The Taliban have published the movement's first military field manual detailing how to spring ambushes, run spies and conduct an insurgency against coalition forces in Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday. At 144 pages, Military Teachings - for the Preparation of Mujahideen, is a minutely detailed "how to" book on subjects ranging from tactics and weapons to building training camps and espionage.
The guide, which is similar in its aims to British and American military field manuals, was obtained by The Daily Telegraph from a source in Pakistan who claimed to be close to the Taliban. Its cover bears the image of two crossed swords and the holy Quran, the arms of the Taliban's ousted government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The book "will soon be made available to the commanders in Afghanistan as well as its adjacent tribal areas in Pakistan", the source said.
The book, written in the Pashto language, "will soon be made available to the commanders in Afghanistan as well as its adjacent tribal areas in Pakistan", the source said. He added that copies of the manual had been circulated to the Pakistani tribal area of Bajaur. Its publication highlights the extent of the Taliban's revival six years after it was deposed by a US-led invasion. "This is the first of its kind and shows a significant level of organisation," said Brigadier Mahmood Shah, a retired military intelligence officer who was in charge of security in the tribal areas. Brig Shah said "soft" Pakistani government policy towards the pro-Taliban militants had allowed them to flourish in the lawless ethnic Pashtun tribal areas that straddle the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Maulana Nek Zaman, a MNA from North Waziristan, said the manual had a potentially large readership. "It is not a case of just Taliban who are fighting but all the tribes are resisting because they have been attacked," he said.
Last year the Taliban published a pocket-sized code of conduct which described suicide bombers as "Omar's missiles", referring to the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar. It laid out the rules of daily life including a ban on relations with young boys ? an activity favoured by some Afghan fighters.
The military manual is divided into 10 chapters and appears to be the result of a collaboration between religious scholars and specialists in terrorist, logistical and intelligence tactics. It is illustrated with simple formulas for the preparation of explosives, pictures and diagrams of light and heavy weaponry, ammunition and communication equipment. The bulk of the manual details basic military skills such as firing positions and how to use different weapons.
"In a situation where infidels and their crooks are ruling the world, it is the prime duty of all the Muslims to take arms and crush those who are bent upon crushing the Muslims throughout the world."
It advises on how to carry out remotely controlled attacks on enemy vehicles, and shows how to strike aircraft and armoured vehicles by targeting weak points.
It shows with diagrams how to target vehicles passing through rough terrain at low speed and how telegraph poles and trees can be used to range in on a target. It also explores methods of blowing up bridges, railway tracks and power and telephone lines.
Its preface sets out the Taliban's justification for war: "In a situation where infidels and their crooks are ruling the world, it is the prime duty of all the Muslims to take arms and crush those who are bent upon crushing the Muslims throughout the world. This is the best time to take on the usur
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
NYT Book Review: "A terrific read! Couldn't put it down! An impressive debut effort!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2007 7:11 Comments ||
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#2
You stole my byline!!!!
Posted by: NYT Reporter ||
08/17/2007 8:28 Comments ||
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#3
It laid out the rules of daily life including a ban on relations with young boys
(SomaliNet) In a bid to end the differences among Hawiye, the dominant clan in Somali capital Mogadishu, negotiations brokered by well-respected Somali traditional elders are under way, a Somali politician Abdulahi Sheik Hassan said yesterday.
There are efforts to unify the varying ideologies within the Hawiye people. Mr. Hassan, who had recently backed out his opposition against the Somali government and attended the reconciliation congress. "I am hoping that Hawiye leaders will lastly agree on their common destiny and drop the hostility," said Hassan.
The clan's traditional leaders have been at odds over the participation of the reconciliation conference and split into two parts. Some argued that the conference should be political rather than clan-based and be held a neutral location outside of the country. One part led by the Hawiye leader dropped their negative position and joined the peace process while the other part stuck firmly on their stand.
Mr. Hassan said why the conference was halted for a week was to give chance to Hawiye clan to resolve their discrepancy and attend the clan-based reconciliation congress which has entered its second phase of political discussions last week.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Although two years have passed since the Islamist militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) launched a countrywide bomb attack, the government has not yet found out the true masterminds behind that group.
At least they're smart enough to figure that it wasn't Bangla Bhai and Abdur Rahman. There doesn't seem to have been a lot of brain power removed from the Bangla gene pool when they dangled.
The mystery about the masterminds remains shrouded especially because the six militant leaders who were hanged on March 29 this year were not allowed to speak out before the media before their death. Questions that remain unanswered include those about the foreign links and funding that kept JMB operations alive for years.
My guess, not verifiable at this point, would be the money came from Soddy Arabia, probably via Dhubai, through a low-profile front man for a Jamaat-e-Islami politician/holy man. Likely the actual chain has more links in it than those, and reeks of red herrings, but that's prob'ly the way it works.
Meantime, quoting high police officials the press reported that JMB leader Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai's killing mission of 2004 was launched upon the green signal of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, her all-powerful son Tarique Rahman and the then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar.
The entire BNP government stank out loud of its support for the Islamists. We even mentioned here a time or two about how the RAB was always going after Purbo Banglar and New Biplobi commies, but seldom after a turban.
But till date, the law enforcement authorities have not made any official move to initiate an investigation in this regard.
Mainly because an investigation would lead to some people who're still involving with the running of things, like top bureaucrats.
The press also reported that out of the top seven JMB leaders, four including Bangla Bhai were previously involved with Jamaat-e-Islami.
Do tell? Really? We are just so surprised.
Police investigation based on interrogation of arrested JMB leaders also revealed that most senior leaders of JMB had been previously involved with Jamaat.
Pure coincidence, of course.
The law enforcers had arrested a total of 698 JMB activists in connection with the August 17 bomb blast. The government filed 154 cases against them. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad, however, notes that the investigations are still being carried out. "As far as I know, most of the related cases have been already disposed of. The remaining cases will also be quickly disposed of," he said.
Meanwhile, some people who were affected by Bangla Bhai's atrocious killing mission in Rajshahi region have filed several cases against the leading local patrons of JMB in recent months. These patrons are former telecom minister Barrister Aminul Haque, former deputy minister for land Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu and former parliamentarian Nadim Mostafa. These leaders had patronised JMB operations in the Rajshahi region for their personal political gain. But the JMB had already been secretly operating in the country since the late 1990s in different names.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
My guess, not verifiable at this point, would be the money came from Soddy Arabia, probably via Dhubai, through a low-profile front man for a Jamaat-e-Islami politician/holy man.
I'd wager that the money came from Soddy aRabida, but the instructions and training came from Pakiwakiland via the ISI. The Pakis have NEVER been happy with the loss of the "eastern provinces".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2007 13:08 Comments ||
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An Israeli scholar has firmly rejected comments by controversial UK Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Tonge, who recently accused Israel of driving the Palestinians to their current impoverished situation and claimed that this issue was being used to fuel Islamic extremism.
"Ever since 1948, Palestine has been used as a battle cry and a propaganda weapon for Islamists worldwide," she said in a speech in the House of Lords last month. "I have witnessed this in some African countries and, more recently, in Bangladesh. Palestine is what the West does to Muslims. That is the message. The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well-educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a Third-World country. The statistics are there for all to see."
Tonge also alleged that the IDF was disrupting school exams in Nablus, resulting in a generation of illiterate and unskilled Palestinians.
"Even education is being destroyed as children are terrorized by raids on their schools," she said, claiming that the products of such a system would be "capable of very little except low-wage labor. The economy cannot be rebuilt unless Israel changes its policies."
But Dr. Jonathan Spyer, research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, disputed such assertions, which he said betrayed an "appalling ignorance of Islamist movements. Radical Islam is a political idea, some of whose proponents use the method of terrorism. This idea sees world events as shaped by a struggle between the forces of authentic Islam, and those of the non-believers. It uses a long list of supposed Muslim grievances as a way to mobilize support," he told The Jerusalem Post.
He noted that al-Qaida had been formed to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government in opposition to the US presence there in the 1990s. "Al-Qaida hardly mentioned the Palestinian issue prior to 2001."
"The idea that this trans-national idea, which feeds off many local issues, is somehow 'traceable' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would be settled by the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel - an outcome which the Islamists in any case reject - is an absurd one. It's used by people like Tonge in order to hold Israel to blame for radical Islam's war in the West."
Baroness Tonge was sacked as a member of Parliament and as the Liberal Democrat spokeswoman in 2004 after expressing support for Palestinian suicide bombers.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
Muslims use any reason for war as they dont enjoy the alternative life being married getting a job and bringing up kids etc!!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
08/17/2007 7:54 Comments ||
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Gotta blame somebody, and, of course, it's too dangerous, in a personal sense, to blame the Muzzies.... Jenny the T. comes across as a real ditz, but in her defense, is, undoubtedly, the product of a government school system.....
#3
Another anti-Semitic Brit that couldn't buy a clue with all the wealth of Africa. I'm sure Baroness Tonge has no idea what the paleostains are "taught" in their schools, or the Arab response to "palestinian" refugees from 1948, or the declaration of the Mufti of Jerusalem that caused most "palestinians" to flee their homes in 1948 and establish those refugee camps. What a worthless piece of unflushed fecal matter.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2007 13:14 Comments ||
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from the bio: Controversy and allegations of antisemitism
Following her election to Parliament in 1997, Tonge served as Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on international development but was sacked by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy in January 2004 after saying she could understand why a Palestinian would become a suicide bomber and also that she would consider becoming one were she a Palestinian. Tonge refused to apologise. [1]
In 2004, Tonge led pro-Palestinian activists and several Lib Dem MPs to stand for a two minute silence in honour of the deceased Hamas leader; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin, As leader of Hamas, Yassin presided over numerous deadly suicide bomb attacks targeted at Israeli civilians. By honouring a Sheikh Yassin, some questioned Tongeâs earlier insistence that she did not support terrorism herself. Melanie Phillips was especially critical.[2]
In September 2006, she claimed in a speech at the Liberal Democrat conference (aired on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Today") that the "pro-Israeli lobby has got it financial grips on the Western World" and on "our party". [3] She was accused by anti-racist groups of reviving the language of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, and heavily criticised by Norman Lamb MP, spokesman for Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell. Campbell later declared while he agreed with Barroness Tonge that the "pro-Israeli lobby does have its financial grips on the Western World" he did not agree with the assertion that it had influence on the Liberal Democrats.
War veterans and MPs are calling for a dedicated military hospital amid an overcrowding crisis at the country's only ward reserved for soldiers.
Rising casualty rates in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent weeks have put a massive strain on the ward at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham. The 'military-managed' section at the hospital has just 14 beds but in the last month alone 145 injured soldiers have been flown back from war-torn zones requiring treatment. Many of them have lost eyes and limbs and are psychologically traumatised by their experiences on the front line.
As a result of the overcrowding, they are being treated in ordinary wards amongst civilians who have no understanding of the horrors of the war. One soldier who was being treated in a normal mixed ward at Selly Oak said he woke up to find himself surrounded by "old women and drug addicts" while another said he was confronted by a Muslim man who accused him of "killing my Muslim brothers"
Campaigners said wounded servicemen were being left with the "crumbs of the NHS".
Yesterday campaigners spoke out at the way the wounded servicemen were being treated and said they were being left with the "crumbs of the NHS".
Simon Weston, a veteran who was badly burned in the Falklands conflict in 1982, said: "We should build a bigger unit for these people and ideally it should be a separate military wing or building. Our boys shouldn't be living off the crumbs of the NHS like this.
Major Gen Patrick Cordingley, who led the Desert Rats in the Gulf War in 1991, said: "I found there was no space wounded men to share their experiences and draw strength from each other."
Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said: "The men and women of our Armed Forces deserve the best medical care. Anything less will be seen as yet another breach of the military covenant."
Selly Oak has been the only hospital receiving frontline casualties since March this year when the last of the old military hospitals closed at Haslar, Portsmouth.
A spokesman from the Ministry of Defence said that although soldiers were treated on civilian wards they each had a dedicated military nurse.
Outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen left Wednesday for China on one of his final trips as service chief.
Mullens visit to China is the first by a CNO since 1997, according to Capt. John Kirby, his spokesman. During the week-long trip, Mullen is slated to visit Beijing, naval facilities and schools at Lushun, Qingdao and Ningbo and will address students attending the Dalian Naval Academy, Kirby said. The Senate recently confirmed Mullen to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He will take over for Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace on Oct. 1.
Adm. Gary Roughead has been nominated to replace Mullen as CNO, pending Senate approval this fall.
In April, Chinese navy chief Vice Adm. Wu Sheng Li visited Norfolk, Va., where he met with Mullen and discussed maritime security and military-to-military relations. Wu has previously met with Roughead in Beijing, when he was U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander and Adm. William Fallon, former commander of U.S. Pacific Command who now heads U.S. Central Command.
During a speech in Washington last month, PacCom Commander Adm. Timothy Keating said his command is actively working to facilitate a good working relationship with the Chinese military.
Though Keating said he does not consider the Chinese military a threat to the United States, he did say the Chinese must work to improve transparency as they expand their forces and capabilities. So we're all going to be good buddies together? Somehow I think that won't happen.
Bollywood big daddy Subhash Ghai had paid gangster Dawood Ibrahims brother Anees between Rs 20 and 25 lakh in extortion money, incarcerated don Abu Salem told investigators under the influence of truth serum in Bangalore in December 2005. Producers Rakesh Roshan and J P Dutta, he said, had not paid even a dime. Ghai was not available for comment. When asked if he knew any policemen, Salem said that the one policeman he knew was Mumbai encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma. Salem admitted that he was guilty of only one thing: loving Monica Bedi. Hamne sirf pyar kiya tha .
"And if loving her is a crime, then let me be guilty."
The transcript of Abu Salems narco-analysis, now in the possession of Star News, has the gangster naming Chhota Shakeel and Anees Ibrahim in almost every murder and extortion case in which he is suspected to have played a part. A drugged-out Salem, who had been administered sodium pentothal, answered questions on a number of crimes from murder and extortion to the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
"Another glass of giggle juice, sahib?"
"Yesh, yesh. I shank the Lushitania too, y'know!"
Salem said that he was living in fear that Mumbai's gangsters - Dawood Ibrahim, Anees Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and Chhota Rajan-were out to finish him. Dawood, he said, was angry with him for giving the CBI information about the blasts.
When contacted Pradeep Sharma told TOI, "The maximum number of Salem men have been killed by me in encounters. I was the first to arrest Salem gang members involved in the murder of Ajit Dewani (secretary of Manisha Koirala). When he was extradited, he specifically told the CBI not to put him in police custody under my supervision."
Confessions under the influence of drugs, say officials, are not valid evidence in a court of law. One of the chief reasons for this is that this is not a fool-proof method. But it helps to piece together a case by providing valuable insight, explain investigators.
"F'r example, we believe we'll be able to solve JonBenet Ramsey's murder once and for all!"
It remains to be seen how much the investigation stands to gain from Salem's 'confessions'. Anees's name crops up repeatedly. Anees and Shakeel are named for builder Om Prakash Kukreja's death ("Shakeel made the plan and Anees supplied the weapons from Bhendi Bazaar"); it was Anees who gave the supari (contract killing) for Subhash Ghai and director Ram Gopal Varma. Anees is named again in the murder of cassette baron Gulshan Kumar. Salem denied that music director Nadeem Khan (suspected of being involved) had anything to do with the killing.
Salem said that Anees made him make extortion calls to builders, but gave him very little for his efforts: Kabhi das-panch haat de deta thaa . (Sometimes, he would give me 5 or 10 per cent of the money).
UP gangster-turned-politician Babloo Srivastava was named as being responsible for Vikram Wahi's death and Chhota Rajan for killing producer Mukesh Duggal and Nepal MP Mirza Dilshad Baig "because he was a Dawood man".
Salim Kurla and Hegiway are named in the blasts case. When asked who Hegiway was, Salem said he was the man who had been sent to kill builder Pradip Jain.
On the personal front, Salem said that one of his aliases was Arsalem Moizin and that his nephew in Lucknow was paying his legal bills. He also talked about his fascination with the film world, and how he had rented a theatre in Chicago called Discipline.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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The Pakistani government gave substantial military support to the Taliban in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, sending arms and soldiers to fight alongside the militant Afghan movement, according to newly released US official documents, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
Islamabad has acknowledged diplomatic and economic links with the Taliban but has denied direct military support. The US intelligence and state department documents, released under the country's freedom of information act, show that Washington believed otherwise, said the report. Among the documents acquired by the National Security Archive, an independent group pressing for government transparency, is a confidential memo sent in November 1996, from intelligence report from Islamabad to the Defence Intelligence Agency in Washington, describing how Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps was operating across the border.
"For Pakistan, a Taliban-based government in Kabul would be as good as it can get in Afghanistan," a state department briefing paper, dated January 1997, said, adding: "Many Pakistanis claim they detest the Taliban brand of Islam, noting that it might infect Pakistan, but this apparently is a problem for another day."
"The documents illustrate that throughout the 1990's Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency considered Islamic extremists to be foreign policy assets," Barbara Elias, a National Security Archive researcher, said. "But they succeeded ultimately in creating a Pakistani Taliban. Those years of fuelling insurgents created something that now directly threatens Islamabad." No one was available for comment at the Pakistani embassy in London yesterday. Pakistan has admitted having diplomatic and economic links with the Taliban but denies direct military support.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Lying bastards, don't forget to duck and cover Perv.
Western reporters actually in Kunduz in the days after it fell this week found much to dispel that doubt. Reports first appeared in the Indian press, quoting intelligence sources who cited unusual radar contacts and an airlift of Pakistani troops out of the city. Their presence among the âenemyâ may shock some readers, but not those who have paid attention to Afghanistan. Pakistan had hundreds of military advisers in Afghanistan before Sept. 11 helping the Taliban fight the Northern Alliance. Hundreds more former soldiers actively joined Taliban regiments, and many Pakistani volunteers were among the non-Afghan legions of al-Qaida.
Last Saturday, The New York Times picked up the scent, quoting Northern Alliance soldiers in a Page 1 story describing a two-day airlift by Pakistani aircraft, complete with witnesses describing groups of armed men awaiting evacuation at the airfield, then still in Taliban hands.
Another report, this in the Times of London, quotes an alliance soldier angrily denouncing the flights, which he reasonably assumed were conducted with Americaâs blessing.
âWe had decided to kill all of them, and we are not happy with America for letting the planes come,â said the soldier, Mahmud Shah.
IN DENIAL
The credibility gap between these reports from the field and the âno commentsâ from the U.S. administration are large enough to drive a Marine Expeditionary Unit through. Calls by MSNBC.com and NBC News to U.S. military and intelligence officials shed no light on the evacuation reports, though they clearly were a hot topic of conversation. âOh, you mean âOperation Evil Airliftâ?â one military source joked. âLook, I canât confirm anything about those reports. As far as I know, they just arenât happening.â Three other military and defense sources simply denied any knowledge.
Something is up. It certainly appears to any reasonable observer that aircraft of some kind or another were taking off and landing in Kunduzâs final hours in Taliban hands. Among the many questions that grow out of this reality:
Was the passenger manifest on these aircraft limited to Pakistani military and intelligence men, or did it include some of the more prominent zealots Pakistan contributed to the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaida?
What kind of deal was struck between the United States and Pakistan to allow this?
What safeguards did the United States demand to ensure the evacuated Pakistanis did not include men who will come back to haunt us?
What was done with the civilian volunteers once they arrived home in Pakistan? Where they arrested? Debriefed? Taken to safe houses? Or a state banquet?
[Assumes Cary Grant voice:]
"Joooooty, Joooooty, Joooooty!"
[Returns to normal Arnold Stang voice]
MINGORA: Pamphlets pasted on the walls of mosques and bazaars in Matta tehsil of Swat district warned locals on Thursday against working for non-government organisations, as a mullah issued a fatwa (decree) calling upon Muslims to wage a jihad against the "friends of infidels," eyewitnesses said.
Wannabe Little known Mufti Khalid Shah issued the fatwa saying that "since the US and Jewish states have made Muslims' lives miserable, jihad is mandatory against the people working for them at international and national levels".
"Every Muslim is under an obligation to wage a jihad against the people working for the US or other Jewish states," read the fatwa written in Urdu. It also warned people working for multinational companies to quit their jobs or "face serious consequences".
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Wonder what Khalid Shah's screen name is at Firedoglake and Huffington Post?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/17/2007 6:27 Comments ||
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#2
He can type? IIRC he left school in the 7th or 8th grade to become a professional protester.
The United States has urged President Pervez Musharraf to explore some kind of political arrangement with opposition politicians, a US official said on Thursday. "There are elections coming up in Pakistan and there is a moderate centre in Pakistani politics and that moderate centre has an interest in seeing the political and social reforms that Musharraf put in place continue," said the official, asking not to be named.
Perv will do whatever benefits Perv and his military backers. I had some trepidation during the CJP dustup, but while he's a lousy general he's a damned good politician in a treacherous, labyrinthine environment.
The official was commenting on a New York Times report that the Bush administration is quietly encouraging Musharraf to share power with former premier Benazir Bhutto, citing US and Pakistani officials. The US official declined to say whether the Bush administration was encouraging a Benazir-Musharraf deal but made clear that it wanted to see "moderate" forces in Pakistan strengthened. Asked if the US risked appearing to prop up a military ruler regarded as a vital ally by the Bush administration, the official said any deal was up to the Pakistanis to work out. "We can encourage parties to look at where there are overlapping interests."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Day by day, I am more surprised at the turn in the Iraq debate. I know this is going to sound like pie-in-the-sky optimism, but I wonder if by the time General Petraeus makes his report, there will be something of a consensus on Capitol Hill - "we know that the surge has improved security for the Iraqi people and beat the hell out of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The question is, how do we get enough political stability so that we can hand this all off to the Iraqis and come home with honor?"
Take a look at these striking comments from five-term Congressman Brian Baird, D-Wash., who voted against the invasion in 2002, after recently returning from Iraq:
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security...
With Congress poised next month to look at U.S. progress in Iraq and a vote looming on U.S. funding for the war, Baird said he's inclined to seek a continued U.S. presence in Iraq beyond what many impatient Americans want. He also expects Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees U.S. troops in Iraq, to seek a redeployment of forces. "People may be upset. I wish I didn't have to say this," Baird said. He added that the United States needs to continue with its military troops surge "at least into early next year, then engage in a gradual redeployment. I know it's going to cost hundreds of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars."
It was Baird's fifth trip to the Middle East, and he conceded that what he has learned has put him again in an unpopular position with some voters. . . .
What happens if a signficant number of congressional Democrats say, "we're willing to stay some time longer, to ensure the job is finished properly," while their presidential candidates are chanting, "Get out now, get out now"?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/17/2007 15:02 ||
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#1
I have told you before and I will tell you again, this is worth finishing properly.
Marcus Griffin is not a soldier. But now that he cuts his hair "high and tight" like a drill sergeant's, he understands why he is being mistaken for one. Mr. Griffin is actually a professor of anthropology at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. His austere grooming habits stem from his enrollment in a new Pentagon initiative, the Human Terrain System. It embeds social scientists with brigades in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they serve as cultural advisers to brigade commanders.
Mr. Griffin, a bespectacled 39-year-old who speaks in a methodical monotone, believes that by shedding some light on the local culture -- thereby diminishing the risk that U.S. forces unwittingly offend Iraqi sensibilities -- he can improve Iraqi and American lives. On the phone from Fort Benning, two weeks shy of boarding a plane bound for Baghdad, he describes his mission as "using knowledge in the service of human freedom."
The Human Terrain System is part of a larger trend: Nearly six years into the war on terror, there is reason to believe that the Vietnam-era legacy of mistrust -- even hostility -- between academe and the military may be eroding.
This shift in the zeitgeist is embodied by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus, who holds a doctorate from Princeton University in international relations, made a point of speaking on college campuses between his tours in Iraq because he believes it is critical that America "bridge the gap between those in uniform and those who, since the advent of the all-volunteer force, have had little contact with the military." In a recent essay in the American Interest, Gen. Petraeus reflects on his own academic journey and stresses how the skills he cultivated on campus help him operate on the fly in Iraq. As such, he is a staunch proponent of Army officers attending civilian graduate programs.
Over the past few years, Gen. Petraeus has been cultivating ties to the academic community, drawing on scholars for specialized knowledge and fresh thinking about the security challenges facing America. "What you are seeing is a willingness by military officers to learn from civilian academics," says Michael Desch, an expert on civilian-military relations at Texas A&M. "The war on terrorism has really accelerated this trend."
The terms of this relationship are most evident in the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual. In the face of a gruesomely persistent Iraqi insurgency, Gen. Petraeus was charged with revamping the outdated counterinsurgency doctrine. In an unprecedented collaboration, he reached out to Sarah Sewall, who directs the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, to help him organize a vetting session of the draft manual at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
The conference brought together journalists, human-rights activists, academics and members of the armed forces to exchange ideas about how to make the doctrine more effective and more humane. Ms. Sewall, who since 2001 has been trying to get the military to bring the concerns of the human-rights community to the table, tells me that with Gen. Petraeus it is like pushing on an open door. And according to Montgomery McFate, who had a hand in drafting the manual, this was probably the first time that anthropological insight has been officially incorporated into more than 200 years of military doctrine. In chapter one, it explicitly states that "cultural knowledge is essential to waging a successful counterinsurgency. American ideas of what is 'normal' or 'rational' are not universal." (The manual was published last month by the University of Chicago Press. Ms. Sewall wrote the foreword.)
"Anthropologists have the opportunity right now to influence how the national security establishment does business," writes Ms. McFate in an email from Afghanistan, where she is a senior adviser to the Human Terrain System project. A Yale University-trained anthropologist, she has been the target of bitter criticism from the anthropology establishment on account of her tireless efforts to convince the military that cultural knowledge is key to winning over the people in war-torn societies like Iraq and Afghanistan. She insists that a growing number of anthropologists are questioning the conventional wisdom and reconsidering whether the most effective way to influence the military is "by waving a big sign outside the Pentagon saying 'you suck.' "
That may be wishful thinking on Ms. McFate's part. A majority of members active in the American Anthropological Association seem to reject her as naïve and dangerous. And history provides plenty of legitimate cause for concern. There is a toxic legacy of military-funded clandestine research -- most notably the infamous Project Camelot in Chile in the mid-1960s and a 1970 scandal triggered by American social scientists' efforts on behalf of a Thai government counterinsurgency campaign. Roberto J. Gonzalez, a professor of anthropology at San Jose State University and a leading critic of rapprochement between the national-security community and professional anthropologists, has taken to the pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education to warn against "the militarization of the social sciences." In recent years, the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Anthropological Association have been dominated by discussion about what ethical responsibilities scholars have in relation to war, terrorism and torture. At such events, Ms. McFate and her rare sympathizers often sound like a lone voice in the wilderness.
So will these instances of cooperation be enduring? Do they represent the harbinger of a more pervasive reconsideration of Vietnam-era pieties in academe? Hard to say. But it somehow seems significant that no less an archetype of Vietnam-era agitation than Tom Hayden emerged last month to raise the dusty banner of anti-military antagonism. In an essay posted on the Web site of the Nation magazine, he attacked Ms. Sewall for collaborating with Gen. Petraeus on the new manual, which he dismissed as "an academic formulation to buttress and justify a permanent engagement in counter-terrorism wars" that "runs counter to the historic freedom of university life."
Mr. Hayden's article suggests a bizarre conception of the role of scholars in American life: that they should be held to a priestly standard of ethical purity. "Are academics so much purer than anybody else that we can't ever be in situations where we are confronting tough ethical choices?" asks Noah Feldman, a professor of law at Harvard who briefly, in 2003, was an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority. "If academics didn't get involved with these kinds of difficult questions, maybe all that would be left is a department of Kantian philosophy," he jokes. "Then we would be pure, but we would be irrelevant."
A contingent of troops from the tiny Pacific kingdom of Tonga will leave on Saturday for a six-month deployment in Iraq. Captain Toni Fonokalafi, who will lead the 55 soldiers, said Wednesday that the Tongan troops will be based at Camp Victory in Baghdad. The contingent is the second to be sent from Tonga, which has a population of 110,000 and a military numbering about 450 troops. After two weeks in the United States for training, the Tongan troops will leave for the Middle East on September 1, Fonokalafi said. They will mostly provide security at Camp Victory, which is situated near Baghdad's airport. The first six-month deployment of Tongan troops to Iraq took place in mid-2004 and a final rotation is due next year.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Man I had to look on the map to see where the Pacific kingdom of Tonga was. That's great, now if we can only get more countries to pitch in and help out.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/17/2007 1:21 Comments ||
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#2
perfect guys for this, they're massive and very intimidating and thats just the civilians, brave and steadfast. good on ya.....
#5
Who next, Micronesia? They could prob'ly spare 20 Yappies or so.
Posted by: NOLA ||
08/17/2007 2:46 Comments ||
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#6
NOLA...WTF? Yappies? Do you know any Tongans? Who made you the juror of their motivations? I'd really like to see you face to face with a Tongan and repeat that...I really would.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/17/2007 3:01 Comments ||
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#7
I'd really like to see you face to face with a Tongan and repeat that...I really would.
I would really like to see NOLA after he had talked with the Tongan. :-)
#9
I have nothin against Tongas, they could break me in half without even breathing heaving, but 55 of them in a war zone without hand to hand combat? I get that every little bit helps, but when your whole army is 450 people and your country is 110k, maybe we need to find "bigger" friends, at least in population terms.
Not too sure about the juror of motivations part. I'm sure their motivations are great. They just gave away more than 10% of their military which would be awesome, if they had more military.
Just looking at the numbers.....
Posted by: NOLA ||
08/17/2007 6:41 Comments ||
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#10
Kinda like the Texas Rangers: "Sure we only sent one Ranger. There was only one riot!"
How many major cities in Iraq?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 8:07 Comments ||
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#11
Let them do do their version of the haka before their missions.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/17/2007 8:41 Comments ||
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#13
While it's sort of useful to list Tonga as a coalition member, in order to shame countries like Germany into contributing, what's really important here is that we are giving friendly armed forces some combat & SASO hands on experience.
I have a feeling they and we are going to need those skills for some time to come.
#14
Great comment, lotp. While I somewhat snickered originally at their small contingent, I'm sure we'll be fighting side-by-side in years to come. Plus, they get the additional training to use back home in case the *need* ever arises they'd have to use it.
Posted by: BA ||
08/17/2007 9:15 Comments ||
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#15
Rugby, JFM? You are full of surprises. :-)
Just as supporter. I grew in Spain and they don't play rugby there. But I am a big All Black supporter: when my daughters were still babies I used to sing them the hakka. They both found it very funny.
#17
Thanks NOLA....but as you can see from other comments, it's not always about who's bigger. Just as important, is who's at risk, and who can benefit most. That's why saying that "they just gave away 10% of their military" shows a lack of a basic understanding of what such a mission accomplishes. Again, it's a motivation thingy.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/17/2007 11:53 Comments ||
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#20
Some countries "get it", others don't. Most of the world is going to have to deal with muslims in the near future. They sooner they learn the best way to deal with them, the better. Tonga gets it, Britain doesn't. The French don't have a clue, while the Japanese want to pick up the knowledge on the cheap. I'm not sure what the Germans are up to. Most of the countries of the former Warsaw Pact have a dual commitment: to learn how to deal with muslims face-to-face, and how to build and maintain a quality armed force with combat experience. The Australians, with Indonesia as a close neighbor (and thorn in the side) are learning how to deal with muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Timor. The knowledge will come in handy when they have their own internal muslim problems. Fiji is the Pacific nation that needs the experience the most, but unfortunately are currently tied up with internal problems.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/17/2007 13:35 Comments ||
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#21
What's interesting to me is that in this war a great many of the smaller countries have sent fighting contingents, not to mention a lot of the medium sized countries like Korea and Japan. I'm under the impression that historically such countries have tried to stay as uninvolved as possible, except for earning money on UN peacekeeping missions. I know why I see this war as different, but why do they?
#22
I know why I see this war as different, but why do they?
A bunch of possible reasons:
- wanting to get on Uncle Sam's good side
- practice operating with US or NATO forces
- for a lot of the eastern bloc countries, I think their experience with the fUSSR has given them the ability to recognize totalitarianism when they see it.
I'm kinda sorta hoping the last one is the significant one for most.
Iraq's president and prime minister announced a new political alliance between mainstream Shiite and Kurdish parties on Thursday but, crucially, no Sunni leaders have yet signed up. "Signing this agreement will help solve many problems in the present crisis and encourage the others to join us," President Jalal Talabani said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Maliki's government has been paralysed by the decision of the main Sunni political bloc to withdraw its ministers from the government during a power sharing dispute with the premier's Shiite supporters. The deal formalised an alliance between Maliki's Dawa Party, Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Massud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK).
But Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and his National Concord Front, the main Sunni faction, boycotted talks that led to the bloc's creation, and the government remains bitterly split on sectarian and ethnic lines. "This is a patriotic agreement which was not struck in the interests of the signing parties but in those of the Iraqi people and the government of national unity and the march of democracy in Iraq," Talabani said.
Some additional details in the FT here.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Oh, them zany Dughmosh's...
Gaza Ma'an The leader of the Executive Force in the southern Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Kheil, said on Thursday evening that the weapons of the Dughmosh family are being handed over to the Executive Force in the headquarters of the preventive security service in Tel Al-Hawa. Kheil told Ma'an's office in the Gaza Strip that "any weapons that will be seen later will be confiscated, and its owner will be questioned legally". Oh, I'll bet that will be ...interesting.
Furthermore, all cars belonging to the Palestinian Authority that had been stolen from their owners will be returned, in addition to removing all the road blocks in the area. Sounds like "Animal House"...
Kheil explained that the agreement with the Dughmosh family was reached after the Executive Force besieged the powerful clan family for three consecutive days. The secretary general of the PRC-affiliated Salah Addin Brigades, Zakariyya Dughmosh, who mediated an agreement between the Executive Force and the Dughmosh family, confirmed that the weapons that had been handed were the family's weapons, "not the resistance weapons". Yep, they can keep them thar Jew killin guns. Uncle Zakariyya says it's okay.
He told Ma'an that "neither Hamas nor the Executive Force will obstruct the resistance weapons, which the Dughmosh family members possess, as they are legal weapons". ...and since they're just Jew killin guns, and have magical Jew killin powers, they can't be used agin them thar Executive Force boys.
He concluded, saying that the family had thanked him for his efforts in reaching the agreement, which followed clashes between the family and the Executive Force two days ago, leaving behind two dead Executive Force members. Thanks, Uncle Zakariyya. So what happens over the two guys we killed?
Oh, they get declared martyrs and toss the families a coupla bucks. Easier for everybody. Stay outta mischief now, boys. Don't make me come down here again.
JERUSALEM - The United States sealed a deal on Thursday to provide Israel with $30 billion in defence grants over the next decade, a 25 percent boost that Washington describes as strengthening a bulwark against Iran. At a signing ceremony in Jerusalem, US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States would help Israel maintain a military advantage over foes ranging from Iran and Syria to their proxies in Lebanon and Palestinian territories.
There is no question that, from an American point of view, the Middle East is a more dangerous region now even than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that Israel is facing a growing threat. Its immediate and its also long-term, Burns told reporters. The United States faces many of the same threats from the same organisations and countries as Israel does, and so we felt this was the right level of assistance.
Burns said the new aid to Israel, which currently receives $2.4 billion in annual military grants, would not be conditioned on diplomatic progress or concessions though one of the major priorities for our government ... will be to help push forward a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The United States, Burns said, considers this $30 billion in assistance to Israel to be an investment in peace, in long-term peace -- peace cannot be made without strength.
Burns and Fischer said the sides had not finalised details on what weaponry would be supplied to Israel under the new deal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
peace cannot be made without strength
strength: i.e.: The ability to cause serious harm to your opponent. The threat of getting your collective a$$ whupped always has been a great motivatior to come to the bargaining table, especially if all you have to do is quiet down and act all civilized and such so you can get your economy back.
#2
Bout time!! The US needs to give or sell the Israelis whatever the advantage needed; to stomp the living crap out of the Iranians as their 'expansionistic' threats continue. Let there not be a Pearl Harbor type surprise without them knowing that should they move on Israel, they can kiss Tehran and Qom goodbye, for atleast the next 60 years!!
Posted by: BA ||
08/17/2007 9:28 Comments ||
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#5
SteveS - "completely dedicated to the destruction of the other" So true, and the other side has a state department that believes lollipops and hugs can fix everything - thus the ongoing problem...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/17/2007 9:39 Comments ||
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#6
sum massive Long range help,
IOW let the Israelis use the monies efficiently to make DEEEEEEP STRIKE VEHICLES with massive bomb loads and loiter time.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/17/2007 11:34 Comments ||
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RAMALLAH, West Bank - The continued existence of armed militias is an obstacle to the promised Palestinian state, Western-backed prime minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday.
Reeeeeeeaaally? Ya think?
Building towards statehood and independence on the one hand, and continuing to tolerate armed militias on the other, are two mutually exclusive paths that will never meet, Fayyad said in an interview with the foreign press. We are learning that from experience. We need to deal with this. Thats the key principle that needs to be understood, and understood clearly, and that has to be implemented.
Nonsense. The Paleo Bill of Right® Amendments 1 through infinity clearly states that the Right® of being necessary to keep and bear free Arms to a Militia and shall not be infringed by the regulated security people of any State. Also, death to Israel!
By the way, those are Legitimate Rights™.
Today thats what we are beginning to do in the West Bank and that is something that should be generalised. We simply cannot go back to a situation where matters are taken into the hands of the people acting outside of the... Palestinian authority. This is the key requirement, he said in the wide-ranging interview in English at his Ramallah office.
What did he say in Arabic?
Saying that actions done in the name of armed resistance had hurt the Palestinian cause, Fayyad said his government was committed to non-violent steadfastness. We know that practices that were engaged in under this heading of armed resistance were most detrimental to our cause, he said. To me, a child scaling a checkpoint trying to go to his school is a form of resistance. Its non-violent steadfastness. Thats our programme.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Ten militants jailed for suicide bombings on Bali that killed more than 220 people - many of them foreign tourists - received sentence reductions Friday to mark Indonesia's Independence Day.
It is a local tradition to cut jail terms on holidays, but the decision was likely to anger countries that lost citizens in the 2002 and 2005 attacks on the resort island's crowded nightclubs andrestaurants.
Those who benefited from Friday's remissions were found guilty of everything from helping plan the bombings, to sheltering the main suspects, to setting up a Web site on how to kill foreigners.
Six men involved in the Oct. 12, 2002, terror strikes that claimed 202 lives - 88 of them Australians - had their sentences cut by five months, said Ilham Djaya, the chief warden at Bali's main prison, citing good behavior.
Four others convicted for the 2005 attacks that left 20 people dead received two month remissions, he said.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Andi Matalatta said about 64,000 prisoners had their sentences cut Friday, most by a few months, and of those some 6,600 were freed.(***)
Indonesia's president claimed victory Thursday against terrorists in the world's most populous Muslim country, which has not suffered any attack in nearly two years following a crackdown on Islamic militants, but said more must be done to tackle terrorism's root causes. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his state of the union address that "the acts of terrorism that have caused unrest in our society in the past years have been handled."
"We have succeeded in preventing and tackling the acts of terrorism in the country," he said. But he said the country needs to solve its root causes, such as "poverty, injustice, extremism and a culture of violence."
"We have to be serious about preventing and fighting terrorism, because we want to save our people and our nation," he said. "This is our responsibility, also, to the global community."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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The Netherlands plans to host the international court that will try suspects in the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told Dutch public Radio 1 Thursday. Hariri and 22 other people were killed in a massive truck bombing in Beirut in February 2005.
"We will react positively" to the request of UN chief Ban Ki-moon to have the tribunal in The Hague, Verhagen said. "I am working under the premise that the tribunal will be in The Hague. Obviously we have to sort out some practical matters first like financing and where possible convicts will go to serve their sentences," the minister explained.
"I think it will work out," he added.
The United Nations secretary general wrote to Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende last month asking the Netherlands to host the Hariri tribunal. Balkenende will send Ban his positive response "very soon," Verhagen said. The tribunal will also have jurisdiction over this and other attacks against anti-Syrian Lebanese figures carried out between October 2004 and December 2005 if they are linked to the Hariri slaying.
The Hague bills itself as the legal capital of the world ...
It's always good to have brand identity, I suppose
... and is already host to several international tribunals like the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has its headquarters in Freetown, has also moved the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to The Hague.
At this rate Carla del Ponte will have work for the rest of her life. And beyond.
Posted by: lotp ||
08/17/2007 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Taliban have published the movement's first military field manual detailing how to spring ambushes, run spies and conduct an insurgency against coalition forces in Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday. At 144 pages, Military Teachings - for the Preparation of Mujahideen, is a minutely detailed "how to" book on subjects ranging from tactics and weapons to building training camps and espionage.
(SomaliNet) In a bid to end the differences among Hawiye, the dominant clan in Somali capital Mogadishu, negotiations brokered by well-respected Somali traditional elders are under way, a Somali politician Abdulahi Sheik Hassan said yesterday. 
Although two years have passed since the Islamist militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) launched a countrywide bomb attack, the government has not yet found out the true masterminds behind that group.
War veterans and MPs are calling for a dedicated military hospital amid an overcrowding crisis at the country's only ward reserved for soldiers.
Bollywood big daddy Subhash Ghai had paid gangster Dawood Ibrahims brother Anees between Rs 20 and 25 lakh in extortion money, incarcerated don Abu Salem told investigators under the influence of truth serum in Bangalore in December 2005. Producers Rakesh Roshan and J P Dutta, he said, had not paid even a dime. Ghai was not available for comment. When asked if he knew any policemen, Salem said that the one policeman he knew was Mumbai encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma. Salem admitted that he was guilty of only one thing: loving Monica Bedi. Hamne sirf pyar kiya tha .
The Pakistani government gave substantial military support to the Taliban in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, sending arms and soldiers to fight alongside the militant Afghan movement, according to newly released US official documents, The Guardian reported on Thursday. 
JERUSALEM - The United States sealed a deal on Thursday to provide Israel with $30 billion in defence grants over the next decade, a 25 percent boost that Washington describes as strengthening a bulwark against Iran. At a signing ceremony in Jerusalem, US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States would help Israel maintain a military advantage over foes ranging from Iran and Syria to their proxies in Lebanon and Palestinian territories.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The continued existence of armed militias is an obstacle to the promised Palestinian state, Western-backed prime minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday.
Indonesia's president claimed victory Thursday against terrorists in the world's most populous Muslim country, which has not suffered any attack in nearly two years following a crackdown on Islamic militants, but said more must be done to tackle terrorism's root causes. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his state of the union address that "the acts of terrorism that have caused unrest in our society in the past years have been handled." 
