when they talk to actual jihadi sources. I think it's part of the old lefty reporter reflex that these guerrillas are big, bad and scary because they actually use guns (gasp), mines (double-gasp) and remote-controlled mines (triple-gasp).
#7
History quiz. How many native Afghani suicide bombers have there been since the Soviet invasion? Correct me if I am wrong, but by my count, zero. The Arabs have repeatedly encourged it but the Afghans - including the Taliban - have never bitten. IMHO, for them, fighting is mostly about running their turf. Dying is not the name of the game for them.
American intel officials believe three recent Qaeda videotapes represent a new strategy by Osama bin Laden's network to get more air time in English-speaking countries. Since early August, three different, and seemingly current, videotapes have surfaced featuring masked English-speakers uttering chilling threats. The English tapes may be aimed at getting lengthier and wider exposure for the terrorists' messages in target countries like the United States and Britain. Customarily, U.S. media have shown only snippets of Arabic-language videos featuring Qaeda bigwigs like bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. "Their view is that their propaganda will get more air time and column inches by using English-speakers," said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified because he was talking about intelligence issues.
The first new video, which got major attention Down Under, surfaced in early August on the Al Arabiya television network. Entitled "The War of the Oppressed People," the tape included sound bites from a hooded man carrying an AK-47. In an Australian accent, he declared, "The Muslim world is not your backyard. The honorable sons of Islam will not let you kill our sons... As you kill, you will be killed. As you bomb, you will be bombed." Australian media reports say the masked man is probably Mathew Stewart, a former soldier who reportedly disappeared in Afghanistan four years ago after being diagnosed with depression and discharged from the Army. Stewart's mother has denied that her son is on the tape. Next, a video surfaced on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel carrying what amounted to a final message from Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the four suicide bombers in the July 7 London attacks. Khan's speech, delivered in the accent of his native Yorkshire, was packaged with a Zawahiri tirade in Arabic praising the London bombings; intel officials in the United States and Britain say it has bolstered otherwise sparse evidence of a Qaeda connection to the London attacks. Finally, ABC News acquired a videotape featuring another masked terrorist, this one speaking in a stilted American accent, who threatened mayhem in Australia and the United States. According to ABC, this speaker was identical to the English-language speaker in a threatening video that surfaced right before the U.S. presidential election last year. U.S. officials say they believe the speaker is former Orange County, Calif., resident Adam Gadahn (whose family has not commented). He is described as a low-level Qaeda spokesman. More English-speaking propaganda is likely on the way.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:27 ||
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#1
The masked man with the Ozzie accent was prolly Mark Latham taking a part-time gig. I hear he's unemployed and somewhat bitter about it.
Interesting info if you can get around the frequent cheap shots at the Pentagon and General Franks.
Five men met in an automobile in a Baghdad park a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in April 2003, according to U.S. intelligence sources. One of the five was Saddam. The other four were among his closest advisers. The agenda: how to fight back against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. A representative of Saddam's former No. 2, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, was there. But the most intriguing man in the car may have been a retired general named Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, who had been a senior member of the Military Bureau, a secret Baath Party spy service. The bureau's job had been to keep an eye on the Iraqi military--and to organize Baathist resistance in the event of a coup. Now a U.S. coup had taken place, and Saddam turned to al-Ahmed and the others and told them to start "rebuilding your networks."
The 45-minute meeting was pieced together months later by U.S. military intelligence. It represents a rare moment of clarity in the dust storm of violence that swirls through central Iraq. The insurgency has grown well beyond its initial Baathist core to include religious extremist and Iraqi nationalist organizations, and plain old civilians who are angry at the American occupation. But Saddam's message of "rebuilding your networks" remains the central organizing principle.
More than two years into the war, U.S. intelligence sources concede that they still don't know enough about the nearly impenetrable web of what Iraqis call ahl al-thiqa (trust networks), which are at the heart of the insurgency. It's an inchoate movement without a single inspirational leader like Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh--a movement whose primary goal is perhaps even more improbable than the U.S. dream of creating an Iraqi democracy: restoring Sunni control in a country where Sunnis represent just 20% of the population. Intelligence experts can't credibly estimate the rebels' numbers but say most are Iraqis. Foreigners account for perhaps 2% of the suspected guerrillas who have been captured or killed, although they represent the vast majority of suicide bombers. ("They are ordnance," a U.S. intelligence official says.) The level of violence has been growing steadily. There have been roughly 80 attacks a day in recent weeks. Suicide bombs killed more than 200 people, mostly in Baghdad, during four days of carnage last week, among the deadliest since Saddam's fall.
More than a dozen current and former intelligence officers knowledgeable about Iraq spoke with TIME in recent weeks to share details about the conflict. They voiced their growing frustration with a war that they feel was not properly anticipated by the Bush Administration, a war fought with insufficient resources, a war that almost all of them now believe is not winnable militarily. "We're good at fighting armies, but we don't know how to do this," says a recently retired four-star general with Middle East experience. "We don't have enough intelligence analysts working on this problem. The Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] puts most of its emphasis and its assets on Iran, North Korea and China. The Iraqi insurgency is simply not top priority, and that's a damn shame."
The intelligence officers stressed these points:
⢠They believe that Saddam's inner circle--especially those from the Military Bureau--initially organized the insurgency's support structure and that networks led by former Saddam associates like al-Ahmed and al-Duri still provide money and logistical help.
⢠The Bush Administration's fixation on finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003 diverted precious intelligence resources that could have helped thwart the fledgling insurgency.
⢠From the beginning of the insurgency, U.S. military officers have tried to contact and negotiate with rebel leaders, including, as a senior Iraq expert puts it, "some of the people with blood on their hands."
⢠The frequent replacement of U.S. military and administrative teams in Baghdad has made it difficult to develop a counterinsurgency strategy.
The accumulation of blunders has led a Pentagon guerrilla-warfare expert to conclude, "We are repeating every mistake we made in Vietnam."
It is no secret that General Tommy Franks didn't want to hang around Iraq very long. As Franks led the U.S. assault on Baghdad in April 2003, his goal--and that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--was to get to the capital as quickly as possible with a minimal number of troops. Franks succeeded brilliantly at that task. But military-intelligence officers contend that he did not seem interested in what would come next. "He never once asked us for a briefing about what happened once we got to Baghdad," says a former Army intelligence officer attached to the invasion force. "He said, 'It's not my job.' We figured all he wanted to do was get in, get out and write his book." (Franks, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this article.)
The rush to Baghdad, critics say, laid the groundwork for trouble to come. In one prewar briefing, for example, Lieut. General David McKiernan--who commanded the land component of the coalition forces--asked Franks what should be done if his troops found Iraqi arms caches on the way to Baghdad. "Just put a lock on 'em and go, Dave," Franks replied, according to a former U.S. Central Command (Centcom) officer. Of course, you couldn't simply put a lock on ammunition dumps that stretched for several square miles--dumps that would soon be stripped and provide a steady source of weaponry for the insurgency.
U.S. troops entered Baghdad on April 5. There was euphoria in the Pentagon. The looting in the streets of Baghdad and the continuing attacks on coalition troops were considered temporary phenomena that would soon subside. On May 1, President George W. Bush announced, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," on the deck of an aircraft carrier, near a banner that read MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Shortly thereafter, Franks moved his headquarters from Qatar back to Florida. He was followed there in June by McKiernan, whose Baghdad operation included several hundred intelligence officers who had been keeping track of the situation on the ground. "Allowing McKiernan to leave was the worst decision of the war," says one of his superiors. (The decision, he says, was Franks'.) "We replaced an operational force with a tactical force, which meant generals were replaced by colonels." Major General Ricardo Sanchez, a relatively junior commander and a recent arrival in Iraq, was put in charge. "After McKiernan left, we had fewer than 30 intelligence officers trying to figure who the enemy was," says a top-ranking military official who was in Iraq at the time. "We were starting from scratch, with practically no resources."
On May 23, the U.S. made what is generally regarded as a colossal mistake. L. Paul Bremer--the newly arrived administrator of the U.S. government presence, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)--disbanded the Iraqi army and civil service on Rumsfeld's orders. "We made hundreds of thousands of people very angry at us," says a Western diplomat attached to the CPA, "and they happened to be the people in the country best acquainted with the use of arms." Thousands moved directly into the insurgency--not just soldiers but also civil servants who took with them useful knowledge of Iraq's electrical grid and water and sewage systems. Bremer says he doesn't regret that decision, according to his spokesman Dan Senor. "The Kurds and Shi'ites didn't want Saddam's army in business," says Senor, "and the army had gone home. We had bombed their barracks. How were we supposed to bring them back and separate out the bad guys? We didn't even have enough troops to stop the looting in Baghdad."
A third decision in the spring of 2003--to make the search for WMD the highest intelligence priority--also hampered the U.S. ability to fight the insurgents. In June, former weapons inspector David Kay arrived in Baghdad to lead the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which had 1,200 intelligence officers and support staff members assigned to search for WMD. They had exclusive access to literally tons of documents collected from Saddam's office, intelligence services and ministries after the regime fell. Kay clashed repeatedly with U.S. military leaders who wanted access not only to the documents but also to some of the resources--analysts, translators, field agents--at his disposal. "I was in meetings where [General John] Abizaid was pounding on the table trying to get some help," says a senior military officer. "But Kay wouldn't budge."
Indeed, a covert-intelligence officer working for the ISG told TIME correspondent Brian Bennett that he had been ordered in August 2003 to "terminate" contact with Iraqi sources not working on WMD. As a result, the officer says, he stopped meeting with a dozen Iraqis who were providing information--maps, photographs and addresses of former Baathist militants, safe houses and stockpiles of explosives--about the insurgency in the Mosul area. "The President's priority--and my mission--was to focus on WMD," Kay told TIME. "Abizaid needed help with the counterinsurgency. He said, 'You have the only organization in this country that's working.' But military guys are not used to people telling them no, and so, yes, there was friction."
Sanchez learned that autumn that there were 38 boxes of documents specifically related to the city of Fallujah, a hotbed of Sunni rebellion. Months later, when military-intelligence officers finally were able to review some of the documents, many of which had been marked NO INTELLIGENCE VALUE, the officers found information that they now say could have helped the U.S. stop the insurgency's spread. Among the papers were detailed civil-defense plans for cities like Fallujah, Samarra and Ramadi and rosters of leaders and local Baathist militia who would later prove to be the backbone of the insurgency in those cities.
U.S. military-intelligence sources say many of the documents still have not been translated or thoroughly analyzed. "You should see the warehouse in Qatar where we have this stuff," said a high-ranking former U.S. intelligence official. "We'll never be able to get through it all. Who knows?" he added, with a laugh. "We may even find the VX [nerve gas] in one of those boxes."
As early as June 2003, the CIA told Bush in a briefing that he faced a "classic insurgency" in Iraq. But the White House didn't fully trust the CIA, and on June 30, Rumsfeld told reporters, "I guess the reason I don't use the term guerrilla war is that it isn't ... anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance." The opposition, he claimed, was composed of "looters, criminals, remnants of the Baathist regime" and a few foreign fighters. Indeed, Rumsfeld could claim progress in finding and capturing most of the 55 top members of Saddam's regime--the famous Iraqi deck of cards. (To date, 44 of the 55 have been captured or killed.) Two weeks after Rumsfeld's comment, the Secretary of Defense was publicly contradicted by Centcom commander Abizaid, who said the U.S. indeed faced "a classical guerrilla-type campaign" in Iraq.
In a sense, both Rumsfeld and Abizaid were right. The backbone of the insurgency was thousands of Baathist remnants organizing a guerrilla war against the Americans. According to documents later seized by the U.S. military, Saddam--who had been changing locations frequently until his capture in December 2003--tried to stay in charge of the rebellion. He fired off frequent letters filled with instructions for his subordinates. Some were pathetic. In one, he explained guerrilla tradecraft to his inner circle--how to keep in touch with one another, how to establish new contacts, how to remain clandestine. Of course, the people doing the actual fighting needed no such advice, and decisions about whom to attack when and where were made by the cells. Saddam's minions, including al-Duri and al-Ahmed, were away from the front lines, providing money, arms and logistical support for the cells.
But Saddam did make one strategic decision that helped alter the course of the insurgency. In early autumn he sent a letter to associates ordering them to change the target focus from coalition forces to Iraqi "collaborators"--that is, to attack Iraqi police stations. The insurgency had already announced its seriousness and lethal intent with a summer bombing campaign. On Aug. 7, a bomb went off outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing 19 people. Far more ominous was the Aug. 19 blast that destroyed the U.N.'s headquarters in Baghdad, killing U.N. representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 22 others. Although al-Qaeda leader Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. intelligence officials believe that remnants of Saddam's Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) carried it out. "It was a pure Baathist operation," says a senior U.S. intelligence official. "The Iraqis who served as U.N. security guards simply didn't show up for work that day. It wasn't a suicide bomb. The truck driver left the scene. Our [explosives] team found that the bomb had the distinctive forensics of Saddam's IIS."
On Oct. 27, 2003, the assaults on "collaborators" that Saddam had requested began with attacks on four Iraqi police stations--and on International Red Cross headquarters--in Baghdad, killing 40 people. The assaults revealed a deadly new alliance between the Baathists and the jihadi insurgents. U.S. intelligence agents later concluded, after interviewing one of the suicide bombers, a Sudanese who failed in his attempt, that the operation had been a collaboration between former Baathists and al-Zarqawi. The Baathists had helped move the suicide bombers into the country, according to the U.S. sources, and then provided shelter, support (including automobiles) and coordination for the attacks.
By almost every account, Sanchez and Bremer did not get along. The conflict was predictable--the soldiers tended to be realists fighting a nasty war; the civilians, idealists trying to create a new Iraq--but it was troubling nonetheless. The soldiers wanted to try diplomacy and began reaching out to the less extreme elements of the insurgency to bring them into negotiations over Iraq's political future. The diplomats took a harder line, refusing to negotiate with the enemy.
Military-intelligence officers presented the CPA with a plan to make a deal with 19 subtribes of the enormous Dulaimi clan, located in al-Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni triangle. The tribes "had agreed to disarm and keep us informed of traffic going through their territories," says a former Army intelligence officer. "All it would have required from the CPA was formal recognition that the tribes existed--and $3 million." The money would go toward establishing tribal security forces. "It was a foot in the door, but we couldn't get the CPA to move." Bremer's spokesman Senor says a significant effort was made to reach out to the tribes. But several military officials dispute that. "The standard answer we got from Bremer's people was that tribes are a vestige of the past, that they have no place in the new democratic Iraq," says the former intelligence officer. "Eventually they paid some lip service and set up a tribal office, but it was grudging."
The Baathists, on the other hand, were more active in courting the tribes. Starting in November 2003, tribal sheiks and Baathist expatriates held a series of monthly meetings at the Cham Palace hotel in Damascus. They were public events, supposedly meetings to express solidarity with the Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation. (The January 2004 gathering was attended by Syrian President Bashar Assad.) Behind the scenes, however, the meetings provided a convenient cover for leaders of the insurgency, including Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, the former Military Bureau director, to meet, plan and distribute money. A senior military officer told TIME that U.S. intelligence had an informant--a mid-level Baathist official who belonged to the Dulaimi tribe--attending the meetings and keeping the Americans informed about the insurgents' growing cohesion. But the increased flow of information did not produce a coherent strategy for fighting the growing rebellion.
Saddam was captured on Dec. 13, 2003, in a spider hole on a farm near Tikrit. His briefcase was filled with documents identifying many of the former Baathists running support networks for the insurgency. It was the first major victory of what the U.S. called the postcombat phase of the war: in early 2004, 188 insurgents were captured, many of whom had been mentioned in the seized documents. Although Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam's former No. 2, narrowly evaded capture, much of his Mosul and Kirkuk apparatus was rolled up. Baathist financial networks were disrupted in several provinces. The CIA, in fact, believes that Saddam's capture permanently crippled the Baathist wing of the insurgency. "A guy like al-Duri is more symbol than substance at this point," a U.S. intelligence official says. "The parade has passed him by."
Military-intelligence officers who were in Iraq at the time, however, saw evidence that the Baathists regrouped in the spring of 2004, when the U.S. was preoccupied with battling a rebellion led by Shi'ite extremist Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq's south and with the fight for the rebel-held city of Fallujah in the Sunni triangle. And the U.S. intelligence officials believe that some former regime loyalists began to be absorbed by other rebel groups, including those made up of religious extremists and Iraqi nationalists.
Al-Ahmed, say U.S. intelligence officials, is still running the support network he began building after the meeting with Saddam in the car. In May 2004 al-Ahmed set off on one of his periodic tours of the combat zone, meeting with local insurgent leaders, distributing money and passing along news--a trip later pieced together by U.S. intelligence analysts wading through the mountain of data and intelligence provided by low-level local informants. Al-Ahmed started in his hometown of Mosul, where he had been supervising--from a distance--the rebuilding of the local insurgent network disrupted after Saddam's capture. He moved on to Hawija, where he met a man thought to be a senior financier of the insurgency in north-central Iraq. After a brief stay at a farmhouse near Samarra, he met with military leaders of religious and nationalist rebel groups in Baghdad and with Rashid Taan Kazim, one of the few faces from the deck of cards (al-Duri is another) still at large, who is thought to be running a support network for the insurgency in the north and west of Iraq. Al-Ahmed's final stop was Ramadi, where he distributed $500,000 to local insurgency leaders.
What is remarkable is the extent to which the U.S. is aware of al-Ahmed's activities. "We know where Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed lives in Damascus," says a U.S. intelligence official. "We know his phone number. He believes he has the protection of the Syrian government, and that certainly seems to be the case." But he hasn't been aggressively pursued by the U.S. either--in part because there has been a persistent and forlorn hope that al-Ahmed might be willing to help negotiate an end to the Baathist part of the insurgency. A senior U.S. intelligence officer says that al-Ahmed was called at least twice by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi--an old acquaintance--and that a representative of an "other government agency," a military euphemism that usually means the CIA, "knocked on his door in 2004 and asked if he was willing to talk. He wasn't."
In the middle of 2004, the U.S. again changed its team in Baghdad. Bremer and Sanchez left, replaced by Ambassador John Negroponte and General George Casey. At the same time, there was a new transitional Iraqi government, led by Iyad Allawi. Negroponte set up a joint military-diplomatic team to review the situation in the country. The consensus was that things were a mess, that little had been accomplished on either the civilian or the military side and that there was no effective plan for dealing with the insurgency. The new team quickly concluded that the insurgency could not be defeated militarily--but that it might be divided. The attempts to engage potential allies like al-Ahmed became the unstated policy as U.S. and Iraqi officials sought ways to isolate foreign terrorists like al-Zarqawi.
But progress in the effort to defuse the insurgency through dealmaking has been slow--and in some cases has led the U.S. to ease pressure on individuals tied to rebel groups. Consider the careful handling of Harith al-Dhari, chairman of the Association of Muslim Scholars and one of Iraq's most important Sunni leaders. In late 2003, several insurgent groups began to meet regularly in the Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad, over which al-Dhari presides. According to U.S. intelligence reports, al-Dhari--who has said he might encourage his organization to take part in the democratic process--did not attend the meetings. But his son Muthanna--who is thought to be an important link between the nationalist and religious strains of the insurgency--did. In August 2004, the son was arrested after his car scanned positive for explosives residue. But he was quickly released, a retired DIA analyst says, under pressure from Iraq's government, to keep channels open to his father. "It would be difficult to lure Harith into the tent if Muthanna were in jail," says the former officer.
By April 2004, U.S. military-intelligence officers were also holding face-to-face talks with Abdullah al-Janabi, a rebel leader from Fallujah. The meetings ended after al-Zarqawi--who had taken up residence in Fallujah--threatened to kill al-Janabi if the talks continued, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources. But attempts to negotiate with other insurgents are continuing, including with Saddam's former religious adviser. So far, the effort has been futile. "We keep hoping they'll come up with a Gerry Adams," says a U.S. intelligence official, referring to the leader of the Irish Republican Army's political wing. "But it just hasn't happened."
The leadership in Baghdad changed yet again this year. Negroponte left Baghdad in March to become director of national intelligence. He was replaced by Zalmay Khalilzad. But the turnover in the Iraqi government was far more important: religious Shi'ites, led by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, took charge, a severe irritant to many Sunnis. "The insurgents see al-Jaafari as a traitor, a man who spent the Iran-Iraq war in Iran," says a senior military officer. "And many of the best officers we have trained in the new Iraqi army--Sunnis and secular Shi'ites who served in Saddam's army--feel the same way." Al-Jaafari did not help matters by opening diplomatic ties with Iran, apologizing for Iraq's behavior in the Iran-Iraq war and cutting economic deals with the Iranians.
In fact, some Iraq experts in the U.S. intelligence community have come to the conclusion that Iraqis' courageous recent steps toward democracy--the elections in January and the writing of a constitution that empowers the religious Shi'ites and the Kurds (though it is resoundingly opposed by the Sunnis)--have left the country in a more precarious position. "The big conversation in our shop these days," says a military-intelligence officer, "is whether it would be a good thing if the new constitution is voted down [in the public referendum] next month."
raq experts in the intelligence community believe that the proposed constitution, which creates autonomous regions for the Kurds and Shi'ites in the oil-rich north and south, could heighten the chances of an outright civil war. "A lot of us who have followed this thing have come to the conclusion that the Sunnis are the wolves--the real warriors--and the religious Shi'ites are the sheep," says an intelligence officer. "The Sunnis have the power to maintain this violence indefinitely."
Another hot debate in the intelligence community is whether to make a major change in the counterinsurgency strategy--to stop the aggressive sweeps through insurgent-riddled areas, like the recent offensive in Tall 'Afar, and try to concentrate troops and resources with the aim of improving security and living conditions in population centers like Baghdad. "We've taken Samarra four times, and we've lost it four times," says an intelligence officer. "We need a new strategy."
But the Pentagon leadership is unlikely to support a strategy that concedes broad swaths of territory to the enemy. In fact, none of the intelligence officers who spoke with TIME or their ranking superiors could provide a plausible road map toward stability in Iraq. It is quite possible that the occupation of Iraq was an unwise proposition from the start, as many U.S. allies in the region warned before the invasion. Yet, despite their gloom, every one of the officers favors continuing--indeed, augmenting--the war effort. If the U.S. leaves, they say, the chaos in central Iraq could threaten the stability of the entire Middle East. And al-Qaeda operatives like al-Zarqawi could have a relatively safe base of operations in the Sunni triangle. "We have never taken this operation seriously enough," says a retired senior military official with experience in Iraq. "We have never provided enough troops. We have never provided enough equipment, or the right kind of equipment. We have never worked the intelligence part of the war in a serious, sustained fashion. We have failed the Iraqi people, and we have failed our troops."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:16 ||
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The question of what post-Saddam Iraq would ultimately look like has always rested on the shoulders of the Shia.
The following statement is particularly interesting:
"A lot of us who have followed this thing have come to the conclusion that the Sunnis are the wolves--the real warriors--and the religious Shi'ites are the sheep," says an intelligence officer.
That statement was once true. I think it's changing in a hurry.
Posted by: Pat Phillips ||
09/19/2005 11:53 Comments ||
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A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shi'ite mosque late last week claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him take on the mission.
The US military said its medical tests indicated the young man was telling the truth.
In a confession broadcast on state television on Friday, Mohammed Ali, who claimed to be Saudi-born and appeared to be in his 20s, declared he was kidnapped and coerced to agree to the mission.
He said he managed to flee after another suicide attacker set off his bomb, killing at least 12 worshippers as they left Friday prayers at a mosque in the northern city of Tuz Khormato.
In his broadcast confession, Ali told Iraqi interrogators he did not want to bomb the mosque and hoped to go home.
Results from medical tests on the young man were "consistent with his story and characterisation of his treatment", Colonel Billy J Buckner, a US military spokesman said.
The man said insurgents kidnapped him from a field near his home earlier this month, then drugged and beat him.
Neither US nor Iraqi authorities explained how Ali managed to hold both Saudi and Iraqi citizenship, but Arab immigrants to Iraq under the former Baathist regime often received the citizenship after pledging their allegiance to Saddam Hussein.
His story was similar to those recounted by other captured militants.
The captives routinely claim they were either coerced or fooled by insurgent leaders who promised them a role in the holy war against the US military, only to find themselves as would-be suicide bombers sent to attack civilians.
For example, Musab Aqil al-Khayal, a 19-year-old Syrian, was shown on state television on Saturday confessing to his aborted involvement in a bombing earlier in the week in which a companion exploded his car bomb in the midst of day labourers assembled to find work.
The Wednesday attack killed 112 people and wounded 250. Al-Khayal said handlers from the al-Qaeda in Iraq terror group had "duped" him.
"Those dogs fooled me," he told Iraqi interrogators.
Televised interrogations and confessions such as the one reported by the US military are becoming increasingly common as Iraqi and American officials capture more militants and use their confessions in an attempt to undercut support for militants.
Ali said he strapped on a crudely made suicide vest and was led to a second mosque in Tuz Khormato, about 210 kilometres north of Baghdad, "where he was told he would become a good Muslim and go to heaven if he carried out the attack", the US military statement said.
Forced to enter the mosque, he waited until the others were distracted, ran out of the building and was arrested just minutes after the first attack, the statement said.
"The kidnapping of this man further demonstrates the desperateness of (al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) and his ability to execute his strategy," Buckner said.
"He (al-Zarqawi) knows that he can't win against Iraqi security and coalition forces, and is therefore willing to use innocent Iraqi citizens to further his cause to disrupt the election process and prevent a free and democratic Iraq."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/19/2005 00:15 ||
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NEW YORK (AP) - Salvadoran President Tony Saca said Sunday his country's troops would not leave Iraq ahead of schedule, despite protests over his El Salvador's involvement in the U.S.-led occupation.
``Tell me what logical reason would I have to abandon the countries of the Iraq coalition, leaving them to their luck while the terrorists continue wreaking havoc,'' Saca said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Two Salvadoran soldiers have been killed since the country began sending troops in August 2003. El Salvador's government has been one of the staunchest U.S. allies and is the only Latin American country with troops still in Iraq. ``We are going to finish our task. And as the coalition makes a gradual withdrawal as the Iraqi forces take control, we will do the same at that time along with the rest of the coalition,'' said Saca, who spoke in Spanish. He said the Iraqi military should be able to take over within a year.
Salvadoran soldiers have been stationed in the Iraqi city of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, performing humanitarian works including school construction and medical attention. Most recently a contingent of 380 soldiers arrived there in August, replacing a roughly equal number that departed.
Some in the Central American country of 6 million people have staged protests and called for an end to its participation in Iraq.
Saca cast doubt on terrorist threats for El Salvador to withdraw its troops, saying ``it seems some of them originated in the country, and I can't tell you exactly who made them because anyone can make a threat on the Internet with technology today.'
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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Gracias, Amigos.
Obviously, we know where the brave Spaniards all went.
It is democracy, but not as we know it. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, faces the prospect of a parliament dominated by warlords and drug barons after today's elections.
An interesting look at Afghanland on its way back to nationhood.
Rumors abounded during the 1960 that Joe Kennedy was buying support for JFK's candidacy. The talk got so bad while he was campaigning, JFK reached into his pocket and pulled out a 'telegram' from his dad. "Son," the telegram read, "I don't mind buying you the Presidency, but I'm NOT paying for a landslide."
Iraqâs parliament signed off on revisions to the countryâs draft constitution on Sunday, with a leading lawmaker declaring acceptance of the new charter was a matter for the people, not the parliament. Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy National Assembly speaker, said the new basic law was given to the United Nations, which will print 5 million copies and distribute them to Iraqis before the Oct 15 national referendum on the new basic law. The original draft was not voted on by the parliament and al-Shahristani did not call for legislative approval on the amendments. âThe vote on this ... is the right of the people, not their representatives,â he said. The deputy speaker said the draft was handed to the United Nations, which will print 5 million copies and distribute them to Iraqis before the Oct 15 national referendum on the new basic law. The changes to the document included an apparent bow to demands from the Arab League that the Iraq be described as a founding member of the pan-Arab organisation, and that it was âcommitted to its charter.â Other changes included holding the federal government responsible for the management of water resources and the creation of two deputy prime minister positions for the Cabinet. Iraqâs Sunni minority, which held sway during the rule of Saddam Hussein, has complained the constitution favours the Shiite majority and Kurds, who dominated the committee that wrote the document.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a "major mistake" in agreeing to let the radical Hamas movement participate in the Palestinian legislative elections, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon warned. "Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority chairman, made a major mistake when he signed an agreement with them which invited them to participate in political life, to participate in the elections, and to become part of the future government," he said in an address to U.S. Jewish leaders in New York.
Hamas should disarm and cancel its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, before taking up a role in Palestinian politics, Sharon said. Sharon said he has asked European nations and the UN to put pressure on the Palestinians to achieve these two goals. The Palestinian legislative elections are scheduled to be held on January 25. Unless the Palestinians took these two steps, Israel would refuse all support and help during the election process, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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The September 18 general elections in Afghanistan are irrelevant for many Afghans living in Pakistan, who are alien to the parliamentary system of government in the country. "What matters is the presidency. The Shura and the rest is useless," said Mullah Wadood, an ex-commander of the Hikmatyar regime. He said that millions would be spent on the elections but they will not make a difference. "I am not sure the practice will bring any good to the country," Wadood said.
Asmatullah, an Afghan refugee and a keen observer of the developments in Afghanistan, said the refugees are being denied their right to vote. He said that the polling for the presidential elections was arranged in Pakistan because President Hamid Karzai needed their votes. They have been asked to go to Afghanistan to register to vote in the general elections. He said it was not financially viable for the refugees to visit Afghanistan twice or to shut down their businesses for a long visit.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2005 00:00 ||
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or shut down their businesses for a long visit.
Er, if they run their own businesses in Pakland, what you've got there, Asmatullah, is not a refugee at all. That's more in the way of an immigrant.
Unless the businesses he's talking about is the Taliban Grand High Command, training camps, and the Taliban Government-in-Exile. In which case, yes, I can see how visiting Afghanistan for a little poll vacation might disrupt operations a bit.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/19/2005 16:12 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Saudi Arabia may soon resolve a diplomatic row with Libya triggered by Riyadh's accusation that Libya plotted to kill King Abdullah. Foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal yesterday told Al-Hayat newspaper that Saudi and Libyan ambassadors could be back at their missions in Tripoli and Riyadh in the near future. "There is nothing strange in relations returning to normal," he told the paper. 
BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britainâs Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath. The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a âpublic act of repentanceâ. The bishops admit that their suggestion is provocative and bound to attract 
In the report, Countering Terrorism, Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, the bishops acknowledge the impact of the July London bombings. 
"the Americans need us more than we need them" 
A prominent Muslim cleric on Monday was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on racketeering and other charges, the latest in a string of convictions stemming from the FBI's sweeping probe of municipal corruption. Prosecutors said that Shamsud-din Ali, 67, used his political connections to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts. In addition to his 87-month sentence, Ali was ordered to pay restitution. He was released pending an appeal. 
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, last night brought her campaign to end the war to New York, where she accused Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of not doing enough to challenge the Bush administration's Iraq policies. 
A group called Gente Unita confronted volunteer border watchers in San Diego yesterday with obscenities, shoving and U.S. flag desecration, causing Friends of the Border to abandon a planned deployment and an apology by the group's leader for not having police protection for senior citizen and other members of the group.
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP 
Facing US and Iraqi pressure to stop the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq, Syria offered on Sunday to participate in efforts to stop violence in Iraq and renewed its call on the United States for a dialogue to improve strained relations. The latest Syrian offer came two days after Washington reiterated its accusations that Syria was not doing enough to prevent anti-US militants from crossing its border into Iraq. âSyria is fully ready to contribute towards preventing the bloodshed of the Iraqi people and to enable them to reach their hoped-for goals,â Tishrin, a Syrian government newspaper, said in an editorial. âSyria has stressed this fact to the Americans and has called them for dialogue and cooperation,â it said. âItâs still sticking to this stand and to its call. The problem is now theirs (the Americansâ) and not Syriaâs.â
The accounts are disturbing: beatings, forced sex and imprisonment with shackles and leg irons. Abuse accusations from hundreds of children sent to study at Islamic schools are prompting growing calls from parents and rights groups for a full-scale investigation.
Iraqâs parliament signed off on revisions to the countryâs draft constitution on Sunday, with a leading lawmaker declaring acceptance of the new charter was a matter for the people, not the parliament. Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy National Assembly speaker, said the new basic law was given to the United Nations, which will print 5 million copies and distribute them to Iraqis before the Oct 15 national referendum on the new basic law. The original draft was not voted on by the parliament and al-Shahristani did not call for legislative approval on the amendments. âThe vote on this ... is the right of the people, not their representatives,â he said. The deputy speaker said the draft was handed to the United Nations, which will print 5 million copies and distribute them to Iraqis before the Oct 15 national referendum on the new basic law. The changes to the document included an apparent bow to demands from the Arab League that the Iraq be described as a founding member of the pan-Arab organisation, and that it was âcommitted to its charter.â Other changes included holding the federal government responsible for the management of water resources and the creation of two deputy prime minister positions for the Cabinet. Iraqâs Sunni minority, which held sway during the rule of Saddam Hussein, has complained the constitution favours the Shiite majority and Kurds, who dominated the committee that wrote the document.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a "major mistake" in agreeing to let the radical Hamas movement participate in the Palestinian legislative elections, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon warned. "Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority chairman, made a major mistake when he signed an agreement with them which invited them to participate in political life, to participate in the elections, and to become part of the future government," he said in an address to U.S. Jewish leaders in New York.
The September 18 general elections in Afghanistan are irrelevant for many Afghans living in Pakistan, who are alien to the parliamentary system of government in the country. "What matters is the presidency. The Shura and the rest is useless," said Mullah Wadood, an ex-commander of the Hikmatyar regime. He said that millions would be spent on the elections but they will not make a difference. "I am not sure the practice will bring any good to the country," Wadood said.
