A former detainee who spent his teenage years at Guantanamo Bay said Thursday he is struggling to build a life in his parents' native Chad, a central African nation he had never seen before his release from the U.S. military prison earlier this year.
Mohammed el Gharani, who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, said in a telephone interview that he relies on handouts from friends to support himself. He complained the government has refused to give him a passport.
"I'm still not free," he said in English. "I have no job. I have a hard time to find somewhere to live." I'm tearing up ... from laughing.
Posted by: ed ||
12/19/2009 07:40 ||
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#1
Do we have his address? I'd like to send him a card.
#4
They have big haboobs (dust storms) and swarms of locusts in Chad. It's a paradise on earth. What is he b*tchin' about? Missing the cuisine at Gitmo? Is that your trouble, Bunky?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/19/2009 12:39 Comments ||
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#5
Ummm, Alaska Paul, those Locust swarms you mentioned in passing.
They net and eat those locusts as a very important Protein source, it's NOT a Disaster.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/19/2009 12:46 Comments ||
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#6
Of course, that's how a hunter-gatherer society works.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/19/2009 13:39 Comments ||
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The United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to persuade Afghan insurgents to put down their arms by negotiating with representatives of Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban commanders and offering cash and jobs to low-level fighters, according to Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials and analysts.
The efforts, coupled with an increased U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are meant to weaken the insurgency and promote a negotiated end to the region's violence. "The strategy is to peel away so many fighters" from the insurgent chiefs that they will be left like "floating icebergs and have no one left to command," said Kenneth Katzman, an Afghanistan specialist at the Congressional Research Service.
Several Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials said in interviews that Saudi and Pakistani officials, acting with tacit American encouragement, are talking with "second tier" Taliban leaders connected with Mullah Omar. The Washington Times reported recently that Mullah Omar has been hiding in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi and was brought there with the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence.
"You've got a lot of players involved in the effort," said a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks, "not just within the U.S. government, but foreign partners, too." The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, added: "U.S. intelligence isn't the lead on talking to members of the Afghan Taliban who may be interested in discussing reconciliation. But when it makes sense, the [U.S.] intelligence community is brought in for its expertise, relationships and judgment."
Such meetings were reported to have taken place in the Saudi holy city of Mecca in September 2008, but they continue elsewhere today.
Mr. Katzman said Qayyum Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president, participated in the 2008 talks. He also said there were meetings in January in Saudi Arabia and contacts in the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with Pakistan, were the only countries that recognized the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
A Western diplomat based in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, who asked not to be named, confirmed that Pakistani and Saudi officials are using their "connections and influence within Afghan Taliban to elicit some meaningful way to end the deadlock."
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who headed Mr. Obama's first Afghanistan-Pakistan review, said such approaches "are worth exploring, but I would not expect to see tangible progress until the security situation changes" in Afghanistan. "It's highly unlikely that people will switch from the perceived winning side," he said. "If you change the momentum on the battlefield and the Taliban is no longer seen as the winner, you may see the fractures come to the front."
Mr. Katzman and Mr. Riedel said it would be easiest to make a deal with followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujahedeen fighter against the Soviet Union who has already authorized some of his followers to join the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Katzman said little progress has been made with Mullah Omar or another insurgent leader, Jalabuddin Haqqani.
Beyond talks with militant commanders, a second element of the U.S. strategy is to lure rank-and-file fighters with jobs and cash. Mr. Obama, in his speech last month outlining his new Afghanistan strategy, spoke of "reintegration" of Taliban fighters into the Afghan army and police. In testimony last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said a force reintegration cell had been created to try to identify fighters who could be induced to join Afghan security forces.
Mr. Katzman said the cell, under the command of British Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons, would try to "standardize what a Taliban person gets if he surrenders."
U.S. officials say that starting salaries for Afghans in high-combat areas are being raised from $180 a month to $240 to better compete with the Taliban, which pays fighters $250 to $300 a month.
Defense Department spokesman Army Lt. Col. Mark Wright said the Pentagon is supporting commanders to win over the "$5- and $10-a-day Taliban-for-hire fighter."
"These fighters are not ideologues," he said. "So we'll use the [Commanders Emergency Response Program] money to bring them over so they don't feel like the Taliban is their only place to turn to. We don't necessarily pay them directly but can use the CERP for land projects and other necessities to win them over and reintegrate them."
Col. Wright added that U.S. forces also would focus on improving security because Afghans "are not going to come work for the U.S. or Afghan government if they feel their family is going to be threatened by the Taliban for their actions."
"This is a multi-pronged process," he said. "We need talks with Taliban, enhanced security and continuous efforts to lure back the low-level Taliban fighter."
Mr. Karzai, whose re-election was certified last month, has said repeatedly that negotiations with the Taliban could help end the war. "The fight against terrorism and extremism cannot be won by fighting alone," he told the Associated Press recently.
Pakistan, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to defend Pakistani interests in Afghanistan against rival India, clearly wants to preserve its long investment in the militants, said Imran Khan, an analyst based in Peshawar. "If Pakistan is ensured ... a friendly government in Kabul with minimum influence of India, it can do wonders to bring peace to Afghanistan," Mr. Khan said. He said Pakistani interests in Afghanistan could best be safeguarded if a government includes Taliban and Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami group.
#4
U.S. officials say that starting salaries for Afghans in high-combat areas are being raised from $180 a month to $240 to better compete with the Taliban, which pays fighters $250 to $300 a month.
Is that what's attracting all those out-of-work muslim boneheads from the U.S.?
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Friday that Washington has proposed setting up a liaison office in Pyongyang. If accurate, the offer would establish the first permanent and direct diplomatic interaction between the two countries.
Very bad idea. We want the Norks to implode gently.
The offer was apparently part of a letter hand carried to Pyongyang earlier this month by U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth. Bosworth refused to acknowledge the existence of such a letter while here in Seoul following his trip. The South Korean media report cites diplomatic sources in China.
Koh Yoo-hwan, a senior North Korea scholar at Seoul's Donguk University, says such an office could be beneficial to both sides. He says a permanent liaison office would give the United States and North Korea an opportunity for consistent dialogue on practical issues, such as an eventual peace treaty to end the 1950s Korean war, or ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
#2
A diplomatic presence would imply that it services U.S. interests in the host nation. Given our total embargo on all trade with the Norks, are we going to give the staff something to do? Or is this going to be about a permanent location to interact with them on diplomatic issues? If so, there's a really cool Quonset style building at Panmunjon that already does that, and costs us nothing new. This is bullsh*t window dressing for Bambi, an utter waste of yet more millions of taxpayer dollars for image. Classic Demokrat politics with our money.
A former mental hospital in the woods is the staging ground for one of the biggest deployments of U.S. civilians since the Vietnam War.
Dozens of U.S. agriculturists, legal experts and development-aid administrators pass through elaborate mock-ups of foreign courtrooms and bazaars here each week -- part of training for nation-building work in some of Afghanistan's most unruly provinces.
The White House hopes to have 1,000 State Department, Treasury and Department of Agriculture personnel in Afghanistan by next month, up from 300 a year ago.
"We want civilian representation in every military deployment" across Afghanistan, said Paul Jones, deputy to Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's point man on Afghanistan. "Our mission is defined by how we build Afghan capacity."
The Obama administration set up the one-week training course to prepare civilian personnel for hazardous duty, as well as expose them to Afghan culture and practices, U.S. officials said. The civilians are often paired with members of the Indiana National Guard, who are preparing for their own deployment in Afghanistan.
Trainees spend a week on a make-believe forward operating base in the forest, where they go through military operations with the National Guard as if they were already deployed in Afghanistan. The civilian recruits learn to perform their own security functions. And they get schooled on Afghan language, politics and culture.
Congress has authorized the State Department to spend $6 billion in Afghanistan through 2010, but U.S. officials said executing the White House's civilian surge has been a challenge.
The State Department and U.S. development agencies are short of employees conversant in Dari, Pashto and other languages spoken in Afghanistan. Civilian agencies in Washington also have less flexibility than the Pentagon to mobilize staff -- such as diplomats and farming experts -- for duty in war zones. More seasoned U.S. bureaucrats also are wary to part from their families for prolonged overseas missions, said U.S. officials.
As a result, the civilians taking part in security and cultural exercises at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center are often private contractors with extensive experience working overseas.
One such person is Harry Wheeler, 58 years old. He was running a nonprofit development organization in Washington before he was recruited by contacts in the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Mr. Wheeler has worked in such countries as Indonesia and Haiti, so he is accustomed to sometimes dangerous environments. His expertise in developing small-scale businesses and farming enterprises for rural populations is in line with the Obama administration's goal of creating jobs for Afghans.
"I'm getting more confident as we train with the military," said Mr. Wheeler over lunch at Muscatatuck, where he was under the constant threat of a mock attack or kidnapping by program trainers. "Once you're in development, it's in your blood."
Mr. Wheeler is scheduled to deploy as a general-development officer with a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan's south or east. PRTs are normally made up of between 60 and 100 U.S. soldiers, with one to three civilians. The Obama administration, however, hopes to increase the civilian component and potentially allow the PRTs to be headed by nonmilitary personnel.
Donna Moll and her husband, David, are among the growing number of married couples recruited in recent months. They are farmers plucked from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Athens, Ga., to help devise irrigation systems, alternative crops and new produce markets for Afghan villagers. Like a number of other civilian volunteers, Mr. Moll, 59, served multiple tours in the Vietnam War.
"Our family is supportive, but a little worried," said Mrs. Moll. She and her husband have six children.
An important part of the training involves Americans acting out crisis scenarios they might face in Afghanistan. The Afghan participants in these "vignettes" are either drawn from expatriate populations in the U.S., or from Kabul. Included are Afghan bureaucrats and a man with an uncanny resemblance to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Wheeler and Mrs. Moll sat in a dilapidated room with a gathering of ersatz Afghan tribal leaders. The Americans were told to meet with their Afghan counterparts following a bombing in a remote Afghan village that killed a teenager. The Americans offered compensation to the village leaders for the loss of life.
"Money cannot buy the blood of the individual," an Afghan elder barked at the Americans, slamming his fist on a table. "We can't trust you people anymore!"
Such emotionally fraught scenarios are meant to simulate the sorts of crises soldiers routinely encounter in the field, but civilian bureaucrats seldom face.
American military personnel have complained in the past that State Department staff stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan were ill-equipped to operate in areas outside of Baghdad or Kabul. U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, have argued that the Pentagon in recent years has developed a disproportionate influence over U.S. foreign policy.
To bulk up the capacities of civilian personnel, the program gives trainees a taste of "what they experience in the field," said Jim McKellar, an administrator of the Muscatatuck course. Trainees should arrive in Afghanistan feeling "very, very comfortable," he said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "bunker buster" bomb with more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor will be put into service by the United States next December, six months later than previously scheduled, the U.S. Defense Department told Reuters on Friday.
The deployment's timing may help shape calculations of the United States and others in long-running standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs.
The precision-guided, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is designed to wreck potential targets such as deeply buried nuclear facilities that are beyond the reach of existing bombs.
"Funding delays and enhancements to the planned test schedule have pushed the capability availability date to December 2010," Tara Rigler, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in an email.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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Ummmmm, OK, that means that I have nothing to worry about, right? Right?
XOXOXO
A court in Pakistan has issued an arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rehman Malik amid growing political turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.
Arrest warrants have been issued against 52 individuals including federal ministers and some of the persons sitting on key government positions.
Earlier, Pakistan's anti-corruption agency stopped Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar at Islamabad International Airport on his way to China for an official visit.
Nearly 250 other top officials are also barred from leaving the country as political turmoil deepens following a Supreme Court on revoking an amnesty deal which shields President Asif Ali Zardari and many other government officials from prosecution.
The 2007 National Reconciliation Ordinance allowed Zardari and his late wife Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, to return from self-exile without facing corruption charges.
Revoking the amnesty could challenge the legality of Zardari's presidency and raise corruption cases against some of his close associates.
The developments have plunged the country into political turmoil amid rising militancy.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
No super computer with the best link-analysis can track with accuracy and comprehensiveness the depth of corruption in Pakistan. Even the person claiming that the Anti-corruption agency is corrupt has corrupt motives. I suppose this task should be handed to the UN.
A mass grave discovered in northeast Iraq contains dozens of bodies, mostly of women and children believed killed during a crackdown against Kurds by former dictator Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi official said Saturday.
The grave was originally found nearly two years ago west of Kirkuk, though its discovery was only made public this week after forensic pathologists began examining it, said Majid Abdullah Karim, an official with the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights.
Posted by: ed ||
12/19/2009 07:28 ||
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Of course as we all know, Saddam's WMD was never found, this was the wrong war and "W" is to fully blame.
#2
The International Human Rights NGOs(tm) are more concerned with cooked numbers in statistical bogus counts of Lancet et al than the real bodies that litter Iraq from the Saddam Era. Triumph of belief over reality which then plays well as in the left's usual dogmas of global warming, modern education, and redistribution.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian soldiers have crossed into Iraqi territory and taken up position at a southern oilfield whose ownership is disputed by Iran, an Iraqi official said on Friday. Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji, reversing statements made earlier in the day, said the incursion on Friday was the latest in a series this week.
"At 3:30 this afternoon, 11 Iranian (soldiers) infiltrated the Iran-Iraq border and took control of the oil well. They raised the Iranian flag, and they are still there until this moment," he told Reuters.
He said the Iraqi government had taken no military action but stressed it would seek a measured, diplomatic response to the situation. "We are awaiting orders from our leader."
"There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran," a U.S. military spokesman had told AFP earlier this morning at Contingency Operating Base Adder, just outside the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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Spain's foreign minister has vowed to work on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state when his country takes over the European Union presidency next year.
"My idea, and my dream, and my engagement, is to work for having in 2010, finally, a Palestinian state that could live in peace and security with Israel," Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said in Brussels on Friday.
I'm sure Israel would be thrilled if Spain could achieve such a thing, though they'd settle for a Palestinian state not actively murderous, nor teaching Palestinian children to hate Juices.
"We are all in the international community defending the two-state solution. Why should we wait for a Palestinian state? We have Israel as a state, we want its neighbor, the Palestinians, to have the same status," he added.
Clearly Minister Moratinos' mother never taught him that patience is a virtue.
Moratinos who was laying out the priorities of Spain's six-month term at the EU's helm starting on January 1, said an independent Palestinian state could only come about through negotiations.
"It's not going to be easy, but I think it's needed. We need a Palestinian state, the sooner, the better, and that is going to be our objective," said the foreign minister.
Earlier this month, European Union foreign ministers agreed on the recognition of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem Al-Quds as its capital.
They adopted a text agreeing that Jerusalem Al-Quds should provide "the future capital of the two states," as part of a negotiated settlement.
The negations, suspended during the Gaza war last year, have been blocked due to Israel's refusal to freeze settlement construction in the occupied lands including east Jerusalem Al-Quds.
The regime claims the holy city as its "eternal, indivisible" capital, while the Palestinians want at least the implementation of the UN resolutions which give control of the eastern part of the city to them.
Oh -- "the regime" means the Israeli government, not the PA as I thought at the beginning of the sentence. The PressTV-Iran writer wants a bit more practice before appearing in print again.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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...how about the return of East Prussia and Silesia to Germany? [you're setting a principle here, or does the EU exempt itself from those principles they seek to impose on others?/rhet question]
(UPI) -- More than 35 percent of Egyptians and Saudis interviewed in a recent survey considered it their duty to back regional mujahedin financially, a scholar notes.
Private polling of Egyptian and Saudi citizens reveals trends regarding the public sentiment toward jihadi groups like al-Qaida.
David Pollock, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the polling shows more than 35 percent of those interviewed considered it "an Islamic duty" to support Islamic fighters around the world.
Pollock adds that while many of the respondents said they did not support al-Qaida, more than 40 percent said they assumed other Muslim communities
did support the group's militant message.
He notes that while public support for radical Islam is dwindling, the perception that financial assistance is an obligation is troubling.
This, he says, suggests U.S. policymakers should focus their efforts on Arab funding for jihad as a whole.
Granted, in unfree societies interviewees tend to give answers designed to stay within both what is safe and what they think the questioner wants to hear, but even so.
#2
Then the other two-thirds must say "Kill the bastards" Right?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/19/2009 13:00 Comments ||
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#3
The other 2/3 practice taqiah?
I dunno, maybe they're just the meek, passive, easy-going type.
They won't join in the Jihad... until it appears the infidels really are losing for good. You know, "if you are to be a lion, I'll be a lamb, if you are to be a lamb, I'll be a lion". Not very bold, but how sensible!
[Straits Times] THE main suspect in the Philippines' worst political massacre, wearing a bulletproof vest and handcuffs, was pushed by guards through an angry crowd on Friday to appear at a preliminary investigation hearing.
Dozens of Filipino journalists, whose 30 colleagues were among 57 people killed in southern Maguindanao province on Nov 23, jeered Andal Ampatuan Jr outside the Justice Department building in Manila and shoved pictures of the victims' mutilated bodies in his face. At the hearing, he sat between two security officers, one of whom was armed with an assault rifle.
Ampatuan, the only suspect indicted in the attack so far, has been charged with 40 counts of murder. He has denied involvement.
State prosecutors called the hearing to receive additional complaints and evidence from investigators and victims' relatives against Ampatuan and 160 other people, including his father - clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr - as well as several brothers, police officers and government-armed militiamen who allegedly took part in the massacre.
The victims were travelling in a convoy led by the family and supporters of the Ampatuans' election rival when they were stopped, led to a grassy hilltop several miles away and killed.
The massacre prompted President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to crack down on the Ampatuans, her political allies who have ruled the impoverished province for years. They were expelled from the ruling party days after the killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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Thank you, President Obama. Also the EU-4 (or is it 3? I can't remember: Britain, France, Germany, and ??) for negotiating so ineffectively for so long, and President Bush for allowing them to do so.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran is involved in the production of a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges and plans to use them by March 2011, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday.
"We are producing new generation of centrifuges named IR3 and IR4 ... We plan to use them by 2011 after eliminating problems and defects," Ali Akbar Salehi told Fars. "We have over 6,000 active centrifuges."
Iran is at odds with the West over its nuclear activities, which the United States and its European allies fear is a cover to build bombs.
Iran, the world's fifth-largest crude oil exporter, says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its gas and oil.
The Islamic republic said in October that it planned to use a new generation of faster centrifuges to enrich uranium at its newly-revealed nuclear site near the central city of Qom.
Nuclear experts say the new model of centrifuges is capable of doubling or tripling the output rate.
In April, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was testing two kinds of new generation centrifuges.
According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in June, Iran has installed more than 7,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at a plant in Natanz in the central province of Isfahan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
NOT lubed by Molybdenum.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/19/2009 0:07 Comments ||
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"March 2011" > wehell, methinks the timeline for when a new 9-11 or major WMD attack(s)upon Amer just got narrower.
Also, WORLDTRIBUNE > IRAN is claiming that it is impossible to shoot down its new solid-fueled IRBM [SEJIL-II]???
#4
No, no, Joseph! You and the rest of the Rantburgomaquis have it wrong. These are not meant to separate U-235 from U-238, they are designed, rather, to separate holy essence from the sacred soil of Qom so it may be added to the ink used to print new Qurans.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has reacted to remarks by his Egyptian and Saudi counterparts over the country's nuclear program.
Last week in a press conference in Manama, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit expressed concern over Iran's nuclear dispute with the West.
"Iran is a co-signer of the [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty and has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, but we tell Tehran from the [Persian] Gulf that they need to be cautious about not losing the international community's confidence through its actions," he said.
"When there are suggestions that the [Iranian nuclear] program could be of a military nature we find that to be deeply concerning because the Middle East will fail in its endeavor to be a nuclear and weapons of mass destruction free-zone," he added.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mottaki reacted to the comments, saying it was unlikely that the remarks were made by the Egyptian officials, but if true, Cairo had better think twice over its stands.
"If these remarks are found to be true, we advise [our] Egyptian friends to deliberate ... on their remarks, as such stances are not to the interest of Islamic and Arab countries," he said, adding that it was Israel, with 200 nuclear warheads in its possession, not Iran that posed a "real threat" to the region.
Mottaki also reacted to remarks by his Saudi counterpart, Saud al-Faisal, who had said in a recent interview with International Herald Tribune that he was "suspicious" about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program and that Tehran should never be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons.
The Iranian foreign minister said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program, which left no doubt over the issue.
Despite the fact that no evidence has been published to the contrary, the Western countries accuse Iran, a member of the NPT and the IAEA, of seeking nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/19/2009 00:00 ||
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In his Inaugural address, President Obama promised the world's dictatorswith Iran plainly in mindthat he would "extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." Here's a status report on the mullahs' knuckles:
⢠Weapons of mass destruction. On Wednesday, Iran tested a new version of its Sajjil-2 medium-range ballistic missile, a sophisticated solid-fuel model with a range of 1,200 milesenough to target parts of Eastern Europe.
Also this week came news that Western intelligence agencies have an undated Farsi-language document titled "outlook for special neutron-related activities over the next four years." It concerns technical aspects of a neutron initiator, which is used to set off nuclear explosions and has no other practical application. The document remains unauthenticated, and Iran denies working on a nuclear weapon. But it squares with accumulating evidence, from the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources, that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons design and uranium enrichment.
⢠Support for terrorists. Iran also continues to supply Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon with weapons and money, and there's reason to suspect the help extends to Colombia's terrorist FARC. Centcom Commander David Petraeus told ABC News Wednesday that Iran "provides a modest level of equipment, explosives and perhaps some funding to the Taliban in western Afghanistan." As for Iraq, he says, "there are daily attacks with the so-called signature weapons only made by Iranthe explosively formed projectile, forms of improvised explosive devices, etc."
⢠Political gestures. Isolated regimes sometimes signal their desire for better relations through seemingly small gestures: ping-pong tournaments, for instance. Tehran has taken a different tack.
On Monday, it announced that three American hikers arrested along its border with Iraq in July would be put on trial. The charge? "Suspicious aims." New charges were also brought last month against Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, who was already sentenced to at least 12 years in prison on espionage charges. The regime has been going after other foreign nationals, including French teacher Clotilde Reiss, who is living under house arrest in the French embassy in Tehran. Christopher Dickey notes in Newsweek that "since [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad took over four years ago, some 35 foreign nationals or dual nationals have been imprisoned for use as chump change in one sordid deal or another."
⢠Diplomacy. In October, the U.S. and its allies offered to enrich Iran's uranium in facilities outside the country, supposedly for the production of medical isotopes. The idea was that doing so would at least reduce Iran's growing stockpile of uranium and thus postpone the day when it would have enough to rapidly build a bomb.
Tehran finally came back with a counterproposal late last week, in which no uranium would leave Iranian soil. Even Hillary Clinton admits it's a nonstarter: "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of positive response from the Iranians," the Secretary of State told reporters.
Given those remarks, we would have imagined that Mrs. Clinton would take it as good news that on Tuesday the House voted 412-12 in favor of a new round of unilateral sanctions on Iran. The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act would forbid any company that does energy business with Iran from having access to U.S. markets.
Instead, last week Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote to Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry urging that the Senate postpone taking up the House bill. "I am concerned that this legislation, in its current form, might weaken rather than strengthen international unity and support for our efforts," wrote Mr. Steinberg.
So let's see: Iran spurns every overture from the U.S. and continues to develop WMD while abusing its neighbors. In response, the Administration, which had set a December deadline for diplomacy, now says it opposes precisely the kind of sanctions it once promised to impose if Iran didn't come clean, never mind overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. For an explanation of why Iran's behavior remains unchanged, look no further.
I don't think the Wall Street Journal's Op-Ed editor approves.
he IS the Messiah. And every time I see a car drive by with an Obama sticker ( dont forget Joe Biden his Insurance against assassination )I have to smile and nod.
They deserve all this and they ARE getting a shovel load and going yum yum.
The Democratic Party American Voters who lick their lips and are learning to sniff the seat.
One of Zawahiri's Wives Releases Statement, Tells Women They Can Be Suicide Bombers
In what is thought to be her first public statement, Omaima Hassan published a statement on Islamic web sites Thursday that encouraged "Muslim sisters" to assist with jihad, but only in suitably feminine ways. She called supporting jihad "an obligation for all Muslims, men and women." ABC News could not independently confirm the authenticity of the statement.
In the seven-page letter, after assuring friends and family that she and her husband are safe and well, Hassan outlines the ways in which women can assist their men with jihad. Hassan suggests that women work side by side in defending Islam with their men, but underlines that the most important role for women is to support male mujahideen by caring for their children.
"Jihad is an obligation for every man and woman," wrote Hassan, "but the way of fighting is not easy for women."
"Our main role -- that I ask God to accept from us -- is to preserve the mujahideen in their sons, and homes, and their confidentiality, and to help them raise/develop their children in the best way."
But Hassan also suggests that women can become suicide bombers, which she refers to as "martyrdom missions."
How progressive. Does her husband agree?
In 2008, Zawahiri sparked controversy when he said in a two-hour recorded interview posted on a web site that Al Qaeda did not have women members, and that the role of women in jihad was limited to taking care of the children of fighters and maintaining their homes.
A man can change his mind as new facts emerge.
Earlier this week, Zawahiri released his own statement, in which he blasted Egyptian and Palestinian leaders and expressed his support for Omar Abdel Rahman, Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who are all in U.S. custody.
On Thursday, Al Qaeda's propaganda arm also released a 65-page book by Zawahiri called "The Morning and the Lantern," in which he criticizes the Pakistani government. Zawahiri is believed to be in Pakistan.
All the cool jihadis are writing books these days, although most manage something more than a novella.
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 (Reuters) - A "bunker buster" bomb with more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor will be put into service by the United States next December, six months later than previously scheduled, the U.S. Defense Department told Reuters on Friday.
