Iraq is moving toward disintegration, and war there could spread to its neighbors, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Thursday.
In part because of a new constitution that would give more power to various regions in Iraq, "there seems to be no dynamic that is pulling the country together," Saud said. Iraqis are to vote on the constitution next month. Sunni Arab leaders are urging a "no" vote, while majority Shiites urge approval.
"All the dynamics there are pushing people away from each other," said Saud, whose nation is predominantly Sunni.
The main problem, Saud told a small group of reporters here, is the split between Sunnis and Shiites in central and southern Iraq. Continued autonomy for non-Arab Kurds in northern Iraq is less of a concern, he said.
"If things go the way they are ... there will be a struggle among the three for natural resources," Saud said, and Iraq's neighbors will be drawn into a wider war.
He said Iran, a predominantly Shiite but non-Arab nation, would intervene on the side of Iraqi Shiites. Turkey, which has a big Kurdish minority, has repeatedly threatened to enter northern Iraq if Kurds there declare independence. If Iraq's Sunni Arab minority appears to lose out, "I don't see how the Arab countries will be left out of the conflict in one way or another."
The State Department had no comment on Saud's remarks.
Saud, who met later with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, faulted the Bush administration for adding to sectarian tensions by treating all members of Saddam Hussein's mainly Sunni Baath Party as "criminals" after ousting Saddam. He urged the United States to work harder to persuade Shiites to reach out to Sunni Arabs to assure them of their safety and equality and of Iraq's territorial integrity.
Although Saudi Arabia provided limited help to the United States in the initial phases of the war, Saud had recommended a coup to oust Saddam - not the dismantling of the Iraqi government. "It's no secret that Saudi Arabia does not believe military action in Iraq will achieve the objective it is aimed at," he said in a March 2002 interview with USA TODAY Sound like somebody is a little blue that they'll no longer have a Sunni ally to the North.
Sooner or later, we're going to have to take the Arab world apart and rebuild it in a way that's both worthwhile to its people and capable of living and working congenially with the West. We will have to totally discredit the "jihad" mentality, or else eliminate by killing those that are "stuck on stupid" (God, I love that phrase!) and are unwilling (or incapable) to make the adjustment. It's not an "IF" question, but one of 'When'.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2005 22:38 Comments ||
Top||
British Muslim leaders called on the government Thursday to establish a national body to oversee mosques and imams as part of efforts to combat extremism following the July bombings in London.
Oboy. Now we can have the Arch-imam of Canterbury for the Sunnis and maybe the Ayatollah of Wales for the Shiites. And they can all get together to demand that the Ahmadis be stuck with the Birdrop of Lesser Tooting because they aren't recognized as real Muslims. And you're gonna need a religion column on the British passport.
Groups advising the government said the proposed National Advisory Council of Imams and Mosques could recommend ways for mosques to prevent extremism, train imams and encourage British-born Muslims to become clerics.
I'd rather see them trained to read and write, myself...
The groups were set up after four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on the London transit system July 7. Lord Ahmed, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords who headed one of the groups, said 1,700 of the estimated 2,000 imams in Britain were educated and trained abroad.
Y'know, I think I might see your problem...
"As British Muslims we need to be prepared to modernize the way we operate, encouraging integration and helping our children to feel proud to be British," he said. "I and my colleagues believe that the establishment of this Advisory Council is an important step towards this goal." Other proposals called for a "national roadshow" of influential religious scholars to tour the country with a moderate message for young people, and a national forum to tackle extremism and Islamophobia. Home Secretary Charles Clarke welcomed the proposals and said the government would spend $9 million the next 18 months to pursue the ideas.
'Cuz that's basically what governments do...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
a national forum to tackle extremism and Islamophobia
Any bets on which would get more attention, and which would be ignored?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 7:37 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Lord Ahmed, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords...
You've come a long way, baby. More multiculturalism, yeah, that's the ticket.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/23/2005 10:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
How about using the body of the head pig in the Kaaba. I think her name is Pagan Piggy Allah. Sounds like PCism is going to kill Briton. After the railroad bombings you'd think they might have caught on. But then again it is the relgion of peace, sorry, I ment PISS!
The red, white and blue stripes of the Russian flag which flies over the school in Ghimri, a village marooned amid the mountains of Dagestan, is hopelessly outnumbered by the green of another emblem: the crescent and star of Islam. Inside, Arabic is taught. Outside, women scuttle between the dusty moraines of litter and ramshackle houses, covered eye to ankle. The last time someone was caught drinking they got 40 lashes. The rule of law is sharia. Shamil, 18, crouching on a piece of discarded concrete, adjusts his Adidas cap and declares: "I want to take the path to Allah. We have to fight a jihad against the local police and non-believers." He adds: "We have sharia law here, and it should be stricter. Everything you need is laid down in the Koran."
In May three men shot dead a local police chief who disturbed their attempts to blow up the three-mile tunnel which links the village through the mountains. They fled into Ghimri; the village refused to give them up. "It's the police's job to get them, not ours," said the village imam, a moderate. The growing autonomy of villages such as Ghimri is a symptom of how exposed Russia is to Islamic fundamentalism on its most southern and impoverished flank. Explosions, blamed on the "international terrorists" behind the Islamic separatist fight in neighbouring Chechnya, target police every other day.
Yet at the same time, across the predominantly Muslim region, a lack of confidence in the corrupt local government has fuelled the role of Islam in small communities. Ghimri is an extreme example: a place seemingly beyond the law where Shamil happily announces jihad against police. His comments are dismissed by some as "bravado". Yet most in Ghimri say sharia law is in force, to varying degrees. The imam says thieves are forced to stand before the mosque at Friday prayers and pledge to never steal again. Some say the village - the historic birthplace of the feared Imam Shamil, who led the Caucasus in the 19th century against the tsar - has always been this way, even during the Soviet Union when they dared not close the mosques. Others, such as Nabi Salekhov, 34, who moved here a year ago from the Russian provinces because he sought a more Muslim way of life, feel Islamic law is becoming stricter in Ghimri, and more women are covering their faces.
Even the Kremlin, notorious for glossing over problems in the north Caucasus, the region where Dagestan and Chechnya are based, let slip its own fears about the rise of fundamentalism in June. A leaked report written for President Vladimir Putin by his special representative to the region, Dmitri Kozak, said local leaders had corruptly enriched themselves through controlling the economy, police and courts. Mr Kozak's spokesman said the report concluded corruption had "created distrust in the population which then tries to find an alternative to the authorities. Unfortunately they find it in extremists."
As if the combustive mixture of intense poverty and corruption were not enough, the catalyst of Islamic militancy has in the past six months brought violence threatening to engulf the whole north Caucasus. A sharp rise in militant attacks has led Dagestan to resemble war-torn Chechnya. Forty police and an unknown number of soldiers and civilians have died since January, the government says. "There practically already is civil war in Dagestan," said analyst Alexei Malashenko. "Practically every day [militants] kill people - ministers, policemen. This is a complete crisis."
Sergei Ignatchenko, spokesman for the Russian security service, the FSB, blamed "international terrorists". "Their task is to destabilise Dagestan, to create panic and chaos to permit Islamic fundamentalists in power." He said the rise in fundamentalism was a global phenomenon, but also spreading in Russia in the Volga region, and even Siberia. "We notice their traces practically in all the regions." Russian media now regularly reports from across the north Caucasus the ambushes, blasts, or brutal arrests that three years ago were confined to Chechnya. "In some north Caucasus republics they happen just once a month, but in Dagestan it's every day," said Mr Malashenko.
Wider unrest in Dagestan could prove bloodier. Not only is there a huge gap between the republic's tiny ruling elite and its young discarded poor, but the republic has for decades been a peaceful home to 33 different ethnic groups. Recently differences have helped shape an internal political struggle. While Dagestan president Magomedali Magomedov is from the Dargin minority, his main rival, the mayor of the second-largest town, Khasav Yurt, hails from the main Avars. The symbiotic cycle seen in Chechnya, of militant attacks fomenting brutal reprisals by the authorities, has been replicated in Dagestan. As in Chechnya, young men have started disappearing, abducted by masked men, usually the military or police. There are no official figures. Many Dagestanis buy their relative's release from police custody for up to £3,000. But some disappear for good. Malik Shurpayev, 25, a regular visitor to the mosque, was abducted by masked men en route to a boxing session in the capital, Makhachkala, in December. His father has since heard only a rumour that he was seen in a jail in Grozny, the Chechen capital.
Some emerge from custody brutalised, like 43-year-old Omar Alivov, abducted on July 5, who was given electric shocks to make him talk. "They said that if I did not talk, they'd hand me over to the Russian military in Chechnya who would make me talk," he said. His wrists were raw and his fingers red from electric burns. One defence lawyer estimated at least 30 such cases since May.
Many say police brutality fuels militant activity. The folklore eulogy of militant leader Rasul Makasharipov, 34, killed by police in July, is often cited as an example. A friend of the militant said Makasharipov had been granted an amnesty by the Russian military in 2000. Yet he was repeatedly arrested by the FSB and beaten, leaving him no choice but to go back to his old paymasters, the "Arab side", the militants. The Dagestani interior ministry denies claims it tortured detainees. Minutes later, spokesman Abdulmanap Musayev played a video of a suspect confessing on local TV that Makasharipov told him the Koran sanctioned killing the police.
At the end of a week which claimed five police, three soldiers and one official, Mr Musayev asked: "If you kill all the police, then what?" The answer perhaps lies in the anarchy of Chechnya, or in the hills, places such as Ghimri, where Islam is less about ideology and more about rebelling against the state. In Ghimri, Mr Salekhov says: "We have more than enough young men here to fight jihad."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/23/2005 00:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Shamil, 18, crouching on a piece of discarded concrete, adjusts his Adidas cap and declares: "I want to take the path to Allah. We have to fight a jihad against the local police and non-believers." He adds: "We have sharia law here, and it should be stricter. Everything you need is laid down in the Koran."
"...I mean, how ya gonna have sharia if ya can't blow stuff up? Cheeze....."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/23/2005 7:03 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Stupid caucasians.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 7:36 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
No. No visits, no nothing, until the NorKs get it through their thick skulls that their silly little games will no longer be tolerated. Until they grow up, any further talks would be useless.
#2
"Choe...confirmed...NK...informed the United Nations...all humanitarian assistance from the United Nations and other international organizations terminated by the end of the year, partly because of U.S. interference."
Man,1/2 the country will have starved to death by summer.Wonder if that will convince the world to get off it's collective ass and do something aabout that 1/2 pint piece of crap.
September 23, 2005: Although the Australian armed forces need only 53,000 troops to be at full strength, there is a constant problem getting the high quality people that makes this force so effective. So the government proposes to use citizenship as a lure to attract desirable recruits from the many small island nations in the Pacific. Many of these nations, like Fiji, are known to produce excellent soldiers. Australia hopes to attract up to 2,000 experienced military men from the Pacific islands. Australia is considered a desirable place for young Pacific islanders to migrate to. But Australia is picky about who they let in, preferring migrants with needed skills. While there are few engineers or college instructors in the Pacific islands, but there are a lot of experienced, English speaking, soldiers, often with peacekeeping experience, and willing to move to Australia for the bigger paycheck and citizenship.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 09:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If they are anything liek the Filipinos and Samoans I served with, the guys they are talking about are warriors.
But there will be plenty of bottomfeeders. Hat tip to Charles at LGF.
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - As the anti-war movement arrives in Washington this weekend, many top Democrats are leaving. Nationally known Democratic war critics, including Howlin' Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Sens. Hildebeast Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Frickin' Kerry of Massachusetts, won't attend what sponsors hope say will be a big anti-war rally Saturday in Washington. The only Democratic officeholders who plan to address the rally are Reps. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and John Conyers of Michigan.
Time to warm up the TiVo!
Today's poll-driven leading Democrats head a party divided not really over the war, and many leaders are scared shitless wary of standing with anti-war activists, who represent much of the party's looney base. The divide between anti-war activists and Democratic leaders underscores a challenge the party faces in the 2006 congressional elections and beyond. Some activists say that Democrats such as Clinton and Kerry who criticize the war but refuse to demand a timetable for withdrawal are effectively supporting the status quo - and may not merit future support.
Yeah, you guys pull the rug from under the Hildebeast. I dare you. I double-dare you.
En route to Washington for the rally, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan protested outside Clinton's New York office. "She knows that the war is a lie, but she is waiting for the right time to say it," Sheehan told about 500 cheering supporters. "You say it or you are losing your job."
Oh please, oh please, oh please ...
Spokesmen for the Democrats who are skipping the anti-war event all said they had pressingunavoidable schedule conflicts no, honest, really!. But some leading anti-war activists aren't buying it and neither am I. "There are a lot of people here who are wondering, where are the Democrats?" said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic House member from Maine who's now the national director of Win Without War, one of several neo-Stalinist groups that are organizing three days of protests against the war in Washington starting Saturday. "The Democratic Party has an identity crisis on this issue. We need voices. We need leadership," Andrews said. "But fear is driving them."
The fear that they might get voted out by citizens who see through them? That fear?
The rally comes at a time when a growing number of Americans want a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a proposition that both President Bush and many leading Democrats correctly reject. Dean, who rallied anti-war activists with his fervent opposition to the war during his 2003-2004 presidential campaign, already was scheduled to spend the weekend meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, spokesman Josh Earnest said. "His views on the president's handling of the war in Iraq are well documented," Earnest said. The anti-war rally, he said, is "not something the party was involved with."
"I know nothing! Tell them, Hogan!"
Kerry planned to be in his home state this weekend, a spokeswoman said. Clinton also didn't plan to attend, a spokesman said. "Our job is to make them pay a price for continuing to support this war," said Bill Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, another hard-left group that's organizing the anti-war weekend in Washington. Sixty-six members of Congress have formed an "Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus" that wants either immediate withdrawal or a timetable to withdraw. None of the party's congressional leadership and none of the likely candidates for president are members.
They're not as looney as the caucus, it seems.
Anti-war organizers said they pray for expected 100,000 people Saturday. A rival group plans a rally Sunday in Washington to show support for the war.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2005 00:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Us working folk on Saturday will be figgering out how to squeeze out a extra hundred bucks for hurricane relief, and writing letters to the troops and civilians who have taken the task upon themselves to confront Evil face-to-face, and prevail.
#4
My problem is so what if they gather 500k LLL on Capital Mall, does that really represent a majority of Americans as they claim? I think not since this they had almost nine months to plan this party. Sure you can get a few thousand loons to demonstrate in Washington but if they represented a majority of Americans the Dems would be fighting over the microphone and not skipping town. Also, mother (sic) Sheehan showed up with a dozen handlers and not some caravan of hundreds that was predicted. Finally I am glad that most of our California LLL will be out of town to attend (please keep them).
#5
Isn't Conyers the idiot who organized that mock impeachment of Bush over the summer that also blamed Israel for 9/11? I remember Juan Cole and Justin Raimondo going all Incredible Hulk because the WaPo coverage dared to state that the majority of the participants were both moonbats and anti-Semites ...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/23/2005 2:07 Comments ||
Top||
#6
What kind of Democrats are they? Cowards, afraid to Take A StandSM, Speak Truth To PowerSM, and Stick It To The ManSM, that's what kind! Get 'em, Cindy! Call 'em out on it! If Hillary! won't take a stand against the evil Bushitler-Rove-Halliburton-Mossad War for Oil, then it's time for all true Democrats to take a stand against Hillary! Same goes for Dean and Kerry and Finegold and anyone else who's not there Saturday. Take back the Party! Revolution starts when Cindy gets here!when Mr. Soros writes the check now!
[/br'er rabbit]
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2005 6:20 Comments ||
Top||
#7
This is going to be a pathetic event starring the pathetic Cindy Sheehan.
Reading this, it occurs to me that this reads like something from 1967. But next year won't be 1968, it'll be 1966. The left is, like an old person long beyond their prime, starting to regress and relive the long gone glories of its lost youth in fantasy. We'll know they're almost finished when someone suggests meeting in Port Huron to cook up an organization to change America. If there's any kind of riot, the hip surgeons will be busy for decades.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/23/2005 7:27 Comments ||
Top||
#8
They don't need to show up; their rhetoric gives plenty of support.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 7:36 Comments ||
Top||
#9
But next year won't be 1968, it'll be 1966.
Heavy. In five short year's it'll be 1962. Let the good times roll.
Posted by: Dr H Higgins ||
09/23/2005 7:41 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Saw Phil Donahue on Fox's Orielly Factor last night,he was whinning about the Dem party not showing enough support for the Anti-war movement in general,and Shyster Shehan in particular.
At one point Donny boy ask O'Rielly if he would send his kids to Iraq.Sieriously pissed O'Rielly
off,Billy(Donahue's word,sounded disrespectfull to me)said he has a nephew that has joined the Army.Donahue comes back with"But he's not one of your kids.(about this time Bill is getting livid)O'Rielly says"He's my blood and if you denigrate the troops I'll throw you off the stage"
I loved it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 8:52 Comments ||
Top||
#12
My son-n-law is over there right now and I refuse to get into arguements about Iraq or Afgahnistan with moonbats (and Phils is one) Raising legitimate questions about Iraq was handled is one thing but praising the terrorists as fredom fighters as some of the moonbats do is beyond the pale even for some in the Dems. And the whole idea of a time table is the hieght of moonbattery. Just the the terrorists that we'll be leaving on say March 31st, 2006 and After the 1/12006 the attack rate would go up so the assholes here at home could yell bring them home now.
#13
We should start a pool to guess at which number speaker we ear "Zionists", "Haliburton", "PNAC", or "Neocon". Maybe it can be a drinking game? I would play but I am drining to Grandma house and can't drive after 100 or so drinks.
#15
This rally is why Evil Chimpy Bushitler and his puppeteer Rove scheduled the Halliburton Hurricane machine to dominate news for the weekend. There. I said it before they did.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/23/2005 10:52 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Did it ever occur to these asswads that even Hillary Clinton knows that if we don't destroy the Islamo-nuts they are going to kill us? Maybe they arent chicken-shit, maybe they just don't believe that anti-war "puppies and kittens" bullshit. The Democratic party is changing man, if you won't go hardcore, fully full-on leftist they don't want you around. I loooooooooooove it!
#17
Cindy should stage an anti-war mass suicide on the White House mall. That would show once and for all how dedicated she is to the effort, I would even take notice at that point and cheer like a liberal.
#18
Most of you are probably too young to remember, but back in the early 1960s, the John Birch Society looked just this extremist and pathetic. I only mention it because while they are mostly forgotten by the right, they are still a vivid image to the left, and drawing a comparison between this current crop of moonbats and the John Birchers tends to make them seeth a lot.
#21
I only mention it because while they are mostly forgotten by the right
Actually, 'moose, the Birchers were drummed out of the conservative mainstream and Republican party by W.F. Buckley. He ridiculed them, skewered their arguments, and made it embarrassing for people to admit to agreeing with them.
That the left is cleaving ever closer to their moonbats, rather than rejecting them in a similar way, is telling, IMHO.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 12:42 Comments ||
Top||
#22
why should top democrats want to be involved in a rally organized by Stalinists?
#23
even the dems who support pullout from Iraq, like Feingold and Kennedy want nothing to do with this. Cause the organizers arent just opposed to US being in Iraq, but to us being in Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON - Comparing President Bush to the Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner whose resistance to the civil rights movement became synonymous with Southern racism, Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday of the president: "George Bush is our Bull Connor."
Mr. Rangel's metaphoric linkage of Mr. Bush to the late Theophilus "Bull" Connor - Democrat - who in 1963 turned fire hoses and attack dogs on blacks, including Martin Luther King Jr., demonstrating in favor of equal rights - met with wild applause and cheering at a Congressional Black Caucus town hall meeting, part of the organization's 35th Annual Legislative Conference.
Yesterday's town hall meeting was a highlight of the four-day conference, which today will feature an anti-Iraq-war forum with a roving, protesting anti-war mother, Cindy Sheehan; a prominent New York black activist, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Kweisi Mfume. The conference culminates in a gala tomorrow evening.
Mr. Rangel, a Democrat who has represented Harlem for almost 35 years, spent his portion of yesterday's forum reminiscing about the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and calling on his audience to undertake similar action today, inciting them to "revolution" after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and particularly its impact on indigent blacks in the Gulf Coast region.
The storm, he said, showed that "if you're black in this country, and you're poor in this country, it's not an inconvenience - it's a death sentence." Denouncing Mr. Bush for waging "a war that we cannot win under any stretch of our imagination" instead of providing for those devastated by the hurricane, Mr. Rangel left his audience with a parting thought. "If there's one thing that George Bush has done that we should never forget, it's that for us and for our children, he has shattered the myth of white supremacy once and for all," the congressman said.
A White House spokesman, Kenneth Lisaius, said: "I don't think we would dignify any such inflammatory comments with a reaction."
Joining Mr. Rangel as town hall participants were Senator Clinton, a Democrat of New York; Senator Obama, a Democrat of Illinois; an entertainer and left-leaning activist, Harry Belafonte, and the conference's two cochairmen, Rep. Danny Davis, a Democrat of Illinois, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat of Texas.
As we say, the usual suspects
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama arrived at the Washington Convention Center together yesterday, prompting the town hall forum's moderator and a Harvard law professor known for litigating slavery reparations, Charles Ogletree, to quip: "I just keep having in the back of my mind this bumper sticker that says 'Clinton-Obama' - I don't know why." Mr. Ogletree's suggestion was met with widespread, enthusiastic applause.
Before a similarly appreciative audience, and after exhortations that she stay in Washington "as long as possible," Mrs. Clinton urged support for her Senate legislation creating a "9/11 Commission"-style body to investigate what went wrong in the Katrina response and to oversee the rebuilding effort. She repeated her concern, cited in recent speeches, that "it is not confidence building that the first contracts issued went to Halliburton on a no-bid contract."
Well, no: Boh Brothers, a $250 million company in New Orleans, was probably the first company to get a post-Katrina federal contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to patch the broken levees. - Boh is now working on a subcontract with the Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, a $3 billion engineering company, which has a $100 million contract with the Corps to pump floodwaters out of New Orleans.
You remember the Shaw Group: Concerns have already been raised about the cronies who surround Governor Blanco. Jim Bernhard, a major financial supporter, last week quit the chairmanship of the state Democratic Party so he could devote himself full time to his company, the Shaw Group, which had just won a $100 million contract from the Feds for reconstruction work. The word around Baton Rouge: friends of state officials are likely to be first in line for subcontracts.
Mrs. Clinton, who seeks re-election to her Senate seat next year and is widely believed to be a potential presidential candidate in 2008, also discoursed on how Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the need for a more expansive federal government. Strategists and political analysts have said the national Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 will likely seize on Katrina in an attempt to discredit the limited-government philosophies of Republicans, hoping to identify them as dangerous and inadequate for addressing massive national disasters.
"I believe that one of the great challenges we face is how we're going to define the role of government in the 21st century," Mrs. Clinton said yesterday. "And there are those, it won't surprise you, who want government to be limited to doing very few things, mostly national defense." "Obviously, at a time where there are real dangers and threats, we have to be vigilant," Mrs. Clinton added. "But America must be strong at home in order to be strong around the world. And I don't believe that strength comes from turning our backs on what has been happening, and Katrina helped to sharpen the focus for many Americans and people around the world about issues that many of us have known about and worked on for a long time."
Saying that "we were embarrassed in front of the entire world that we didn't do the kind of job that people expect America to do to take care of Americans first and foremost," Mrs. Clinton urged Democrats later: "I don't think we should cede the moral high ground to anyone who tries to put forth a private moral agenda and ignore what is the most important part of what we are called to do, which is to do unto others as we would have them do unto us."
The senator was joined in offering advice to her party by Mr. Belafonte, who spoke of the Democratic Party as being "ravaged," wondering openly whether there was anything of the institution to save. The performer, a former civil rights activist, was flanked by Senators Clinton and Obama, who smiled and nodded as he excoriated Democrats and Republicans alike for their negligence toward blacks.
The "eradicating poverty" town hall meeting had several hundred in attendance at the Washington Convention center yesterday, and according to Caucus leaders, another 100,000 listened to the politicians' remarks over a live Web cast.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 14:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte, slavery reparations -- Hillary really knows how to move to the canter! ;)
#3
Did Rep. Charles Rangel make that declaration from the Robert Byrd Memorial Room[tm] near the rotunda? Named after the famous West Virginia Klans man and caster of vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
#4
Why does anyone bother to listen to these pathetic pieces of protoplasm? They will say or do anything to advance their own personal interests. Their true core beliefs center on self enrichment, self aggrandizement, and self delusion.
Wrangel just moved into the same category as the John Birch Society, nothing to say worth listening to.
#5
Maybe in future, we should just use a shorthand for referring to the credentialed democrats. Like "Rep. Charles Rangel, D, NY, Racist", and "Harry Belafonte, Communist Agitator".
If added when their names are first mentioned, it puts into context what they say.
#8
Methinks America can now add "SAVING" AND "JUSTIFYING" THE [MOSTLY]BLACK AND POOR IN NOLA wid ditto for the Democrats, Leftism-Socialism, Communism, Alternatism and Anarchism, anti-Americanism, the UNO, and Islamism, AND NOW NATIONAL- AND STATE WELFARISM, from themselves, in by and for themselves, but at the GOP-Right's, Conservatives, and American taxpayer's time and costs, ergo the HOLLYWOOD AND THE HISTORY CHANNEL ongoing need to remind Amerikans of the USSA and the People's Waffen Soviet Cookie Army why America needs to be Regulated, Socialist andor wiped out, where Liberal = Libertarian = Laizzez faire, but Welfarism and Socialism is NOT defined as Big Govt or Regulation but weirdly and mysteriously and oh-so-coincidentally/PC is - OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPSSSSS, YOUR BAD, AND ONLY YOUR BAD!? WHAT WAS "NATIONAL LIBERALISM" HAS BECOME NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
"EURASIANISM/ORIENTALISM", where hyperpower Amerika and the Western democracies demand to be ruled from "Eurasia". aka SSSSHHHHHHHHH, Russia-China: SSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, Lefty US-specific PATRIOTS and PATRIOTISM AT WORK!?
More popcorn, please...
Hillary Clinton: Peace Mom Wrong on Iraq War
2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton scrambled yesterday to put some distance between herself and Cindy Sheehan, after word of her private meeting with the anti-American "Peace Mom" was reported by the Village Voice.
While Sheehan herself gushed afterwards that her Hillary sitdown went "fabulously," the former first lady sounded a good deal less enthusiastic.
While Sheehan has called the U.S. liberation of Iraq "B - - sh - t," Clinton said: "I happen to think that fighting for freedom is a noble cause. There are lots of things wrong with how Bush did it. I believe we should have gone through with the inspection process which we did and acted through the UN which we did. But I believe that standing up against someone as dangerous as Saddam was a good goal.â
Hillary also rebuffed Sheehan's demand that she lead the charge to get the U.S. out of Iraq ASAP. "I think it is a much more complicated situation," Clinton explained. "I donât think itâs the right time to withdraw."
In comments guaranteed to infuriate the Moveon.org crowd, Clinton began by noting that she had met earlier in the day with about 20 moms from American Gold Star Mothers, who vehemently disagreed with Sheehan.
"My bottom line is that I donât want their sons to die in vain," she told the Voice.
I'm gonna have to check DU after work, I bet they are in meltdown mode.
#5
Hillary is playing both sides. Supporting the war (to appear Hawkish and play to the right) while denouncing the time and manner (for the Move-Ons).
#6
This is pure Clinton triangulating for better political position. I wonder if she learned it from Bill or if it was her that taught it to Bill. She knows the "middle" is to her right, so she's saying what the polls do: we need to win the war that we are in, so she plays that way. And she also knows that Daily Idiot Kos and Moveon will ultimately end up kissing her ass because they have no other horses in this race (unless they go suicidal and put a McGovern type liberal thru). And for now, their howls provide a valuable "cover" for her leftism.
#7
(unless they go suicidal and put a McGovern type liberal thru)
That's just what they'll do. Move.on's leadership will try to stick with her, cuz they are all old Clinton people. But, Kos readers and the DU types will savage her and back the most far left person running. Right now that looks like Al Gore. True believers don't like it if you deviate from what they believe in, even if it is to try and get votes.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 15:22 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Here are a few comments on Hillary from DU threads: "she's not the messiah folks...she's a DLC centrist establishment Democratic socialite of the upper-class rich of this nation."
"She's not with the people...she's not concerned with doing "the right thing"...and people should stop placing faith in her to "lead us out of the wilderness"."
"Why look, she took money from the PACs of both General Electric and Northrop Grumman. Gee, there couldn't be any conflict of interest between those wanting to continue the war and receiving "defense" contractor money at the same time, right?"
"Hillary Clinton: war criminal: Her whole-hearted embrace of the slaughter in Iraq places her on equal moral footing with Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush. It is one thing to have been grotesquely wrong about Iraq, as Hillary was from the start. But to compound that failure by continuing, in the face of all evidence, to support this murderous war...
...well, Hillary, you're simply a collaborator."
"Referring to insurgent strategy concerning a date for U.S. withdrawal: "I think that would be like a green light to go ahead and just bide your time," the New York Democrat said.
What, exactly, would it mean for the insurgents to "bide their time"? Does that mean they would hold off making major attacks until after U.S. troops left? If so, wouldn't that give reconstruction efforts and the fledgling Iraqi government the opportunity to make some progress?
The last thing the insurgents want is to let up and give their foes a chance to establish stability or something approaching security and normality. The "bide your time" argument is a transparently illogical excuse for keeping a permanent U.S. presence there. What Miz Clinton and others are trying to establish is a conventional wisdom that rejects any firm committment to exit Iraq."
"Sad but true. Future of world peace lies with US empire collapsing ASAP. And the future of American people lies with progressive anti-corporate forces left of the corrupt two-party system."
And these are the sane ones.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 16:06 Comments ||
Top||
#9
wow!. Hillary exceeded expectations. Good for her. But its great you guys keep talking trash about her = thats the only way to drown out the Kossites and Deaniacs who hate her.
And from what i hear, the Deaniacs are starting to focus on Wesley Clark. Feh!
#11
Lol. That's what I truly respect about you, lh - you look for the best in (almost?) everyone - and you actually mean it. That's a tough thing to pull off sometimes, but you persist. Good on ya, bro.
I happen to think that we are beset with a collection of grossly unprincipled calculating raw naked ambition vultures (Hillary, Skeery, McCain, Biden, Clark, et al) circling the Big Chair, but that's just me.
I hope you never become a cynic, you're always refreshing and fair-minded. Those "Yay, Hillary!" posts make me want to punch out my monitor, lol, but hey - that's what makes horse races. Kudos. :)
President Bush fired back at ex-president Clinton on Thursday, saying the weak U.S. response to terrorist attacks that took place mostly during the Clinton administration encouraged al Qaida to launch the 9/11 attacks. "The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole," Bush noted, after getting an update on the war on terror at the Pentagon. "The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us," the president added, in quotes picked up by United Press International. Four of the six terrorist attacks cited by Bush took place on Clinton's watch, with the first two coming during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
So he didn't really bash Clinton, he pointed out it was our weak response to those attacks that lead to 9/11.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 09:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
4yrs to late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This rally talk getting people pissed off should have been done in the begining and the Dems would have been falling over eachother to look tough not weak and things would be different.
#2
I suspect this has more to do with Bush letting Clinton know that if Clinton wants to bad mouth him on the Sunday talk shows, there will be a response. And now that Bush has the reins of government that won't be an even fight, even if Clinton has more charisma, at least for horney girls.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/23/2005 10:17 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Well, I'm happily married but between the two, I'd take GWB over Bubba boy any day.
That would have been true in the past, but it's not nearly so true as it was. While the "primary channel" is still huge, it's no longer a monopoly, and that makes a LOT of difference. The fact that the media attack on Bush over Katrina didn't take as well as it might have is proof of that.
I don't mean to belittle your basic point, but only to point out that it is no longer as absolute a truth it was just a few years ago.
I think that the politicians are just starting to recognize that fact.
Posted by: Ralph Tacoma ||
09/23/2005 11:25 Comments ||
Top||
#7
"I like men, not therapy clients."
Hear, hear, ATW!
All real women do.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/23/2005 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#8
That would have been true in the past, but it's not nearly so true as it was. While the "primary channel" is still huge, it's no longer a monopoly, and that makes a LOT of difference. The fact that the media attack on Bush over Katrina didn't take as well as it might have is proof of that.
Sorry, but you're overestimating the impact of the alternative media and underestimating the impact of the HOSTILE alternative media. Ever hear what gets talked about on "urban" stations? I know here in Cincinnati you can count on the local "urban" stations to pass around racist conspiracy theories and outright hatred.
What percentage of people still have broadcast TV as their primary news source? Is it 80%? I doubt it's under 60%. Do you think any of those people have EVER heard any of the things collected by Cherenkoff or even heard of Michael Yon?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 12:45 Comments ||
Top||
#10
are people suggesting that the media are so biased that none of them would break ranks with the scoop such a statement would naturally be. They are biased but the bottom line is the bottom line.
#11
I have to agree with Robert on this one, although I hope it may be slowly changing. I know my-parents-the-retired-academics, who spent their youths teasing the facts from wartime propaganda, believed everything they saw ("Did you see... on 60 Minutes?"), and were shocked by the Good News reports from Chrenkoff and other things I sent them. So they are not the typical gullible news consumer, and yet...
On the other hand, they aren't as gullible now, and I imagine each of us has made at least one person aware of MSM misinformation... which means as many as almost 10,000 people worldwide believe less than they used to... darn it! that didn't calculate out the way I expected it too!!
#12
are people suggesting that the media are so biased that none of them would break ranks with the scoop such a statement would naturally be. They are biased but the bottom line is the bottom line.
Uh huh.
I'll believe that when the Chuck Shumer dirty trick story gets a stronger reaction than "oh, those silly kids".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 20:35 Comments ||
Top||
A year after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss is still struggling to rebuild morale and assert leadership within an institution shaken by recent failures and buffeted by change, current and former intelligence officials and members of Congress say.
On Thursday, two days before his one-year anniversary on the job, Mr. Goss met with agency employees and told them that his vision for further changes would involve "breaking some molds" to reassert the C.I.A.'s role as "a global agency."
"We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of our officers out of Washington," Mr. Goss said, according to a transcript provided by the C.I.A., which did not allow reporters at the event. "We do not serve our policy makers if we are not in the places that they need us to be today, and are not reporting from places they don't expect us to be - but where they may need us to be tomorrow."
The C.I.A. and its human spying operations are expected to benefit from changes in next year's intelligence budget, under classified plans being drawn up by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, including a version approved by the Senate panel Thursday. Congressional officials said Thursday that John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, had signaled for the first time that the Bush administration would support big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program in part to free up money for more human spying.
Current and former intelligence officials say considerable turmoil remains within the agency, particularly within the directorate of operations, which is responsible for human spying around the world. The directorate's No. 2 official, Robert Richer, has become the most recent high-ranking official to announce his departure, and he has told officials at the White House and in the C.I.A. that he had lost confidence in Mr. Goss.
Mr. Goss's task was bound to be complicated, partly because the agency was reduced in power and stature by the reorganization of intelligence after its failures on terrorism and Iraq.
In an interview, Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she believed that Mr. Goss was doing better than early on, when the No. 1 and No. 2 officials within the operations directorate quit after clashes with members of Mr. Goss's personal staff.
"Anyone who came in when he did would have had a steep hill to climb, in part because change can be difficult," Ms. Harman said.
But she also said that the departures of Mr. Richer and others were "very worrisome" because they amounted to a loss of "hundreds of years of experience and leadership."
In a separate interview, Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and the committee's chairman, sought to minimize the significance of any upheaval.
"I don't take the turmoil as unexpected," Mr. Hoekstra said. "For people who created the culture at the C.I.A. that gave us the information about Al Qaeda, who gave us the information about Iraq, the kinds of changes that Porter is making may be uncomfortable, and they may be making the right decision: they're leaving."
Mr. Richer, a former head of the agency's Near East Division, announced his decision to step down earlier this month, after fewer than nine months as the No. 2 official within the clandestine service. Since last November, when Stephen R. Kappes and Michael Sulick stepped down from the top two operations posts in the disputes with Mr. Goss's aides, the directorate has been headed by a veteran officer who remains undercover and whose principal expertise has involved work in Latin America.
While no plan has been announced, Mr. Goss is expected to assume the role within the government of a national human intelligence manager, with the power to coordinate spying operations carried out by the C.I.A. and other agencies.
Among Mr. Goss's priorities have been to open new C.I.A. stations and bases and to reopen some of the estimated 20 stations and bases overseas that were closed by budget cuts in the late 1990's. Mr. Goss said in his speech Thursday that he had accomplished some of these goals, but he offered no specifics.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/23/2005 00:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"...big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program..."
They should be under the perview of the NRO to begin with.
#5
big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program in part to free up money for more human spying.
Penny wise, pound foolish. These national systems will be needed for China, Korea and any other place where access is difficult and we are forced to rely on national technical means.
#8
"Anyone who came in when he did would have had a steep hill to climb, in part because change can be difficult," Ms. Harman said. But she also said that the departures of Mr. Richer and others were "very worrisome" because they amounted to a loss of "hundreds of years of experience and leadership."
That "leadership and experience" was also one of the major reasons for the failures of the last 20 years, lady. If it had been better, most of the failures wouldn't have happened. The ones we hear about are only the tip of the iceberg. The CIA has been only marginally effective at ANYTHING since the mid-1980's. There have been far too many 'surprises', and far too few successes. Fire 'em faster, run 'em out quicker, and replace them with people who understand their future depends on them being right at least as often as they're wrong.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2005 23:16 Comments ||
Top||
Congressman Rick Renzi (AZ â 1), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today released a new strategy to secure Americaâs borders. Called the âRed Zone Defense,â Renziâs plan is a new comprehensive, aggressive and proactive border strategy which proposes to use state-of-the-art technology to track immigrants before they cross the border. His district covers all the state except Phoenix, Tucson, and the southern and western border counties. It's the largest district except those which cover entire states.
âAmericaâs border communities continue to experience the crush of illegal immigration and are feeling desperate by the federal governmentâs limited response,â said Congressman Renzi. âIt is time for a major strategy shift on Americaâs border security. Before there can be a comprehensive immigration policy, America must first secure its borders.â
Renzi noted that border areas are seeing some of the most violent drug cartels in the world smuggling human beings as well as drugs and contraband. These cartels will be the same organizations the terrorists will seek out to look for new ways to enter the U.S. Renziâs âRed Zone Defenseâ will implement proven technology already being used with success in several U.S. operations around the world. The increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), drones, ground sensors and tower sensors, aerostat balloons equipped with night-vision technology and other intelligence methods will allow authorities to better identify staging locations of illegal aliens before they cross the border. This capability will provide a constant stream of real time intelligence, which can be down-linked to a multi-agency command center. This will allow federal border officials to shift manpower to interdict those coming across the border.
âWe rely on our friends to the south who contribute greatly to our nation, however a new border strategy is required to stop the violence and lawlessness that currently threatens our border communities,â Congressman Renzi said. âMore importantly, a successful defense will allow us to be more compassionate in the type of immigration program we develop, because we will have again earned the trust of the American people.â
#1
Border security on a de facto hostiel border should be (and always will be) a military problem. The Military should be handling it. Call in civil authority to do the criminal processing, but patrolling, securing and defending the border is a function of the military. Rotate a division through on the southern border every 6 months as training for wilderness ops and LIC.
#2
The first solution, that counting illegals with sensors is the same as catching and returning them, is nonsense. However, the military is not really a solution, either, as border partrol is different from what an army is trained to do.
The solution is twofold. First, to channelize the illegals. This can be done with an eye to capture, or to dissuade them with harsh terrain, or both. The idea is to herd them into corridors.
Much of the border is easily "passable", but there is no destination from which to leave or to arrive on either side of the border. 50 miles of roadless rocky desert on either side in many places is impassable. The few who could manage to cross here are not worth pursuing, compared to the vast numbers who cross elsewhere.
The second solution is "immediate denial". That is, for example in Arizona, sheriff Joe Arpaio has tent cities for inmates. They are inexpensive to operate and can be set up overnight for thousands of people. All illegals who are captured are given only water, no food, and put in these tent cities on the border for not more than 48 hours before being returned to Mexico. A half dozen immigration judges on site could hear any statements or demands for refugee status from non-Mexican illegals.
All illegals would be fingerprinted, photographed and otherwise documented. First offense is immediate return. Second offense is a week in the tent city before being returned. Subsequent offenses results in longer stretches in these tent jails.
With Joe's typical ration of only cheap green bologna and trail mix, the typical illegal would seriously reconsider coming back into the US.
The objective is to keep them away from public lands and private property, towns, roads and ranches. Also to never let them get to cities in the first place.
September 23, 2005: The U.S. Marine Corps is raising the training standards for its personnel, by making it mandatory that everyone go through a more intensive weapons training program each year. Until recently, every marine had to pass a pretty basic shooting test each year. Now everyone will get a test similar to the one every recruit has to pass in boot camp. This includes shooting in combat type situations. Failure to meet minimum qualifications in this weapons test can get you booted out of the marines.
The marines are tightening up combat skills training for the same reason the army, and even the air force, have been doing so. Experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has made it clear that during wars against irregulars and terrorists, everyone in uniform may find themselves in combat situations. The army was the first to get caught by lack of preparedness in this area. Army support troops had let their combat training slide over the last decade. Thus army support troops often found themselves fatally unprepared when they ran into a combat situations over the last few years. Marine support personnel had far fewer problems in this area, as the marines always maintained higher combat training standards for non-combat troops. But the new rifle training routine is intended to raise those combat skill levels even higher.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 09:23 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
HOO_RAA!!!! SEMPER-FI,and the Army should also intensify their traning in combat shooting!!
#2
It's natural for the military to be different in peacetime than during war. I remember hearing of the disappointment of peacetime Marine trainees who expected Jack Webb-style DIs and extreme endurance and physical discipline training at boot camp, instead to find that much of it is classroom, with demerits for punishment.
In truth, in peacetime they are right. Marines who are classroom brains are much more useful than muscle-Jethros, and are what they need for their mission. Technology leads the way. Brute force lags.
Only after war has dragged down technology, that is, when technology has peaked in how much it can do, does the military really need the bare-knuckle fighters. And the irony is that bare-knuckle fighting is best taught by the fighters themselves, and always has been.
So now, finally, with a new crop of "them who have been there and done that", do they have instructors who truly understand what is needed at the front. And so the training changes to fit that need.
It will also trickle up through the officer corps. While there are always commanders gifted at real combat leadership, the masters only become known in actual combat. And their lessons learned will set the course for military doctrine in the future, as the lessons of the Vietnam vets have set it up today.
#3
Seriously, since the Marines have the training up and running, simply rotate the other forces through the Marine's system, one at a time.
And don't forget the Coast Guard.
Competition is a good thing, let's see the other forces trying to be "As Good" as the Marines.
I wanna watch this. Lotsa Popcorn please.
One thing I hated about the Navy is the almost complete lack of combat type training, they figured the Swabbies didn't need it, the Marines got it all, total weapons training was to fire 10 rounds on M-1 copies (chambered for .22LR) in Boot, and 3 years later 8 rounds from a 1911-A2 (A-2 is Dark Stainless.45) This in 4 years, pitiful, I knew more about weaponry before going in, than I ever got while in.
Don't say we got the Big Guns, very few went anywhere near them.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2005 10:51 Comments ||
Top||
#4
RJ: You dasn't put other forces through Marine training, because that is not what you want them to be or do.
This is for much the same reason you don't see very many Airborne Ranger Finance Corps people out there. Specialization is what makes the Army.
Some years ago, the Air Force tried to train its security people with light Army training. They did okay, but were miserable later because their assigned jobs had little need for such training.
14 out of 15 jobs in the military as a whole are not adventures, they are just jobs. The military really needs employees for these jobs, not warriors. US Army - we're looking for a whole bunch of good clerks.
#5
US Army - we're looking for a whole bunch of good clerks.
Had a friend in college that was in the Reserves, Civil Affairs. We called him The Fighting Administrator after he came back from the Gulf War. 'You pay. I'll cover!'
His famous quote: "Every week, they gave me $10,000 and a hummer." I always thought that would be a GREAT recruiting poster.
#6
I think every serviceman should be able to inspect/disassemble a M-48 ADCAP, and use simple circular slides to calculate aim-off for the above. It's good training.
#8
"Every week, they gave me $10,000 and a hummer."
Put that up in a highschool and the recruits will be FIGHTING to get in line.
Posted by: Charles ||
09/23/2005 21:09 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I'm one of those Air Force "warriors" that got caught in a combat situation in Vietnam, and lack of training SUCKS! The only thing I had going for me was that I'm an old Louisiana farm boy, and used to hunt to put food on the table. I'd STRONGLY encourage the military to give every enlistee, every junior officer, a two-week training course on "what to do when the sh** hits the fan", and give refresher courses every three or four years. You never know when you might need that knowledge. Nowadays, the need is popping up far more often than it ever did in Vietnam!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2005 23:27 Comments ||
Top||
According to Assistant United States Attorney S. Robert Tice- Raskin and Laura L. Ferris, who are prosecuting the case, the First Superseding Indictment charges that defendant HAMID HAYAT provided himself as "material support" between March 2003 and June 2005 by attending a jihadist training camp, and subsequently concealing the same from the FBI, knowing and intending that his support would ultimately be used to prepare for and carry out acts of terrorism in the United States. In related counts, the indictment charges that HAMID HAYAT made false statements to the FBI on June 3 and June 4, 2005 when he falsely denied attending a terrorist training camp and receiving jihadist training. UMER HAYAT was also charged with lying to the FBI on June 4, 2005 when he falsely denied that he had first hand knowledge of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and that his son had attended a jihadist training camp in Pakistan.
According to the First Superseding Indictment, as well as pleadings1 filed by the United States Attorney's Office, starting in about March 2003, defendant HAMID HAYAT informed a cooperating witness (during recorded conversations) that he understood the nature and structure of various known Pakistani terrorist groups and that he had detailed knowledge regarding the mechanics of attending a jihadi camp. He also indicated that his relatives had various connections to jihadist groups.
Defendants UMER HAYAT, HAMID HAYAT, and their family traveled from the United States to Pakistan in April 2003. Thereafter, defendant HAMID HAYAT had another series of recorded conversations with the cooperating witness in which HAMID HAYAT stated that he genuinely desired to attend a camp and further indicated that he had been accepted to "training" and was going to attend the same after Ramadan in 2003.
During a period of months between Fall 2003 and Fall 2004, defendant HAMID HAYAT then attended a jihadist training camp in Pakistan and, among other things, received training in physical fitness, firearms, and means to wage jihad. Defendant UMER HAYAT, meanwhile, toured as many as four to five operational jihadist camps and witnessed jihadist training in progress. Defendant UMER HAYAT returned to the United States from Pakistan in February 2005. On May 27, 2005 defendant HAMID HAYAT departed Pakistan for the United States.
On May 30, 2005 defendant HAMID HAYAT's plane was diverted to Narita, Japan. When questioned by the FBI on that day, defendant HAMID HAYAT concealed the fact that he had received jihadist training, and that he was returning to the United States for the purpose of waging jihad. Defendant HAMID HAYAT then returned to the United States.
On June 3 and 4, 2005, when questioned by the FBI in Lodi and Sacramento, California, defendant HAMID HAYAT again concealed the fact that he had received jihadist training, and that he had returned to the United States for the purpose of waging jihad.
During his interview with the FBI on June 4, 2005 defendant UMER HAYAT similarly denied that he had any firsthand knowledge of training camps in Pakistan and further denied any knowledge of his son's attendance at terrorist or jihadist training.
On June 4, 2005 after advisement and waiver of his rights, defendant HAMID HAYAT submitted to and failed a polygraph examination. Thereafter, during a videotaped interview, defendant HAMID HAYAT stated and admitted, among other things, that:
-- He attended a jihadist training camp in Pakistan for approximately 3-6 months in 2003-2004, and another camp for a three-day period in 2000.
-- The purpose of both camps was to train for jihad and to teach people to kill those who work against Muslims.
-- The camp provided apparent paramilitary training, including weapons training, explosives training, hand to hand combat training, and exercise.
-- He believed that his uncle ran the jihadist camp that he attended and was 75-80 percent certain that his grandfather ran the camp. He subsequently stated that he believed that Al-Qaeda ran or were supporters of the camp.
-- He was being trained to and intended to commit jihad in the United States
-- He did not have any orders to fight at present; however, he was awaiting such orders.
On June 4, 2005 UMER HAYAT was interviewed again by the FBI. UMER HAYAT was confronted with a small portion of his son's videotaped interview. Thereafter, defendant UMER HAYAT admitted, during a videotaped interview, among other things, that:
-- HAMID HAYAT attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003-04.
-- UMER HAYAT paid for HAMID's flight, knowing that HAMID's intention was to attend a jihadi training camp.
-- The madrassah HAMID HAYAT attended was operated by HAMID HAYAT's grandfather (the father-in-law to UMER HAYAT). The father-in-law-sends the students from this madrassah to jihadi training camps in Pakistan.
-- After completing his education at the madrassah, HAMID HAYAT went to a training camp near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. HAMID HAYAT was at the training camp for 6 months.
-- Because of his family connections, UMER HAYAT was invited to observe more than four operational training camps. He was assigned a driver who drove him from camp to camp. While visiting these training camps, he observed weapons and urban warfare training (including target practice utilizing pictures of President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld), physical training, and classroom education.
Agents uncovered a series of incriminating writings on the person of HAMID HAYAT on the day of his arrest on June 5, 2005 and at the Hayat home during execution of a federal search warrant on June 7th.
-- Defendant HAMID HAYAT's wallet contained various identification documents, as well as a scrap of paper which included a brief statement in Arabic. Translated, the phrase states, "Lord let us be at their throats, and we ask you to give us refuge from their evil."
-- HAMID HAYAT's bedroom contained a book titled Virtues of Jihad, by Mohammad Masood Azhar, founder and leader of the known Pakistani extremist group Jaish-i-Muhammed. The room also contained a Jaish-i-Muhammed newspaper. Among other things, the publications, as translated in part, invite every Muslim to join jihad and to renounce their wealth and life in the path of Allah.
-- The Hayat laundry room also contained a book titled Ventilator From the Jail by Masood Azhar. The book, as translated in part, invites Muslims to join the fight against Indians and other "infidels," including Americans; indicates that jihad is the duty of Muslims; and encourages Muslims to hate America with passion.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/23/2005 00:35 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
September 23, 2005: American casualty rates for September are less than what they were the last few months. Attacks on infrastructure (including oil facilities) and civilians are down as well. Combat operations along the Syrian border, and throughout the Sunni Towns of central Iraq have made it much more difficult for terrorist groups to operate. There is still much support for terrorists among the Sunni Arab population, and many Sunni Arabs believe that, if the Coalition troops can be forced to leave, the Sunni Arab tribes can somehow subdue the Kurds and Shia Arabs, and regain control of the country. But the best opportunity for this was lost when the Sunni Arab dominated army and civil service was disbanded after the 2003 invasion. The army and civil service are now thoroughly Kurdish and Shia Arab, and this annoys the Sunni Arabs a great deal. But the Sunni Arabs have been in charge for so long (centuries, even under three centuries of Turkish domination), that they see it as their right to rule. Many other Sunni Arabs in the region, and many Europeans as well, agree.
The United States is faced with a situation similar to the Balkans in the early 1990s. Then, Yugoslavia was breaking apart, with the Serb minority (about 40 percent of the population) trying to stop the Croats, Slovenes, Albanians and Bosnians from seceding. At first, the rest of Europe wished the seceding groups well, and did nothing. When the subsequent fighting, and large scale slaughter, drove over half a million refugees into Western Europe, the Europeans called for military intervention. All those refugees were very unpopular in Europe. But intervention would only happen if the U.S. joined in. Most Americans were perplexed. This was a European problem, why couldn't the Europeans take care of it? But the Europeans needed American help to keep the Russians (who wanted to keep Yugoslavia together) in line, and wanted American armed forces to take the lead (because European armies were not really up to the task of doing it themselves.) So American went in, with the understanding they would be there for only one year. American troops are still there. The independent states of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia were established. Then, in 1999, Serbia was chasing a million Albanians out of Kosovo, and Europe wanted to use military force against the Serbs to prevent this atrocity. But only if the Americans took the lead. This time, even the UN would not lend moral support. But the Europeans were insistent (they didn't want hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees descending on them). America went in, with airpower, and, more importantly, enough clout to get the Russians to withdraw their support from the Serbs. The Serbs folded, and Kosovo is also still occupied by American and European troops.
But many Europeans see Iraq as different. Foreign troops should be pulled out of Iraq immediately, leaving the Iraqis to fight it out among themselves. There will be no refugee crises. Sunni Arab refugees will flee to Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Kurdish refugees will head for Turkey, Shia Arab refugees will run for Iran. Europeans will avert their eyes and change the subject. If there is interruption to oil shipments from the Gulf, American will be blamed for removing an Iraqi government that knew how to keep order in a troubled part of the world.
Most Europeans looked the other way and changed the subject while the nazis and communists slaughtered tens of millions. So what's a few million more Arabs? It's a European tradition. Old habits are hard to break. Better to tolerate tyrants than to try and change the natural order of things.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 09:07 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Now is the time to start showing graphs to chart the progress of the war. Chart after chart would individually and collectively show how the war is being won. Two and a half years of charts.
Charts: US and enemy forces killed by month; enemy captured by month; Iraqi civilians killed by enemy per month; nationwide attacks per day; IEDs per week; car bombs per week; suicide bombings per week.
Those are your hard stats. They need to be collected and visualized, and it would be damn hard to refute them.
#2
But don't put in too much information. No point in telling the assholes just where they could hit us and score points.
This time, even the UN would not lend moral support. But the Europeans were insistent (they didn't want hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees descending on them). America went in, with airpower, and, more importantly, enough clout to get the Russians to withdraw their support from the Serbs. The Serbs folded, and Kosovo is also still occupied by American and European troops.
And if I were an Albanian ethnic in Kosovo I don't think I'd want the UN in either. Especially if the troops were from Holland
#4
The air bombing was too inconsequential and minutae to achieve anything - the Russians and the pro-Russia Serbs were boosting Clinton by allowing Bill to seemingly "win a war" like Reagan and Bush 1 but without jeopardizing the 1990's Reagan-Repub economy and Clinton's surreal "balanced budget", which the Dems and LeftMedias were giving all credit for to Clinton, not to media-verified "nation of [poor]hamburger flippers" Reagan or "worst expansion = recession in US history" Bush 1. TOO BAD FOR THE DEMMIES CLINTON'S OWN PUBLIC COMMENTS HAS EFFECTIVELY DESTROYED ANY "LEGACY" THE DEMMIES AND SOCIES COULD CLAIM FROM HIM - LIKE THE USA, THE VERY SURVIVAL AND EXISTENCE OF THE CONTEMP DEMO PARTY AS WE AMERICANS KNOW IT IS ALSO AT RISK OF DISCREDITMENT AND DESTRUCTION THANX TO BILLARY. ITS NOT MERE, SIMPLE, MEANS NUTHIN "POLITICS" ANYMORE - ITS FOR REAL LIFE OR DEATH FOR EVERYONE IN AMERICA AND THE FREE WORLD!
The country's most powerful Shiite cleric endorsed the draft constitution Thursday, rejecting opposition voiced by two popular leaders of Iraq's majority sect and underlining a rift also on display in anti-British violence in the southern city of Basra. Two officials in the Shiite Muslim hierarchy in Najaf said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called senior aides together and told them to promote a "yes" vote among the faithful during the Oct. 15 national referendum on the constitution. The officials refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for al-Sistani, who only issues statements through his office and makes no public appearances.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This article is classic MSM: The headline and first paragraph are on a subject of good news in Iraq. They then throw in three paragraphs of unrelated bad news before returning to the main subject. I suppose this is what they call "balance", but it's what I call shabby journalism.
In Amman, Jordan, about 150 Iraqi Sunni clerics and tribal leaders called for the rejection of the constituion, warning the charter would lead to the fragmentation of Iraq. The local leaders from Iraq's insurgency-torn Anbar province, the country's Sunni heartland, met for a a three-day conference in the Jordanian capital for security reasons. "We urge all the Iraqi people to go to the polls and say no to the constitution," Sheik Abdul-Latif Himayem, a prominent cleric from the Anbar capital, Ramadi, told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I am getting mentally prepared for the Sunnis to kill the Constitution in the referendum. The left will undoubtedly say that this means Iraq is falling apart. However, I think it just means that the Constitution will be re-negotiated once a standing parliament is elected. I also suspect that the Sunnis may actually lose out in that deal.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/23/2005 0:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Its far from clear the Sunnis will get the 2/3rds(?) majority in the 3 provinces required. All Sunni majority provinces have significant numbers of non-Sunnis, some Sunnis will vote for it and some will abstain. I think it will be close.
#7
These guys are so dumb, they don't even know that the U.S. is potentially their most valuable ally. What's their problem, lead in the water? Sheesh.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
09/23/2005 10:28 Comments ||
Top||
#8
"Ma-aaaa! Grampa's waving his scimitar around again!..."
#9
I wonder if the Sunni imams are losing a lot of face by making all of these dumbass decisions. It would be highly amusing if in the January elections, the religious factions just get shut out, and secular Sunnis opposed to this nonsense are elected.
#12
What did Chad ever do to us? Hang Zarqawi instead! Or is 'Zarqawi' Arabic for 'Chad'?
Naa, 'Zarqawi' is Jordanian for "I'm maaaad about my sister!.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2005 23:41 Comments ||
Top||
TONY JONES: How did that transformation in these people take place. Because you tell an extraordinary story of old Baathists who have completely changed their entire outlook and their ways of life?
MICHAEL WARE: Absolutely. I've been tracking the insurgency for over a year now. I've been joining their groups, visiting then in their safe houses, their villages, I've been travelling with them, I've seen their weapons caches, I've been trying to keep as close tabs as possible over the last 12 months. I've seen the shift. Men I know, professional military officers from the Republican Guards, the secret police, these men are in the military for a career. They fought for their nation. Two years ago they were out drinking and whoring under the regime, a year ago they're out defending their homes. Now, they're talking about how they want an Islamic state for Iraq. They didn't dream of that six months ago. Sharia law, they want a pan-Islamic Khilafati, they now adhere to the extremist teachings in Saudi Arabia, they didn't care about anything beyond their borders before now.
...TONY JONES: Michael, why are they letting you get behind this curtain? Is there a message they are wanting you to get out through Time magazine to the rest of the world?
MICHAEL WARE: Clearly, these men, just like the American military I deal with and the public affairs officers who stick to me like glue and only let me see what they want me to see when I'm with them, so it is with the Jihadis. They're showing me what they want me to see, which is, to be truthful, quite a lot, but they know anything I see or hear is public record. It's their responsibility to confine their information. This is what I do. Yeah, they do want to get a message out. They're so media savvy. If they weren't before, they've learnt it, they've polished it.
Even a year ago when I was meeting these nationalist guerrillas who then were ill formed, not yet in clear command and control organisations, even then they were saying to me, "This war is not going to be won on the battlefield. We can't hope to defeat the Americans. It's going to be won in the living rooms of Iraq and Middle America, it's going to be won on television." They were saying, "We can maintain this, we can, we have, we can sustain this longer than your political will will last. Before your people call you home."
Again, that's a part of it now, they're saying, "We're here and we're not going away," and they want to say that to the West. They can tell Arabic channels this until the cows come home, but to have it coming through an American iconic publication like Time magazine, people will listen. And look, the fact is it's true. They have camps, they have what they had in Afghanistan. This is another north-west frontier province like Pakistan, where they can roam free within this territorial confine. I've seen these places and no one can go in there. The Americans can't, not unless they want to lay waste to the place, and they will miss them anyway. The Iraqis have nothing to throw at this, Allawi is powerless, just like Musharraf in Pakistan, a threat in his own country from a safe haven that he can't touch.
TONY JONES: Michael, we're almost out of time. We have about a minute of satellite left. Let me just ask you quickly - what's your conclusion from all of this? How can it end? Can they be defeated?
MICHAEL WARE: This is a big one. They call this a world war until judgment day, maintaining a state of perpetual jihad. We're not going to defeat this here in Iraq.
"Nope. It's a Thousand Year Reich™."
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Follow this clown and kill everyone he talks to.
#3
IOW< like the Commies, aka Commie Fascists or Fascist Communists or other Clintonist definitions, even though the people of Iraqi mostly like America's concepts of democracy, the answer to God-based Totalitarianists/Communists is, surprise surprise, to appease and accomodate them no matter how many innocents they slaughter, because they're being "forced" to kill for killing's sake. * LISA SIMPSON - whom instead of enjoying being out of school due to snow demands that blue-haired Conservative mom MARGE satisfy her wild psychotic rants/screams by grading her, however fake or subjective the "grades"!? According to Lefty and Spetzlamist math, its mom MARGE that needs psychiatric help, NOT and never manic hysterical LISA.
#4
Ware is an idiot. The NWFP has always been policed locally and its moot whether its legally part of Pakistan. What the pakistani government can do is limited without radical changes. The Sunni Iraqi provinces are part of Iraq and a legally constituted central government can do whatever it wants and is capable of. As that capability increasing so will its control. If the Sunnis want to die trying to stop them, so be it.
#5
I've been joining their groups, visiting then in their safe houses, their villages, I've been travelling with them, I've seen their weapons caches
Treason: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
This guy is a mouthpiece for the terrorists. He's as much a traitor as Lord Haw-Haw. God dammit, why don't we have a single Federal prosecutor with the guts to do his duty?
Hang this bastard, burn his body, mix the ashes with horseshit, and smear the mixture on the office walls at the Times.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 7:44 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Hang this bastard, burn his body, mix the ashes with horseshit, and smear the mixture on the office walls at the Times.
You might be able to get an NEA grant for that, RC.
#7
All you need it an appropriate verbal expression of artistic BS. I'd opt for a Ken doll in a huge pickle jar of pee with the head removed and a scaled photo of his face pasted to the face of the doll's head. I'd call it the new "yellow journalism."
#8
Most of the 3rd world is in a perpetual state of limited civil war/unrest. This is exactly why Rumsfield says we are not going to win this war the Iraqis are. We are not going to fight a limited civil unrest terrrorism with suicide bombers, that can only be cured with time and police action, education, civil gov and progress. We still have Skin heads, Panthers, Xradical group, and such doing random acts of violence in the States, is it a threat to the whole of our nation NO, is their areas in the country or getto were cops must go carefully with backup YES, does it matter no. We are only thier long enough for the Iraqi gov forces to built up enough to handle the problem. Then we will pull back to a back up role and security for a outside intervention while the Iraqi gov slowly through time education and freedom pushes the terrorist into limbo. We will win by holding on the Iraqi gov will nail in the last nail. We crushed the Nazis then we controled the territory while the nazi wolf brigades tried to reak havoc. Once the German gov came into effect they through laws, police, and other action ran what was left of the Nazi way of thinging into the ground they nailed the last nail while we sat in big bases to keep the neighbors in line and dont forget even today their is Nazis they just are irrelevant.
The media are idiots. If they would be honest with the fact that if they quit reporting the terrorism as viable but instead showed it as what it is random violence that cannot change anything and is simply a act of desperation. Tell people that our casualties are nothing compared to historical standards that at this rate we can continue for 50+years before we hit the Veitnam levels let the terrorist realize that just one more week wont due they best think 50+yrs, can they hold that rate? I sereosly doubt it. Sadam had unrest in the south and north yet I dont remember anyone of the media saying Iraq was a out of control country with interviews with the Shia or Kurd saying Saddam and the Sunis days were numbered we will fight forever Allallalla.
#9
This guy isn't a problem. He's a resource. Track his movements.
Posted by: Pat Phillips ||
09/23/2005 10:46 Comments ||
Top||
#10
This guy is a mouthpiece for the terrorists. He's as much a traitor as Lord Haw-Haw. God dammit, why don't we have a single Federal prosecutor with the guts to do his duty?
Well, he is an Australian..
The NWFP has always been policed locally and its moot whether its legally part of Pakistan
The NWFP is a full integrated procince in Pakistan, just like Sindh and Punjab. It is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that are a law unto themselves - South Waziristan etc.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/23/2005 11:06 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Well, he is an Australian..
Then bar him from ever entering the US and charge his editors with the treason.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/23/2005 12:55 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Time, Newsweak, NY Times, WaPo have got to know that a US military victory in Iraq will be the worst outcome they could possibly imagine and that is why they are fighting to hard to see it come about.
The stakes are very, very high for the left. A military victory will cripple the left for at least a generation if not more in mainstream politics.
The mask has been off the leftist media for a long time, and I hope that Dubya realizes just how high the political stakes are now. This is not the time to go wobbly, not the time to discover your inner Hillary; we have to see this thing through to victory. No other outcome is acceptable.
#14
The Colonel needs to do one thing more: He needs to make the Sheik stand guard WITH HIM at the site for at least 24 hours. The second or third time that happens, I guarantee you the IEDs will stop. The sheik will scream that he's too important for that, but with the colonel there, too, that won't hold water. I believe our colonels can out-stand any "special" arab who spends most of his time being catered to.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2005 23:52 Comments ||
Top||
In a counter-insurgent war, there are carrots and there are sticks.
Here in Diyala province, the carrot is a nearly $500 million investment in schools, health clinics, roads sewage systems and electricity.
The stick -- at least for the time being -- is Col. Steven Salazar, 47, commander of "Task Force Sledgehammer," the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division.
Where other senior military officers lavish attention on local sheiks and work the imams, Salazar leaves that to his battalion commanders.
This is not to say he doesn't try to abide by local cultural norms. In genial conversations with the province's governor and chief of police, Salazar lards his conversations with as many flowery compliments and "God willings" as anyone. He is patient and politic with callers on his monthly radio appearance.
But once convinced diplomacy is not getting him anywhere, he happily abandons talk for action.
The sheik in Muqtadiya, a large town north of Baquba, this week is learning what happens when he refuses a request from Salazar.
The roads around the city -- roads driven on by U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians -- have recently seen a spate of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the roadside bombs that cause the bulk of U.S. casualties in Iraq. A U.S. commander went to discuss the matter with Sheik Allawi.
"Sheik Allawi has the ability to manage this problem when he wants to," Salazar said Wednesday.
The bombs did not stop. So Salazar implemented a strategy he has used throughout his area of operations, the western half of Diyala, just north of Baghdad: shut down the road on which any IED is found for 24 to 48 hours. It's a matter of safety, but also one of spreading the pain. If the local community is inconvenienced by the road closure, goes the theory, perhaps they will put pressure on the local insurgents to stop.
"But we continued to have IEDs in Muqtadiya," Salazar said. "So we informed the sheik that whenever we find an IED we will eliminate every (obstacle and structure) within a 100 meters of the bomb."
In this case it means date palms and small roadside shacks from which people sell sodas and snacks. But next time it could be more substantial structures.
"It's completely within our (rules of engagement). Anything used by (insurgents) can be taken away, from berms to old infrastructures, whatever ... But this is really the first time we've used it. This is a little bit different," said Salazar.
"We're trying to get them to see cause and effect. If there is an IED attack in the afternoon we begin interdiction that night."
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So we informed the sheik that whenever we find an IED we will eliminate every (obstacle and structure) within a 100 meters of the bomb
I do believe he's got it!
Posted by: Dr H Higgins ||
09/23/2005 7:35 Comments ||
Top||
In a surprise break from his fierce opposition to disengagement and his support of calls for the refusal of IDF evacuation orders, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, urged members of the national religious camp on Thursday to remain loyal to the state and the army.
This view stands in stark contrast to that espoused by a group of settlement rabbis â such as Zalman Melamed of Beit El, Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, Elyakim Levanon of Elon Moreh and David Dudkevitch of Yitzhar â who see as their leader former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira. In the name of Shapira, these rabbis are calling for a radical revamping of the relationship between religious and secular Zionists.
Eliahu's equanimity, in his first interview with the press since disengagement, was a striking departure from his own previous adamant opposition to the pullout, which he had called a "curse from heaven."
Eliahu has been criticized by religious Zionist rabbis for promising thousands of his followers, many of whom are former residents of the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, that disengagement would never happen.
Asked what he had to say to those settlers who suffered material losses, because they believed his promises and did not pack up their belongings or cooperate with the government, Eliahu replied: "From the beginning I always said to the settlers that they need to act according to their level of confidence in God. Someone who is afraid, I said, should evacuate and leave and do what he thinks is right. Someone with more confidence in God should pack but not leave and someone with even more confidence should not even pack."
Eliahu said he did not believe a second disengagement was on the horizon. "People need to understand that Land of Israel is holy and not like other countries in the world," he said. "It is holy since God chose to give it to the Jewish people. How can you give it away?"
He said that disengagement was God's way of telling the Jewish people to "re-engage."
Owww. I hate when my head spins like that.
"God wants us to be connected to one another. What is missing today from the Jewish nation and the Land of Israel is love and unity," he said.
No mention of butterflies or baby ducks.
Eliahu said a Jew needs to maintain the same attitude toward the state as before the pullout. He must continue to serve in the army via the hesder program, unless he devotes his full time to Torah study. He must continue to vote and to show respect for the Knesset and its elected officials. "But everything must be done to topple the government," he said.
Eliahu called on all the religious and right-wing parties to join forces and create a right-wing religious bloc. Regarding the continued settlement of the Land of Israel, Eliahu said people should not go settle vacant hilltops without the approval of the IDF.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2005 00:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
About bloody time. He should be ashamed that he even made it a question.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas yesterday urged armed factions to help rebuild the Gaza Strip rather than flex their military muscle as he toured the ruins of Israelâs most hated former settlement. Opening a water well amid the rubble-scarred landscape of Netzarim, Abbas confirmed that militants had agreed to stop all armed rallies and marches by Saturday, stressing that now was the time for a united reconstruction effort. âAll factions will participate with the Palestinian Authority in the rebuilding,â said Abbas, inaugurating a well to cater to some 3,000 Palestinians in the village of Al-Mughraqa near the former Netzarim settlement. âItâs an important project to return the greenery to all the Palestinian territories which have been destroyed and bulldozed by Israel. We hope to be the first of all of our re-construction projects,â Abbas said.
His tour of Netzarim, where armed activists have been out in force since Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip on Sept. 12, follows talks with representatives of the main Palestinian factions late Wednesday. âWhat is important is that we decided Saturday will be the last day for military displays in the Gaza Strip and to move on to rebuilding areas which were destroyed by Israel,â said Abbas.
Armed factions, particularly Hamas, have staged a number of large-scale rallies in the aftermath of Israelâs departure from Gaza as they seek to claim credit for what they see as an act of surrender. Hamas has confirmed it has agreed to end its celebratory military parades and armed marches in Gaza towns, but refuses appeals from Abbas, Israel and the international community to disarm before taking part in elections in January.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
..but refuses appeals from Abbas, Israel and the international community to disarm before taking part in elections in January.
Hahahahaha, Isreal appealing to Hamas to disarm? Please.
#2
Those effing idiots are incapable of creating anything. All they know is destruction. A dhimmi American Jewish group paid $14,000,000 to Israel so that they would leave several greenhouses intact in Gaza. They thought - like the State Dept's Afghanistan/Iraq brain's trusts - that a little economic viability would wean the Islamonkies off jihad.
You can take the Muslim out of the jihad pig pen, but you can't take the jihad out of the Muslim. Write them off, and repatriate Middle East oil to its Anglo-American founders.
Read this report by a right wing editor of Spectator (UK) on the Islamofascist tyranny of Basra:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/09/22/do2201.xml
If we can't have a partner in Iraq, then lets have a colony.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
09/23/2005 0:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Armed Faction Urban Renewal. How may I direct your call?"
#4
Opening a water well amid the rubble-scarred landscape of Netzarim.
This must just be a symbolic "Well Opening" reports earlier said that the wells in the Gaza Strip were contaminated with sea salt water from overpumping.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2005 14:06 Comments ||
Top||
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told military officers he intends to reopen the Rafah border crossing in January, and from next week Palestinians would be able to use the new Kerem Shalom facility at the junction of the Israeli, Egyptian and Gaza borders, defense officials said. Israel had said the Rafah crossing would be closed for six months for security and customs arrangements. Palestinians insist on free access in and out of Gaza through Rafah with no Israeli presence, and have rejected the Kerem Shalom option.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Then screw 'em. Shut the door and throw away the key. Gaza has absolutely NOTHING that Israel needs.
SHORT stint, but with a very tough is what new Southern Command chief Lieutenant General Edilberto Adan will face in Mindanao where the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is having its biggest battle against terrorists.
The AFP made this assessment in Metro Manila as Malacañang reportedly ordered Adan to get all the terrorists operating in the Island.
Ten different factions in Mindanao--including the Abu Sayyaf group, Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and the New People's Army (NPA)--were included in the assessment report.
The other leading forces mentioned in the assessment was the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Misuari breakaway group based in Western Mindanao, the Abu Sofia Group and the Pentagon Kidnap-for-Ransom Group (KRG) based in Central Mindanao and the Al-Qaeda linked group. Three others are identified with "lost command groups."
As this developed, government troops battled the Misuari break-away forces in Sacol island, west-coast of the city last Monday morning, according to a report reaching the Southern command. No immediate casualties on either side were reported.
The security forces deployed in the island were making their morning patrol when they chanced upon the heavily armed group. They clashed for several minutes before the armed group retreated, a Southcom source disclosed.
The AFP lists the Misuari-renegade forces as among the ten active terrorist groups operating in Southern Philippines. They are mostly scattered in Sulu, Basilan and Zamboanga. The group formed part of the Misuari rebel forces that staged a short-lived uprising in Cabatangan this city in 2001.
The incident gained worldwide attention when they held hostage more than 200 civilians living near their Cabatangan lair, which was overrun later by the military with air support from the Philippine Air Force that bombarded their hideout.
Many people perished in the attack. The group set free all their hostages after a successful three-day negotiation that also led to their freedom somewhere in the Eleven Islands near Sacol.
Meantime, President Gloria Macapagal Arrovo denied reports that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is giving sanctuary to the terrorists in their territory here in Mindanao.
The President made the denial following persistent insinuations against her government that the MILF, with whom her administration is currently locked in peace talks, is coddling terrorists in Central Mindanao.
She said, on the contrary, that the MILF is helping the government hunt down the Abu Sayyaf and the JI militant forces in Liguasan Marsh, where they reportedly hide from pursuing government troops.
The vast Liguasan marshland is hard to penetrate by security forces, the AFP admitted. Arroyo made the statement when interviewed in Manila.
After her successful trip to the United Nations Security Council last week, where she had the prestigious honor of presiding over the powerful council, she was hailed as the first Filipino leader, first Asian and the first woman to bang the gavel as chair of the UN Security Council. One of her main appeals to the rest of the world leaders is to vigorously fight terrorism that grips the entire free world.
Her last minute instruction to Adan when the latter assumed his post here last August 9 was to capture Abu Sayyaf overall chieftain Kadaffy Janjalani dead or alive, utilizing all AFP available resources under his AOR here in the South.
"This will help tone down his critics who are against his appointment as Southcom chief," a Malacanang news source said when reached for comment.
Adan's post here was contested by newly promoted Lt. General Samuel Bagasin, who recently assumed as AFP deputy chief of staff, the post vacated by Adan. Bagasin was the former 4th Infantry Division commander based in Cagayan de Oro. He was highly recommended as the supposed 27th Southcom commander by the Board of Generals to replace retired Southcom head Lieutenant General Alberto Braganza; but his appointment was overturned by Arroyo, as the commander-in-chief, and instead placed Adan at the helm of the biggest AFP unified command outside Manila.
Adan said he will do his very best to get Janjalani before he retires in January, next year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/23/2005 00:34 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
EU diplomats on Thursday walked away from a march in Tehran when ballistic missiles with anti-American and Israeli banners rolled past, Agence France-Presse reported.
The event was held to mark the anniversary of the beginning of Iran's war with Iraq in 1980.
Diplomats from the embassies of France, Italy, Greece and Poland walked out of the parade when banners carrying slogans "Death to America," "We will crush America with our feet" and "Israel must be whipped off the face of earth" appeared.
One diplomat said that they had decided before the parade that they would leave if any of their allies were attacked.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/23/2005 09:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
One diplomat said that they had decided before the parade that they would leave if any of their allies were attacked.
So why did they leave? America and Israel aren't their allies.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
09/23/2005 9:38 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Nice observation Larry! EU has gone out of its way to state that the EU is a "counter" to America. Were they surprised about the Anti-U.S. tone in Iran? Just remember Euros: "When you lay down with dogs you sometimes get fleas."
DAMASCUS â Political life in Syria has long been stagnant, dominated by the ruling murderous Baath Party since the 1960s. But in June, the Baath Party Congress recommended the establishment of a new political party law that would allow the creation of new nonethnic and nonreligious political parties.
Since then, Samir Nashar, a wealthy businessman from Aleppo, has spent weeks on the road, personally recruiting prominent intellectuals, economists, and businessmen to join the National Free Coalition, a new party that hopes to represent Syria's bourgeoisie.
But in a country where new political parties still remain illegal and gatherings of four or more people may be punishable by jail, Nashar's recruitment drive is proving difficult. "Because of the security services, people don't know how the government will respond to announcements of political parties," said Nashar. "So even though people like our project, they remain fearful of joining."
While analysts say a new party law could take as long as two years to pass, the mere anticipation of such a law has ignited discussions among activists about what new political parties could look like.
And some of the country's boldest activists are looking to jump start the whole process. Nashar says the need to organize has taken on a sense of urgency as the new law could require a new party to have a membership in the tens of thousands to be recognized. "In a country like Syria, with no real political life, how can we start a party in the thousands?" asks Nashar. "That is why I am opening the dialogue with friends, social organizations, and economists. We want to build a liberal atmosphere before we have a party so that people get to know each other."
You might want to get a remote starter for your car.
Kamal al-Labwani, one of 10 prominent activists arrested in 2001 and released last year, published his vision for The Liberal Democratic Union a few months ago on the Internet.
Historically, opposition parties in Syria outside the National Progressive Front (NPF), a coalition of nine political parties controlled by the Baath Party, have mostly been communists, socialists, or nationalists. But opposition figures like Nashar and Mr. Labwani say that these days their country is in need of "liberalism" and "capitalism."
Nashar says his Free National Coalition will be the first party since the mid-1950s to represent the interests of the middle class. He has visions of a market economy, a democratic system with a division of power and term limits, an emphasis on the rights for women and minority, and the rights of religious groups to form parties - all anchored under the rule of law.
I blame George Bush for this.
"For 30 or 40 years, liberal was a negative term for parties," says Louay Hussein, an opposition figure who is also in the midst of forming a political party. "A liberal party meant it was tied to the West and everybody wanted to say we're not Western. Now, to differentiate themselves, many [activists] are starting to use the term liberal."
In early August, Lawbani said in an interview on Syriacomment.com, a Syrian social and political affairs website, that security services prevented some 200 people from attending a meeting at his house in the mountains just outside of Damascus on the basis that Islamists were displeased with his new project and had threatened to murder him. But such intimidation is not hampering many of these activists. "We're preparing for the day when the regime falls," Labawani said in the interview. "We're letting them know that we're thinking past their collapse and planning for the future. It's a type of psychological warfare."
Rihab Biytar, a lawyer who works on human rights and Islamic law cases, hopes to become the first woman in Syria to start a new political party. Two months ago, Mrs. Biytar announced the formation of the Free Democratic Coalition, which she calls a "project for a political party based on individual and human rights."
But, for Syrians, so long as the country remains under martial law, even a law allowing new political parties may not be enough. "There will be no party of importance until the normal people feel they are safe, until people are not afraid of the security apparatus in the country," says Mr. Hussein. "Even if there is a political parties law, there will be no important political parties because the people will not trust the government; they will not trust that you can form a party and you will not be arrested."
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2005 00:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"There will be no party of importance until the normal people feel they are safe, until people are not afraid of the security apparatus in the country," says Mr. Hussein. "Even if there is a political parties law, there will be no important political parties because the people will not trust the government; they will not trust that you can form a party and you will not be arrested."
This is the important thing. Without a serious change Syria is merely going to have Iranian style "deomocracy." Which is to say all hat, no cattle.
VIENNA - The European Unionâs three main powers dropped a demand on Thursday that the UN nuclear watchdog immediately report Iran to the Security Council over its atomic plans, following opposition from Russia and China.
Moscow and Beijing have warned the United States, France, Britain and Germany against stepping up the nuclear standoff with Iran, undermining the Western drive to haul Teheran before the UNâs highest body for possible sanctions. The new draft, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, carefully omitted any explicit plea threat that the mad mullahs Iran would be referred to the impotent Security Council but cautiously implied that the impotent IAEA board could or could not choose to issue a stern note refer the matter to the Council in the future but we repeat ourselves.
âThe history of concealment of Iranâs nuclear activities ... and the resulting absence of confidence that Iranâs nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes have given rise to questions that are within the competence of the Security Council...,â the draft said.
It also declared that Iran had been in ânon-complianceâ with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which normally requires the IAEA board to notify the Council.
But not this time.
EU diplomats said they hoped to get unanimous support for what they called a very tough and fair draft resolution. But it was unclear oh it's clear allright if the Russians and Chinese were prepared to support it. If Moscow and Beijing opposed it, EU diplomats said the IAEA board would put the original tougher resolution, which had at least a simple majority of support, to a vote despite Russian and Chinese opposition.
Iranian negotiator Javad Vaeedi said opposition from Russia and China helped stop the EU from taking Teheran to the Security Council. âOur firm stance, China and Russiaâs backing and also a lack of legal basis caused the EUâs withdrawal,â the official IRNA news agency quoted Vaeedi as saying.
US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said that âa solid and growing majority of the IAEA board now also agrees on the need to report Iran to the UN Security Council. âWe support the European Unionâs effort to continue to develop the broadest possible consensus to find Iran in non-compliance and to prepare a report to the UN Security Council,â Schulte said.
Chinaâs Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said there was still room for dialogue to resolve the issue. He called for a resumption of EU-Iran talks that collapsed after two years when Teheran resumed uranium processing work at a plant in Isfahan last month.
Top EU foreign ministers insisted Iran was not off the hook.
And then their lips fell off.
In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Teheran had shown no sign of flexibility despite repeated offers of cooperation by the EU.
And why should they?
âThe spotlight is now on the IAEA Board of Governors to wuss out respond,â the article said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
No surprise here - the issue is how Russia-China will use their veto.
#2
Iran's history of deception regarding its nuclear program is, to understate the situation, problematic. For years Iran hid critical aspects of its uranium enrichment processes. But Teheran now claims to have come into compliance with Article III of the NPT. Iran says it will accept all safeguards, including on-site inspections. However, The IAEA draft memo declared that Iran had been in ânon-complianceâ with the NPT. This requires the IAEA board to notify the Security Council. The EU-3 now has dropped their demand to fulfill that requirement. Is this turnabout designed to give more time for diplomacy with Moscow and Beijing? Or is there a legitimate question as to if Iran is formal breach of their obligations to the NPT?
#4
as Germany moves toward a govt likely to be less friendly to Putin.
How is anarchy less friendly to Putin? That'll give the Russians more freedom to reconstruct the near-abroad.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/23/2005 10:12 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"EU wimps out" In other surprising news:
Dog bites man
Sun rises in east
"We're smarter than you," experts say
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2005 10:16 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The Chicoms need Iranian oil, so they will always oppose any negative action against Iran. If Iran gets nukes, it's no problem to the Chicoms, as it is the West's problem (for now). A weakened West is a happy West. The US (and Israel to a degree) is the only thing holding back the MMs. Russia is backing Iran because constructing Iranian reactors brings in cash. (bunch of ho's).
Ball is in the US' court.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/23/2005 10:45 Comments ||
Top||
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a telephonic conversation with Iranian President Ahmedinejad on Friday night during which he asked him to adopt a "flexible position" and make concessions on the nuclear issue to avoid confrontation.
Ahmedinejad called up Singh and raised the issue of Iran's nuclear programme at the International Atomic Energy Agency, an External Affairs Ministry statement said.
"The Prime Minister advised him that Iran should consider taking a flexible position so as to avoid a confrontation," the statement said.
The Prime Minister repeated the necessity for Iran to make concessions to this end, it said.
"India supports resolution of all the issues through discussion and consensus in the IAEA," it said.
Prime Minister and Ahmedinejad also reviewed bilateral relations.
Posted by: john ||
09/23/2005 19:05 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: john ||
09/23/2005 18:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This looks neat!! I don't recall seeing too many carrier to carrier exercises. Hope info will be declassified and come out of this. Also hope the Nimitz people don't let down.
#5
The last time two carrier task forces went at it was Leyte Gulf in 1944, when the fighters were A6M Zeroes and F6F Hellcats. How do carrier task forces fight in the age of the F/A-18 and E-2C? That's probably what they were trying to figure out.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2005 23:45 Comments ||
Top||
The maneuvers also have a goal to demonstrate to the top brass of Indian army and navy the nuclear sub Project 09710 âSamaraâ â two subs of this class are being built right now in Komsomolsk-on- Amur for New Delhi.
Posted by: john ||
09/23/2005 18:52 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Is this a good move considering all the recent troubles with Soviet-made subs? Seem like the Indian Navy might be making a move that could cost them alot of money and lives.
Posted by: Charles ||
09/23/2005 21:12 Comments ||
Top||
'The Pakistani military officers battling al Qaeda along the border with Afghanistan who have the latest first-hand information about Osama bin Laden believe he is hiding with a small cadre in Afghanistan and is no longer an effective leader for the terrorist group.' Steve Kroft's report from Pakistan will be broadcast on the 38th season premiere of 60 MINUTES Sunday, Sept. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS television Network.
Good thing I read Drudge, otherwise no one would ever know about it.
"I think now [bin Laden] is being protected or assisted by a very short number, which keeps his profile very low," the counter-terrorism head of Pakistan's Intelligence Service, ISI, tells Kroft. "[He is someplace along the border, probably in Afghanistan] is what my assessment says," opines the brigadier who goes by the name 'Ali' and whose true identity is known by only a few government officials.
A true man of mystery
Ali tells Kroft his forces have diminished bin Laden's power by capturing 594 al-Qaeda members and crippling the group's communications, including infiltrating their courier network. "We have been able to effectively break the communications network from top to bottom. We do not allow these people to communicate with each other," says Ali.
The information gleaned from the captives and given to coalition officials has helped to prevent planned terror attacks against financial buildings in the U.S., planes and buildings at London's Heathrow airport and has assisted in the capture of al-Qaeda operatives in Great Britain. "The mere fact that there has not been a replication of 9/11 speaks volumes of what we shared with the world," boasts Ali.
"Yes, it's true, we saved the world!"
Finding bin Laden doesn't matter at this point, believes Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, in charge of Pakistan's anti-terrorism operations along the Afghanistan border. "If [bin Laden] is hiding in a hole, neither the electronic nor the human intelligence can find him," he tells Kroft. "Is it all that important to find him? If he's taken out tomorrow, his ideology is not going to come to an end. I don't think that it's important if he is captured. This is my personal view," says Hussain.
It's not ours, Ali
Kroft also spoke to the Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "These troops are not certainly on the trail of one man and that's all they are doing," notes Musharraf. "We are fighting terrorism wherever it is. If Osama happens to be there incidentally, he will be killed or captured," he tells Kroft.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/23/2005 14:06 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Kroft must be getting lazy. Ali probably could've set him up with an interview if he pushed hard enough.
#6
counter-terrorism head of Pakistan's Intelligence Service, ISI, tells Kroft.
The ISI has a counter terrorism unit?
What is his job specification? Shooting coworkers?
Posted by: john ||
09/23/2005 19:44 Comments ||
Top||
#7
"I think now [bin Laden] is being protected or assisted by a very short number, which keeps his profile very low," the counter-terrorism head of Pakistan's Intelligence Service, ISI, tells Kroft.
"...And trust me, I KNOW!"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/23/2005 20:22 Comments ||
Top||
While testifying to an examining magistrate in Geneva in a money laundering case, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto disassociated herself from the businesses of her family including her husband, mother and brother-in-law, according to official sources.
She's getting out of politics? That is news!
Benazir and her alleged agent Jens Schlegelmilch had recorded their statements before the examining magistrate, Geneva Attorney General Daniel Zappelli and counsels for the Government of Pakistan on September 19. Benazir, her husband Asif Ali Zaradari and Jens Schlegelmilch had been indicted in the SGS money laundering scandal and given six-month suspended jail.
Oh. That business.
Zaradri did not appear before the court, pleading that he had health problems, but the magistrate rejected the excuse, the officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Punjab province has registered 434 more madrassas up till September 19, according to the latest report sent to the Ministry of Religious Affairs by the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department. Out of total 498, 434 madrassas have been registered, while 64 applications are pending and expected to be approved shortly.
Syed Abdul Khaliq Khawarzmi, additional secretary to the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department, told Daily Times that they were expecting to meet the target before the December 31 deadline set by the federal government. âWe hope to register all madrassas by the November end,â he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The government is working against Pakistanâs ideological foundation, said Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed, while addressing a JI Central Working Council meeting in Mansoorah on Wednesday. Ahmed said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf was blindly following the US agenda that nullified the justification of Pakistanâs creation and it would seriously endanger national security. The National Leadersâ Conference (NLC) held in Islamabad on August 29 had unanimously decided to launch a drive to remove President Musharraf and his aides from power, he said.
He said a âsecret agreementâ between Gen Musharraf and US President George Bush at Camp David had started to unveil. This agreement included halting the nuclear programme, giving up Pakistanâs principled stance on the Kashmir issue, recognising Israel, friendship with India and removing Quranic verses from the national syllabus, he said. Ahmed said the US had made its prime objective to change syllabi of all Muslim countries. âWashington is eradicating certain Quranic verses and Islamic teachings from the syllabi of some Arab countries after calling them hateful,â he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
>halting the nuclear programme, giving up Pakistanâs principled stance on the Kashmir issue, recognising Israel, friendship with India and removing Quranic verses from the national syllabus>
Sounds like a great plan to me.Why should Qazi care, anyhow? The Jamaat was against the founding of Porkistan (They were smart back then).
NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman on Wednesday supported the call for integrating tribal areas with the Frontier Province saying it would help the tribesmen. âI think it (the merger) will be good for tribal people and I support the idea,â he told journalists. Pro-Kabul Awami National Party was the first political party to demand the Federally Administered Tribal Areasâ integration with NWFP. However, the demand received a strong reaction from tribal elders. âIt will take time for the idea to mature,â he told Daily Times.
"How much time?"
"I'd guess about five or six hundred years. Though I'm not sure I'd use the word 'mature' relating to the tribal areas..."
According to reports, former NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah had formed a committee, which gave several proposals to bring about reforms in tribal areas, suggesting integration of FATA with NWFP. He said the demand had come from a large number of people and the federal government had been informed about it. Regarding reforms in the Frontier Crimes Regulation, Governor Khalil said national or Shariah laws cannot work in tribal areas suggesting FCR, with a few amendments, would be more suitable for tribal areas.
He said the federal government should hold talks with Afghanistan to extend the Durand Line Treaty, as it has expired. âThe government should seek extension of the Durand Line Treaty.â He said this when journalists sought his opinion on Pakistanâs proposal to lay a fence along the Afghan border. The governor expressed concern over the recent disorder in South Waziristan, saying that he would urge the senior military command to invite Baitullah Mehsud for talks to discuss the situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
British Muslim leaders called on the government Thursday to establish a national body to oversee mosques and imams as part of efforts to combat extremism following the July bombings in London.
President Bush fired back at ex-president Clinton on Thursday, saying the weak U.S. response to terrorist attacks that took place mostly during the Clinton administration encouraged al Qaida to launch the 9/11 attacks. "The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole," Bush noted, after getting an update on the war on terror at the Pentagon. "The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us," the president added, in quotes picked up by United Press International. Four of the six terrorist attacks cited by Bush took place on Clinton's watch, with the first two coming during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. 
September 23, 2005: The U.S. Marine Corps is raising the training standards for its personnel, by making it mandatory that everyone go through a more intensive weapons training program each year. Until recently, every marine had to pass a pretty basic shooting test each year. Now everyone will get a test similar to the one every recruit has to pass in boot camp. This includes shooting in combat type situations. Failure to meet minimum qualifications in this weapons test can get you booted out of the marines. 
he country's most powerful Shiite cleric endorsed the draft constitution Thursday, rejecting opposition voiced by two popular leaders of Iraq's majority sect and underlining a rift also on display in anti-British violence in the southern city of Basra. Two officials in the Shiite Muslim hierarchy in Najaf said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called senior aides together and told them to promote a "yes" vote among the faithful during the Oct. 15 national referendum on the constitution. The officials refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for al-Sistani, who only issues statements through his office and makes no public appearances.
In Amman, Jordan, about 150 Iraqi Sunni clerics and tribal leaders called for the rejection of the constituion, warning the charter would lead to the fragmentation of Iraq. The local leaders from Iraq's insurgency-torn Anbar province, the country's Sunni heartland, met for a a three-day conference in the Jordanian capital for security reasons. "We urge all the Iraqi people to go to the polls and say no to the constitution," Sheik Abdul-Latif Himayem, a prominent cleric from the Anbar capital, Ramadi, told The Associated Press.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas yesterday urged armed factions to help rebuild the Gaza Strip rather than flex their military muscle as he toured the ruins of Israelâs most hated former settlement. Opening a water well amid the rubble-scarred landscape of Netzarim, Abbas confirmed that militants had agreed to stop all armed rallies and marches by Saturday, stressing that now was the time for a united reconstruction effort. âAll factions will participate with the Palestinian Authority in the rebuilding,â said Abbas, inaugurating a well to cater to some 3,000 Palestinians in the village of Al-Mughraqa near the former Netzarim settlement. âItâs an important project to return the greenery to all the Palestinian territories which have been destroyed and bulldozed by Israel. We hope to be the first of all of our re-construction projects,â Abbas said.
DAMASCUS â Political life in Syria has long been stagnant, dominated by the ruling 
VIENNA - The European Unionâs three main powers dropped a demand on Thursday that the UN nuclear watchdog immediately report Iran to the Security Council over its atomic plans, following opposition from Russia and China.
While testifying to an examining magistrate in Geneva in a money laundering case, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto disassociated herself from the businesses of her family including her husband, mother and brother-in-law, according to official sources. 
The Punjab province has registered 434 more madrassas up till September 19, according to the latest report sent to the Ministry of Religious Affairs by the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department. Out of total 498, 434 madrassas have been registered, while 64 applications are pending and expected to be approved shortly. 
The government is working against Pakistanâs ideological foundation, said Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed, while addressing a JI Central Working Council meeting in Mansoorah on Wednesday. Ahmed said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf was blindly following the US agenda that nullified the justification of Pakistanâs creation and it would seriously endanger national security. The National Leadersâ Conference (NLC) held in Islamabad on August 29 had unanimously decided to launch a drive to remove President Musharraf and his aides from power, he said.
NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman on Wednesday supported the call for integrating tribal areas with the Frontier Province saying it would help the tribesmen. âI think it (the merger) will be good for tribal people and I support the idea,â he told journalists. Pro-Kabul Awami National Party was the first political party to demand the Federally Administered Tribal Areasâ integration with NWFP. However, the demand received a strong reaction from tribal elders. âIt will take time for the idea to mature,â he told Daily Times. 
