WASHINGTON, March 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The nation's largest
pro-troop organization, Move America Forward will hold a news conference this Friday, March 14, 2008, calling attention to, and denouncing, the rising trend of violence against military recruiting centers. The news conference takes place in the Murrow Room at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Friday, March 14th at 9:30 AM.
Move America Forward will provide detailed accounts of these attacks, including photographs and documents, to members of the media in attendance. A new national television ad campaign calling attention to these attacks will also be unveiled.
Attacks on military recruiting centers include shots fired at offices (as happened in Denver, Colorado), bombs planted (a real one in St. Louis, fake ones in Oregon and the detonated explosion at the Times Square recruiting center), windows smashed, manure dumped on recruiting offices, human blood and feces smeared on the offices, recruiters cars have been firebombed (in Alabama and Maryland).
Now, how many of you had any idea it was this bad? The explosion in NYC had to happen right in the middle of Times Square to rate major coverage. Out in flyover country, this concerted campaign of sabotage is met only with the usual media whitewash about "isolated incidents," and "peaceful protests." Imagine what would happen if the targets were mosques rather than military facilities. Recruiting offices are the Fort Sumter of the twenty-first century.
Posted by: Thusoting Dark Lord of the Nebraskans3561 ||
03/13/2008 19:59 Comments ||
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#4
If I ever EVER see a moonbat hassling someone in uniform they better pray to god because their ass will be mine. I may not be in the best of shape anymore but I will do my best and just imagine the headlines: "Vet injured by moonbats will defending active duty GI" Trust me when they interview me (and they will) I will give a performance that should garner me an emmy and (hopefully) a Nobel prize.
#5
Amen Sarge. All of us here have every confidence you'd acquit yourself admirably. I prefer the headline "Moonbat Finds the Fear of God at Hands of Vet Defending Active Duty Soldier"
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/13/2008 22:07 Comments ||
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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) Pakistan lodged a protest with coalition forces in Afghanistan on Thursday after two Pakistani women and two children were killed by US fire from across the border, the army said. The US-led coalition, which helped to topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001, confirmed that it had launched a "precision guided" strike on Pakistani territory but said it targeted a militant compound.
The issue of foreign military intervention in Pakistan is sensitive, with President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, saying earlier this year that unauthorised actions would be treated as an invasion.
Sure. Go ahead and treat it that way. 'bout time you got riled up about something.
Chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said coalition artillery fire destroyed the victims' house in the troubled tribal region of North Waziristan, an alleged haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
"The coalition forces were firing at a group of militants when five shells landed in Pakistan, destroying a house and killing two women and two children," Abbas told AFP. "We have lodged a very strong protest with the coalition forces across the border," he said.
Local officials said the house in the town of Lwara Mundi, a hotbed of militancy on the frontier where there have been frequent clashes between security forces and militants, belonged to a local tribesman.
In Kabul, a spokesman for the US-led coalition said it could not comment directly on the Pakistani account but confirmed it had launched a strike on the other side of the porous 1,500-mile (2,500-kilometre) frontier. "We can confirm a precision-guided ammunition strike on March 12 on a compound connected with Haqqani network 1.5 kilometres (about a mile) across the border in Pakistan," coalition spokesman Major Chris Belcher told AFP.
The Haqqani network refers to Islamist militants led by Taliban commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is allegedly based in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. "I do not have any information on any casualties that may have occurred," the spokesman said.
Belcher said that "The information I have is that the government of Pakistan was notified immediately following the strike."
"It is not the first time that they (coalition forces) have had to respond to an imminent threat across the border in Pakistan. Every time we do, we clear that with Pakistani authorities."
Several previous missile strikes in the region have been attributed to the United States, including one that killed senior Al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi in North Waziristan in January.
#1
Women and children. Mosques. Anybody with a turban or burka. Dogs and cats. Goats. Infrastructure if they have any in the sh*thole. These are all targets of opportunity. Then we're going to drill for oil and log that country. We are going to level all the mountains with strip mining. If there is anything left we will rape and pillage it. How does that work for you? You cry babies.
Canada will get the additional NATO combat forces in Kandahar that Parliament is expected to demand if it approves a motion Thursday to extend the mission there to 2011, according to the White House and the U.S. commander of all 50,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan.
In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Wednesday he was personally assured last week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Washington would do everything in its power to find a partner with 1,000 troops ... Canadian press says they are US Marines
... to join Canada in Kandahar province.
#1
Anyone following this fight cannot help but think that most of NATO isn't worth a damn. The US, the Canadians and the British...and that's it when it comes to fighters. Everyone else is standing back and giving little more than a pat on the back, if that much. It's time to give those Continental Euro wimps an ultimatum: get involved or get shown the door. It's long past time we stopped subsidizing these parasites.
#2
NATO has degenerated into Workfare. That's were free riders were required to perform 'public service' in order to retain their welfare benefits. So they only apply the most minimal amount of effort to maintain the level of subsistence they prefer.
Withdraw all troops from Germany, and close all bases there. Pack it up and send it to eastern europe small bases, and send most of it back state-side.
#4
And move the hospital to England. Maybe it can become a profit center by offering off-peak services to the British public in competition against NHS.
Posted by: Howard Beale ||
03/13/2008 11:23 Comments ||
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#5
Exactly Old Spook, when your enemy pulls back, you take ground. We should have advanced into eastern europe in the 90's and "interfered" a lot more than we did. We had this crazy idea that the new russia would want to be friends, but apparently they can't amount to squat without a boogeyman -i.e. us, to blame all the worlds ills on.
#6
NATO is finished as a defense organization. Now it is more of a social club.
Keep Canada and add the Australians to the alliance and ditch everyone else. Tell the British they will be welcomed with open arms... IF they ditch the EU. Poland, the Baltic and the Ukraine have the same offer.
#10
Thats why I said just dump Germany. The Norwegians, Poles, Dutch, Danes and especially the Canadians are all punching well above their weights.
The Germans, on the other hand are not only poor soldiers anymore, and poorly led, they have commanders that are politicians first and foremost, resulting in cowardice of command.
President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he intended to send a controversial free trade pact with Colombia to Congress soon for a vote and warned rejecting the pact would harm U.S. national security.
That triggered a warning from congressional leaders that the agreement could be rejected if the White House tries to "bully" Congress into voting on the pact.
Bush said approval of the pact was essential to support a key ally in Latin America facing threats from the FARC guerrilla group at home and from neighboring Venezuela, led by leftist President Hugo Chavez. "As we speak, Colombia is under assault from a terrorist network known as the FARC, which aims to overthrow Colombia's democracy and aims to impose a Marxist vision on the country," Bush told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
"Members of the Congress must be ready to move forward with the agreement when they return from the Easter recess," he said in the speech also attended by senior members of Bush's economic and national security team. "And they need to get the job done and get a bill to my desk."
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters she expected Bush to send the agreement to Congress "very shortly" after lawmakers return on Mar 31 to ensure they vote on the pact by the end of the year.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
ION KOMMERSANT > RUSSIA TO BE SANCTIONED TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO PROTECT CSTO MEMBERS + PUTIN WILL NOT REPLACE MARX [Art] + ACTS OF TERROR PREVENTED [by FSB] DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
#2
President Bush does not realize the political dynamite he is holding here.
Americans are aware of Chavez's anti-Americanism, the fact that Venezuela is a major oil exporter to the U.S. (and that crude prices continue to skyrocket, bleeding us). Many are aware of the recent hostilities involving Communist rebels back by Chavez and the Democrats' anti-NAFTA (and generally anti-free trade) stance.
Support for this agreement with Columbia can be portrayed as based on the synergy of national security, free trade principles, economic concerns, and the exertion of U.S. influence against a member of the "new Axis of Evil" - a very potent concoction!
Here is an opportunity for President Bush to play the populist card and regain his relevance on the American political landscape, stick it to the Democratic-controlled Congress and do something positive for the country all at once.
He would be a fool not to trumpet this issue loudly and use it as a bludgeon. It would even assist John McCain's candidacy (which has been very cleverly sniping at the Democrats thus far).
#3
If a Congressman even remotely feels bullied they should resign. They are there to provide a balance of power against the Judicial and Executive branches. They are equals but you'd never know it the way they vote on things and then later claim they didn't read it or weren't given time.
Yeah Bush could have sold this better rather than using the national security card but come on. No wonder the Congress ranks so low in opinion polls.
Officials said on Wednesday the latest suicide attacks in Lahore mark a dangerous escalation by militants who are striking nationwide.
A police interrogation report obtained by The Associated Press involving a previous case shed light on how militants find recruits and bring them to bases along the Afghan border for training.
This is a bigger attack and a different modus operandi from what we have seen before, Azhar Hassan Nadeem, the Punjab inspector general of police, said after attending the funeral service for 16 policemen. They (the militants) have an organisational network and the problem is quite huge.
Tariq Pervez, the FIA chief, said it was the largest amount of explosives that he had seen used in an attack during his 20 years in counterterrorism. It indicates an escalation in the militant campaign against the military and law enforcers, Pervez said. A report of the interrogation of a 19-year-old former seminary student named Omer Farooq who is accused of helping prepare the motorcycle-borne bomb used in the attack that killed at least eight people, revealed how he allegedly shuttled between his home village near Sargodha and South Waziristan during the planning.
The report, made available to AP, says Farooq, who learned as a youth how to handle guns and explosives at militant training camps in Kashmir, confessed that he took orders from another Sargodha-based militant, Mohammed Tayyab, who gave him money to buy potash used in the blast.
Farooq recounts Tayyab as warning them the plan to hit a military vehicle was an order of the high command.
He added this is jihad and this is what we must do to secure the blessing of God. He threatened us, whoever tries to ditch the operation, his head will be cut off, the report quotes Farooq as saying.
Sargodha police chief Waseem Sial confirmed the authenticity of the report. While investigators have made at least five arrests in the Sargodha attack, authorities have yet to get to the bottom of any of the three recent attacks in Lahore, which have rattled residents in a once-stable city, long renowned as a center of culture and commerce.
This is the work of mindless people, killing innocents. No Muslim can do this, a citizen who lives near the attacked FIA building.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Yep, I bet they've been combing the Jr. High Schools all month.
Internal divisions between Saudi and Egyptian leaders of Al Qaeda are producing fissures within the group and a possible battle over who will succeed Osama Bin Laden, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, as quoted by the Washington Times on Wednesday.
Hayden said the tribal regions of Pakistan have become more of a safe haven for Al Qaeda, and there is more of a nexus between Al Qaeda and various Pashtun extremists and separatist groups than we seen in the past. He added, Its a threat to Afghanistan, its a threat to Pakistan, and frankly, its a threat to the US, noting that Western-appearing terrorists are being trained there.
Hayden said that Al Qaeda regrouped in the past two years inside the Tribal Areas of Pakistan and linked up with Pashtun regional extremists in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Osama Bin Laden was now an iconic figure hiding somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, adding that there had been an awful lot of jockeying among possible successors of the Al Qaeda founder and chief. He was a Saudi and there were a lot of Egyptians in the leadership, including his No 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri. If Bin Laden died, his succession by an Egyptian would be a contentious matter.
Hayden said he did not know whether Bin Ladens deputy would take over the group if the former died.
Evidence: Hayden said CIA operations officers were working aggressively to locate, capture or kill Bin Laden. US military and government agents were working to create the opportunity to get Bin Laden, he disclosed. Asked whether Bin Laden was alive, the CIA chief said, We have ... no evidence hes not. And frankly, we think there would be evidence. ... Given the iconic stature, his death would cause a little more than a wake in the harbour. Hes putting a lot of his energy into hiding right now. He added that the chances of getting Zawahri were better since he had been more active. Several of Al Qaedas operational leaders have been killed or captured, including Abu Laith al-Libi in late January.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Thats what HIDDEN IMAMS-MAHDIS, MESSIAHS + SAVIORS, etc. are for.
#2
Pragmatically, IMO OSAMA + Company are prob feeling heat from "young turks" inside AQ + Radical Islam whom desire to escalate and initate new 9-11's or greater Terror inside the USA proper, and to no longer put it off, i.e. NOT DELAY UNTIL NEAR OR DURING THE US NOVEMBER ELEX AS THE ISLAMIST INSURGENCY/COUNTER-SURGE, ESPEC PRO-AQ, IN IRAQ-ME MAY NOT MILITARILY LAST THAT LONG. These "young turks' may chose to
break from AQ, etc. and act independently???
FREEREPUBLIC Posters > believe a NEW ISRAEL-HIZBULLAH CONFLICT IS COMING SOON, PROB LATER THIS SPRING OR IN SUMMER.
#5
If Bin Laden died, his succession by an Egyptian would be a contentious matter.
Who would they rather have? Did being an Egyptian in Pakiland fall out of fashion? Maybe it has something to do with all the Egyptians yelling 'incoming' from time to time
#6
Egyptians are merely North Africans as far as the Saudis are concerned, destined to serve the pure Saudi Arabs. As #2 and #3 they serve their Saudi master well, and their very competence speaks to his ability to find qualified and loyal underlings. But beware lest they begin to fancy themselves equal to their natural superiors! The Saudis have spent the last century demonstrating the ability to buy replacement competence for a good salary and a few gold baubles.
#10
bk: If anybody but the CIA said this, I might believe it. Those guys have demonstrated time again that they couldn't find their ass with both hands.
#12
"Internal divisions between Saudi and Egyptian leaders of Al Qaeda..."
over such issues as whether infidels and dogs are "quite similar" or "very similar" or whether homosexuals should be executed "brutally" or "viciously".
#14
bk: If anybody but the CIA said this, I might believe it. Those guys have demonstrated time again that they couldn't find their ass with both hands.
zf: In broad daylight.
With a funnel.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/13/2008 12:55 Comments ||
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Four to six men prepared to carry out suicide attacks are still present in Lahore, according to a Geo News report broadcast on Wednesday. It said that security forces were considering a number of options and security measures to foil possible attacks. Quoting unidentified sources, the channel said the Punjab Home Department had forewarned Tuesdays suicide attacks and had asked for enhanced security measures. The Home Department had told security officials that suicide bombers had entered various cities of Pakistan, and had shared intelligence regarding possible suicide attacks in Lahore and other cities of Punjab, the channel reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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The twin suicide attacks in Lahore on Tuesday were planned four months ago, investigators said on Wednesday. They said the Punjab Home Departments Special Investigation Unit had been working in a house in Model Town. They said the SIU office had been shifted to another location in November 2007 after militant Qari Zaffar of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen, escaped from the SIU office, and threatened to blow up the investigation centre. The house was then rented to Shahzad Qayyum, a Peshawar businessman. Shahzad said the former SUI in-charge had visited their house along with police officials and briefed them.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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Muslim countries warned on Thursday that an alarming rise in anti-Islamic insults and attacks in the West has become a threat to international security.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on Europe and America to take stronger measures against Islamophobia in a report prepared for a summit of the groups 57 members in Dakar on Thursday and Friday. The report by a special OIC monitoring group said the organisation was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia has dangerous implications on global peace and security and to convince western powers to do more. Islamic leaders have long warned that perceptions linking Muslims to terrorism, especially since the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, would make Muslims more radical.
Concern: OIC leaders have expressed renewed concern following events such as the publication of cartoons in Denmark and a plan by the Dutch far-right wing MP Geert Wilders to release a film Muslims consider blasphemous.
The OIC report said Islam had faced attacks since it was created but in recent years the phenomenon has assumed alarming proportions and has become a major cause of concern for the Muslim world. The monitoring group called on Europe and North America to do more, through laws and social action, to protect Muslims from threats and discrimination and prevent insults against Islams religious symbols.
New charter: If last-minute differences can be ironed out, the revamped charter of OIC will be adopted at the summit, OIC officials said. The new charter embraces the United Nations language to reflect moderation and tolerance of Islam and focus on development and solidarity in action between members, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a news conference late on Tuesday after a meeting of foreign ministers.
He and other officials said the changes to the 40-article charter would help OIC become more proactive as it seeks a bigger role in a globalised world for the international Islamic community, which spans the Middle East, Africa and Asia. This includes pushing for closer aid and cooperation between its richest and poorest members. We are pinning many broad hopes on the adoption of the revised charter, said Ihsanoglu.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#3
It's not like Islam hasn't caused this fear of it, that fear is rational to anyone who can think. It's not a phobia it's rational fear of a violent and uncompromising cult.
#4
ION, THE AUSTRALIAN > CLIMATE ALARMISTS POSES REAL THREAT TO FREEDOM. Author argues that RELATIONSHIP BWTN INDIVIDUAL + SOCIETY [GOVT] NEEDS TO BE CLOSELY RE-EXAMINED.
Also from THE AUSTRALIAN > BETTER TO MERGE THAN FADE AWAY/DISAPPEAR. Aus Pol Parties, but IMO premises or arguments can also apply to OWG-NWO, US GOP-DEM NPE, World Faiths, etc.
#9
As amply demonstrated by all those Mennonites and Quakers blowing up Islamic airlines, train stations, and commercial districts demanding subservience to their religious beliefs. Celebrating the bulls of Christianity who intentionally target and massacre unarmed civilians and children of the Islamic faith. /sarcasm off
#10
Hey Cmon now. Maybe we should listen to these guys. After all, havent you heard that The OIC represents Moderate Islam? Theyre for womens rights, free speech, and they denounce terrorism. Of course womens rights must conform to Islamic law. The Ummah must decide what is considered acceptable speech. And, in their eyes, its not actually terrorism if its considered a Muslims legitimate right to resistance. Rest assured you can expect their views on this Phobia thingy will be as equally moderate.
The Chaldean church, to which he belonged, is an Eastern-rite denomination that recognises the authority of the Pope and is aligned with Rome. There are just over 600,000 Christians in Iraq, less than two per cent of the population, but Chaldeans are believed to be the largest grouping.
Since the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians have been targeted by Islamist extremists who label them "crusaders" loyal to U.S. troops. Churches, priests and businesses owned by Christians have been attacked by Islamic militants, and many have fled the country.
I'm sure The Organisation of the Islamic Conference sees this as another inevitable result of Islamophobia...
#5
The article implicitly blames the US for not bringing "stability" to the region. Unfortunately, if we weren't there, the region might be more "stable", but I doubt the Chaldean church would be better off. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse off.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/13/2008 16:53 Comments ||
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#6
if we weren't there, the region might be more "stable"
In other news, Yasser Arafat is still in stable condition.
#7
Weren't there a surprising number of Chaldeans in high places in the Saddam Hussein's regime? I seem to recall Tariq Aziz who met with the previous pope...
#8
tw, according to the Wikipedia article on Aziz, he was the ONLY high ranking Chaldean Catholic official in Saddam's administration.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/13/2008 21:22 Comments ||
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#9
May be mistaken but IIHC FOX > the good ARCHBISHOP served a Christian community of nearly or roughly 1/2 Milyuhn, but whose population is now down to approxi 15000 due mostly to Violence-induced Christian emigration from Iraq???
BASRA, Iraq Several senior Iraqi officials said on Wednesday that the government might soon deploy Iraqi Army troops to seize control of this citys decrepit but vital port from politically connected militias known more for corruption and inciting terrorism than for their skill in moving freight. Iraqi soldiers are expected to wrest control of Um Qasr and other parts of Basras port from local militias in coming weeks.
Iraqi sailors accompanied a government delegation to Um Qasr. Japan has agreed to $2.1 billion in reconstruction loans. The officials refused to disclose many details but appeared to suggest that this entire southern port city, whose streets have been increasingly torn by violence as the militias vie for power, would be affected. No specific timetable was given for the move.
There must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias, said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who led a delegation of government officials to a conference here to promote investment in the port.
As Iraqs only major gateway to the Persian Gulf, the port is critical for the nations economy but is beset by labor problems and is in serious need of dredging and modernization.
Mr. Salih declined to give particulars, but when asked if the central governments plan to seize control in Basra involved a troop buildup, he said, Definitely so. He also said Western troops would be involved, raising the possibility that the effort could parallel the American troop increase in Baghdad that has been credited in part with reducing violence there. But, Mr. Salih said, Iraqi troops would lead the effort in Basra.
Iraqs national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, was more direct, telling the conference that we will launch a campaign to rid us of the bad elements. He blamed the ascendance of the militias on what he called the weakness of the local government as local officials sat uncomfortably in the audience.
Mr. Rubaie later said in an interview that the central government had effectively given the provincial governor, Muhammad al-Waeli, an ultimatum to combat the militias in the port and elsewhere in the city or lose the support of Baghdad.
But Mr. Waeli suggested in an interview that Basra might not be ready for the reforms sought by the central government. Rubaie doesnt know exactly what is happening in the ports, Mr. Waeli said.
Shiite militias controlled by Mr. Waelis political party, Fadhila, are widely considered to be in control of the dock workers union. The governor said, however, that the real problem was that the central government had ignored Basra. So we blame the central government for what has happened, Mr. Waeli said of problems at the port.
The main port, called Um Qasr, is about 30 miles south of the Basra city center and is connected to the Persian Gulf by a waterway littered with nearly 300 sunken navigation hazards, including 82 large ships, said Michael J. McCormick, the transportation attaché at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, who was along on the trip.
The port is divided into a northern and a southern section, both of them sprawling, Mr. McCormick said. The northern part is a usable port, but its not an efficient port, he said, with mostly small cranes typical of the 1960s, a militia-controlled union that will load and unload ships only eight hours a day rather than the 24 hours a day typical of modern ports and a general air of seediness.
At first, large stacks of some 8,000 shipping containers on the docks seem to indicate that a brisk commerce is taking place at the north port. But Mr. McCormick pointed out that most of the containers were empty. Ships leave the containers, taking a heavy financial loss, because dock workers take too long to hoist the empty containers back onto the ships, he said.
He added that the southern part was essentially derelict and would be opened to international investors in hopes that it could be built almost from scratch into a modern facility. With all those problems, he said, progress at Um Qasr would require physical work like dredging and clearing wrecks, security improvements and general economic development.
And indeed, part of the rationale for the conference was to highlight $2.1 billion in long-term, low-interest loans that Japan has agreed to give Iraq for a series of reconstruction projects, many of them in the south, including $254 million for dredging and other rehabilitation work at the port. Kansuke Nagaoka, minister-counselor at the Japanese Embassy, who was also along on the trip, said the national importance of the project was its greatest selling point. As many people have pointed out, Um Qasr is not only for Basra but for the entire country, Mr. Nagaoka said.
But before any of that work is likely to have an impact, the entrenched powers on the docks must be subdued, Iraqi officials at the conference said. And that almost certainly means military action involving the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, often referred to here in shorthand as M.O.D.
We have a plan that is already set by M.O.D. and the prime ministers office, and were going to implement it in a scientific way, said Gen. Mohan Fahad al-Fraji, the top defense official here, and the one who would carry out the plan. The additional forces called for in that plan, General Fraji said, are not going to control the port itself, but theyre going to provide security.
Mr. Rubaie suggested that the plan would be carried out with a vigor commensurate with the stubbornness that the militias have shown in holding their territory on the waterfront. Whoever gets in the way will be dealt with swiftly, decisively and with no mercy, Mr. Rubaie said.
#2
That this didn't happen years ago in the supposedly "quiet" south is a clear example of how this war has been mismanaged. Clearly the Brits were not in control of caca. But it was obvious that clearing this waterway and rebuilding this port (both of which would have created a whole lot of jobs) was critical to the economic development of the whole country. Get it done. NOW!
#3
I would have thought tasks like building ports would fall under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers. As a resident of New Orleans, I can say that perhaps Iraq is better off without help.
I've been doing some math. Let's say that 1,000 people work at the port. That's 8,000 man-hours a shift or 40,000 a US work week.
Now, if the port was working 24/7 that would be 168,000 man-hours of work available.
But, Nooooo, were working with Arab-hours. Instead of employing 4200 people they only employ 1,000 and they work only 8 hours a day. The port stops after 9-5. Therefore 3200 potential employees have to blow up things to make a living.
Now you can bet the payroll reflects 4200 employees even though only 1000 actually do any work.
Now lets look at the military. The average Iraqi soldier is on duty 3 weeks and is off one week. Thats 3 months paid leave because they go home most of the time. One of the Divisions sent to Mosul had a policy of on duty 1 week and on leave 1 week. Thats 6 months paid leave.
This Division is slowly coming into line and has changed to a new policy of 2 weeks on and 1 week off.
To this you have to add a weekly Shiite holy holiday. Friday prayers, and other prayers 5 times a day.
Is it any wonder that the Arab world is only good at memorizing the Koran, blowing up women and children, corruption and whining?
#1
Right idea, wrong weapon. They should demand a Phalanx CIWS C-RAM with airburst 20mm rounds. It is available now, off the rack, and highly effective against anything the Paleos could throw.
The gun itself costs about $2M each. With say, 200,000 rounds, Sderot would be safe for a year or two. More likely, it would just stop being a target.
#5
I was also thinking of a radar guided gun firing larger shells than the 20mm, say a 35-57mm gun. these are also more or less available off the shelf or with a minimum of work.
(Or maybe a system based around the "starstreak" missile).
#12
Two kinds of high energy lasers have been tested for ground-based defense against rockets, artillery and mortars (RAM).
The Tactical HEL/Nautilus is chemically based not powered off an electric source. It's more effective, faster and puts more energy on the target than alternatives, but it's also bigger and the logistic issues associated with the chemical power source (including shipping the stuff and then disposing of the toxic containers afterwards) are significant.
Note: less powerful HELs with direct electric inputs have also been tested against RAM. They are ... less powerful when dealing with short and mid-range attacks. Require longer time on target because the amount of energy transferred per sec is lower. That also means the radar tracking and lockon must be very very accurate and must persist longer than with the THEL. Well suited for airborne and other platforms, less useful against short-range attacks.
DOD has done some extensive modelling of the interactions between various laser beams and every atmospheric condition you might imagine, BTW....
The article seems to say that the plaintiffs want the Nautilus chemical THEL to be located in Sderot. Which tells me this has a lot more to do with putting political pressure on the govt to do SOMETHING than with a serious defense proposal.
#13
I like the idea of a FireFinder and a collection of heavy artillery. The counter battery fire need not be particularly accurate, since the people firing the rockets will probably shoot and scoot, so blowing up the launch point won't really do any good - just blow up an empty field or a neighborhood.
So maybe what they should do is pre-aim the artillery at selected targets - say a Hamas headquarters, or police station.Announce all of the targets, but not which ones are on today's list. So, when the FireFinder detects a launch, the target of the day is destroyed. If the Israelis pick a lot of targets, the Paleos can't evacuate all of them ahead of time.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/13/2008 21:53 Comments ||
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#14
ION WND > JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN > ISRAEL IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF A SUMMER WAR - BRIT INTEL SAYS IRAN PREPARING HAMAS FIGHTERS. Article - alleges that HAMAS' OFFENSIVE WHEN IT COMES WILL WORK IN COORDINATION WID THE HEZZIES [Hizzies? Huzzies?]
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Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris will travel to the US next week to try to interest the Pentagon in the Israeli-developed Iron Dome missile defense system and to explore procuring the Skyguard laser system to protect Sderot from Kassam rockets, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The Iron Dome system is under development by the Rafael Armaments Authority and was chosen last year by a Defense Ministry committee as Israel's defense system against the short-range Kassam and Katyusha rockets. Israel believes that the US Army might be interested in the system to protect its forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
#3
As much as Israel uses airspace over Gaza with drones, helicopters, other aircraft, I wonder if that is the reason for their reluctance to utilise this and other technology?
The good news from the intelligence forecast presented to the cabinet on Sunday is obviously the assessment by the security establishment that there is little likelihood of an attack on Israel by enemy states in 2008.
Considering that there has been no such conflict here since 1973, the odds are pretty likely that this is an accurate guess.
More to the point is their conclusion that Israel's principal state enemies, Syria and Iran, have concluded that any kind of conventional battlefield warfare is no longer a feasible alternative to defeating Israel. In the meantime, they prefer to harass us through their proxy allies, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the territories, while expanding their missile arsenals and perhaps adding the threat of nuclear capability.
This scenario - one militarily powerful democracy engaged in a geopolitical conflict against two totalitarian states, both sides fighting each other in smaller "proxy conflicts" while looking ahead to a possible nuclear missile endgame - is starting to have a distinctly familiar "cold war" ring to it.
So, too, does a relatively new development in this face-off, the growing ideological struggle over the hearts and minds of the peoples in the region's other nations, between liberal Western values and the radical, anti-democratic outlook represented respectively by the two opposing sides.
If this is indeed a new paradigm in which to view the Israel-Arab conflict, then certain obvious assumptions may be drawn from it.
The first is that while solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may bring relative quiet on the West Bank and Gaza fronts and help in winning hearts and minds in the more "moderate" Arab world, it will do little to resolve this nation's hostilities with its principal nation-state enemies.
The second is to what realistic extent the "China card" can be played with Syria as Israel's cold war with Iran progresses.
Just as drawing Beijing away from its natural ideological alliance with Moscow became a key strategic pillar of US policy during its conflict with the former Soviet Union, so there are those who believe that the secular rulers of Damascus can be lured away from Teheran's orbit as a member of the "radical Islamic axis."
Not everyone believes this is feasible with the current regime of President Bashar Assad, in part because he lacks the authority his father had over powerful elements in the Syrian military that would oppose any peace deal with Israel.
But Israel's military and intelligence leadership, in their briefing yesterday, clearly seemed to hold out the hope that "under certain circumstances and if there were certain developments," this strategic option was still a possibility.
Since it is reasonable to assume that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was privy to this assessment before it was presented to the rest of the cabinet, this might well explain why at last week's meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee he talked up the possibility of restarting negotiations with the Syrians - this at a time when Damascus's hand was being clearly seen as a factor in Hamas's aggressiveness in the south.
Playing the "Damascus card" against Teheran, though, would carry a heavy political price - the return of the Golan Heights, possibly even up to the shores of Kinneret - and it is difficult to imagine that any but the strongest Israeli government would be in a position to make that deal.
The Olmert-led coalition clearly isn't that government. Yet if the intelligence assessment is correct that Iran will reach a "point of no return" in its nuclear program in the latter half of 2009, and neither Israel nor the United States are successful in halting that development, then we will truly find ourselves locked into a cold war-type military stalemate with Teheran - a prospect that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic outlook makes far more frightening than the Kremlin's former belief in the historical inevitability of Marxist triumph.
In that case, even all of the Golan may come to seem a reasonable sacrifice in breaking Syria's alliance with Iran - even if it is no easy task finding an Israeli Nixon to go to that particular China.
#1
IMHO, the author is a highly educated, very intelligent, person who has nothing even approaching a slightest inkling of what the current worldwide conflict is all about---if he wasn't an Israeli, he could get a job with USDS (what is, do they hire Jews?).
#2
The Chinese were ideological rivals with a long common border & natural competitive tendencies & pretensions towards empire. The Syrians, on the other hand, have no common border with the Iranians; Alawism has no real missionary tendencies that I've ever heard of, and Syrian ambitions tend towards incorporating Lebanon into their polity, not, say, the greater Shia political ascendancy or anything like that. The situations are almost totally incommensurate.
There *is* no China option with the Syrians. They aren't China in this analogy, they're Yugoslavia, or Romania, or maybe Albania. You're more likely to find a China option with the Iranians, in playing them off against the Gulf Arabs. Which the Israelis have done, historically, before the Shia resurgence in the late Seventies.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
03/13/2008 9:46 Comments ||
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#4
I think Israel has been playing the "China card" with the China, that is the PRC, for a while.
Transfer of defense technology and intel between Israel and the PRC, although still not very big, has been increasing year by year.
Where this ends up geopolitically is hazy. The commercial goals of the PRC are helped by reducing Islamist entities and preventing Iran from having WMD. The political goal of the PRC of "hurting America" is helped by increasing these same things.
#6
RUSSIA + CHINA are proceeding wid their investment designs vv IRAN - THE RUSSO-IRANIAN ENERGY DEALS WILL REPORTEDLY LINK THE "ENERGY GRIDS" OF ONE WID THE OTHER. IIRC/IICC, it may come down to is that any US-Western attack agz Iranian energy targets will also be an attack agz Russ energy targets. SYRIA COMES INTO PLAY AS PER ITS OWN UNILATER ENERGY DEALS WID IRAN PROPER.
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel on Thursday, ending a week-long Egyptian-brokered moratorium in what it called an "initial" response to deadly Israeli raids in the West Bank. No one was hurt by the salvo against the border town of Sderot. Israel later carried out an air strike against a rocket launcher in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. No one was hurt in the first such Israeli attack in a week.
Islamic Jihad, a relatively small Palestinian faction that shares the powerful Hamas's refusal to accept co-existence with the Jewish state, had vowed dire revenge after Israeli troops killed four of its members in two West Bank towns on Wednesday.
Hamas said such "aggression" risked killing off Cairo's mediation, seen as key to securing enough quiet for there to be progress in U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But Hamas stopped short of scrapping the truce talks. It has largely held its fire since March 3, when Israeli forces ended a five-day offensive against Gaza rocket crews in which more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and two soldiers died.
Israel has played down speculation a formal ceasefire could be imminent. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to halt attacks on Gaza if there are no rocket launches, but Israel argues that its West Bank raids are needed to stop militants from striking.
"We'll witness more difficult things yet, an even tougher reckoning, before we get to the calm stage," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday. Yay!
At least 12 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza on Thursday. A house was damaged but no casualties caused, the Israeli military said. "This was our initial response," an Islamic Jihad spokesman said. The faction suspended its Gaza rocket launches on March 5.
HAMAS SETS TERMS This oughta be good.
As part of any truce, Hamas -- which seized control of Gaza in June after routing Abbas's forces there -- is demanding a say in the future functioning of the coastal territory's border crossings, a condition rejected by Israel. "There must be a commitment by Israel to end all acts of aggression against our people, assassinations, killings and raids, and lift the (Gaza) siege and reopen the crossings," Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas's administration in Gaza, said in a speech.
A truce, he said, should be "reciprocal, comprehensive and simultaneous," approved by other factions, and apply to Gaza and the West Bank -- territories where Palestinians seek statehood.
Unlike penned-in Gaza, the West Bank has a porous boundary with Israel and is peppered with fortified Jewish settlements. Though Abbas's secular Fatah faction still holds sway in the West Bank, Israel credits its military presence there for the territory remaining free of the rule of Hamas and its allies.
On Wednesday evening, undercover Israeli commandos drove into the West Bank town of Bethlehem and killed a local Islamic Jihad leader, two of his comrades, and a militant from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed Fatah wing. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the soldiers planned to arrest the Palestinians but opened fire after spotting weapons. The Islamic Jihad men had been involved in attacks, she said.
Another Islamic Jihad militant was killed by Israeli troops earlier in the West Bank town of Tulkarm.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas's administration as calling the West Bank killings "an ugly crime" and warning Israel of unspecified "consequences." Since when has killing terrorists been an ugly crime? Unless you're on the terrorists' side, of course.
Egypt has stepped up truce efforts amid Israel's insistence it is not negotiating with Hamas, which the West also shuns. Israel tightened its Gaza border restrictions after the Hamas takeover there, making life harder for terrorist harboring ordinary Gazans. Israel is under international pressure not to cause the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants more hardship.
#1
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the soldiers planned to arrest the Palestinians but opened fire after spotting weapons. The Islamic Jihad men had been involved in attacks, she said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Saudi Arabia for not doing enough to counter extremism and defended Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas while testifying before the US Congress on Wednesday. "I am confident that President Abbas is somebody who is committed to the negotiated solution of this issue, and recognizes that only a negotiated solution is going to result in a Palestinian state," Rice said in response to a question on comments Abbas made in a recent interview, quoting him in part as saying, "I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different."
Many interpreted those comments as supporting armed struggle. "We have all had the experience of perhaps saying things that we wish we hadn't said, and I can just tell you that this is somebody who for many, many years now has rejected violence as a means to statehood," Rice said, noting that Abbas had later said the comments were taken out of context. "I can't account for his comments. I think they were extremely unfortunate. We made that very clear to him."
Rice said the State Department had also made clear to the Saudis that they needed to do more on the issue of ending incitement and standing against extremism. "While I would be the last to say that there has been anything like the kind of progress that I think we will need - [and] they will need to see, frankly, for their own good as well as the good of the world as a whole - there are discussions that are ongoing, and they do provide a mechanism by which we can monitor and then take what we know to the Saudis for discussion," she said. "This is a very high priority."
Rice also stressed that Saudi Arabia and other Arab neighbors would need to take more concrete steps to help the peace process. "We need also the Arab states to be very active in supporting this effort, and some are, but frankly the Israelis are going to need to know that the outreach of the Arabs to them is coming as a part of this broader effort," she said.
Rice was echoing a point Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in Washington this week, has made on several occasions. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the US House appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which called Rice to testify Wednesday, argued that Saudi Arabia should be doing more to help Palestinians on the ground, particularly by using some of its oil revenue to build homes and expand job opportunities. "When you have the oil-producing countries getting $105 a gallon, the fact that they can't show some evidence on the ground and create jobs is mind-boggling," Lowey said. "Unless the Palestinians are supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates and all the other countries in the region, it's going to be very difficult for them to take that final step."
Lowey has also expressed reservations about giving extra aid to the Palestinians in light of Abbas's recent comments, and put a hold on $150 million in aid allocated last year for that and other reasons. However, she recently indicated a shift in position. "I remain skeptical about the political will of a Palestinian leadership that all too often lapses into inflammatory rhetoric that belies their stated commitment to peace," Lowey said in a statement sent out late Tuesday. But she also said that "I have received some clarifications on the statements made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that called into question his commitment to the peace process. I also spoke with Secretary Rice on her meetings with Palestinian leaders last week, and she has briefed me on the assurances she received from President Abbas."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#6
Lowey has also expressed reservations about giving extra aid to the Palestinians in light of Abbas's recent comments, and put a hold on $150 million in aid allocated last year for that and other reasons.
I don't agree with the honourable Representative on many issues, but I'm sure blocking that extra $150 million transfer to the PA, however briefly, is so much more helpful to the cause of peace in the region than would be simply letting the money flow like water in a mighty stream.
#9
Ol Abu Mazzen doesn't have much control over his govt, but I can't recall him giving into hysterics and spouting a bunch of "fiery rhetoric" like arab leaders are so prone to do. Mind you that is probably the single compliment I can dredge up for him.
#10
I am confident that President Abbas is somebody who is committed to the negotiated solution of this issue, and recognizes that only a negotiated solution is going to result in a Palestinian state
#12
Would somebody give Condi a koran. The book is a manual of terror. Muslims want neither Jews no Christians in the Middle East. But they want Muslim to live everywhere.
Warning of the potential downfall of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah government in the West Bank, Defense Minister Ehud Barak rejected reports on Wednesday that Israel had agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas, while claiming that additional IDF operations in Gaza were impendent. "There is a continuous battle taking place in Gaza," Barak said during a meeting of the Labor Party executive committee in Tel Aviv. "This is not a reality show, and there is no reason to fight with a stopwatch. Things will get tougher before they get quiet."
Defense officials said Wednesday night that as long as Hamas continued to use the lull in violence to rearm and rehabilitate its military wing, which was badly damaged during the IDF's operation in northern Gaza last week, additional operations would be inevitable. The officials said that the IDF was continuing to prepare for a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Barak dismissed reports that had surfaced in recent days that the head of his Diplomatic-Security Bureau Amos Gilad had negotiated a cease-fire with Hamas during his visit to Cairo earlier this week.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#8
The IDF ops in the west bank are at least 50% directed at Hamas and, in these ops, they get Fatah cooperation most of the time and most of these ops are successful.
You'd have to think a non-Abbas Fatah could survive at Hamas attack.
When is a truce not quite a truce? Hamas is once again offering Israel a cease-fire, but the language that the Islamic movement has chosen reveals a deep reluctance to talk about any real peace with the Jewish state. Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's Hamas prime minister, on Wednesday proposed a "tahdia" which in Arabic means a loosely defined period of calm that falls short of a formal cease-fire.
Still, this semantic nuance could well determine the success of Mideast peacemaking. As long as Israelis and the Islamic militants are killing each other in Gaza and southern Israel, a U.S.-sponsored drive to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by year's end stands little chance.
Israel is formally rejecting the truce talk, and on Wednesday its army killed four militants in the West Bank town of Bethlehem after opening fire on their car. Israel sees a broad Iranian-driven effort to besiege it from the north through Hezbollah in Lebanon and from the south through Hamas, and fears a truce will simply give Hamas time to regroup and strengthen its fighting forces.
But other signs on the ground indicate that Israel and Hamas are moving closer toward an Egyptian-brokered deal to end weeks of cross-border fighting that has killed more than 120 Palestinians and five Israelis.
In a speech Wednesday at Gaza City's Islamic University, Haniyeh demanded an end to Israeli military activity in Hamas-ruled Gaza, a lifting of Israeli economic sanctions, and the opening of Gaza's borders, which have been sealed since Hamas violently seized control of the area in June 2007.
"We are talking about a mutual comprehensive tahdia, which means that the enemy must fulfill its obligations," Haniyeh said. "The Israelis must stop the aggression ... including assassinations and invasions, end the sanctions and open the borders."
Palestinian militants have adopted the term tahdia (pronounced TAH-dee-ah) as an alternative to "hudna" a legal concept dating to the birth of Islam. It refers to a truce of a fixed duration, usually between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Prophet Muhammad first negotiated a hudna (pronounced HOOD-nah) with rivals in Mecca in 628.
The concept of hudna could allow Islamic fundamentalists to negotiate without losing face. Some Hamas officials proposed a hudna with Israel after their group won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. But Israel, as it did with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat some 15 years earlier, demanded full recognition as a condition for doing business.
In Hamas' eyes, hudna does imply recognition of the enemy to some degree which helps explain why the militants have backed away from the term. A tahdia is more open to interpretation, and presumably can be broken off at any time as happened when Hamas unilaterally declared two of them in 2003 and 2005.
Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that the militants would use any lull to rearm. A formal truce with Hamas is not needed, the officials say, as long as the militants refrain from launching rockets and other violence. "If Hamas ceases its war against Israel, then there will be quiet," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS > ISRAEL TO HIZBULLAH: ANY REVENGE ATTACK COULD MEAN WAR, and IIRC Israel may not mean only agz the Hizzies or in Lebanon [Iran?].
#4
It's not even a hudna. It sounds like a tahdia is more like a potty break, where the Muslims get to restart the fighting as soon as they've dropped their three pebbles, without even the figleaf of a cause.
It was an excited but peaceful crowd that gathered in Lumphini Park, Bangkok, early yesterday morning to protest the reprinting of the Danish Muhammad drawings and what they call a second insult of the Prophet Muhammad. More than 600 Muslims walked from Lumphini Park to the grounds of the Danish embassy to raise their voices in asking the Thai Muslim community to condemn the reprinting of the drawings and boycott all Danish products. Even though the demonstration went on peacefully, burning of the Danish flag and of banners with an imprint of the Danish Prime Minister and the Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, occurred. LGF had a post yesterday which had a photo of what the AP described as chanting slogans next to a photo of a Danish cartoonist.
Abdul Aziz, a member of The Muslim Group for Peace, who arranged the demonstration, said that the protesters were not gathering at the Danish embassy to get into a dialogue with the Danish government through the ambassador. They were simply there to speak their minds and condemn the cartoons. According to Abdul Aziz, Islam calls for the killing of the Danish cartoonists and media persons involved in the matter. But as the Muslim Group for Peace recognizes Thai legislation, the protesters claimed that violent phrases on banners and posters such as Kill Them and Do We Have Freedom To Bomb? were merely a way of expression and should not be considered a direct threat.
Danish ambassador, Michael Sternberg, went outside the embassy on his own initiative to invite the leaders of the demonstration inside the embassy for a discussion. This invitation was declined. They were not interested in speaking to me, they just wanted to read their statements and praise Allah, the ambassador said.
He explained that the embassy had known about the demonstration for about a week prior to yesterdays event, but other than extra attention from the local police, no further measures had been made in regards to the demonstration. The ambassador explained: I have not felt threatened at any point. Earlier today I heard rumors that I had fled to the airport in fright, and that I was leaving for Denmark, but of course that is not true. Thailand and Denmark have very strong relations, and also the Muslim community in Thailand is not as vast as for instance in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so I have not had any serious concerns in regards to the demonstration today.
Around noon the demonstration dissolved peacefully in front of the Danish embassy, and the embassy does not expect any further acts in term of the reprinting of the Muhammad drawings. On previous occasions there have also been demonstrations in the Indonesian and Malaysian capitals, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, due to the reprinting of the Muhammad drawings in the Danish newspapers.
#2
Searched the article three times for the Scrappleface tag: this just cannot be; Muslims not burning and beheading when they get their turbans in a knot. Just coming in and reading and then going home? Looks like there will be a new Iman opening at the local mosque if this is true; these guys are definitely not Not. Muslim. Enough.
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.
WASHINGTON, March 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The nation's largest
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) Pakistan lodged a protest with coalition forces in Afghanistan on Thursday after two Pakistani women and two children were killed by US fire from across the border, the army said. The US-led coalition, which helped to topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001, confirmed that it had launched a "precision guided" strike on Pakistani territory but said it targeted a militant compound.
But Mr. Waeli suggested in an interview that Basra might not be ready for the reforms sought by the central government. Rubaie doesnt know exactly what is happening in the ports, Mr. Waeli said.
I've been doing some math. Let's say that 1,000 people work at the port. That's 8,000 man-hours a shift or 40,000 a US work week. 
HAMAS SETS TERMS
When is a truce not quite a truce? Hamas is once again offering Israel a cease-fire, but the language that the Islamic movement has chosen reveals a deep reluctance to talk about any real peace with the Jewish state. Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's Hamas prime minister, on Wednesday proposed a "tahdia" which in Arabic means a loosely defined period of calm that falls short of a formal cease-fire.
