[An Nahar] Moammar Qadaffy's ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can screw up an entire nation... speech on Thursday revealed the Libyan leader's "despair" in the face of a successful revolution, a senior rebel leader said.
"Qadaffy's speech is a sign of misery and despair," Ahmed Darrat, who is overseeing the interior ministry for the rebels until a new government is elected, told Agence La Belle France Presse in Tripoli.
Libyan leader Moammar Qadaffy vowed earlier Thursday not to surrender, saying he would carry on fighting the rebels who have conquered most of the country, the Syrian Arrai television channel said.
He urged his supporters to keep up their resistance to the rebellion that has forced him into hiding, the pro-Qadaffy station said, carrying written extracts from a message it said would be broadcast later.
"Even if you cannot hear my voice, continue the resistance," Qadaffy said on the 42nd anniversary of the coup that brought him to power, as an international conference opened in Gay Paree on aiding the rebel National Transitional Council to set up a new administration.
"We will not surrender. We are not women and we are going to keep on fighting," the message said.
He added that he was ready for a "long battle" against NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -backed rebels even if his country is destroyed.
"If they want a long battle, let it be long. If Libya burns, who will be able to govern it? Let it burn," said Qadaffy who has been on the run since rebels entered Tripoli on August 20.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Algeria never envisaged granting asylum to Moamer Qadaffy ...whose instability has been an inspiration to dictators everywhere... , its foreign minister told French radio on Thursday, Algeria said Thursday it is ready to recognize Libya's former rebels when they form a broad-based government and insisted it had not offered an escape route to ousted strongman Moammar Qadaffy.
Algeria's Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told Europe 1 radio that Libya's National Transitional Council had vowed to set-up a "government representative of all regions" and added: "When it has done so, we'll recognize it."
Algeria angered Libya's new former rebel government on Saturday by allowing one of Qadaffy's wives and some of his children and grandchildren to cross the border and seek sanctuary from the manhunt targeting the ousted strongman.
This fed into a suspicion the NTC leadership already felt for its larger neighbor, based on reports that Algeria had supported Qadaffy's bid to cling to power with arms supplies and might now grant him protective asylum.
But Medelci dismissed this, adding that he had spoken by telephone to NTC number two Mahmud Jibril and planned to hold talks later Tuesday in Gay Paree with the movement's president, de facto Libyan leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
"The hypothesis that Mr. Qadaffy could come knocking on our door was never considered," said Medelci, a few hours before he was to attend a conference in Gay Paree of countries La Belle France has dubbed "friends of Libya".
La Belle France, which has mobilized international support for the CNT, is glad Algeria has agreed to attend the talks, but Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed regret the country had yet to recognize the new regime.
"Algeria has had an ambiguous attitude throughout this affair, that's the least you can say," he told RTL radio, adding that he had spoken to Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him....
"He assured me he had never sent anything other than humanitarian aid. I hope that checks out," he said.
Algeria, a former French colony, shares with Qadaffy a distrust of Western interference in North Africa and is concerned that the rebels that overthrew him include Islamists sympathetic to Orcs and similar vermin within its own borders.
According to the Algerian daily el-Watan's online edition on Wednesday, Qadaffy has tried to negotiate with Algerian authorities to enter the country from a Libyan border town where he is holed up after the NTC seized Tripoli.
Citing sources close to the Algerian president, the francophone newspaper reported that the former strongman has "tried to reach President Abdelaziz Bouteflika by telephone but he has refused to take the call."
The report said Qadaffy was hiding out in the border town of Ghadames with family members, awaiting permission to cross into Algeria where his wife, two sons and a daughter have already made their way.
According to an Algerian government source, at least 500 Libyan Tuaregs have decamped into Algeria in recent days, accused of supporting Qadaffy's rule and now on the run from NTC rebel forces.
Qadaffy's forces are known to have recruited Tuaregs, a semi-nomadic people, from across North Africa, and refugees and former mercenaries, some still armed, have been seen returning to Mali as well.
Qadaffy's daughter Aisha gave birth to a daughter in Algeria after fleeing Libya as her father's regime crumbled.
The Algerian government said Tuesday that she had crossed into Algeria on Saturday with her brother Hannibal, their mother Safiya -- Qadaffy's second wife -- and the runaway leader's eldest son Mohammed.
However Seif al-Islam, another runaway son of the toppled dictator, said Wednesday in an audio tape broadcast on an Arabic-language channel that he was still in Tripoli and that the fight against rebels goes on.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
HMMMMM, HMMMMM, wehell, IMO as long as his Family etal. is safe I don't think Uncle Muammar will mind being banned by friendly-neighborhood frenemy Algeria - HE IS FIGHTING FOR LEGACY + RELEVANCE, + KNOWS THE HIGH RISKS INVOLVED.
#6
Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller sounds like she would fit in well with the BO regime if she thinks 911 was not an act of terror but a crime. Wants to negotiate with AQ. How does she ignore the acts of terrorism in GB? Naive twit.
#7
I still wonder how the world would be if W. had used the good-will and patriotism after Sept 11 to push through a massive nuclear energy program. The plants would have been online by now and the world would be a different place in a whole lot of ways.
#9
She is married to an 'Irish Catholic by birth who once held strong left wing views', whose surname has not been publicly identified and who, according to Wikipedia, has 'recently retrained as a carpenter' despite her status now as a Baroness. He apparently brought 5 children from a former marriage into their family.
She was involved in MI5 efforts WRT the IRA.
And it appears she was among the British who were both scathingly critical of the US approach in Iraq and - perhaps - humiliated when we had to go in and fix Basra after their 'softly softly' approach which had been honed with the Irish turned out .... not to work so very well in Iraq.
#1
Good luck, Ileana. The bill probably won't go anywhere, but it will help continue exposing rifts among the Democrats over who supports Israel and who doesn't.
Posted by: American Delight ||
09/02/2011 6:24 Comments ||
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Sharyl Attkisson of CBS makes the case. She's getting credit for breaking the story, but her first sources are a couple bloggers....
Congressional investigators tell CBS News there's evidence the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona sought to cover up a link between their controversial gunwalking operation known as "Fast and Furious" and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Well, CBS News is now on the case. Nothing to worry about folks, the truth will out...
Terry was murdered in Arizona near the US border last December. Two assault rifles ATF had allegedly allowed onto the street without interdiction were found at the scene.
But the US Attorney's office working both the Terry murder and the "Fast and Furious" operation did not immediately disclose the two had any link. Two Republicans investigating the scandal, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) say there's evidence that officials at ATF and the US Attorney's office sought to hide the connection.
In a letter, Grassley and Issa say the lead prosecutor on Fast and Furious, Assistant US Attorney Emory Hurley, learned almost immediately that guns allowed onto the street in his case, had been recovered at Terry's murder. "(I)n the hours after Agent Terry's death," says the letter from Grassley and Issa, Hurley apparently "contemplated the connection between the two cases and sought to prevent the connection from being disclosed." The Justice Department recently transferred Hurley out of the criminal division into the civil division.
An internal ATF email dated the day after Terry's death reveals the quick decision to not disclose the source of the weapons found at the murder scene: "... this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case."
Another ATF email indicates that the justification both offices used to not charge the suspect with crimes related to the murder scene "was to not 'complicate' the FBI's investigation."
ATF whistleblowers revealed the link between the two cases to Congressional investigators and CBS News, saying their supervisors were attempting to cover it up.
Today's letter from the Congressional Republicans also criticizes Hurley's boss, US Attorney Dennis Burke. It says Burke denied a connection between Fast and Furious and Terry's murder in court, but recently "readily admitted the connection" in an interview with Congressional investigators. Burke resigned from his job on Tuesday.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment. Burke and Hurley were not immediately reachable for comment
#1
Actually, Doc Steve, she's been close and hard on this story. CBS actually pulled her off the story for a full month, and she fought to get it back. She is keeping it front and center.
#3
*ahem* "For now, congressional investigators are tightly focusing their probe into the actions of the Department of Justice and the ATF, and have spent very little time publicly, at least delving into the roles that the FBI and DEA have played in the scandal. Likewise, investigators have not yet focused their energies on the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney that just resigned as a result of his actions in the plot and coverup, was the long-time chief-of-staff for Napolitano while she was governor of Arizona. It is unlikely that a high-risk operation run on Napolitanos home turf, where she had been both governor and state attorney general and was still responsible for national security, happened without her being personally briefed."
soooo Holder and Incompetano may be linked. Smells like Obama pardons on the way out the door
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/02/2011 12:59 Comments ||
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#8
"Project Gunwalker: Cover-up in ATF Gunwalker Case?"
Does a bear sleep in the woods?
Posted by: Barbara ||
09/02/2011 21:34 Comments ||
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#9
I'm concerned that they keep convoluting Fast and Furious ( a clearly lame-brained plan that lead to deaths) with Gunwalker (less lamebrained) in an effort to minimize the issues. They were two different plans
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/02/2011 22:18 Comments ||
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#10
What did Holder and Obama know and when did each know it?
I would dearly love this scandal to explode in their faces about a year from now. Wouldn't that be sweet timing? Watergate had a lengthy gestation period.
(With apologies, Frank, I think you meant conflating instead of convoluting.)
LA Times is staying on this story
Newly obtained emails show that the White House was better informed about a failed gun-tracking operation on the border with Mexico than was previously known.
Three White House national security officials were given some details about the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. The operation allowed firearms to be illegally purchased, with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. But the effort went out of control after agents lost track of many of the weapons.
The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official.
But the senior administration official said the emails, obtained Thursday by The Times, did not prove that anyone in the White House was aware of the covert "investigative tactics" of the operation.
"The emails validate what has been said previously, which is no one at the White House knew about the investigative tactics being used in the operation, let alone any decision to let guns walk," said the official, who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. "To the extent that some [national security staff members] were briefed on the top lines of ongoing federal efforts, so were members of Congress."
He identified the three White House officials who were briefed as Kevin M. O'Reilly, director of North American Affairs for the White House national security staff; Dan Restrepo, the president's senior Latin American advisor; and Greg Gatjanis, a White House national security official.
"The emails were not forwarded beyond them, and we are not aware of any [additional] briefings related to that email chain," the official said.
The emails were sent between July 2010 and February of this year before it was disclosed that agents had lost track of hundreds of guns. Many are thought to have fallen into criminal hands, and some have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including at the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
According to the emails, William D. Newell, then the ATF field supervisor for Arizona and New Mexico, was in close contact with O'Reilly and sought the White House's help to persuade the Mexican government to let ATF agents recover U.S. guns across the border.
After earlier emails from Newell to O'Reilly surfaced, Newell testified to congressional investigators in July that the two were friends and acknowledged that he probably should not have sent them to him. But the new emails indicate that Newell and O'Reilly were in deeper discussions about gun operations on the border.
In July 2010, about nine months after Fast and Furious started, O'Reilly was seeking information about ways to fight gun trafficking in Arizona when he emailed Newell.
"Just an informal 'how's it going?' " he wrote. He titled the email "GRIT Surge Phoenix," an acronym for Gun Runner Impact Teams.
Newell replied that things were "going very well actually."
Though not mentioning Fast and Furious by name, he talked about large numbers of ATF agents being temporarily transferred to Arizona to work on cases, apparently alluding to the Fast and Furious program. He also praised their work on "firearms trafficking investigations with direct links to Mexican" cartels, which was the main goal of Fast and Furious.
"This is great," O'Reilly replied. "Very informative."
O'Reilly asked whether he could share the information with Restrepo and Gatjanis. He added that the information "would not leave NSS, I assure you."
Newell answered, "Sure, just don't want ATF HQ to find out, especially since this is what they should be doing (briefing you)!"
A third email went from Newell to O'Reilly on Feb. 11, two months after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in Arizona and Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene.
Newell discussed the just-obtained indictments of 20 people, including Jaime Avila, for illegal gun purchasing. It was two of Avila's guns bought under Fast and Furious that ended up at the Terry shooting. This time, Newell specifically mentioned Fast and Furious.
"The Fast and Furious indictment is listed under U.S. v Avila and that's the one in which there's an introduction of the techniques used by firearms traffickers," he told O'Reilly. He suggested "we" should use the indictment to draw attention to the arrests through the media in Mexico.
In another development, the Justice Department said it knew of only one other instance where a Fast and Furious weapon was "recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the U.S." Earlier it had said there were 11 instances.
Posted by: The Other Beldar ||
09/02/2011 10:14 Comments ||
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#2
...Newell testified to congressional investigators in July that the two were friends and acknowledged that he probably should not have sent them to him.
[An Nahar] The Paleostinian Islamist movement Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, said Thursday that a U.N.-mandated inquiry into a deadly Israeli raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gazoo was "unjust" and lacked balance.
The inquiry into the Turkish-led aid flotilla said Israel's commando raid in 2010 was "excessive," according to extracts published by the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... newspaper.
"The UN. report into the Israeli attack on the (Turkish ferry) Mavi Marmara is unjust and unbalanced. It will allow the (Israeli) occupier to shirk its responsibilities," Hamas front manSami Abu Zuhri ...a senior front man for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gazoo. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... told Agence La Belle France Presse in Gazoo City.
Eight Turkish nationals and an American of Turkish descent died in the May 31, 2010 raid by Israeli special forces on the six vessels in international waters.
Senior Israeli officials said they would not react to the Palmer Report -- named after New Zealand's former premier Geoffrey Palmer, who headed the U.N. inquiry, until its official publication.
Israel's Gisha human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... group said "the Palmer Report missed the opportunity to re-evaluate the entire policy of the Israeli blockade of the Gazoo Strip, which has still not been lifted."
The report backed Israel over its blockade of Hamas-ruled Gazoo. "We have made it clear that we consider that Israel was entitled to impose the naval blockade. It follows that Israel was also entitled to enforce it."
It added: "The manner of its enforcement, however, raises serious issues of concern."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"The manner of its enforcement, however, raises serious issues of concern."
I agree, Israel shouldn't have risked their soldiers, they should have fired captured Katyusha rockets at the flotilla and tested the accuracy of such weapons.
[An Nahar] MP Sami Gemayel hinted on Thursday that Hizbullah is aware of the whereabouts of the four suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's liquidation case but is not helping Lebanese authorities in finding them.
In a presser he held at the Phalange Party The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology. headquarters in Saifi, Gemayel said: "Hizbullah said that the TIME magazine interview didn't take place meaning it called the suspects and asked if they gave the interview."
"This means that it knows their whereabouts and is not helping (authorities) in their arrest," he added.
The politician was referring to a TIME interview with one of the four suspects in which the unidentified man told his interviewer that the Lebanese authorities knew where he lived but could not arrest him.
Gemayel said that Hizbullah either doesn't know if the suspects are culprits and is hiding them or knows that they are involved in Hariri's Feb. 2005 liquidation and has decided to hide them.
Such acts are punishable by law, he added.
Gemayel accused Hizbullah of "adopting the same approach of the Syrian occupation" and establishing a state competitive to the authority of the Lebanese state.
The Shiite party is working on establishing a religious state, he said. "It is adopting the (Israeli) settlement policy by infringing on public property," Gemayel said in reference to construction on church property in the predominantly Shiite town of Lassa in Jbeil district.
Hizbullah is acting in Leb the same way the Zionists acted, he said.
"We don't approve your project, the presence of your arms and your ideology," he told Hizbullah. "However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... we don't accept but to build the state with you and with everyone else but not through the use of force and coercion."
He vowed not to remain silent, saying the Phalange "will continue the search for the truth."
Leb has second class citizens that abide by the law, while first class citizens do not implement it, he said in reference to Hizbullah and the rest of the population.
Leb would be stable only when the first class citizens unite with the others and transform a single class, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Qadaffy's
Bouteflika
